July 27 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

"I am but mad north-north-west," Hamlet told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. "When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." Hamlet understood that reality is a slippery bugger, not nearly as concrete as it seems.

Hitchcock used that phrase for the title of one of his most famous films. It also dealt with the nature of reality; a man...appropriately enough, a man employed in advertising...finds himself accidentally drawn into a world of intrigue in which nobody is exactly what he or she appears to be, and even the most solid facets of reality...the very earth on which we tread...has been transformed into a surreal sculpture of monumental proportions.

Reality is a slick laminar surface, sometimes bright and sometimes grim. One may keep one's feet firmly planted on it, one may float above it or delve beneath it, but it's always there. The trick to distinguishing between reality and fantasy is this: reality never really goes away, not even if you stop believing in it.