Public and Private Dreams
By ice rivers
- 266 reads
If dreams are private movies than movies are public dreams.
Once upon a time, the movie industry filled Americans with dreams. Before teevee, everybody went to the movies all the time. The major studios in full control of directors, actors, editors, screenwriters and the whole shebang turned out movie after movie and the American public went to see them.
The studios finally lost their power. The age of the director and independent producers was upon us stretching back to Stanley Kramer and High Noon. At the same time the industry was being accused of un-American activities and suspected of blatant immorality. Whose dreams were we watching asked Congress.....Semites, commies and queers they suggested.
The television industry stepped forward. Movies survived thanks to Ben-Hur.
This is where my generation comes into the picture (pun intended). We were the first generation to have teevee as a standard and central part of our lives. We didn't see the deadly competition between teevee and movies, we loved 'em both. We went to the movies on the weekends and watched teevee all week.
As I grew older, I hleld on to the movies more than most of my friends. I went regularly even worked at a Drive-in "theater" before teevee put those places to rest. For many of my friends, movies became a once in a while kinda thing.
Into the twenty first century, it had become apparent that the quality of teevee at its best was equal to the quality of movies at their best. Still Lynn and I continued to go to the movies once a week. My friends went to the movies once a year if that.
Then Covid came along and nobody could get out of the house. The movies industry grinded to a halt. Lynn and I went 18 months between movies. Forget about public dreams.
Meanwhile private dreams were taking over, most of them leaking into a sort of reality based upon misinformation. The country became further divided as the public dreams transmogrified and became competing cable networks striving to win eyeballs by peddling their competing concepts of "truth".
Without the public dreams to keep us mollified, we began to take our private dreams too seriously even as we forgot them the moment that we awoke as they were immediately being absorbed into the respective corners of Bad News in the Divided States.
Take yesterday for example, please take yesterday.
You couldn't hear or see the heat through the windows yesterday as we hit the highest temperature for this date since 1964. I spent the day in my air conditioned cave watching teevee between dozing off and napping my way through vivid but forgettable dreams. Lynn came upstairs once. She was dressed up and made up. She looked great. She asked me if I wanted to go to a movie today or.... wait til Monday
When she gave me an alternative, I chose to wait. She went back downstairs to watch teevee. I stayed upstairs and taped the golf tournament. I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I played the tape which was of national concern, would Tiger Woods survive to the weekend in his PGA comeback.
Tiger Woods has become sort of a public dream, we love him, we hate him. When it comes to golf, he doesn't just move the needle...he is the needle.
When I came down for dinner, I confessed to Lynn that I felt guilty having wasted another day. She felt the same way. We had dinner and watched teevee until we finally passed out on the couch.
So, today, I became determined to write something. I started this piece and Lynn came into the room.
"Hurry up, with that. We're going to the movies. What are you writing about anyways?"
She left no alternative.
Thank God.
I gotta go upstairs now and tape the teevee that I will miss during the movies so that I can play it back when we get home.
I'll be awake this afternoon, enjoying a public dream.
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