To clear the mind.

Rather than trying to make sense of the ongoing absurdities of The Trump Era, I will defer to historians, who through the filter of time, (and access to all the archival materials) will render a more objective and complete assessment. Hopefully I will live another thirty years and have enough marbles to read and understand it.

Whether Trump gets thrown out tomorrow, his term expires next Wednesday, or space aliens kidnap him for a specimen tonight, his days are numbered as POTUS. Thank God. Democrats, your dream of four years has come true. The stage will be all yours.

The Myth of Trump will endure. I mean that in the classical sense of the word myth. Politics and governance got a little complicated, and for four years, characters took the stage. This wasn’t Homer, or Cervantes, or Shakespeare, however. It was real life. And now we must look somewhere else for our drama and our dreams.

La Belle et La Bête (Beauty And The Beast) is Jean Cocteau’s masterpiece. The special effects, camera work, makeup, editing, were decades ahead of their time. Today computer-generated effects would do the heavy lifting. But the film isn’t about the special effects, rather it is the same love story told for centuries, that we children love. It is beautifully acted by Josette Day and Jean Marais.

What is surreal? The last four years have been a dream, some say a nightmare, but in Cocteau’s surreal story, we know that love and beauty triumph without editorializing or ambiguity. The ugly who pose as beautiful are reflected for what they really are. Ambiguity is the curse to those of us who are awake.

We have finished the political page-turner, we bought at the airport newstand four years ago It had a surprise ending, to be sure. We can spend the next four years watching the argument about who has the movie rights to the story. Do not doubt me.

Soon another fairy tale begins, or rather a graphic novel. This is what we now call comic books, elevated to literary genre. We need makeup for the heroes and villains. But first we have to decide who the characters will be.

Will we have an ambitious Queen, deprived of the throne, who longs still for the power? Will we have two Duchesses, presiding over each chamber of Congress, dreaming of power greater than The King? What will one duchess do, now that plotting is unnecessary? Will others plot against The King? Will he continue as the decrepit shell of the man he once was? Who will be the shadowy presence looming in the background? Or will there be two, three shadows? Perhaps this is a Javanese shadow play, with gamelan music accompanying it, but the shadow figures are the true forms.

All that is left is theatre, because that is all that we really love.