Now we can start watching later, skip the commercials, replay the touchdowns..play God. Be king of all we survey, emperor of the remote, thumbs up, thumb down - Caesar surveying the arena. But ...well, for one thing, I rather like the commercials. Football tends to bring out the fun in advertisers. Not like the ones who turn the old-fashioned nightly news broadcasts into a doctor's waiting room.
I know it's a great advance in technology to be able to play with time but if I can't be there in person I'd like to be there in time, when it's all happening - when the Canes come surging out of the smoke on to the field, I want to be cheering with everyone else. When they score a touch down I want to feel I'm yelling with the whole of South Florida, with the nutty students stripped to the waist and painted orange, the tail-gaters waving beer cans and hot dogs, the crowds in bars.. a collective moment.
We are already removed physically from the action -miles away from the stadium. One perched on the rocking chair bought new from Hialeah, one on the futon, one on the old rocking chair from a Salvation Army store in North Carolina: comfortable, not far from the fridge, but isolated in our Florida room, by ourselves. But at least, till now, when we yelled Yes! or howled No! it was with everyone else.
I suppose the argument is soon everyone will have this feature because nothing can stop progress! We'll all be working the remote: fast forwarding, pausing, stopping, twirling time around. And everyone outside of the stadium will be cheering a little later, after it's all happened, and then playing the good moments of course, again and again.
I must admit I planned if Georgia Tech buried us, I'd insist we just go back and replay our first victory of the season over Florida State which we recorded on Labor Day. Again and again till the pain of defeat had subsided. So there would be some basic gut level consolation in high tech progress- Play it again, Sam!
No comments:
Post a Comment