Friday, July 29, 2005
Past and Present
I caught MTV’s The 70s House for the first time the other day, and I’m afraid I have to admit I’ve developed a taste for it. I just love the fact that the cast is largely oblivious to the way they are being mocked and humiliated. When asked to drop whatever they’re doing and do the Hustle every time a buzzer goes off, the cast members simply accept this as some sort of legitimate "rule" to the "game," rather than reflecting on how unnecessary it is and how ridiculous they all look grooving in their ill-fitting polyester bell bottoms and Farrah Fawcett haircuts. When openly chastised for believing the bicentennial occurred in 1972 and Eisenhower was a president in the 70s, they simply shrug and smile, secure in the knowledge that, even should they spend the rest of their tenure in the 70s house shoving avocado-colored crayons up their noses, they will still be better than the rest of the world because they are now "famous." This is compelling television.
In a similarly retro vein, I’m reading Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco right now. It’s a definite product of the 80s—there’s a whole section rhapsodizing about the wonders of the word processor—but also sort of ahead of its time, beating Dan Brown to that whole "ludicrous religious conspiracy out to get us all" thing by about 20 years. You can also definitely tell it was written by a professor, given that some sections of dialogue devolve into large paragraphs of historical lecture broken up only by occasional supportive interjections, but it’s a pretty good summer read. As Levar Burton, host of the popular children’s literacy program Reading Rainbow, would say, check it out at your local library.
I caught MTV’s The 70s House for the first time the other day, and I’m afraid I have to admit I’ve developed a taste for it. I just love the fact that the cast is largely oblivious to the way they are being mocked and humiliated. When asked to drop whatever they’re doing and do the Hustle every time a buzzer goes off, the cast members simply accept this as some sort of legitimate "rule" to the "game," rather than reflecting on how unnecessary it is and how ridiculous they all look grooving in their ill-fitting polyester bell bottoms and Farrah Fawcett haircuts. When openly chastised for believing the bicentennial occurred in 1972 and Eisenhower was a president in the 70s, they simply shrug and smile, secure in the knowledge that, even should they spend the rest of their tenure in the 70s house shoving avocado-colored crayons up their noses, they will still be better than the rest of the world because they are now "famous." This is compelling television.
In a similarly retro vein, I’m reading Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco right now. It’s a definite product of the 80s—there’s a whole section rhapsodizing about the wonders of the word processor—but also sort of ahead of its time, beating Dan Brown to that whole "ludicrous religious conspiracy out to get us all" thing by about 20 years. You can also definitely tell it was written by a professor, given that some sections of dialogue devolve into large paragraphs of historical lecture broken up only by occasional supportive interjections, but it’s a pretty good summer read. As Levar Burton, host of the popular children’s literacy program Reading Rainbow, would say, check it out at your local library.
