I like the fireside YouTube chats, the weekly emails from his camp asking "What do you think?" Of course Zeitgeist (Rosebud’s code name for Obama) is reaching out to us from cyberspace as no other candidate has; because he’s the Zeitgeist. Years ago, like in the last century, a friend of mine and I came up with a movie idea about a presidential candidate who exists only on the Internet. He exists, somewhere, but his identity is secret, and he communicates with the world only through his computer. He’s trying to break through the media hype, the web of Washington insider lies; he creates a mass grassroots movement solely on the basis of his web site communication (we didn't do much texting or YouTubing back then). People don’t even know his real name. Then in Act II and III the media is out to find him, the other candidates are out to get him; and the pretty reporter girl who actually does find him (in the woods of New Hampshire) decides not to reveal his identity because she is won over to his Cause, which is Change; but then the bad Rove-ian type guys are hot on their trail blah blah blah… Somehow there’s a happy ending, and Internet Man becomes president.

It wasn’t a bad idea; but you could never write it today, because now it has happened. It’s like Obama is the product of our collective unconscious; he's sprung from our heads like Athena from the head of Zeus. Not averse to metaphysical musings, he seems to know it, in fact often refers to it in oblique, elegant ways. Which means that…whatever happens next will depend on us; whatever we keep thinking will happen, will? Is this “The Secret”? Is it prayer? I don’t know, but “Que freaky,” as my Cuban friends in Coral Gables, Florida, used to say. I always thought it was really weird and dangerous when the multiplex movies in the late 90s all started being about terrorist attacks. It’s almost like you’re asking for it, when you keep making movies about how the United States keeps getting attacked by terrorists. And then we did. “Que freaky.” Thoughts are powerful, words are powerful, that's all I know. Recently my daughter asked me if there were really witches. I had to say no (excluding some lady journalists I have known), but also admit that I do believe in incantations. “In the beginning, was the Word.” Word.