The Conical Glass: Freddie and Sam

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Freddie and Sam

I've been haunted by this blog post by my pal Rog, in which he writes: "I'm starting to panic that I won't have enough time left in my life to do all the things I want to do... There are just too many books to read, albums to listen to, TV shows and movies to watch, places to go, games to play, research to do, house projects to do, things to fix, computer projects to do, organizational projects to do, new dishes to try, songs and stories to write, new skills to learn, people to meet, conversations to have, and so much more."

Those lines crossed my mind yesterday as I was sitting on the couch flipping through the Program Guide on TiVo, something I seldom do but, you know, I have a cold, I was tired. I noticed that on Tuesday, in honor of James Stewart's 100th birthday, Turner Classic Movies is doing an all-day tribute to Stewart, showing films both obscure ("The Mortal Storm," "The Stratton Story") and famous ("Rear Window," "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington"). Stewart used to be my favorite actor, so I've seen many of the films on the schedule, some of them several times (like "Vertigo" and "Mr. Smith"); some I've missed, like "The Glenn Miller Story" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." But really, I know there's no point in TiVo'ing the marathon, because when am I going to have time to sit down and watch 11 James Stewart movies? Or even a couple of them?

The sheer number of movies out there -- both old ones and new ones (I'd say an average of 10 films is released each week in San Francisco, and that doesn't even count all the film festivals that go on here) -- is daunting, to say the least. I'm so relieved I don't play computer games, like Rog; at least that gives me more time to read. Only because I was sick and taking it easy was I able to finish Peter Robinson's new book, Friend of the Devil, which is almost 350 pages long, in just over 2 days. Much of the action in Friend refers back to Robinson's 2001 thriller Aftermath, which I read when it came out, but I must admit that a lot of it has slipped my mind in the years since then. But it's not like I'd ever have time to reread it. There are too many new books out there to ever get into rereading.

For some reason, my addled brain thought way, way back to a TV commercial I remembered from my childhood. It was one of my favorites. Of course, it's on the Internet. Because I consider YouTube and its ilk to be a huge time sink, I seldom link to online videos, but this one is really good. It tells the story of two children, best friends, who vow they will be friends for life -- "no matter what Jimmy Baker says!" -- but then are cruelly torn apart when one of the pal's families moves away from the bucolic paradise of Charterville. This ad is exactly two minutes long and in that time, it tells a complete story that is, dare I say it, heartwarming, and memorable enough that it has stuck with me all these years.

Every Friday night Joe and I watch one of our favorite TV shows, "The Soup." If you've never seen it before, "The Soup" is a 30-minute-long (let's say 22 minutes, after subtracting the commercials) scathingly hilarious program which shows brief clips of (mostly) reality and talk shows, and then pokes fun at them. Through "The Soup," I am actually rather literate about TV shows I would never in a million years watch -- I can tell you who the last two finalists on "American Idol" are, for example, and I can identify the principle characters on "The Hills." What's more, if you think 22 minutes is too long, there's actually a shorter online version of the show called "Condensed Soup." It whittles the TV version down to a mere three minutes.

I think it's time for a revolution in entertainment, and "Freddie and Sam" and "The Soup" are showing us the way. Shorter is better. I want 2-minute-long movies, one-page short stories and summaries of everything. I want a day's worth of James Stewart movies in half an hour. I don't want to miss a thing, and the only way that'll ever happen is if everything is downsized.

posted by 125records @ 5:05 PM

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