A brief exchange between Bill Moyers and Sarah Lawrence College professor Joseph Campbell on the six-hour-long public broadcasting taffee pull, "The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers":

Campbell: To see through the fragments of time to the full power of original being—that is the function of art.

Moyers: Beauty is an expression of that rapture of being alive.

Campbell: Every moment should be such an experience.

Moyers: And what we are going to become tomorrow is not important as compared to this experience.

Campbell: This is a great moment, Bill.

[Ed.: During a periodic fundraiser in the spring of 1997, one Boston-area PBS station featured an infomercial-style lecture by Dr. Deepak Chopra on the subject of your "Inner Wizard" (i.e., Merlyn). Chopra's lecture was supplemented by dramatic readings of his texts by the actors Martin Sheen and Robert ("Benson") Guillaume, and was attended by a rapt studio audience. At the same time, the other PBS station featured a documentary on Dr. Andrew Weil, an "herbal practitioner." As a result, my own television viewing that day vacillated between "Baywatch" and "American Kickboxer." Typical fundraisers also feature special musical performances by John Tesh, The Moody Blues, Yanni, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.]

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