Posts tagged ‘Entertainment’

My son is nine.  About a week ago, he discovered reading.  Not that he didn’t know HOW to read, just that he would not choose to spend his time reading for pleasure.  There was always something more important, more entertaining, more exciting to do than read.  And then, he found The Book.  We all have one.  That one Book that made us stop, pause where we were, what we were doing, and sit down to read.  The Book that took us to another land or another world.  The Book that taught us how to let our imaginations roam free in a world described on paper but created in our own minds.  The Book that will ALWAYS be better than the movie.  The Book that we may return to time and again, not because we have forgotten what happens within the pages, but because we remember the sheer joy we felt the first time we entered that realm.  The Book is different for each of us, but the results are the same.  It is that one Book that turns us into Readers.

For my son, it is a book that takes place within the Minecraft realm.  The characters are all taken from the game, but the adventure they go on is an original story created by the author.  He took a couple of days to read the first one in the series, and then blew through the next two in a day each.  And he shows no signs of slowing down.  Luckily for both of us, there are several more books in this series, and a couple of other series by the same author.  He will not run out of things to read.  But watching him become absorbed into the world of his imagination began to stir some nostalgic feelings in me.  I remembered those days of bumping into things and people in my own house because I would be trying to walk and read at the same time.  Nights spent under the covers with a flashlight, WAY past bedtime, because I just wanted to read “one more chapter“.

One wall of our living room is lined with bookshelves, our own little home Library.  It is about 15 feet long, 8 feet high, and packed with books.  Some are kids books, no more than 32 pages, where every character seems to be a talking animal that figures out a way to solve the problem they are confronted with, usually with the help of their friends or a kind adult or parent.  Others are textbooks from my and my husband’s college years.  Most are novels, biographies, and other “adult” books that we have picked up over the years, read maybe once or twice, and then they have found a permanent home on the shelf.  But one end of the shelf is devoted solely to my Book Collection.  Books that have been handed down or given to me by parents, grandparents, or other relatives.  These are books that have been part of the fabric of my life for as long as I can remember.  The Nancy Drew books I was given as a child when my mother signed me up for a “Book of the Month” club.  The Cherry Ames books that were my mother’s (along with the other, missing volumes I have acquired thanks to ebay).  The small, slim, red volumes of Shakespeare’s love plays – “Romeo & Juliet” and “Antony & Cleopatra” – that my great-grandparents (teachers, both) gave to one another as tokens of their affection.  Books that were published long before I, my mother, or (in some cases) even my grandmother were born.  Some of these books I have read over and over again.  Some I have never opened, and never will, but can’t seem to part with.  Some are in such fragile, delicate condition, that I keep the book, but if I want to read it I find an electronic version I can download to a tablet.  But, in all of them, I have found friendship, solace, comfort, adventure, wisdom, joy, fear, longing, and happiness.

I stood in front of this shelf today, just perusing the titles.  Seeing books I hadn’t thought about in a while brought a smile to my face.  Each title evoked images in my mind of setting, characters, or action.  Nancy trapped in the back of the moving van.  Plato, standing in his robes between marble columns, dispensing wisdom for the ages.  Sherlock working out the intricacies of a mystery while playing the violin.  Jo corralling a herd of boys, trying to instill in them the lessons and values that will make them Little Men.  Lincoln, in a distinctively un-presidential tent, within earshot of the battlefield, struggling over whether the choices he is making are the right ones.  Wynken, Blynken, and Nod sailing in their wooden shoe.  And Dorian, standing tall, looking as young and handsome as ever, while the portrait in the attic evolves into a contorted, grotesque version of its former image.

All of these books have helped to fashion who I am today, and I am grateful for them.  I could spend hours talking about books, but right now, I have to go – Cherry is about to board the train for nursing school.

A long time ago, the first cave people sat around the fire after dinner and grunted at one another, and drew pictures on the walls with the ashes from the fire.  Thus was born “Home Entertainment”.  Stories told and retold in the oral tradition were eventually written down, and books were added to the mix. Granted, along the way, people got up and demonstrated the stories by repeating the actions, creating Theater, but that quickly moved out of the home and into the public arena.  However, the idea of theater at home was so appealing, that once Radios were introduced, the Radio Drama  became a mainstay of Home Entertainment.  Television added pictures to the sounds, and improvements in sound technology brought us to the Home Theater System of today.  Technophiles are not happy with just a run-of-the-mill Home Theater Surround Sound System.  They also need game consoles (yes, consoles, plural, because one is just never enough).  Which leads me to my living room.

Christmas is over, and, for the first time in a long time, we did not have a mega-media Christmas. Past Christmases have included the Playstation 2 (granted, that was a while ago), the DVD player, the XBox 360, the Wii, the Blu-Ray player, and the second XBox 360. This past December we added the 3D Blu-Ray player and the active shutter glasses, although since we got that mid-December, my husband is not counting this as Christmas gifts.  (He did use the money that was allocated for my Christmas presents to buy said player & glasses, so maybe they really belong to me . . . ) Add to the above-listed assortment the Media Center PC my husband built about a year ago, and we have so much entertainment coming out of our ears that we have no idea what to do with it all or what to watch next. Do we play XBox? Watch shows on the DVR? Play 3D movies? Stream Netflix on any of the many compatible devices? Pick up the toys and go bowling in the living room? Or train our tigers? Or maybe we should just snuggle up on the couch with the PC and our favorite vampires and theoretical physicists. . . .

