In the current issue of Time Magazine (June 2nd-24th, ’21) its cover story dealt with “The Great Reopening”. Gracing its cover was a hanging sign that stores would place on their doors that had a clock face that told when the shop keeper steps out for the moment, and when that same shop keeper would eventually return.
Instead of numbers on the clock face that gave the time when the said shop keeper would return, it has phrases that stated “Please Get Me Out Of This House”, “When My Kids Are Back In School”, “Wearing Sweatpants”, “3 Days A Week” “Are You Paying For Childcare?” and even “How About Never?” These meanings are telling what people will be doing when things get back to as normal are they are going to get. People do desire to get back with their lives, but not necessarily in the same fashion before all hell broke loose around the start of the week of March 15th, 2020.
Within those fifteen months, folks went through many phases in such a short period of time. Some of the phases were rather positive, such as taking the time to learn a new hobby, re-leaning an old hobby, developing a bond with close and not-so-close friends, family members, other people relations or otherwise that were once ignored and/or forgotten, and so on. The negative ones dealt with illness (catching the disease), death (dying from the disease), losing a job, suffering with what’s now called “food insecurity”, not being able to take care of personal expenses, etc. For quite a while, it was every (wo)man for themselves, while it sensed a notion that we were all in this together.
But based on how things stand on a local sense as well as a national one, it appears that the recovery is not too far off. It may be just right around the corner. And it might already arrived, but in a whole new look, appearance, and attitude.
Many of the things that did occur gave us new responsibilities and new ways to conduct everything from business, pleasure, and all in between! It made many realize that after what everyone has gone through, they want to start fresh and anew. And how they did things before and glanced at how they saw things after both physically and virtually, they don’t necessarily want to go back! They like it here in the new arena, and nobody and nothing is going to take it away from them, or even us! After all, from what everyone has experienced, don’t they are deserve more than what they should get?
This writer is pleased to report that yours truly has gone through the same emotions. I won’t get too specific as those notes will be explained in detail in Accessibly Live Off-Line’s annual “State Of The Union” address that will appear in Vol. 26-No. 27-Week of July 5th, 2021. And this writer isn’t an exception with it comes to being placed into a new template.
To give an idea in what we are speaking about, just about every movie and almost every theater production this writer had to opportunity to experience was done online through the portal of the year (or maybe the decade), called Zoom. In case you don’t know what Zoom is, it is a software program where anyone with a smartphone (which is just about everybody) and/or a desktop and/or laptop computer machine can communicate through audio and video. Many a meeting has taken place for school, business, and even for friendly (and not so friendly) chats with those that are connected within the same network. And yes, many stage theater companies have used this method in performing a show when their regular theater houses could not safely hold live performances.
To give you an idea of what this writer is..well, writing about, I recently saw a program that was performed by Gloria Gilford’s GGC Players theater company performing a production of Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor’s modern classic play Lovers And Other Strangers, as presented as virtual theater performed in real time. The play itself is a romantic comedy about a young couple planing for marriage, the brides parents planning for a divorce, as well as a few bouts of infidelity tossed in for good measure. In other words, it’s around various misadventures of a family that’s f-ed up as anyone else’s! The play, through slightly dated in some spots, holds plenty of wit that has as much charm embedded within its dialogue without the obnoxious traits normally found in postmodern rom-coms of late.
The performers that appeared in this double cast production were played more-or-less as talking heads. It carried itself out not so much through physical stage movement, but as an elaborate radio show. (Yours truly didn’t really “see” much of it, but mostly heard it all without losing any of its momentum!) Granted, it wasn’t the same as experiencing this production in a traditional theater, but it made this writer’s job a lot easier to witness. I didn’t have to shlep to a specific location to the theater space, and I didn’t have to “dress up” to attend. Since this program was a one-way production (I could see them but they could not see me), I could have been dressed up in a tux, a grubby t-shirt and grubbier sweatpants, or even donning nothing at all! (Don’t worry folks! I’m not quite ready to experience theater in the nude, or not through the audience’s side!)
What I’m stating within this article is this point is that this new method of communication has taught those that went through the pandemic that it’s quite possible to have an online experience of something that can complement a real in-person activity. Granted, it’s been done way before 2020, but wasn’t taken as seriously with the notion that “nobody’s going to want to do video meeting online”! Well guess what folks? It’s been proven that it can be done and then some.
But as things start to open up, only time and tide will tell how it’s going to pan out, and how long its going to take its hold. If may change for the better. It may change for the worse. It might just go away only to become long forgotten. One can only guess when this “new normal” is going to stick. Let’s see who will become the real winners and real losers.
As Yogi Berra has been quoted to say, “It ain’t over ‘till It’s over”. And it’s far from being over! However, things are not as bad as it had been a year ago when people were franticly baking bread, hoarding toilet paper, painting their houses, and working on that 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that features a likeness of the Cincinnati, Ohio skyline at dusk. (Don’t laugh folks. There is such a jigsaw puzzle like that, available online in cyberspace land!)I could add more into this column, but I’ve got to catch another Zoom meeting that’s starting up in just five minutes! (The first of three scheduled for today!) And I’ll be wearing that Hawaiian shirt once purchased at a long forgotten garage sale a few years back. Talk about being high on the fashion hog!!
——————————————————————————————————————-
ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
is a presentation of Linear Cycle Productions
Details@AccessiblyLiveOffLine.com
AccessiblyLiveOffLine@gmail.com
Details@LinearCycleProductions.com
http://www.AccessiblyLiveOffLine.com
https://www.facebook.com/accessiblylive.offline
@AccessiblyLive (Twitter)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEHxSllfDItpWh3z8vuUb_w
(Accessibly Live’s channel on YouTube)
http://www.LinearCycleProductions.com
(Look for us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and see us on YouTube!)
ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE (C) 2021 Linear Cycle Productions. All rights reserved. The views and opinions are those of the writers, and not necessarily of the staff and management. ‘Nuff said!
ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE 