A strange idea that has always been a part of me:
I enjoy watching old stuff live, but rarely choose to do so on my own.
When I was a young nerd, as opposed to an old nerd, I used to love listening to classical music on the radio. The symphonies and concerto’s were ancient, sometimes 100’s of years old. But there was something about them being brodcast on the radio that made them feel new.
When I stopped and listened to them on CD or casette (yup) they just felt older, but they also felt lonley. I would have to jump back to the live radio after a brief amount of time. I couldnt hang out too long in a space where I started the memories.
You debate with your friends all the time, what is the most rewatchable movie of all time. Or whats the movie that comes on TV and everytime its on you cant stop watching. Shawshank, Heat, Pretty Woman, legally Blonde, Thomas Crowne affair is normally a good top of the list. For me lately I noticed its Inception. Would I ever sit down to rewatch inception from start to finish on my own?
Rarely. It has to be a really unique situation … home with the flu, or in an interesting space.
Mostly I gravitate towards “live” – even if the material is really old …. why is that?
Is it the idea that there is someone else listening on the radio, or watching HBO at the same time as me, doing the same thing? I have no problem listening to certain songs on Spotify, or watching an episode of a show I missed “on demand.”
Yet there is something about living that makes people gravitate towards “live.” Will the on-demand world change that forever? It used to be if you missed an episode of the Simpsons or Alf (yup) it was gone forever. Now they are just a couple of clicks away. My daughter and I started watching the Simpsons from the first episode. There are 640 of them …. on demand.
As I get older I watch a few clips of Saturday Night Live on Youtube. I seldom stay up that late anymore, and the sketches are rarely good enough to watch the show all the way through. Were they ever any good? Or was it just something about being a young kid and staying up till 11:30 that made it special, even though I couldn’t understand half the jokes and politics.
Last year I slept through the ball dropping on New Years for maybe the first time ever. Traveled all day, was asleep by 11PM. The TV was on in the background.
Maybe being alive is no longer as much about being “live” as it used to be …
SDM
Simpletition - Shawn D. Madden 