I decided this year that I was going to go “old school”. I bought books. Not Nooks or Kindles or iPads, Books. The kind with pages made of paper that you have to manually turn. Those things that give that distinct old-world smell to used bookshops tucked away in England. Books. Ironically, a lot of this seems related to my new “job” as a volunteer at our local library. I started a few months ago and realized how much I missed reading. There is a lot to be said for being able to curl up in a comfy chair with a book and have the author weave a story with vivid descriptions of people and places and have your mind construct those for your based solely on the words in front of you. Anyway, I had made a killing late in the fall when our local Borders closed, and I had tucked away much of that stash to be given as gifts later. Then I took advantage of the bonus offers emailed to me by Barnes & Noble and the free shipping they offered all season long for B & N members. The end result is a dearth of shelf space in our living room, where once again books are competing with discs.

I think this is a good problem to have. So much of our society (and especially the younger generations) have grown  so accustomed to the instant gratification that technology provides, that many people have forgotten the joy that reading can bring. Yes, it takes much longer for the story to play out in a book than it does on the movie screen (and who would sit through 30 minutes of watching Lisbeth doing research for her job?), but delayed gratification has a lot of merit. It teaches us that things don’t always come fast or easy or cheap. Sometimes, just sometimes, the greater joy can be found in those things that take effort and cost and sacrifice. We have so much more appreciation for something we have worked for than for those things that are just handed to us or that we only have to push a button to get . . .

I hope all of you find some delayed gratification this year!

One may be familiar with the concept of the armchair quarterback or the Monday morning quarterback, but over the past 45 years, the aftermath of the Super Bowl has changed considerably.  The Monday morning quarterbacks discussing the various aspects of the previous day’s game (and identifying what their particular team could have/should have done differently to bring about a more satisfactory outcome) have been replaced by the Monday morning Ad Executives.

When I went to work this morning, I expected to hear discussions regarding last night’s Super Bowl.  The Steelers fans would be talking about how their team just did not pick up enough steam soon enough, and while they played their hearts out during the second half, if it had only come sooner or lasted longer, they would have won.  The Packer fans would be talking about how amazing it was that they were able to fight off the Steelers in the second half despite a plethora of injuries to key players.  But no.  The vast majority of discussions centered around the Super Bowl commercials.  What was your favorite?  Which ones did you like?  Which ones just did not work?  Everyone seems to know how and why the different ads worked or didn’t work.  Fox Sports has even gone so far as to allow web viewers to vote on the ads, giving a “thumbs up” to the ones they like and the “thumbs down” to the ones that just don’t do it.  And just in case you were lured away from this great American tradition by the likes of the Puppy Bowl, Enchanted, or Netflix (or you were just in a cave somewhere), you can screen the Super Bowl ads here.

Personally, there were a couple that caught my attention.  As a parent, the Volkswagen/Star Wars commercial has to be my favorite.  For pure fun, I like the Bud Light “Product Placement“, Bridgestone Tires, and Doritos “Healing Chips”.  I thought there were a few too many upcoming movie ads.  I can understand the studios wanting to put their new releases into the minds of the public, but it just seemed like a little bit of overkill, considering that these same movie trailer commercials will be airing on every station day and night for the next one-to-six months, depending upon when the movie is released.  There were a few ads that really didn’t work for me.  I could have skipped both of the Eminem ads.  I felt the tea one was lame, and the Chrysler commercial was somewhat ambiguous, in that it was hard to tell if Eminem was endorsing Chrysler or the city of Detroit.  Actually, many of the car commercials were just humdrum – not a lot of entertainment value, just “here’s our new car and this is what makes it special”.  And none of them really seemed that special (aside from the aforementioned VW ad).

Over the past 45 years, Super Bowl ads have evolved from just putting a product in front of one of the annually largest TV viewing audiences to being part of why that audience is so large.  The comment that seemed to be repeated the most this morning was, “I didn’t really have a great interest in the game, I just watched it for the commercials.”  In truth, there was a point during the evening that I was in my son’s room, putting away clean clothes, and racing out to the living room only when the action on the field was coming to a stop.  All of this begs the question: What is the future evolution of the Super Bowl ad?  I foresee a day when a DVD of the ads is available to order as soon as the game is over, with the proceeds going to some charity or cause endorsed by the NFL.  Or, possibly a TV special, airing a week or so after the game, that consists of nothing but Super Bowl TV spots.  Of course, if that ever happens, only the football fans would watch the game.  The rest of us would be free to watch the Puppy Bowl, or whatever else tickled our fancies, and set our TIVO’s up to record the commercials.  Just don’t hit that “skip the ads” button.