| Vol.
I, No. 1 | Oct.
20th, 2000 |
Radio
& Television
More than Meets the Eye? Back
in August, we went on family vacation to a campground on The Cape, and our
far-roving reporter, Horselvaryd Harselskyd {See Staff list for details.}, came
with us. We'd been going to this campground, up in North Truro, for several
years, a nice, quiet place, tents & small campers only, walking distance
from the beach. This year, however, there was something new
-- an adult room. They'd put up a small cabin in the commons area for
adults to have a place to go to get away from the din that usually echoes out of
the game room next to the camp store. In the cabin were a couple of parlor
chairs, a small couch ... and a television. Each night, the
adult room was relatively empty, maybe a couple of two chatting, nothing
more. But suddenly, one night, after supper, on the way back from the camp
store with , the place was packed, standing room only. In fact, people
were lined up on the outer porch, some standing on tip-toe to get a look at
whatever was going on inside, probably, I assumed, from the direction they were
all looking in, something on TV. Needless to say, Horse and I
became intrigued, so we walked toward the goings-on. For a moment, I felt
a sense of dread when it came to me that, God forbid, maybe something awful had
happened ... a war ... an assassination ... a bombing. But the feeling
quickly evaporated when we got close enough to hear the laughter and the tone of
the talk, if not the actual words. But when we got to the cabin, it was
obvious. Everyone was watching the pop cultural phenomenon --
Survivor. When I got closer and looked inside the
window, I realized that what they were watching was, in reality, only a ghostly
image of Survivor. The picture was nothing but a blur of colored
dots and snow, the people on the show, simply disembodied voices. But the
viewers were not deterred by such inconsequentialities. They were
pop-riveted to the screen, laughing and talking and speculating and rooting. My
companion, "Horse" as he's known around our house, suddenly became
intrigued. He was already familiar with the phenomenon of Survivor.
But, as is so often the case with our customs and habits and predilections,
Horse asked me to explain to him why so many people were watching ... especially
in the middle of their summer vacations, at a place where everyone came to leave
electricity, among other things, behind. All I could do, as is also so
often the case when Horse asks such questions, was confess my ignorance. But
that's one of the reasons why Horse is our roving reporter. Since Horse
isn't from around here, he often goes out on these self-enrolled roving reporter
assignments. So, true to form, he began his research. His first stop
was the internet ... cbs.com. There he found dozens of pages devoted to
the show, with highlights, voting records, and profiles of B.B., Colleen, Dirk,
Gervase, Greg, Gretchen, Jenna, Joel, Kelly, Ramona, Richard, Rudy, Sean, Sonja,
Stacey, and Susan ... along with some "Final Words" from the Final
Four {not to be confused with the NCAA Tournament of the same name}. In
fact, there was even a Survivor store at cbs.com where one could buy a
CD, a paperback, not to mention one's own home video version. And judging
from the time it took for the pages to load, either CBS needs some new folks in
the web department, or there were an awful lot of people trying to get on to the
site. Horse also glanced at the weekly polls that CBS had posted, and was
most intrigued by one, both for grammatical and other reasons. The link
read: With which castaway would you like to be stranded with the most?
Unfortunately, it was the latest in the poll series, so there were no results to
review. All Horse could do was vote, which he didn't think would be fair,
since he hadn't watched the entire series. But, at the last moment, he
voted anyway ... for Rudy. {When I asked him why, he said that there are
animals very much like seals where he comes from, and though Rudy wasn't like
the seals back home, just the thought of seals made him homesick.} Understandably,
none of this could begin to quench Horse's yearning. He is astutely aware
of the media habit of feathering its own nest. So he decided to use an
old, tried and true method. He decided to go out into the street to find
out from ordinary citizens what this Survivor thing was all about. Horse
spent a chilly afternoon in Bristol Village, and here are the results of his
quest to understand, as he put it in his not-always-easy to translate language,
"Wal dis rål myl z'sis këësters?" ... [pronounced Val dice raoul
mile z-sice kesters?] which, loosely translated, means "What's up with
these shows? For the answers, continue on to read our 1st ... People
DownStreet Survey The Place:
Bristol Village
The Question: Have you watched either Survivor
or Big Brother, and either way, why?
The Particpants:
Dana Vautier, Alan & Marianne Clark, Jacquie Werner-Gavrin, Cortney Lucia,
Joe Desorda, Ryan Cousino, The Cole Family, and Mark Johnson. continued
... *******
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