The only early word on HBO’s newest big drama, “John from Cincinnati” — scheduled to start airing next spring (presumably after “Sopranos” finishes up) — was that it was created and piloted by TV genius David Milch and featured a family of surfers. Collective yawn, many people said.

But we all should’ve known better because the show apparently also involves aliens, levitation, and hopheads. Oh HBO, you zany kids! You’ve done it again! maybe…

“9/11 is big,� Mr. Milch, 61, said to the unusually large crowd in the room. He was lying on the floor — a bad back is his curse — next to a microphone. He was just getting going. “What part of 9/11 is big? If the future continues to reinterpret the past, it could be argued that 9/11 provides irrefutable proof that unless there is some other way that we learn to deal with our technology or deal with our brothers and sisters, it is goodbye as a species. That genie does not leave that bottle.�

He went on like that for a while, then said: “A dying culture, intuiting that it is dying, postulates an alternative reality: The Indians postulated in the ghost dance that they were impervious to technology, that when a bullet hit them, they went up to heaven. Does any of that sound familiar?�

YES.

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