TeeVee for Beginners, Friday Period Two
When students entered the classroom, they'd find that there were no tables, and all the chairs had been replaced with comfortable-looking couches. In front of the class stood Mitchell, without sunglasses, but dressed to the hipster nines and wearing his usual pair of fingerless gloves, his face pale and a little on the sunken, shaky side if you actually chose to pay that much attention to it. He smiled as people came in; as soon as they were in, he started to talk. "Welcome to TV class," he started, "If you're here, it's likely because of one of two reasons: either you don't know much about television, or you're looking to have a bit of fun."
He grinned. "Not that the latter is anything to be ashamed about," he said, "Everyone deserves something fun in their lives, something to make you smile. We used to just have books back in the day, theatre, stories passed on from mouth to mouth." He patted the large TV in front of the class. "For those of you in the first category, this is a television. When it's on, it lights up specks of colour, divided up in lines, that form moving images. The images can be anything you can see in real life, but captured, so you can see images from other places, other people." He gestured at the screen of the TV. "In the first few televisions, you didn't have a great deal of lines, so the image was unclear." He smirked at some private memory, "Faded."
"Television really started with radio, with broadcasting; people discovered how to project sound across great distances, not just to one person, but to everyone in the area who had a special box designed to capture the noise. The word comes from farming practices, actually -- to 'broadcast' is to throw a lot of seeds out in a circle, to cast them out. The radio did the same, except with a signal, and anyone with a radio box could capture the signal, capture the seed and listen to it. The possibilities seemed limitless at the time, there was anything you could do with radio, broadcast plays, festivals, whatever was happening in someone else's living room, people couldn't stop imagining about it. They thought radio would last forever."
"And they did get a lot of things done. Radio channels were formed, you could change the numbers on a radio so it would capture other bits of sound, and they'd broadcast music and other programmes across the area." He smiled at the class - he'd gotten a little carried away with his own memories, but that wasn't a problem. It was nice, it was going fairly smooth.
"It didn't last forever, though. There was some time spent tussling behind the scenes about the technology, but around the forties and fifties, the first commercial television was a fact. It was as big as the iPhone then, in the fifties. Everyone had to have one. Line standards grew rapidly until they were standardized in the sixties. The amount of channels grew exponentially, new genres were invented or ported over from radio: soaps, dramas, news, everything you could think of. People would crowd together in each other's homes on special nights just to watch the television, to get to talk about it the next day. Housewives loved it because it meant something to do in a time when they weren't allowed to do a great deal besides sit around. The television quickly became the center of a house, a place where everyone could come and relax and be themselves with the family."
With a flop, Mitchell landed himself on his own couch, pointed towards the kids. "That was what television was like for people back then," he said, "What's it mean to you? Does it mean anything to you? Have you even heard of it?" He pointed at a random student, "Tell me that. And your name and age, please."
Pause.
"Oh, and George? You're not getting out of assisting me." Mitchell did not at all smirk at that one. No. "When we're through, we'll be watching something to get you all into the subject matter."
Mitchell should probably not be this enthused.
[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]
He grinned. "Not that the latter is anything to be ashamed about," he said, "Everyone deserves something fun in their lives, something to make you smile. We used to just have books back in the day, theatre, stories passed on from mouth to mouth." He patted the large TV in front of the class. "For those of you in the first category, this is a television. When it's on, it lights up specks of colour, divided up in lines, that form moving images. The images can be anything you can see in real life, but captured, so you can see images from other places, other people." He gestured at the screen of the TV. "In the first few televisions, you didn't have a great deal of lines, so the image was unclear." He smirked at some private memory, "Faded."
"Television really started with radio, with broadcasting; people discovered how to project sound across great distances, not just to one person, but to everyone in the area who had a special box designed to capture the noise. The word comes from farming practices, actually -- to 'broadcast' is to throw a lot of seeds out in a circle, to cast them out. The radio did the same, except with a signal, and anyone with a radio box could capture the signal, capture the seed and listen to it. The possibilities seemed limitless at the time, there was anything you could do with radio, broadcast plays, festivals, whatever was happening in someone else's living room, people couldn't stop imagining about it. They thought radio would last forever."
"And they did get a lot of things done. Radio channels were formed, you could change the numbers on a radio so it would capture other bits of sound, and they'd broadcast music and other programmes across the area." He smiled at the class - he'd gotten a little carried away with his own memories, but that wasn't a problem. It was nice, it was going fairly smooth.
"It didn't last forever, though. There was some time spent tussling behind the scenes about the technology, but around the forties and fifties, the first commercial television was a fact. It was as big as the iPhone then, in the fifties. Everyone had to have one. Line standards grew rapidly until they were standardized in the sixties. The amount of channels grew exponentially, new genres were invented or ported over from radio: soaps, dramas, news, everything you could think of. People would crowd together in each other's homes on special nights just to watch the television, to get to talk about it the next day. Housewives loved it because it meant something to do in a time when they weren't allowed to do a great deal besides sit around. The television quickly became the center of a house, a place where everyone could come and relax and be themselves with the family."
With a flop, Mitchell landed himself on his own couch, pointed towards the kids. "That was what television was like for people back then," he said, "What's it mean to you? Does it mean anything to you? Have you even heard of it?" He pointed at a random student, "Tell me that. And your name and age, please."
Pause.
"Oh, and George? You're not getting out of assisting me." Mitchell did not at all smirk at that one. No. "When we're through, we'll be watching something to get you all into the subject matter."
Mitchell should probably not be this enthused.
[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]