Uh Oh

We bought a flat screen this afternoon. After watching nothing but streaming video and iTunes on our 15" laptops for two years, we are now watching basic network TV and Hulu on four times the area.

So why now? My parents are visiting next week for Thanksgiving and for months I have been saying that I thought my dad would go stir crazy without one. Then yesterday I read an article on Black Friday specials that confirmed the rumor of a $250 32" LCD at Target, which is about 40% off the normal price. That had my hubby sold but I reminded him that my parents were arriving the week before Thanksgiving and would be leaving on Black Friday.

Nonetheless, we were in Target today and I see him walking toward me with a 32" LCD in the cart. "It was the last one," he said. Although it was $299, he said paying an extra $50 was worth having it here in time for my parents.

Of course when we plugged it in it didn't catch any channels on it's own, so it was off to Best Buy for an $40 antenna. That seemed to work. While he went to get an S-cable, I watched a travel show on Hawaii broadcast in HD by a local NBC station. It looked so good! I was being seduced.

When he got back, we hooked up his laptop to the TV. I was worried the streaming video wouldn't look so good on a large screen, but Fringe looked crisp and smooth.

So I have invited TV back into my life--am I worried about getting hooked on it again? A little. There is something about the size of this thing that makes the experience so much more immersive than watching it on a tiny laptop. But then again, without the basic cable content ofVH1, MTV, Food Network or HGTV, I don't think it will have much power to suck me into marathon viewings. Pray for me nonetheless.

The Last Word on TV and Cooking

Michael Pollan thinks deeper and harder about food and our relationship to it than anyone I know. By personally engaging in four different forms of eating (manufactured, big organic, sustainable farming, and living of the land) in The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan completely transformed the way I thought about the economics and ecology of our American eating habits. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find myself engrossed in a mini-opus in the New York Times called "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch," and finding out Pollan had authored it. It is a lengthy exploration of the evolution of cooking on TV and the paradox that we now spend more time watching shows about food than actually cooking it.

Pollan concludes that the loss of cooking has been bad not only for 1) our waistline 2) our humanity. (In a former life, my workaholic editor from a former life subsisted on cold cuts and carb-free drinks. He came into my office once and saw a photo in my Doisneau calendar of workmen in Paris gathered around a park bench for lunch--a jar of milk, a loaf of bread, some sardines maybe. It may not have been cooking but I'll never forget his wistful remark: "They look so happy.")

Back when I watched TV, I could spend hours watching Food Network, but truth be told, there was probably only one recipe I ever tried from watching it, pasta with pumpkin and sausage, (which I have made at least five times and is not as strange as it sounds). The network exec there was right when she said that food TV was less about preparing it than eating it, thus the oft-cited epithet of "food p*rn."

I'd like to say that I cooked more when I turned off the TV, but other things filled the void--mainly, surfing the internet. It's only been this last year that I actually have cooked more--probably at least three times a week--because I actively decided I wanted to (last 3 days--quinoa salad recipe from mom, a cauliflower recipe from Ubuntu, and a zucchini and egg pasta from Mark Bittman). In this economy, we can't go out to eat as much so the only way I'll have a freshly cooked meal is if I make it myself. I do feel more creative and connected to my food when I'm cooking but so far, no luck in the first part of Pollan's conjecture--we're only tightening our belts figuratively.

It's the End of TV as We Know It

Slate Magazine reports on Bob Garfield's book The Chaos Scenario with the headline "Is Television Over?" Apparently, the host of the radio show "On the Media" is arguing that the quality of network shows will get worse as audiences fracture, but they, and the advertising agency heavyweights that create TV ads, have yet to figure this out or what to do about it. The only shows that will maintain their quality will be on paid cable, while web videos will get better and better as they find their niche audiences.

World's Youngest Food Critic?

