I don't think we're in the Atomic Age or the Computer Age or the Age
of Terror, we've been caught in the constricting coils of our
burgeoning Monster Entertainment Industry. We used to say
"Hollywood", well, now perhaps it's just a bunch of corporations:
Sony, Fox, Paramount, United Artists, and a dozen others, that are
producing more and more feature-length films and bringing more and
more series to television, even as music conglomerates are bringing
millions of songs to our ears, and game companies are seducing kids
and tweens with action-filled visually rich and personally involving
replacements for formerly widespread paperbacks --- such as Sci-Fi
novels.
All this passes for progress, and it is progress of a sort, just like
W.W.II was progress built upon W.W.I, but in 50 more years, or
perhaps 100 years, a moment of time will snap into view when several
things will have occurred:
(1) The Entertainment Age will reach the saturation point. That is:
the moment will surely arrive when not just all major themes, but all
treatments of major and minor themes, have been filmed and filmed
again, and filmed yet again, and all possible entertaining TV series,
reality shows, westerns, comedies, etc., have been done and done again
to the point that all that's left that can be done is to re-film an
earlier film or series with a new, slightly different version using a
new set of characters.
Even before this happens, the second critical situation will occur
(if it has not happened already, and I think it has!)
(2) A young person will no longer be able to even begin to
comprehend the glittering Age of Entertainment that has gone before
him. He or she will be immune to the stars of the past, and the stars
of our present, because all the child or teen will be able to get a
grasp upon will be the stars of that future half-a-decade or so which
is the 'local time' they will be completely immersed in. To some
extent this is happening already. I know an 11-yr old boy who's
dynamite with programmable Lego Mindstorm robot kits, plays role-
playing 'Wii' games, Playstation, virtual reality games like Runescape
on an interactive website, BUT, he's never read a science fiction
novel, not even a story..He has no clue who Isaac Asimov or Arthur C.
Clarke are, or were; nor has he ever seen a Laurel & Hardy comedy,
or an Abbott & Costello movie, Red Skelton, W.C. Fields, Danny Kaye,
Bob Hope & Bing Crosby, etc. etc., or know who any of those people
were.
It is possible that 'youth' will, in future times, extend up to about
35 years of age, because it will take from birth to age 35 for a
person to make any kind of dent in the vast volume of literature,
culture, counter-culture, exploitation, music, animation, and cinema
that SHOULD be known and appreciated before anyone can be thought of
as truly well-educated.
Best, ----Ed
www.edaugusts.com
http://groups.google.com/group/BOOK-ADVENTURES-with-Ed-Augusts
http://stores.lulu.com/edaugusts
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