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there days late-ish at night when i feel no more like reading or sitting in front of the monitor, i find myself looking at television.
generally, i watch things that are about television itself, and that because i don't think television talks about the world, but only about itself. once in a while, of course, you get segments of footage that appear to refer to the world without so much in the way of problems at the level of framing (what's in what's out) and voice-over (here's what to look at you idiot)--but that's rare. generally television is about itself.
from time to time over the past few weeks i find myself by mistake more often than not looking at cnn or faux news for brief periods and marvelling, until irritation sets in, at the extent to which television is able to generate and keep afloat soundbyte sized crises for seemingly endless series of soundbyte sized moments, just the same the same the same, talking head after talking head saying nothing about this "controversy" over and over and so it happens that this degenerate "situation" has managed to remain viable and has even acquired internal story lines of it's own, like a bad, stupid, one-dimensional potboiler novel.
blah blah blah blah blah.
you do realize that there's no there there, and that such there as people imagine to be there in the case of this there is only there because idiots on the 24/7 "news" networks have been saying there's a there there long enough that, hypnotized-like-some of you see a there there too. but there is no there there, folks. this is a pure example of television talking about itself. this is about television--not about anything outside of television. television.
you're better off watching e!. at least e! doesn't pretend that it talks about anything.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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