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Showing posts with label downton abbey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downton abbey. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Monday, January 9, 2012
Rich English People
Last night, Public Television's Masterpiece series opened the second season of Downton Abbey, the latest in a long string of programmes[sic] about rich English people. American television viewers seem to have an insatiable appetite for rich English people, eagerly consuming Downton Abbey, Upstairs/Downstairs, the complete works of Jane Austen and various other 19th century English novels about rich (or want-to-be-rich) folks. Even the Masterpiece Mysteries series is mainly about which rich English person murdered which other rich English person. Apparently there's some deep yearning among television viewers to be rich English people, despite the fact that most of these stories are set in a time before the advent of indoor plumbing.
Typically, for contrast, these stories alternate between the lives of the rich English people themselves, and those of their below-stairs staffs, including cooks, maids and butlers. This creates the dramatic tension of a visual volley between House Beautiful and a Williams-Sonoma catalog.
For those of you who missed all 47 airings of this episode on the 12 different Public Television stations near you, here's a brief recap. Spoiler alert: There are no spoilers except the rich English parents. In fact, this review was written before I actually saw the show.
The offspring of the rich English people, suffering the cruel fate of having every conceivable human desire gratified, become bored and rebel against the etiquette and propriety of their class. They engage in scandalous behavior such as going out alone or without a hat. This incurs the wrath of their proper rich English parents, but a knowing wink from the mischievously (4 syllables, please) playful grandparent/uncle/aunt/whatever.
Meanwhile, below stairs, the staff panic at the impending shortage of quince, which interrupts their near-constant bed swapping. When not thus occupied, they spend their time learning and sharing the dark secret that is invariably hidden in someone's past.
Oh, and some dramatic historical event intrudes on their lives.
Tune in next week for more.
Typically, for contrast, these stories alternate between the lives of the rich English people themselves, and those of their below-stairs staffs, including cooks, maids and butlers. This creates the dramatic tension of a visual volley between House Beautiful and a Williams-Sonoma catalog.
For those of you who missed all 47 airings of this episode on the 12 different Public Television stations near you, here's a brief recap. Spoiler alert: There are no spoilers except the rich English parents. In fact, this review was written before I actually saw the show.
The offspring of the rich English people, suffering the cruel fate of having every conceivable human desire gratified, become bored and rebel against the etiquette and propriety of their class. They engage in scandalous behavior such as going out alone or without a hat. This incurs the wrath of their proper rich English parents, but a knowing wink from the mischievously (4 syllables, please) playful grandparent/uncle/aunt/whatever.
Meanwhile, below stairs, the staff panic at the impending shortage of quince, which interrupts their near-constant bed swapping. When not thus occupied, they spend their time learning and sharing the dark secret that is invariably hidden in someone's past.
Oh, and some dramatic historical event intrudes on their lives.
Tune in next week for more.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Alphabetical Disorder
Ok, I'll admit it. I'm compulsive. If I like a multi-volume book or a book series, I have to have all of them, in order, from the same edition so they'll match. I want every issue of a magazine, or I save none. And I want my email converted to a database or Wiki where all the useful information is preserved, in a logical structure, with all typos and spelling mistakes corrected. That's reasonable, right?
Think you may be compulsive? Take this simple test:
If you answered "TRUE," you may be compulsive. If you copied this entire post, fixed the typo, and are now reading the corrected copy, seek help.
It used to be that INFORMATION was kept in BOOKS, which had been carefully edited and proofread, so they were reasonably correct and suitably packed with content. Of course, there were always plenty of trashy books, but you could recognize them by their lurid covers. (The really trashy books had plain covers. That was the tip off.)
Newspapers and magazines were considered ephemera ... reasonable ways of communicating short-lived information, but never with the weight, literal or figurative, of books. Then libraries started archiving newspapers and magazines, on microfiche or otherwise, so that even that transient information was preserved.
Now, information comes fast and furious, and from all sides. Everyone can publish via email, blogs, Facebook statuses (stati?), tweets, text messages and dozens of other means. New ones are being devised as I write. And all of it, every "c u l8r" and "squeat" message, every butt-dialed voice mail or accidental video of someone's feet, is considered content, potentially worthy of archiving.
If you watched the recent PBS series Downton Abbey, you saw that among the profusion of household staff, there were valets and maids for each member of the family, ready to help with everything from reviewing the day's schedule to selecting clothes. Think Jeeves in the well-known P. G. Wodehouse books (of which I don't yet have a matching set). These personal servants were ready with whatever was needed, at the moment it was needed. That was 100 years ago. Surely one goal of technology is to create the ultimate electronic valet ... something that can sift through all the thousands of messages and information sources and offer just what we need when we need it, with a clean simple presentation. Yet instead, we have chaos.
The Internet, merely by simplifying the creation of spontaneous, poorly written messages, is a compulsive's nightmare.
Think you may be compulsive? Take this simple test:
- Tihs drives me crazy. (T/F)
If you answered "TRUE," you may be compulsive. If you copied this entire post, fixed the typo, and are now reading the corrected copy, seek help.
It used to be that INFORMATION was kept in BOOKS, which had been carefully edited and proofread, so they were reasonably correct and suitably packed with content. Of course, there were always plenty of trashy books, but you could recognize them by their lurid covers. (The really trashy books had plain covers. That was the tip off.)
Newspapers and magazines were considered ephemera ... reasonable ways of communicating short-lived information, but never with the weight, literal or figurative, of books. Then libraries started archiving newspapers and magazines, on microfiche or otherwise, so that even that transient information was preserved.
Now, information comes fast and furious, and from all sides. Everyone can publish via email, blogs, Facebook statuses (stati?), tweets, text messages and dozens of other means. New ones are being devised as I write. And all of it, every "c u l8r" and "squeat" message, every butt-dialed voice mail or accidental video of someone's feet, is considered content, potentially worthy of archiving.
If you watched the recent PBS series Downton Abbey, you saw that among the profusion of household staff, there were valets and maids for each member of the family, ready to help with everything from reviewing the day's schedule to selecting clothes. Think Jeeves in the well-known P. G. Wodehouse books (of which I don't yet have a matching set). These personal servants were ready with whatever was needed, at the moment it was needed. That was 100 years ago. Surely one goal of technology is to create the ultimate electronic valet ... something that can sift through all the thousands of messages and information sources and offer just what we need when we need it, with a clean simple presentation. Yet instead, we have chaos.
The Internet, merely by simplifying the creation of spontaneous, poorly written messages, is a compulsive's nightmare.
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