TV "[??]" us: Snobbery about television ignores its emotional power.

TV "[??]" us: Snobbery about television ignores its emotional power. Two Aspirins and a Comedy: How television Can Enhance Health andSociety Metta Spencer Paradigm Publishers 332 pages, softcover soft��cov��er?adj.Not bound between hard covers: softcover books; a softcover edition.ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m1594511551 One damp and dour Toronto morning this past winter, I was doingwhat authors of new books are obliged to do--talking about my book anddrumming up sales. I was speaking at one of those wonderfulbooks-and-breakfast events that match interested readers withenthusiastic authors. There were three of us authors at the event.Everybody had a fine time. In a lull after the meal, the talking and the book signings, one ofmy fellow authors--terribly distinguished and award-winning--gave me oneof those pre-question looks that alerted me to what was coming. "Doyou actually read books?" distinguished author asked. Familiar withthe routine, out of mischief I feigned feigned?adj.1. Not real; pretended: a feigned modesty.2. Made-up; fictitious.Adj. 1. puzzlement puz��zle��ment?n.The state of being confused or baffled; perplexity.Noun 1. puzzlement - confusion resulting from failure to understandbafflement, befuddlement, bemusement, bewilderment, mystification, obfuscation . Distinguished authorcontinued: "Well, I wondered, because you have to watch TV, if youactually read books?" I allowed that I had, on occasion, been knownto read a book or two. Distinguished author looked skeptical. The exchange was no surprise to me. In what passes for thepublishing and literary racket in Canada it is a badge of honour todeclare that one never watches TV. On another occasion this winter, Iwas greeted at a reading by a host who declared immediately that he didnot own a television. The idea was not so much to put me in my place asto raise the host's status to that of very, very literary person.Even at events organized by my own publishers I have, on severaloccasions, been engaged in chitchat with this opening gambit (language) Gambit - A variant of Scheme R3.99 supporting the future construct of Multilisp by Marc Feeley <feeley@iro.umontreal.ca>. Implementation includes optimising compilers for Macintosh (with Toolbox and built-in editor) and Motorola 680x0 Unix systems and HP300, BBN : "Idon't read your column because I never watch TV, but I hear yourbook is good." Exactly what all these people who don't own aTV or watch TV are doing of an evening is beyond me. Are they allexpecting me to believe that they are reading books all night, everynight of the year? Are they all firm in their belief that my brain hasrotted away from watching The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Shield, CurbYour Enthusiasm or, indeed, The National on CBC (1) (Cell Broadcast Center) See cell broadcast.(2) (Cipher Block Chaining) In cryptography, a mode of operation that combines the ciphertext of one block with the plaintext of the next block. ? This prejudice is pathetic. And it says a great deal about theprecarious confidence of the Canadian literary clan. It is also deeplyhypocritical. Most of the no-TV crowd would gladly sell their childrenin return for a chance to appear on a TV show called Oprah to talk abouttheir book and their favourite writers and, of course, seriously suck upto suck up toVerbInformal to flatter (a person in authority) in order to get something, such as praise or promotion Oprah Winfrey “Oprah” redirects here. For the show, see The Oprah Winfrey Show.Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history. . Furthermore, it is a downright peculiar prejudice in acountry that produced Marshall McLuhan Noun 1. Marshall McLuhan - Canadian writer noted for his analyses of the mass media (1911-1980)Herbert Marshall McLuhan, McLuhan and that, in CBC Television, hasone of the largest public TV broadcasters in the world, a publicbroadcaster that is woven into the cultural fabric of Canada. Television is enormously influential in Canada and this is wherethe serious study of television began, in McLuhan's work.Television is influential everywhere, in shaping and reflecting theconcerns of contemporary society. There is a lot of TV and a lot of itis wretchedly bad, but in the best of TV today--an increasingly largearea--there is the very best of modern storytelling. U.S. television,the most ubiquitous form, offers U.S. society a mirror of itself. TVprograms, aired within weeks or days of being written, reflect the moodand contemporary myths with an intuitive accuracy. Even the most banalAmerican TV show offers clues about how and why the world consumesAmerican culture. To me, that is a tad obvious. Metta Spencer's Two Aspirins and a Comedy: How Television CanEnhance Health and Society is one small step toward a betterunderstanding of television. It might even remind some in the publishingracket here that television needs to be taken seriously rather thandismissed. It is an odd and disorganized dis��or��gan��ize?tr.v. dis��or��gan��ized, dis��or��gan��iz��ing, dis��or��gan��iz��esTo destroy the organization, systematic arrangement, or unity of. book, scattered in approach andpresentation. But the television world itself is complicated, diverse,disorganized and still brimming brim?n.1. The rim or uppermost edge of a hollow container or natural basin.2. A projecting rim or edge: the brim of a hat.3. A