But they might be

One of my favourite albums in the entire history of the whole wide world ever is Flood, brought to you courtesy of They Might Be Giants. The name of the band comes from a strange old film, about the adventures of a latter day Sherlock Holmes let loose upon New York. Or more accurately it's about an judge driven insane by the unfortunate death of his wife who comes to believe he's Sherlock Holmes and escapes from an asylum in order to continue, and perhaps finally end, his battle with Moriarty. Dragged along in the wake of his madness is his doctor, one Mildred Watson. I once caught it on tv, late one night more years ago than I now care to think about, before I'd ever encountered any of the eponymous band's songs. It's a certainly a unique sort of film, filled of humour and whimsy, but tinged with tragedy throughout. Many of the finer details are lost to me now, but I recall much enjoying it, as well as ultimately being greatly frustrated - this wholly due to the ending. Suffice it to say, that the ending is entirely open to interpretation, something which never sat quite well with me in the days of my youth. I may have had (and likely still have) a preference for happy endings, but it's more true to say that I preferred endings period. Stories should be finite, and those that leave strands of their plot strewn messily around were somewhat discomfiting to me. It rather makes me want to view the film again, if purely to see how my attitudes may differ now. Anyway, the title of the film (and the group), stems from one scene in the film, when Holmes (or his unreasonable facsimile) defends the mania of Don Quixote. It's an explanation I've long been fond of, and I present it here for you now:

Dr. Mildred Watson: You're just like Don Quixote. You think that everything is always something else.
Justin Playfair: Well, he had a point. Of course he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That's insane. But, thinking that they might be, well... All the best minds used to think the world was flat. But what if it isn't? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what might be, why we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.