Thursday, September 6, 2007

Distant Seeing

Video Find of the Day

Television inspired rebellion. It also showed me the world and it showed new personalities. It broke up the isolation of living in a farm house with parents and a dog. One of the new discoveries was the Today Show hosted by Dave Garroway, a man whose calm on-air nature was in marked contrast to my parents. He greeted me every weekday morning. In the video below he is promoting television to people who haven't got them yet. In doing so he shows scenes that became familiar to me in just a couple of months of watching. I watched all those things, horse races, ball games, fights, Hopalong Cassidy, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry (my favorite), You Bet Your Life, symphonies, mysteries, adventures, news programs, fashion shows.

I also saw travelogues, Queen For a Day, big band shows, the Arthur Godfrey Show, and a military documentary series. I saw the weekly magazine show Omnibus, hosted by Alistair Cooke, which was about everything. I saw Leonard Bernstein's music lectures there.

The television opened the world up to me.

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