TV

I grew up with constant tv. My mother watched soaps and game shows. Both watched the news and an evening travel show, then the prime time. Columbo and The Waltons, Night Gallery and The Ed Sullivan Show, Carol Burnette. I watched the Saturday cartoons, all the Wonderful World of Disney, and Jacques Cousteau, the Wild Kingdom of Omaha, In Search Of. Charlie Brown specials, and other holiday cartoons. I watched tv while I did my homework. Talked with my friend on the phone while watching Sonny & Cher, then the Donny & Marie show.

In a way, it was all distraction, nothing to take too seriously. That Girl and Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, Lucille Ball, the cultural background. Barney Miller, Welcome Back Kotter, Good Times, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, all the half hour sitcoms. Enjoyable at the time, useful for reference, but not important. Not long term. If reminded, I probably watched about anything on before what the BBC calls the watershed. Nothing racy, until I was allowed to stay up on Saturday for SNL. My parents were very strict about what I could and could not watch. At Aunt Betty & Uncle Norman's, I was left to 'entertain myself' as they played cards. I watched The Avengers there. Once, I saw part of Rosemary's Baby - broadcast version, until my mother noticed and reamed me out for watching it, that I "should know better than that!" Well, I didn't, didn't even know what it was supposed to be, and didn't see anything unsavory, seemed rather dull, actually.

A fair amount of BBC reruns on the CBC, Windsor being a smaller market without much local content. The Beachcombers and the odd Dr. Who.

D has provided us with The Rockford Files, and has gotten way into Columbo. Seeing them with adult eyes is a very different experience. Twilight Zone felt terrifying to me as a kid, merely interesting later on. The list goes on, but becomes tiresome.

Movies were another story entirely. Only taken to G rated films, in the 70s, meant Sun Films goofball 'documentaries' about UFOs and such. Of course, whatever Disney movies came out, Apple Dumpling Gang holds the distinction of being the first movie I ever fell asleep in, and the first one I remember realizing was just bad.

MST3K introduced me to a world of bad movies, mocking all the way. For which I am ever grateful.

I'm glad tv is fading as a broadcast medium. I like being able to pick and choose, decide what time I want to sit and watch, stop and start to our convenience.Not missing half of a series for uncounted years, or forever. I saw most of A Jewel in the Crown, but missed several key points, for decades. Access to stories from around the world, with subtitles. I like never again having to browse a video store, and guessing, to pay for a movie that will likely suck.

And, since we don't have tv as such, I never just turn on the tube to 'see what's on' anymore. I read, check blogs or pick up a book. This really is better, for me anyway.

Watched Stripped, a doc about comic strips. In the end, newspapers may die, but comic strips already have a new home online. Those who see the future will do fine. Those who hold to the old forms, and miss the substance, miss the point. It's not about paper, it never was.

In the end, it is all about the stories we tell. Maybe that is why so many of those tv shows are faded and a bit embarrassing, none of the stories resonated, none truly spoke to me, not as a child. The one that did, All in the Family, elicited only nightmares, and I never watched it, beyond the odd moment between channels quickly changed. That one hit just inside the front door. Archie Bunker was a mild and more intelligent version of my father. The wrong kind of echoes.


The old shows, the older re-runs, are the context of my unsafe childhood. I revisit them only warily. And all in black & white.

My parents only got a color tv after I was in college.

I consider this a small but vital blessing. Seeing the old stuff in color changes the tone.

Dine

Discussion in the staff lounge. Woman who is trying to feed her kids something other than cereal - all they want. Another who talked about her family rule that everyone ate what was put in front of them, or went hungry. Another whose mother cooked a hot breakfast every morning. And I bit my tongue on my own family meal dynamics, since I immediately flashed on my father's shouting and so many meals with me in tears and my stomach in a knot. How critical he was of the food. How he took that enforced hour to criticize and belittle anything on his tiny mind.

Dinner rules. Well, I suppose with children, it's the place to learn how to eat around people. Close your mouth when you chew. Learn how to share, pass a plate, use a fork and knife. Culture, politeness, all that. Not trivial, really. Although formal dining has always been an upper-class pursuit, middle class aping, largely fallen into desuetude. I remember setting the table, which side the fork went on seemed such a fraught matter. Giving the bad fork to my father a matter of quiet pride.

I don't quite know when my parents decided to always eat in the living room on tray tables in front of the television, but I'm very grateful. Meals calmed right the fuck down. Can't say I enjoyed eating to "George Perot Presents", a local show, large elderly gentleman who chatted with rather dull men who showed their cheesy travelogs while narrating and trying to be funny. Soporific, but not upsetting in any way. Conducive to digestion. My mother and I, or just I would wash, dry and put away dishes after. Not my favorite task, but not onerous really.

Dinners with extended family meant sitting at the table, taking only what I thought I could eat - then eating all I took, staying at the table either until everyone was done, or I had asked for and received permission to get down off my perch and leave the table. I was asked to try new foods, but it was never that much of an issue. I had to drink a full glass of milk with every meal, at all times. This was the worst rule of all, since I always hated milk.

D and I often sit on the sofa with our dinner, watch something, snuggle in. Sometimes here, we sit at the table, with plates and utensils and beverages. I did up Christmas Brunch pretty well, although without most of the dishes and none of the glasses matching. But knowing how to do it could be learned in a few minutes as an adult. I don't really think children need that level of protocol ingrained into them. If it's to let the parents eat with all children in sight, that makes sense, but what's wrong with presenting it as such?

Or are rules around eating so culture-bound and emotional and unexamined that parents often don't even think about how they function?

I'm sure my childhood gut issues are closely related to my father's dinnertime emotional abuse, as well as lack of green vegetables (or fiber of any kind) and the mandatory lactose.

I'll go with the lack of rules, here, together. Moby wants to sniff what we eat, delicately, then turns away as if to say "that's not food." But he's welcome to decide for himself.

Television

We watched So Long At the Fair last night, which was unexpectedly enjoyable. Just as it ended, the TV slid back, and the stand tipped, and down to the floor. I tried to grab, but only managed to take a chunk of skin out of my finger and watch as the case broke away from itself. The wheel of the stand had come out, when I'd moved it close enough so I could watch without glasses, and not noticed the escaped caster.

The institution of digital signals and prevalence of HDTV and LCDs means that the days of a decent, small television are over. What great timing. We'd hoped to keep this old one going until the prices came down, especially since we don't need a converter box, using a dish and Netflix for our Discovery Channel, Animal Planet needs. Oh, and USA for Burn Notice. Both of us too much tv children to go without. Although I have, at times, been boobtubeless, and read a great deal.

We also saw The Last Metro, one of those films I'd intended to see since it came out, and I rather wish I'd stayed in that happy state. The only thing worse than a WWII movie about the terrors of Nazi occupation, is a happy little sex romp about the terrors of Nazi occupation. Plot complications out of nowhere, inconsistent emotional relationships, the tired dramas of actors, all left me wondering why it got raves. Oh, it's beautiful, but flat and with a rather stupid story.

Still thinking about the other assignments, if I haven't gotten to yours yet, it's in the works, really.

Oh, and with a bit of research, and a trip to an Enormous-Box-Store, got a very nice, if rather too expensive but doable, little teevee.