Binge Watch

Right now I can use the excuse of recuperation, but I do it anyway. Binge watch, that is. Immerse myself in a show, viewing a couple episodes (or more) at a time. Biking around London with a team of nurse midwives or suffering through the latest scandal of the Royal Family — while also enjoying the sumptuous interiors of Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.

It's fun! It's immersive. But it's also addictive, the high fructose corn syrup of entertainment diets. After an evening of binge watching I feel as I do after Thanksgiving dinner: stuffed but not nourished.

There must be something in our psyches that cries out for the tidy narrative arc: the setup, the conflict, the resolution. And when that's artificially stimulated, when I'm left hanging to the point that I have to watch more (even though I know the next episode will leave me hanging again) at some point I need a palate cleanser: a nice, simple, self-contained film. 

(Photo: Wikipedia)

New Normal

Over the weekend, a taste of normalcy: dinner out — in a restaurant — with friends who are also vaccinated.  The restaurant was empty save for one table of three seated 20 feet away. The server was properly masked. In that sense, it was not business as usual. 

But what a thrill to see actual human faces, not squares on a screen; to enjoy full human expressions, not the crinkle of eyes above an oblong of cloth. There were appetizers and stir-fries and shrimp with vermicelli. There was much catching up. And afterward, there was a stroll through the narrow streets of a small, quaint downtown.

It was not the kind of dining experience I might have sought 14 months ago, folks crammed together talking and laughing, the clink of glasses, the buzz of alcohol and laughter. It was the new normal. And it was absolutely wonderful. 

Downton Sandwich

This winter I've continued my binge-watching spree, plunging back into Downton Abbey after catching up on Victoria. Time permitting, I head down to the basement beanbag chair after dinner for 45 to 60 minutes of immersion in another world.

Add in elliptical-machine morning-exercise sessions, which require that one watch something to make the minutes pass more quickly, and my days lately have become what I've come to think of as a "Downton sandwich": Twenty minutes of Lord and Lady Grantham in the morning and 50 minutes of Lord and Lady Grantham in the evening.

In between I must dress myself, drive my own car to Metro, commute on an overcrowded train with people of all classes, work a long day, then come home to make my own dinner. Oh, the indignity! I'm sure the Dowager Countess Violet Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith) would say something to buck me up, something like, "Don't be defeatist, dear. It is very middle-class," one of her many splendid zingers.

Still, my "Downton sandwich" makes me think about the modern world that was shaking the estates of the rich and titled in post World War I Britain. Makes me compare my life with those of the people upstairs (and downstairs, too, but upstairs is more fun): Where is the ladies maid to do my hair every morning? Where is the cook to prepare me a scrumptious breakfast that will be brought to me in bed? Where is the butler to open the door and dispatch all those horrid telephone sales calls?

These service personnel are scattered to the four winds, I guess. They've become engineers and baristas, doctors and teachers. They're living their own lives. Poor me: I'm left to fend for myself!

(Highclere Castle interior courtesy Culture Trip)

Park Avenue Beat

For the last week or so, I've been watching old "Perry Mason" shows while exercising. It's a fun distraction. The show has enough twists and turns that the rowing machine minutes speed by. I find myself comparing legal justice then and now, marveling at the cut of the men's suits (which they wore at all times) and the women's skirts (and white gloves), pondering the world that produced this show as much as the show itself.

There's only one problem: I can't get the Perry Mason theme song out of my mind. It's with me when I walk, when I cook dinner or empty the dishwasher.  It's even with me in the office.

It has a lot of moxie, this theme song. It's decidedly tabloid, with a detective-magazine feel. Called "Park Avenue Beat," the song was written to exude sophistication and toughness, Wikipedia informs me. It was composer Fred Steiner's most well-known work.

All I know is ... I wish it would go away.

Hats Off!

Reading today's obituary of Mary Tyler Moore (the only front-page story I could stomach in today's Washington Post), I thought about what set this actress apart.

She called herself a "funny straight woman," and that was part of it. There was her spunkiness, her niceness, her grace under pressure. But there was more.

A decade younger than my parents she was still part of that generation, a generation that's vanishing and that I miss more every day. And one of the things I miss most about them is their self-deprecation. They just didn't take themselves as seriously as we do.

Moore said she was reluctant to be a symbol of women's liberation, and tried not to think about the 50 million people watching her on TV. A photo that accompanied the obit showed her mimicking a statue of herself, hand upraised, right before she doffed her hat and threw it into the air.  

(Photo: People.com)