Tag: DVD

The Truth About Gift-Giving

When people say “Don’t get me anything,” it’s best to pay no attention.  They’ll  say “I have everything I need,” but that doesn’t rule out wish fulfillment.  And it helps if we’re mind readers about what they’d really like, if only they’d say so.

I’m going to a birthday party for a man who’s 85 years old today.  Getting a gift for him takes more than a little  thought.  After we’ve lived a certain number of years, most of us feel we own enough things.  In fact, we’ve started giving things away. 

It’s much easier to shop for younger people.  They really do need things and then they want so many things, there’s a world of gadgets they feel they can’t live without.

My birthday friend says “Don’t get me anything.  I don’t need a thing.”  But I think when someone says that, he’d still like to be surprised with a little something.  So I’m paying no attention  and giving him a gift anyway.  Sounds simple enough – but it’s not, because he really does have everything he wants and duplicates of everything he needs.

Over these past few birthdays I’ve about used up every creative notion about gifts for him.  Someone suggested “a gift of time” and last year I spent an afternoon with him over coffee and sweets I baked myself.  But this year’s a big number with a big party and I don’t want to arrive empty-handed.

I finally settled on the one thing that he uses every day – music.  He plays music at the top volume of his Bose extra-special CD player that his daughter insisted he buy.  So I got him a CD.   Oh – and one of those cushioned “kitchen slice” rugs to put in front of the stove.  He didn’t say he needs one, but I think he does. 

Thanks to his grandson,  who got him a DVD player and installed it, I’ve got a head start on gift ideas for Christmas.  

Ó Anita Garner 2009

It’s Never Too Early For Christmas

While everyone is talking Thanksgiving turkey, I’m putting out my favorite Christmas decorations, stacking up Christmas music, lighting holiday incense and soaking in the sights and sounds and smells.

 

It’s not because Thanksgiving comes a week earlier this year.  We’ve always played Christmas music during Thanksgiving dinner, but by now my music and dvd collections have expanded so there isn’t enough time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to hear/see each of them once.  So I started earlier this year.  

 

I love everything about Christmas.  There’s no frenzy here.  I don’t love shopping, never did, but gathering a few things to give as gifts isn’t a hardship.  I do much of it online, but I also go to malls on purpose during the season, just for the festive look of it.  

 

Making fudge and apple cake with a Christmas glaze for my neighbors is nice. (Christmas music plays while we cook.) 

  

I love church during Advent season.  The faces of the acolytes who carry the light down to the altar candles always look like Christmas  – a bit shinier than usual and quite reverent.  As the kids walk slowly, jeans poking out below the white robes, they resist the temptation to jostle each other and I imagine their parents watch and wonder, who is this child, so somber?  Surely this is not the kid who had to be reminded (threatened) to get here on time.

 

You won’t find me griping about the commercialization of this event, because for me it never has become that.  If all I ever had of Christmas were the sights and sounds and fragrances, and if that could last for months, I wouldn’t complain.  

 

Ó Anita Garner 2008

Netflix Guilt

My own private Jane Austen Film Festival took place in my living room over the course of several months.  It wouldn’t have been possible without Netflix.  I worked my way through every adaptation of Jane Austen’s work and then into obscure British television documentaries about her life.  As soon as the movie, “The Jane Austen Book Club” came out on DVD,  I watched it too.

I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about not patronizing my local theaters.  We have several nice ones nearby, but I haven’t been lately.  I thought I’d miss the companionable experience of seeing a story unfold along with a roomful of other people, but so far I haven’t. 

It’s clear why fans of special effects blockbusters choose to see them on big screens,  and friends who work in the movie industry maintain that comedies are best seen in theaters, where communal laughter enhances the funny, still I find all kinds of rationale for watching at home. 

We’ve heard it all before – about how the inconveniences outweigh the once-shared theater experience.  I love movies as much as ever, but the theater experience itself has been diluted, with multiple (smaller) screens and multiple distractions inside, so it’s rarely an experience equal to the nobility of the old movie houses.  Theater owners blame movie-makers.  Movie-makers blame – well I can’t keep up with the list of all the people movie-makers blame. 

I worry about historic theaters and will do whatever I can to help preserve the architecture and honor their place in our nation’s history.  Once preserved, these buildings need to be re-purposed because the movie industry won’t be able to keep them alive.

Future media is here, with growing audiences who watch on various small screens, including hand-held devices.  Whatever comes next in the area of personal delivery of entertainment content, it doesn’t appear that traditional theaters will be a major force.  It’s an uphill battle.  They make much of their profit from concessions and we hear nothing but complaints about the price of the food and drink.  They add commercials to run before the feature, and we hear complaints about the commercials. 

We’re fast approaching the time when all new movies will be released simultaneously via several media, with theaters only one of the choices. It is crucial that everyone connected with creating entertainment – movies and television and music and all other kinds of performances and educational content – be compensated for all the ways we choose to watch.

Right now, waiting a few months for the DVD to come out works just fine for me.  When I hear about something I want to see, I immediately go to my computer and add the title to my Netflix Queue.  But on any given afternoon when I’m sick of my own company, there’s still the matinee around the corner.  I wonder how much longer that option will exist.

Ó By Anita Garner