If there was ever a day to write in a journal - this is it. Two weeks, up to three, of editing the Q1 edition of the magazine, coming to an intensity last week - editing, cover lines, contents, page one editorial, finishing a late article, rewriting another; like digging myself into a dark tunnel, or tunnel vision, of too much work. Living it, without meaning to: waking consistently at 4.30am with ideas and phrases to scribble down; blanking out in front of the television - it's tinsel, isn't it, not gold? - for half an hour before bed. Long days. Enjoyable most times, and it's the day job, but it curdles a bit with such other obligations as the annual self-assessment tax return. Schedules slip, and okay, that always happens, but when you can only watch rather than intervene because you're stuck with something else ...
I remember days when television was spoken of as an art form: the word itself was accorded roughly the same status as, say, <painting>, or <cinema>, or at least <photography>. Now the status, or the recognition, or the <whatever it is> is accorded to the work itself - the HBO mini-series or whatever it might be, that you can buy later as a boxed set. And TV is the delivery mechanism; the first one, at least. A kind of democratisation? There was a drama in the US, wasn't there recently, while I was clearing pages, about some new bill to do something about copyright theft, or censorship, or state control of the internet? Must look it up - Could look it up. Possibly part of the story.
This is a time of transition on so many levels, and one lesson, or feature not to miss, is that we don't know where it's going. The hardest element to appreciate, empathise with, can't wait until I find the right word, when looking at any past time of transition, the renaissance or industrialisation or the Christian Year Zero, whatever, is that the participants didn't know what was going to happen next. This is our piece of history - content splurged onto the internet rather than mediated, pick your own example - and the part invisible to the future is: we don't know where it's going to go. Have I got this right - we sent men to the moon, and having done so, came away without long-distance space travel but with non-stick saucepans?
In that example, the absent visionary was the one who could have said - "Where do we go from here?" With enough conviction, authority to get an answer commensurate to the achievement already. Maybe the moral of that one is - we can't wait for that person, nor just blunder on without the question being asked. Or in this year of grace, we'll end up with the spiritual saucepans. We get to the pivotal step today, this year, here, now, reading this - and we are our own absent visionaries. Ask. Answer.
I remember days when television was spoken of as an art form: the word itself was accorded roughly the same status as, say, <painting>, or <cinema>, or at least <photography>. Now the status, or the recognition, or the <whatever it is> is accorded to the work itself - the HBO mini-series or whatever it might be, that you can buy later as a boxed set. And TV is the delivery mechanism; the first one, at least. A kind of democratisation? There was a drama in the US, wasn't there recently, while I was clearing pages, about some new bill to do something about copyright theft, or censorship, or state control of the internet? Must look it up - Could look it up. Possibly part of the story.
This is a time of transition on so many levels, and one lesson, or feature not to miss, is that we don't know where it's going. The hardest element to appreciate, empathise with, can't wait until I find the right word, when looking at any past time of transition, the renaissance or industrialisation or the Christian Year Zero, whatever, is that the participants didn't know what was going to happen next. This is our piece of history - content splurged onto the internet rather than mediated, pick your own example - and the part invisible to the future is: we don't know where it's going to go. Have I got this right - we sent men to the moon, and having done so, came away without long-distance space travel but with non-stick saucepans?
In that example, the absent visionary was the one who could have said - "Where do we go from here?" With enough conviction, authority to get an answer commensurate to the achievement already. Maybe the moral of that one is - we can't wait for that person, nor just blunder on without the question being asked. Or in this year of grace, we'll end up with the spiritual saucepans. We get to the pivotal step today, this year, here, now, reading this - and we are our own absent visionaries. Ask. Answer.
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