Re: VLVL2 (1) Zoyd's WORK

[Otto]

Seems as if I have lived through the whole story of the tube.
>From having none, than being the first on the block and all
the neighbours around, than having two channels, colour tv,
three channels, some more channels --and still good tv--
than many more channels --and not so good tv--than many,
many more channels -- and American style TV you really can
forget except for news, soccer (or at the moment the Tour de
France), occasionally a good movie or a StarTrek episode.
99.9 % is simply a waste of time.

The silliest stuff is called "Docutainment," cheap talk shows,
DIY-shows, cooking. But there are still differences between that
unbearable Big Brother-show and The Osbournes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/3072289.stm
http://www.mtv.com/onair/osbournes/

Isn't what Zoyd is doing what in latest media-terminology is called
 an "event" (the word really has entered the German language)?

News are produced, they really have become a product in the full
sense of the word. So in producing news Zoyd truly is a "valuable"
member of society, despite any other intentions he may have.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo at fuse.net>
To: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 6:53 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL2 (1) Zoyd's WORK

> Sorry, Tim, didn't mean to repeat something you had already posted. I
> think
> my intention was a little different: that, as Terrance says, Zoyd may be
> "working" for the government, but as a transfenestrator his role in the
> Vineland economy is to give the video-hungry broadcasters something to
> shoot. He's a content provider. It's the back side of the Tube's pervasive
> penetration into daily life: with (at least) 86 channels on 24 hours a day
> there's a lot of airtime to fill, which is why we get TV movies like Pia
> Zadora in The Clara Bow Story and news that consists of a guy in a dress
> jumping through a sugar-glass window.
>