What does it feel like to be old? Of course that's far too complex a question to have a simple answer, but one of the reminders of that thing you try to forget is that so many people around you seem to know so little. I'm reading a story set in the 1950's, generally realistic until you read about how the driver of the 1955 Chevy pulls over and turns on his emergency flashers. You may be puzzled at my amusement, but they were not furnished in those days, not for another ten years.
I'm watching one of those programs where "experts" poke around in attics looking for treasures. a mid 60's table radio is discovered and the hunters marvel that it has tubes.
"Look - tooobs! That's what they had then before the chips and transmitters came in. This could be valuable"
It wasn't worth more than a few bucks at most, even if it worked. Obviously he has no idea about the history of radio or what a transistor is.
Go ask some thirty something what "Ethyl" is or how you dial a phone, or if he remembers the Sylvania "Halo Light TV." He won't know. Chips and transmitters indeed, it brings tears to my aging eyes.
Ever notice all those period dramas where someone turns on the 1930 Motorola "tombstone" radio ind the sound comes on instantly? Yep, it sometimes seems like everyone was born yesterday. It's because you're old jack and that's a fact.
7 comments:
Captain,
I buy the great majority of what you have to say, but the thing about the radios not warming up is because you can't just have people doing nothing on screen for thirty seconds. I've spent a career in film and TV production, and I can tell you that you just can't waste that much time and expect people not to lose some of the narrative tension.
Uh, you do know how vacuum tubes work, right?
Captain,
We own a 1965 blackface Vibrolux, a 1970 Super Reverb, a Vox AC30, a very nice Universal Audio LA610 mic pre/optocompressor, etc. Yes, I do know how tubes work. Still, modern TV and movie audiences will not stand still for any length of time during which the story is not moved forward. Some people think this is about a short attention span, but over my career I have watched the shows I worked on very carefully, and I believe these people are wrong. As time has gone on, audiences are more and more sensitive to story dynamics, and consequently less tolerant of what are, essentially, obstacles in the way of the story. That is why, I think, it is virtually impossible to sell a musical any more: the time spent singing just wastes an opportunity to tell the story. The same is true with other interruptions in the story flow; and this is a key example.
I'm a bit confused, actually, but I'm a ham and have used and built tube equipment for a very long time. Lots of us still say "real radios glow in the dark" but really, the modern stuff works so much better.
Not with guitar amps.
That's what my son the musician says!
That's what my son the musician says!
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