I took that title from a line in Walker Percy's Love In the Ruins, which I bought a few weeks back and read over a couple of days this weekend. Hooray for putting things off until you don't!
Anywho, I have TV again...or at least more variety. Allow me to elaborate at length:
At the tail end of the TV season last May, a thunderstorm came along and knocked out a significant chunk of my channels. This was no problem initially because, as I said, the season proper was winding down, and summer reruns and summer "shows that didn't make the schedule during the regular season" were all I really seemed to miss out on. I could still get in a few channels here and there, and I had my reading to keep me occupied. I was good.
Until about last week, when I'd finally had enough. I'd had enough of not getting in channels that I liked just because they were pleasant background noise to my reading or napping (PBS's block of home-improvement shows are far less glittering, but they get the job done). I'd had enough of not getting to watch ESPN for at least a fix of "Sports Center" because it was one of the channels that went in and out. But mostly, I was tired of being stuck with the History Channel as the one that came in the best (of the ones that came in), and because the last time it had anything "historical" on it, Clinton was in the White House.
If you spend enough time watching the History Channel (and God knows I have, perhaps way too much), you begin to think that every workplace has "hijinks" and "kooky characters" who exist solely as a conduit through which the audience can enjoy themselves (though not because they feel better about themselves in comparison, which explains the sadomasochistic appeal of "Toddlers and Tiaras" and the entire block of MTV programming). When you know that "Couting Cars" is the auto expert guy from "Pawn Stars," it's only a matter of time before the go-to gun expert at the shop gets his own show.
God help us all.
Anyway, I'd like to go further, but I only have so long on the computer I'm on, so I gotta wrap it up. No TV: live-able, but barely once the fall season begins. Read more. Avoid TLC. That is all.
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