We recently watched a few ‘holiday movies.’ Among them was the version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that features George C. Scott as Scrooge. It’s remarkably faithful to the novel, but among its flaws are mismatched accents — Scott is an American, and does nothing to modify his trademark rasp — and some peculiar lighting choices. Obviously, to expose film indoors, lighting must be provided. No light, and the camera records nothing. Scrooge, the old miser, has but one candle. His field of vision would have been quite limited. This is the world that Dickens took for granted. He died in 1870 — never knew electric light. Gaslight, certainly, was familiar to him, and he knew his skinflint character could have afforded it, but was too cheap to light the lamps. These details are brilliant. Scrooge lives in darkness; the darkness on which spirits thrive.

Could it be that Edison’s lamp put an end to ghosts? The indoor variety must lurk in the remaining shadows. Ghosts, I presume, are products of our imaginations. In the absence of stimulus, the senses invent their own. The unintended consequences of technological development is much on the mind lately. Imagination is nothing if not adaptable. When one form falls victim to technology, as ghosts retreat from indoor lighting, another springs forth. Social media fans the passions and creates the chimeras that ghosts once did. Phones replace our face time, even as they scratch that old itch to see our interlocutors. Facebook replaces our interactions with flesh and blood and gives us the disembodied discourse with strangers we can’t fully know. Twitter provides the mad and mighty alike with the similitude of access, and we can lobby and be bullied by tyrants without getting out of bed. I’m missing the ghosts. They made more sense.