Some middle schoolers want to go to Disneyland, others, Le Benardin
Even though this blog is about my ever-changing relationship to TV, I couldn't resist following up on something I heard while listening to an interview with food critic Ruth Reichl. An 11-year old girl stood up during the question and answer period and asked what she should be doing now to prepare to be a food writer, other than blogging about her dining experiences. "Do you cook?" Reichl ventured and the girl said yes. Reichl seemed suitably impressed--other than saying that she should travel (as much as her parents were willing, anyway), all she could muster was to say "Keep doing what you're doing! What's the name of your blog?"

So here's a plug for "sandysquirrel's" blog "I Am Not A Picky Eater." At the tender age of five, she recognized Jacques Torres on the street as easily as she would the Big Bird. She rattles off the names of judges and guests of Top Chef like the names of the Jonas Brothers. Barely into her second decade of life, Sandy has already made pilgrimages to Chez Panisse and has Eric Ripert's autograph in her journal. In other words, Sandy is a foodie.

She started her blog this January after a Christmas visit to New York (which she has been obsessed with since Serendipity's frozen hot chocolate scene and Top Chef season five) and has made eight posts, most of which were made while tagging along on her brother's college tours. The enthusiasm that comes through in her writing must be rubbing off on the staff of the restaurants; of Tabla, she writes, "While we waited to order dessert our waiter came over. She started saying “We thought you might want stretch out a little bit before you order (it had been a long meal). Would you like a tour of the kitchen? Well of course we said yes.”

The title of her blog is both dead-on and ironic, since she will try the most adventurous thing on the menu, but of course, would much prefer four-star dining to your average diner. While most kids Sandy's age would turn their noses up at anything more exotic than mozzarella and pepperoni, Sandy's not afraid to venture into uncharted regions. Case in point, her review of Bread Bar: "Chef Floyd gave us some suprise [sic] treats, which were a chickpea salad (with two kinds of chickpeas I had never heard of before) and a really unusual halibut with watermelon curry (Really. I’m not kidding.) The halibut had a yummy crunchy coating on top. Very cool textures."

I can't judge her palate, but her willingness to stretch her taste buds puts her far beyond most kids her age (or her brother's age for that matter). I can tell, however, that this preteen is an incredibly precocious blogger. Her best posts are the ones where she doesn't limit herself to star and dollar sign ratings but talks about the experience in context. She fairly drips with disappointment that they will not make their dinner reservation at Tabla:

"Our horrible transportation karma really came to a head on Friday. On our way from Kim’s house to Boston’s airport, we found out that our flight was cancelled. Delta had “thoughtfully” put us on the next flight, at 2:30. Well, the weather got really bad at LaGuardia, so our flight was delayed. And delayed. And delayed again. We finally bailed at 5:30 and DROVE back to New York."

I wish Sandy luck as she continues to hone her writing skills and her palate. Her reviews may slow down when she goes back to school this fall and can't get out to NYC but fortunately, as near as I can tell, she lives in the other food mecca of the nation, the San Francisco Bay Area. Her reviews today are fairly sweet, since she's going to some of the most notable restaurants in the nation, but you can tell one day, the acid will seep through:

On her second visit to Flex Mussels: "New for us were the crowds and noise (thank you, NY Times review!). It was very loud this time, which was not as fun. "

On Donatella Arpaia's Kefi: "When we got their I noticed that the gal at the front of desk needed to button up her shirt. So we got to the table and everyone had a table setting but me."

And my favorite, on summer blockbusters: "My mom had lunch plans with a friend, so the rest of us went to see Transformers. It was only okay for me. My brother and dad probably thought Megan Fox deserved an Oscar for her AMAZING performance!"

Watch out Gael Greene (or Roger Ebert for that matter)!

Impressions of Julia

That voice--Julia Child was born to be imitated. Before I even knew who Julia Child was, I was laughing at Bill Cosby warbling over a cabbage and Hawaiian comedian Rap Reiplinger getting sauced while cooking a rubber chicken (I was far too young to be watching Dan Ackroyd on SNL doing his French Chef schtick). While Meryl Streep will be starring this weekend as Child in the comedy Julie and Julia, it's time to remember the first people to milk Child for laughs.