border or an edge. See Synonyms at border. with brief enchantments Track listingHead Of Lenin (Remix) - Digital Poodle Kick To Kill - Noise Unit Night Of The Buck Knives (Altamont Mix) - The Electric Hellfire Club Metal Machine Music (Degeneration Mix) - Die Krupps Blue Nine (Free Me Mix) - Penal Colony , talking pointsor surprises. Spencer, emeritus professor of sociology at the University ofToronto Research at the University of Toronto has been responsible for the world's first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant, artificial pancreas, chemical laser, G-suit, the first practical electron microscope, the first cloning of T-cells, , approaches television as an issue of public health. She begins,as I did here, by pointing out that some people still believe thattelevision does no good at all and might rot the brain. Then she makesthe reasonable point that the authorities have always had a problem withsome forms of entertainment. Theatrical performances were banned inEngland, once. Books were burned in some places and novelists houndedand prosecuted in other places at other times. Spencer's essentialquestion is this: "Why be afraid of the big, bad TV?" Toanswer, she regularly returns to issues raised by Plato and Aristotle. At its heart then, Two Aspirins and a Comedy is about television asour source of theatre in its most distilled essence. Spencer points outthat Plato said that drama can give us "false lives," whileAristotle said that empathy with the characters and experiencesdramatized in the theatre can help heal us. Then she adds, in anappendix, the story of a woman whose life was rather closed, routine andbanal until it was awakened by devotion to a serial TV drama. Herfixations on certain characters led to sexual fantasies that, in time,unleashed passions that had been long dormant. In correspondence withSpencer, the woman writes, "the heart has it own reasons." Thepoint, although it takes a long time for it to arrive in Spencer'sbook, is that it is healthy and fruitful to look at TV programs in orderto see and examine ways of life that are outside our usual experience. Perhaps the most daring suggestion in Spencer's book is thatTV programs offer a moral and social compass that makes us reconsiderour self-interested preoccupations. She sees TV as a scold SCOLD. A woman who by her habit of scolding becomes a nuisance to the neighborhood, is called a common scold. Vide Common Scold. againstsmugness and, existing as it does in the living room to be used at anytime, TV is there to present an eternal challenge to received opinion.All in all, however, Metta Spencer sees television's greatest powerbeing anchored in its ability to evoke emotion like no other medium can.Certainly she acknowledges that emotions evoked by formulaic networksitcoms and dramas are specious spe��cious?adj.1. Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious: a specious argument.2. Deceptively attractive. and fleeting. But there is anotherlevel--for instance, the sudden force of a tenderness that arises from ascene of enduring love in an on-going drama--that helps rather thanhinders the viewer's ability to understand emotion and celebrateit. There are a few errors in this book, and they arise, really, fromSpencer's discursive style. All those references and anecdotesinevitably mean half-truths or silly repetition of mistakes. She cites apiece by Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949) is a British-American author, journalist and literary critic. Currently living in Washington, D.C., he has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate and Free Inquiry in which he describes being part of afocus group to evaluate some new TV sitcoms. Hitchens wrote scathinglyof the session being turned into a focus group on consumer products, notTV drama or comedy. The fact is, Hitchens, God bless him, was the victimof a scam. Several market research companies have used the TV pilot scamto round up people who are, in reality, being asked to evaluatetoothpaste or soda crackers. The lure of reviewing a new TV show is thebait. Also, Spencer cites the existence of an OJ Simpson "filmfestival" airing on CityTV in Toronto during the OJ Simpson trialon charges of murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend. The "OJSimpson Film Festival" never happened. Somebody issued a false newsrelease to attack CityTV. Perhaps the single greatest merit of Spencer's odd but alwaysintriguing book is that it assumes a level of intelligence andskepticism on the part of TV viewers. All that snobbery about TV isessentially based on a ludicrously condescending idea about the generalpublic. The presumption is that people watching People watching or crowd watching is a hobby of some people to watch those around them and their interactions. This differs from voyeurism in that it does not relate to sex or sexual gratification. TV are thick, ignorantand easily manipulated. They are not. "They" are you and me. John Doyle John Doyle may refer to: John Doyle (announcer), whose voice is used by the NIST radio clock John Doyle (artist), artist and grandfather of Arthur Conan Doyle John Doyle (baseball player), Canadian Major League Baseball player is the television critic for The Globe and Mail and theauthor of A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age(Doubleday Canada Doubleday Canada is a Canadian publishing house of its parent, Bertelsmann.See also:Doubleday (publisher) , 2005).