Much to my
surprise I discovered I have a time machine in my living room. It only goes
backwards, not forward. It is a TV with no cable connection, just the
regular broadcast channels of which there are dozens. Most of them show old series, movies, and
sitcoms. They must cost nothing or there
wouldn’t be such a glut of them.
Surprisingly they have brought me pleasure.
When I was living
in Europe watching TV was a taboo. I
remember calling a friend and saying, I hear a TV in the background. “Oh no,”
he replied, “I only watch documentaries”. In the States I resisted having a TV
for years since I could no longer use Spanish or Catalan soaps as an excuse for
learning language. Finally I got a TV as
a birthday present, but in my larger flat in Buffalo, I kept it hidden in an
unused bedroom. After all, whatever I
wanted to see, I could view on my computer.
Now in my smaller
space in Atlanta it has prominence though I still viewed it with a touch of
disdain. Then after sifting through the
endless religious stations and Latin dramas, I found France 24 which gives me a
chance to see news from places like Africa or Latvia which the US newscasters
typically ignore. And then I found the
channel with old game shows that go back to “Tell the Truth” or “What’s my Line”
and stop around 1975. My Spanish friend
on seeing it said, “those people all must be dead by now”. And it’s true. I looked up Bert Convey, a popular host, and
found the sad news that he died just three months after his second
marriage. Patty Duke, who was a regular
on many of the game shows, recently passed.
Why have I become interested in these shows and people? They represent a time that was far less
restricted than the world we live in with its fundamentalist values and
anti-women rhetoric. There is a
progressive consciousness and innocence that we’ve lost along the way. An added plus is that I started watching Star
Trek. I never could stay up late enough to see it when I was a kid. Those old episodes reflect on parallel
universes and worm holes- subjects that are not out of place today.
After I am Dead a poem after Christina Rossetti
“After I am dead my dearest”
fill my grave with companionate
figures,
ceramic men and women
toiling the soil,
and standing guard,
the tasks of life
I no longer share.
Close my eyelids
with a kiss,
my lips too cold,
Purify the corpse
with fire,
Collect remains
In a bright ceramic vase
painted with birds and bears.
Lay it deep in the earth
with my terra cotta
statue friends.
