Friday, July 9, 2010

Watching Them, Watching Me


I get into the elevator in the building in which I work. I press my floor. And then I am captivated. I mean it. Captivated. By the Captivate Network, a screen for which has been placed in every conveyance going to every floor in our massive building.

I hate it. But I cannot avert my eyes. Snippets of news. Stock prices, over and over, and over. Quizzes. I am particularly seduced by the word of the day. I have a new one in my verbal quivver, "Snolleygoster". Yep, a real word said the shrewd man, or in this case woman. Well, that's a good thing, right? I got a new word out of my travels from Starbucks to my desk.



They have recently changed the format and the logo. Or had I not noticed it before? It is a modern art version of an eye
Oh Oh. Didn't the book and movie of 1984 feature flat screens in every room that could not be avoided or shut off?

There is a cognitive dissonance in knowing that your society, the one you must remain in until you die, is going down an obvious, terrifying road, and being unable to do anything other than stare at the screen."I am NOT a number, I am a free man!" So saith the "Prisoner" circa 1968. TV again.

Yeah, right. Freedom. Slipping like a flat noodle through our grasping fingers.

Soon, that little elevator television will be talking to me, lulling me into a hypnotic trance from which I will not awake. Hello, Big Brother. Watch out for Rover.

Hoping for a happy ending to this entry? Ain't got one. I am probably one of the cowards and not one of the resistance. How about you?

"Be seeing you."


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