Bill teaching Theo to carve a "turkey" on the Cosby show


Rap Reiplinger on the Aunty Marialani Cooking Show


Dan Akroyd on SNL as "The French Chef"

Only the Lonely

Is Friends Replacing Friends? Okay, so the reference is out of date, but the latest Scientific American reports on research that TV can lower feelings of loneliness. Researchers from the University of Buffalo and Miami University reported in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that people who feel lonely feel less lonely while watching their favorite show. They attribute this to a "social surrogacy" effect, with people forming one-sided "relationships" with people and characters on TV and becoming invested in their lives.

I can say that a lot of the shows I have liked had charismatic and memorable characters, from cartoon to reality shows. I watched a lot of TV after school in middle school after I got too old to play Barbies with the neighbor girl across the street. Sometimes, when my parents were away, I just left it on to have someone talking in the background. In contrast, I watched next to no TV in college when I was surrounded by people 24/7.

These authors are building on a long line of media research that shows people treat a lot of things like human beings. In school, we read The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass. The book didn't focus on loneliness, but pointed to 35 studies that showed we have not yet evolved past treating pixels like human beings.

So this study feels right to me. But I still have to wonder, is it the characters on the show, or is it the act of watching TV that alleviates loneliness? I'd like to suggest some follow-up experiments to tease this out:

• Would people feel less lonely if they watched a nature documentary?
• If it was a documentary without discernible characters, would it make a difference if the show was narrated or not? In other words, is it enough just to have someone talking? Would it even matter if that narration was in their native language, versus one they were unfamiliar with?
• Would a show about sociopathic characters, like The Shield or The Sopranos, be more effective than one about a group of friends, like, well, Friends? What about a show that only showed people's work roles without any major story arc, not their personal lives, like Law & Order?
  
• What if the show had characters, but they were animals, such as Meerkat Manor? The meerkats had personalities and social and family crises, but didn't talk.
• What if they watched a new show with characters, rather than a show they liked?
  
• What about other media: a non-fiction book? a personal blog? a vlog on YouTube?
  

My guess is that there would be a range of responses to each of these categories depending on how realistic it might be that this character could exist in real life and how likeable they were. If characters do turn out to be key, TV series creators might turn to this type of research to see what might make a compelling show--and in fact, USA Network has done something terribly similar--it turns out their "Characters Welcome" tag line is not just part of their brand, it is their strategy for producing hits. According to a recent Newsweek article, CEO Bonnie Hammer and her team determine whether they will sign a series based on whether it is "blue sky," "aspirational," "fun," and "character-centric"--all the characteristics of their first recent hit, Monk. So far, it's been a winning strategy.

But enough tips to the marketers--the fact is that Americans have become more and more isolated and this study helps to confirm that TV is part of the problem--after a long commute and a longer day at work, it can be easier to pick up the remote than the phone.

Luckily, research by Barry Wellman at the University of Toronto shows that the internet can help people reconnect and stay in touch with people. Wellman was one of several authors on a 2006 research study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which found that

"...research is showing that the internet is not destroying relationships or causing people to be anti-social. To the contrary, the internet is enabling people to maintain existing ties, often to strengthen them, and at times to forge new ties. The time that most people spend online reduces the time they spend on the relatively unsocial activities of watching TV and sleeping. Moreover, the relationships maintained through online communication only rarely are with an entirely new set of individuals who live far away. Instead, a large amount of the communication that takes place online is with the same set of friends and family who are also contacted in person and by phone. This is especially true for socially close relationships — the more close friends and family are seen in person, the more they are contacted by email.

I have to say that for the last year, surfing the internet and blogging replaced TV as my drug of choice and was probably just as isolating. At the beginning of this year, I decided to stop blogging so heavily and instead join Facebook. Sure, part of it was for professional reasons (I'm working on a collaboration environment that will incorporate social networking in it's next major release) but it was also to make sure I kept in touch with people, and in large part, it's worked--casual talk online turns into dinner or lunch plans.

So if you found this blog because you're trying to quit TV, my best advice would be to stop reading this blog and get into an online network. As for me, I'll do my best to write to people I know, rather than this blog.