I spent this past Saturday through Wednesday housesitting for my boss while she and most of the office were out of town at the annual company convention. She has a lovely condo with an ocean view and two kitties and... TiVo. Now my boss and I have a good relationship, so she had lined up a bunch of things on the saved programming that she knew I would like, mostly 3 Jane Austen movies (PBS is in the middle of airing a bunch of new adaptations).
Understand that I don't watch television at home. DVD's, certainly, but not TV. I was shocked at how lulling and siren-ish that square black box is, especially when you can special-order and ffwd/rwd any TV show you like. There is a nearly inexhaustible feed of interesting and entertaining shows and well done films on cable that you could spend all your leisure time absorbing. And man does it make your "real" life seem less interesting! I'm reminded of a girl I knew in the theatre department who had a massive collection of movies and from what I could tell she spent most of her time sitting in front of her computer watching them. I'm sure inside her head it was filled with color and depth and excitement and human characters and emotion and everything that comes with watching a good story done well. But on the outside her life looked like that of a blob.
So I approach you, ladies [and gentlemen], in a moralizing strain. (By the way, that is a quote from Henry Tilney, who I now have a giddy bubbles-and-butterflies crush on thanks to TiVo's replay function.) ...moralizing strain: Life is definitely too short to watch television. At any rate, it sapped me of my inclination to do good things like cook or hang out with Jesus or work on my lesson plan for small group. It was good to have it for a day or two, but after that much better to get out of its reach.
The other part of this is that since everyone's been gone at the office, I have had almost nothing to do but read articles online for about three and a half days straight. It's like being paid to sit in a library! I read the complete online text of Northanger Abbey at gutenberg.org and a ton of cultural, literary, political, religious, and frivolous articles as well. My brain feels fatly fed. Yum yum. And my body is restless.
Conclusion? I love having my own little apartment under my domain, and I loved the Austen film adaptations but lost my head for a few days over too many stories (yes, it is possible to read too many novels, or watch too many movies), and I'm looking back on the week thinking about how a superabundance of entertainment and lack of occupation did not suit me at all.
Finally, if you can't imagine Britney Spears and Jane Austen happily merged, please click here.
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1 comment:
That was a good merger-the Austen/spears thing!! and a Great post. Yeah, it's true....television is mind-numbing, though every once in a while it's nice to get a break from one's mind. :)
~J Chism
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