A Decade Without TV
I find that I get unusually irritated by admonitions that assume I'm not already doing what said admonition would like me to do. Such presumption!
There's a road sign I curse routinely that says "Slow Down!" when I'm already going the speed limit. Back in the Carter days it was "Turn Down Your Thermostat!" (in winter, of course), when mine was already set low. "Eat More Vegetables!" — more than what? Perhaps it's all part of becoming an old fart, this irritation.
Every now and then I come across someone who writes about his or her experiences with turning off their television set for a whole week, or maybe a month, sometimes even a whole year! One can almost hear the gasps of readers who suddenly are forced to imagine life without their own TV — or worse: their family's life without TV. The writers seem to find it refreshing but on the scary side. Apparently we're to be amazed with this writer's saintly fortitude, mouths agape at their stoic solidity. I read their accounts, but I never get much out of them.
For some reason I've never felt compelled — before now, at least — to bother writing about the fact that Isaac and I never watch TV. Sure, we have a television set, which we use to watch movies. Oh, and we've also watched all of "Six Feet Under" on DVD, and there was one morning during a snow storm when Isaac wanted to know whether he had to go to work. And once we had a friend visiting who had to see the end of a "Survivor" (first season) episode.
Sometimes we even see some bits of televised programs when we're at a friend's house, and at occasional holiday gatherings we're forced to be near when some watch one of the tedious sports events that seem to be ubiquitous on such days. I try to avoid the latter whenever possible, and try to shame the sports fans into not watching while there are guests (me) in the house, particularly guests who prefer root canal to televised team sports.
Not that we make a fetish of it. If we're in front of a TV that happens to be on, we look at it. This is happening more and more frequently in casual restaurants — do they hope to make patrons more comfortable by giving them less reason to create conversation?
We don't do this out of any noble principles, by the way. It just started happening some time about 10 or 12 years ago. There seemed to be less on TV that attracted our devotion, and more things that we wanted to do with that hour here or there that we would have spent watching. After awhile we'd simply stopped. We've always been more book people anyway.
Nowadays, of course, that leaves us with a blind-spot when it comes to shared pop culture, but our friends are mostly aware and it does tend to shorten those tiresome conversations that begin with "Say, did you see…?" "No," comes our instant, truncating response. One reason that we only recently got broadband internet service is that our house, now 10 years old, never has had cable TV installed — yet another expense that I didn't see the necessity for.
And, to tell the truth, I haven't noticed that our lives have suffered in any significant way for our decade without TV. I suppose I should make more of a fuss. Hey!! Look at us!! We haven't watched TV for ten years!!!
But, you'll understand, it's not really like me to do that.
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on Saturday, 29 September 2007 at 02.56
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I don't find your mostly TV-free life that surprising, except maybe where news programming is concerned.
My own viewing over the last 15 years or so has included less and less so-called entertainment programming, to the point where there isn't a single entertainment series I watch. It's been that way since the middle years of "NYPD Blue," which was the only entertainment series show I watched for several years. My better half loves to watch movies on TV or DVD. I very rarely indulge.
I do watch a lot of news, documentaries and C-SPAN. I can also enjoy Food Channel, house-flipping, travel programs and, now and then, "COPS." As for sports, I'm with you 99 percent of the time. Every once in a great while I'll get interested in a baseball game.
Re: road signs, there's a bad habit in my part of the country of making signs descriptive, or hopefully descriptive, rather than the commands they're supposed to be.
My favorite example is "Reduced speed ahead," instead of Reduce speed ahead. It's as though there is this speed thing all over the place, but up ahead there's less of it.
on Sunday, 30 September 2007 at 15.42
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Like S.W. I find myself watching less and less television. I used to be pretty much a television addict; but the last few years I just find there's nothing worth watching. I haven't gotten into the practice of renting videos or DVDs (well, maybe some porn once in a while, but you know ….).
I have always listened to radio, especially CBC; but now I listen to much more radio. Sometimes CBC-2, which is mostly classical music during the day; but in the evenings it's mostly NPR (KUOW in Seattle, which is "NPR news and information") and CBC-Radio 1. I like NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as Market Place and such programs as Alternative Radio, To The Best of Our Knowledge, Science Fridays (Talk of the Nation), and the Diane Rehm show, which KUOW broadcasts at midnight. CBC's longstanding program called Ideas has always been a favourite.
Here in Victoria I get three NPR services: KUOW (news and information), NWPR (North West Public Radio, news and classical music), and KPLU (Pacific Lutheran University, "NPR news and all that jazz", which I listen to ONLY for the news part, and "Fresh Air", a program KUOW doesn't carry).
As far as television goes, occasionally CBC news, and our provincial public education channel carries British shows I like a lot, such as Heartbeat, Inspector Morse, and Midsommer Murders.