At least for us at Chez 5th Ave.

The June 12 transition to digital has arrived. We're currently just a little too cheap for basic cable, have no box for our older set, and I haven't worked out the d-settings for our newer tube. So we're cut off. It's undeniably just a little startling for a couple kids brought up with TV as a central part of the home.

Although neither of us found that TV ate into family time to a debilitating effect, I definitely remember my dad regularly stopping the flow of a talk/argument in the den as his eyes would wander over my shoulder to the screen. He'd point to the screen, say "Let's watch," and that would be that. To be fair, he tended towards substantive fare, mostly news and docs--my parents loved to tut-tut in time to the stopwatch on 60 Minutes. Thank goodness we weren't brought up on the addictive "reality" genre.

Of course, the advent of The Network has assured that the end of television is neither about the end of televised content, nor the end of interacting with the screen. Nor is it the end of "far sight," the phrase to which the compound of the Greek tele and the Latin visio translates.

For all his occasionally annoying pretensions, Genesis P-Orridge generally had it right on this. I think it was in RE/Search #4/5 (during the early '80s) that he talked about media-makers transcending television's strictures. Of course, if anything, the post-television age is about more access to more diverse and interesting televisual content, more access to production and media, and fewer commercials and broadcast time strictures.

Bye-bye, TV. Your history is fascinating, but you're done.
 

Director Adam Smith got out the body cam again to shoot the new Madness video, Dust Devil. It's an obvious happier-ending companion to both The Streets' "Blinded By the Lights" and "Too Much Brandy", as Smith further develops the Tragic Night genre. Are there any American examples of this?

One of many places to DL the absurdly pre-sold-out Burial/Four Tet single http://www.pigeonsandplanes.com/2009/05/new-burial-four-tet-moth.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-darfur_28apr28,0,3641526.story

Harry Allen points out that a photographer has been let inside a nuclear power plant 200 miles south of Moscow, 23 years after Chernobyl.

Man, these people are like, "Worst-ever nuke disaster? 400 times more fallout than Hiroshima? Whatever--we need POWER."

http://nachmann.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/the-souter-puzzle-2/

Maddow's report on Justice David Souter's retirement reflected a bunch of deliciously enigmatic points: among them his (surprisingly to many) mostly liberal record as a Bush 41 nominee, his Hamphirean reclusiveness, his lack of real health reason for retiring at such an early age, etc.

Overall, Souter's appeared to have helped out, keeping Roe v. Wade largely intact and voting on the correct side of Bush v. Gore. Charmingly, according to Jeff Toobin's book The Nine, the fountain-pen using eternal bachelor's a serious recluse: no email, mobile phone, TV or answering machine.

MSNBC somehow amplifies the moment's mystery with the 4-vid/7-photo footage-loop that they assembled for Maddow's report, making for a portrait that's as non-descript as this guy's personality. In contrast to Scalia's chest-out impertinence or Thomas's steely grace, Souter's shown as comprising a cordial nod, a charming grin, a murmur, a focused glance, a short reply, a slight smirk...and that's it. Seemingly a bit more to figure out in both his legacy and retirement than in what overall impact it'll all have in the Obama era.