Television in the late Noughties and early, what?,Teenies, is starting to remind me of what movies were like in the Eighties.
Not because all the fading Nineties movie stars are rebirthing their careers in shows like CSI and Law & Order, but because so many tv shows feel that a story can’t be told unless a horde of nameless, forgettable actresses get their baps out.
It seems that the evolution of storytelling will eventually end in a channel-surf with wave after wave of porn and some news and cartoons in between. I expect to be washed ashore confused by Cow & Chicken, depressed by Third World corruption, and sporting a massive erection.
But it’s not just an oversaturation of Bristol Cities that stirs our loins, we need exploding heads and severed limbs too. As though producers can’t decide if we’re more aroused by a naked lady engaging in carnal conduct, or slow-motion headbutts and multi-angle roundhouse kicks.
Personally, I blame Sex & the City. Those girls made it okay to show boobs on the boob-tube, coz if it’s good for the feminists then it’s good for the chauvinists.
Not for me, though, because I’ve always believed that the concepts of sex and Sarah Jessica Parker should never be paired.
Too skinny for my taste.
In many ways television is now better than the Big Screen. At least the popcorn’s cheaper, and if you need a cup of tea or a leak there is the handy commercial break. But that’s all the ads are good for and really I prefer buying the box set and viewing and entire season in one rainy weekend.
These days all I have to worry about is strategic product placement, and if that was working I’d be driving an Aston Martin and drinking vodka martinis. So good to be able to hide my under-achieving behind a faux Zen-like contempt for material possessions.
In truth, though, I don’t really mind being tricked into buying useless luxuries, I just find the constant interruption annoying. I’d rather they put the ads into subtle, subliminal flashes.
That way they could market the BMWs behind the boobies, and the face packs after the face punches.
Kindle & 3D Books
Whenever there’s a breakthrough along the lines of Kindle or some other form of books on ‘puter a massive cry about the death of print publishing chimes like an annoying Nokia ringtone.
And it always makes me wonder if the end of paperbacks will spell the end of the world, mainly because of an article I read positing that the only people planting hectares of trees these days are paper companies.
No more need for paper means all that land will be sold for condos or shopping malls.
Possibly a bit far-fetched and merely the wailings of hysterical luddites? I suppose we’ll only know when we’re gasping for oxygen while reading an online eco-novel that’s not much more than a long-winded ‘I told you so’.
The only problem I have with bookstores closing down and getting all my reading emailed is how I’m going to impress guests without a pretentious bookshelf lined with literature I’ll probably never read.
Less honest book-lovers will bore you with opinions on the smell and feel of a book, the sound a page makes as you turn it, and the high cost of replacing an e-reader when it drops in the bathwater.
Something that turned me off about Kindle and its ilk was a report of publishers releasing ‘3D books’. For instance a novel about the Vietnam War would have paragraphs in which the sounds of gunfire and grenades would play, much the same as if you were reading it in the thick of battle, or on a taxi ride in downtown Johannesburg.
I thought I’d try a 3D novel out before dismissing it entirely, and while reading Moby Dickin bedplayed one of those hippy whale noise CDs and asked my wife to shoot a water pistol in my face.
Needless to say, the only person having fun was Lucy.
And then I imagined online libraries. It would definitely be more convenient, and there’d be no chance of an old woman hissing “Shhhhhhh!” when I giggled at the naughty bits in a Jilly Cooper novel.
The downside would be no more sexy librarian scenario in pornographic movies.
Personally, I need books to be stay offline for a bit longer. If only so I’ve got a few joke- and useless trivia books to stack on top of the toilet cistern.
And it always makes me wonder if the end of paperbacks will spell the end of the world, mainly because of an article I read positing that the only people planting hectares of trees these days are paper companies.
No more need for paper means all that land will be sold for condos or shopping malls.
Possibly a bit far-fetched and merely the wailings of hysterical luddites? I suppose we’ll only know when we’re gasping for oxygen while reading an online eco-novel that’s not much more than a long-winded ‘I told you so’.
The only problem I have with bookstores closing down and getting all my reading emailed is how I’m going to impress guests without a pretentious bookshelf lined with literature I’ll probably never read.
Less honest book-lovers will bore you with opinions on the smell and feel of a book, the sound a page makes as you turn it, and the high cost of replacing an e-reader when it drops in the bathwater.
Something that turned me off about Kindle and its ilk was a report of publishers releasing ‘3D books’. For instance a novel about the Vietnam War would have paragraphs in which the sounds of gunfire and grenades would play, much the same as if you were reading it in the thick of battle, or on a taxi ride in downtown Johannesburg.
I thought I’d try a 3D novel out before dismissing it entirely, and while reading Moby Dickin bedplayed one of those hippy whale noise CDs and asked my wife to shoot a water pistol in my face.
Needless to say, the only person having fun was Lucy.
And then I imagined online libraries. It would definitely be more convenient, and there’d be no chance of an old woman hissing “Shhhhhhh!” when I giggled at the naughty bits in a Jilly Cooper novel.
The downside would be no more sexy librarian scenario in pornographic movies.
Personally, I need books to be stay offline for a bit longer. If only so I’ve got a few joke- and useless trivia books to stack on top of the toilet cistern.
Verbal Constipation
Every writer,at least once a lifetime, will in absolute desperation resort to writing about writers’ block; as though the act of writing in itself will serve as a laxative to their verbal constipation.
And believe me, it does feel like constipation.
You wake up in the morning with the desire to fill a page with words. But after all the rituals have been performed – coffee, cigarette, music – nothing comes out. You push and push, grit your teeth through the pain, but nothing is produced except turgid air.
The stench is unbearable. It is deleted and you push some more. Still to no avail.
In the grips of a bad block a writer will feel worthless and deluded. As though they have nothing to say and were foolish to ever believe they did.Your dream is revealed to you as childish and all this invested time a waste. Your life is a sham and you are pathetic.
Because you are a writer the melodrama comes naturally.
There are a few remedies the constipated writer might try – a walk in the park, drinks with a friend, failed suicide – but sometimes these things just don’t work and the writer realises he must figure out the cause of the block.
This is usually anxiety that manifests as an obstacle. It stands in your way, grinning malevolently, and no matter how hard you try to punch it in the face or kick it the groin it just doesn’t go down.
Its legs are rooted, you see, and the only way to topple this monster and step over it is to dig deep and find these roots – once they are found you can pull them out.
And believe me, it does feel like constipation.
You wake up in the morning with the desire to fill a page with words. But after all the rituals have been performed – coffee, cigarette, music – nothing comes out. You push and push, grit your teeth through the pain, but nothing is produced except turgid air.
The stench is unbearable. It is deleted and you push some more. Still to no avail.
In the grips of a bad block a writer will feel worthless and deluded. As though they have nothing to say and were foolish to ever believe they did.Your dream is revealed to you as childish and all this invested time a waste. Your life is a sham and you are pathetic.
Because you are a writer the melodrama comes naturally.
There are a few remedies the constipated writer might try – a walk in the park, drinks with a friend, failed suicide – but sometimes these things just don’t work and the writer realises he must figure out the cause of the block.
This is usually anxiety that manifests as an obstacle. It stands in your way, grinning malevolently, and no matter how hard you try to punch it in the face or kick it the groin it just doesn’t go down.
Its legs are rooted, you see, and the only way to topple this monster and step over it is to dig deep and find these roots – once they are found you can pull them out.
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