It's funny to see the lengths movies go to to avoid showing phones. But the result is that movies, even very contemporary-feeling ones like Anora, don't show the real world anymore, but a romanticized one in which everyone isn't on their phone all the time.
What a way to start the day, Nick! It was always fascinating to see who in the neighborhood would emerge as the "TV Guy" who knew enough to get these obstreperous devices operations properly. Lou Maslow, who lived two doors down and worked as a gardener for the city, was ours. He had been a radioman on the destroyer Dorchester during the war. I used to follow him around, holding the mirror so as he worked in back, he could see what was happening on the screen. I. Felt like a very useful 6 year old...
Don't know if you're familiar with the late-sixties/early 70's art and media geniuses, ANT FARM. Here's a link to the video entitled MEDIA BURN. I was there, along with pal Phil Garner later the transgender phenom Pippa Garner. Enjoy.
Various prefixes to words, often single letters of the alphabet (iPhone, eBay, vCard), are examples of Camel Case (a variant of other odd programming restrictions such as Pascal or Snake Case) where letters are substitutes for words: I = Internet, E = electronic, v = virtual, X = nothing, therefore a utilitarian everything. The homophone (I = eye) is not indicative of anything; connection where there is none.
I had to stop reading this when I got to your reference to the Palace Theatre in Waterbury, a town I know well, since I was on the staff of the Waterbury Republican-American during the 1980s and 90s. You got it right, the Palace was shabby in 1976, like most of the city. Down on its luck.
Waterbury still is.
You might say there are two Americas, and always have been:
–One that can jet away to a golf course in Florida (it replaced the former elite group that enjoys "The Shops at Yale" not too far from here).
–Another that can't afford the basics of a decent life.
Do you recall that Waterbury is where the fictional Walter Mitty had his delirious escapes from reality?
The residents of Waterbury have had plenty to want to escape from, and still do. The city made national news recently as the place where a 68-pound starving man, locked up in a closet by his mother, set fire to the house in a desperate attempt to save his own life:
Bonus fun fact: "Walter Mitty" author James Thurber lived about 20 minutes away from Waterbury in Sandy Hook, CT, right near the now-famous school of that name.
It's funny to see the lengths movies go to to avoid showing phones. But the result is that movies, even very contemporary-feeling ones like Anora, don't show the real world anymore, but a romanticized one in which everyone isn't on their phone all the time.
What a way to start the day, Nick! It was always fascinating to see who in the neighborhood would emerge as the "TV Guy" who knew enough to get these obstreperous devices operations properly. Lou Maslow, who lived two doors down and worked as a gardener for the city, was ours. He had been a radioman on the destroyer Dorchester during the war. I used to follow him around, holding the mirror so as he worked in back, he could see what was happening on the screen. I. Felt like a very useful 6 year old...
Don't know if you're familiar with the late-sixties/early 70's art and media geniuses, ANT FARM. Here's a link to the video entitled MEDIA BURN. I was there, along with pal Phil Garner later the transgender phenom Pippa Garner. Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/FXY6ocvaZyE?si=CamOwmmXCrR-zNyh This is going too long, but remind me to tell you about DEVO staying with me and my girlfriend in Boulder in 1982.
"The phone is becoming visible."......" eye" phone? If you can see it, it can see you. Yup, its too late.
Various prefixes to words, often single letters of the alphabet (iPhone, eBay, vCard), are examples of Camel Case (a variant of other odd programming restrictions such as Pascal or Snake Case) where letters are substitutes for words: I = Internet, E = electronic, v = virtual, X = nothing, therefore a utilitarian everything. The homophone (I = eye) is not indicative of anything; connection where there is none.
Speaking of darkness, our old friend:
I had to stop reading this when I got to your reference to the Palace Theatre in Waterbury, a town I know well, since I was on the staff of the Waterbury Republican-American during the 1980s and 90s. You got it right, the Palace was shabby in 1976, like most of the city. Down on its luck.
Waterbury still is.
You might say there are two Americas, and always have been:
–One that can jet away to a golf course in Florida (it replaced the former elite group that enjoys "The Shops at Yale" not too far from here).
–Another that can't afford the basics of a decent life.
Do you recall that Waterbury is where the fictional Walter Mitty had his delirious escapes from reality?
The residents of Waterbury have had plenty to want to escape from, and still do. The city made national news recently as the place where a 68-pound starving man, locked up in a closet by his mother, set fire to the house in a desperate attempt to save his own life:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/waterbury-connecticut-man-held-captive/index.html
And not far from there a great moment in American unreality took place in a courtroom just a short walk from the Palace:
https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/live-trials-current/alex-jones/im-done-saying-im-sorry-alex-jones-turns-cold-shoulder-to-sandy-hook-families-defends-calling-judge-a-tyrant-in-connecticut-trial/
Back to the America that jets to Florida...
I had an epiphany, a take on our "Golf in the Kingdom" of the blind. America's new national anthem is:
"Live and Let Die."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQZHNwIUq8
Bonus fun fact: "Walter Mitty" author James Thurber lived about 20 minutes away from Waterbury in Sandy Hook, CT, right near the now-famous school of that name.