“Not with a bang, but a whimper”; that’s all wrong; it should be “not with a bang, but a rectangle”
Only I can tell you about this
I’m sitting there watching TV. As you may have inferred by now, I’m addicted. I must watch drug commercials to understand precisely how pharma companies are killing people. I must watch the news to observe the latest innovations in robot manufacture (the anchors). I must watch football to see who wins—and then realize I don’t care. This football preoccupation is a long-range self-improvement program whose ultimate purpose I haven’t yet figured out.
Anyway, I’m sitting there watching…and the screen goes black. No picture.
I still have sound.
I fiddle with the remote for a half-hour or so, testing all the buttons. No luck. In fact, now the sound is gone. I keep fiddling and I get the sound back, but still no picture. Just a black screen.
So I start switching channels. I come upon what must be a movie. Several British men with upper-class accents are chatting about a plan to infiltrate an enemy compound.
Well, it turns out you can listen to movies.
This reminds me of something. I can almost reach it…wait…yes. RADIO.
There are gaps of silence. Are the men just sitting there looking at each other? Are they going somewhere in a car? Are they crawling on the ground, approaching the enemy’s compound?
Burst of gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Several explosions. A few grunts. A siren blast. Shouts. More explosions.
Ordinarily, I’m bored watching this sort of thing. But just listening to it is interesting. Almost soothing. I don’t know why.
I keep switching channels. I seem to find another movie. I think there’s a car chase. Squealing tires, clash of metal, loud bump-bump sounds, pretty sure a car crashes into another car, groan, then silence. I imagine one of those absurd moments when the hero drives his car up a ramp and takes off and flies a huge distance and lands on a highway and somehow keeps driving. Break for commercial.
For the next day or so, while waiting for the cable company to send me a new box, I listen to the TV. But I’m also doing something else. I’m staring at the black screen. It’s just a black rectangle. But I’m looking at it.
It seems my addiction involves…
The screen itself, not only what’s usually ON it.
How can that be?