Die Jungfrau von Orleans (12/24/99)
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A crew of cable guys in cheap plastic hardhats cruised through the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago and, while replacing the old obsolete TCI thou-shalt-not-tamper deaththreats on the little boxes with new and much more literate AT&T deaththreats, twiddled a few knobs and switched some wires around and inaugurated a brave new world of television programming. The immediate effect was that I got Showtime for a week or so before they changed the encryption, or whatever it is, at the end of the month; no great loss, I’m afraid. But then [mirabile dictu] they waved their magic wands and actually added a few channels; something which TCI always claimed was completely impossible, despite the fact that the bill seemed to double every couple of years. — So it came to pass that I found myself watching Chaplin for nine hours straight this evening on the Turner classic-movie channel:
Modern Times,
The Great Dictator,
Tillie’s Punctured Romance, and the so-called Chaplin Mutuals. — The world is not so poor a place, if you can fall off the couch at two in the morning laughing at a foodfight somebody filmed in 1916. — Bring on the new century. I’m morally prepared.
____________What if God smoked cannabis? (11/14/99)
