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Lately (i.e. the past year) I’ve been thinking that Mr. G and I watch too much television. We rarely turn it on before 5PM, and when we do watch it we don’t watch for very long (far less than two hours, unless we’re watching a Netflix, but critically-acclaimed movies don’t count as “bad TV” right?). While I’m all for indulging in pure entertainment — I, frankly, wouldn’t dare rob Bump of his precious Sesame Street hour — I do think that when it comes to me and mine the idiot box is just that: generally a waste of time that could be spent on:
a) more reading
b) familial interaction (we both work full-time)
c) physical movement (after two years, I still sometimes use the whole “well, I did just have a baby” excuse)
Before the Internets, the television wasn’t as problematic. But now, thanks to the convenience of things like laptops and wireless technologies, I find my precious intellectual/interaction/active time increasingly sucked into the vortex of television and cyberspace, or The Idiot Box and the Portable Idiot Box.
So a few weeks ago we canceled cable. We still get PBS (Sesame Street) and a few other channels, but we don’t have a very impressive menu of options anymore. At first Mr. G resisted — and I almost caved and called to upgrade — but after less than a week he reported not minding at all. So we’re actually watching less TV. And I’m working out more. And we suddenly have more time to prepare real, non-nuked meals.
Here’s what Adrienne Rich had to say on the matter (excerpt courtesy of very good friend S):
The television screen has throughout the world replaced, or is fast replacing: oral poetry; old wives’ tales; children’s story-acting games and verbal lore; lullabies; “playing the sevens”; political argument; the reading of books too difficult for the reader, yet somehow read; tales of “when-I-was-your-age” told by parents and grandparents to children, linking them to their own past; singing in parts; memorization of poetry; the oral transmitting of skills and remedies; reading aloud; recitation; both community and solitude. People grow up who not only don’t know how to read, a late-acquired skill among the world’s majority; they don’t know how to talk, to tell stories, to sing, to listen and remember, to argue, to pierce an opponent’s argument, to use metaphor and imagery and inspired exaggeration in speech; people are growing up in the slack flicker of a pale light which lacks the concentrated burn of a candle flame or oil wick or the bulb of a gooseneck desk lamp: a pale, wavering, oblong shimmer, emitting incessant noise, which is to real knowledge or discourse what the manic or weepy protestations of a drunk are to responsible speech. Drunks do have a way of holding an audience, though, and so does the shimmery ill-focused oblong screen. (12-13)
–Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
Why I love Moxie’s blog:
Has anyone else been watching the BBC show–now on the Discovery channel in the U.S.–”Last Man Standing”? It’s 6 youngish American and British athletes who go to tribal villages and participate in their tests of strength and fighting rituals. I’ve been watching, thinking how lame it all is. Any woman who’d mothered a child through the age of 5 could beat any of these guys in tenacity, endurance, and feats of strength under adverse conditions. Brazilian piranha-tooth cuts on the legs rubbed with chile powder? Try 36 hours of unmedicated labor. Zulu fighting sticks? Try sleep regression after sleep regression. Running 30 miles uphill in sandals? Try nursing all night for months and still holding down a full-time job. Maybe I should work up a pitch for the show: kick boxer, triathlete, and bodybuilder vs. mom of high-needs baby, mom of twins, and mom of three kids under age five.
To my pals who might one day have kids, bookmark her blog now. It provides a wealth of information from actual moms and Moxie herself is awesome.
Certain friends of mine might appreciate a very endearing post by Cynical Mom about how her World of Warcraft hobby has influenced her son (he uses “log off” as a verb to express “going somewhere else”). How cute!
So, dear hubby (or, shall I say Grubby?) has asked me to reconsider (i.e. nix) the name of my blog. Apparently, he hasn’t read — or has conveniently forgotten — what inspired the GS moniker.
So, to honor the bonds of matrimony, I’m open to suggestions for a name change, although you should know up front that this is more a symbolic gesture than anything else. In other words, there will be no other words.
The fun is in the naming and not, in this case, the name itself.
Yours thoughtfully,
Mrs. Grubby
you’re often on-line till wee hours in the morning; you’re an e-zine junkie; and you claim to read my blog “almost every day.” so what say you to posting a comment or two on this here blog every now and then? (you didn’t think i’d post this, but here it is).
there are few things more egotistical than blogging the self. so, humor me, will you?
loving you regardless,
L.
