How do you stay inspired during uninspiring times?

[LizzieMaine]

I do love ME-TV so I can watch The Brady Bunch, That Girl, Family Affair, Bob Newhart and other sitcoms. I need to stop rubbernecking when I flip through the channels; sometimes I stop on a "reality" show with my mouth agape and eyes crossed trying to take it all in because they're so incredulously inane. Next thing I know 30 minutes have gone by and my eyes and mouth are sore.

They only just added MeTV to our system up here, and it's actually had me watching TV regularly for the first time in years. It's only a matter of time, though, before they weed out all the black and white shows in favor of lame 90s stuff, so tape them while you can.

If the cable companies allowed a la carte subscriptions it'd be the best thing that could happen. TCM -- even in its current diluted form -- along with MeTV and the Red Sox, and that's all I'd need. I get the cheapest package I can -- we don't have any over-the-air reception here since the end of analog transmission -- and of the seventy channels they have, those are the only three worth my time.

Another television show that used to be genuinely calming for me was, believe it or not, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." As long as it was on the air, I'd tune it in when I was feeling over-stressed, and it calmed me right down. They took it off MPBN about five years ago, and that's when I knew there was no longer any hope for the modern world.

 

[Swing Motorman]

One thing I realized today that can easily make you much happier (but is lacking in modern life) is exercise. I've been meaning to fit some aerobic exercise into my daily schedule, like walking or push-mowing the lawn or so on. We all hear how it helps mood, so that's what I tried: A half hour of cutting forest understory weeds with a machete, and then zipping around my pond in a rowboat until the sun went down... hoo, I'm winded, but I bet I'll sleep well tonight!

It's somewhat of a pity we make it so easy today to avoid "work" in the physics definition. Too much driving, like I often say... I miss having good walking-distance destinations like I did in college. Moving yourself from place to place sure gave you some work back in the day (even more if you had a factory or manual laboring job), though in 90-degree heat, it was (and is) quite unpleasant! Ah, the ups and downs of time marching on.


-Steven

 

[Swing Motorman]

Oh, Lizzie, another thing I thought of that helps (for me at least) to keep the contemporary craziness at bay: remembering how small everything really is. I'm really blessed with lovely night skies here, and nothing calms me down like playing a musical instrument while watching the stars. As much as the noisy tabloid covers and pervasive TV idiocy seem overwhelming, well, they're just as tiny as we are in the grand scheme of things.

A favorite comic of mine recently featured this lovely J.R.R. Tolkien quote, and inspired me to start stargazing again. I took this photo last evening.

"Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing: There was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach."





-Steven

 

[PrettySquareGal]

They only just added MeTV to our system up here, and it's actually had me watching TV regularly for the first time in years. It's only a matter of time, though, before they weed out all the black and white shows in favor of lame 90s stuff, so tape them while you can.

If the cable companies allowed a la carte subscriptions it'd be the best thing that could happen. TCM -- even in its current diluted form -- along with MeTV and the Red Sox, and that's all I'd need. I get the cheapest package I can -- we don't have any over-the-air reception here since the end of analog transmission -- and of the seventy channels they have, those are the only three worth my time.

Another television show that used to be genuinely calming for me was, believe it or not, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." As long as it was on the air, I'd tune it in when I was feeling over-stressed, and it calmed me right down. They took it off MPBN about five years ago, and that's when I knew there was no longer any hope for the modern world.

We just got it, too! I hope you're wrong about them going the way of TV-Land that not only added awful 90s sit-coms but created their own reality shows, but you're probably right!

The only reason I have cable is for a handful of channels so I'm with you on a la carte.

Mister Rogers isn't on MPBN anymore?!?!?!?! Now that you mention it, I don't recall having watched him for some time.

 

[rocketeer]

And we get a lot of inane crap TV over here too. 1/ American Pickers, how many times can you say 'cool' in one program 2/ Pawn Stars, playing a word game here arn't we, the owner must pay a fortune to authenticate a lot of this stuff. Do people really need to sell their stuff for a few pulls of a Las Vegas slot machine. 3/ Storage Wars, just discovered this program about looking through someones garage overflow in the hope of finding antiques. Will be great if they find a headless drug dealer amongst the goodies, or maybe even a dealers stash haha.
A lot of these programs have been done before but in a single program format. How the police operate, a day in the life of an undertaker, a midwife dealing with problem births, etc. Instead of a series of say six programs each on a separate subject, now its a series on each.
As for magazines etc on celebrity bodies etc, haven't there always been features on how to get that film star look? Just now everyone is obsessed with that toned body and white teeth and 'Maybe you could be a star' look. As Dione Warwick sang in Do you know the way to San Jose "All those stars that never were, are parking cars and pumping gas"
We get it in England too you know.
JTee

 

[William Stratford]

We aren't as far from "Ow! My B*lls!" as we think we are.

Sad but true.

Television, its got electrolites

 

[AmateisGal]

As for magazines etc on celebrity bodies etc, haven't there always been features on how to get that film star look? Just now everyone is obsessed with that toned body and white teeth and 'Maybe you could be a star' look.

Yeah, I think there have always been advertisements for this - a quick flip through my 1940s magazines confirms this. But they weren't on the covers with pictures of flat bellies and all the rest. They are usually buried in the back somewhere. Everything is so "in your face" nowadays.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Yeah, I think there have always been advertisements for this - a quick flip through my 1940s magazines confirms this. But they weren't on the covers with pictures of flat bellies and all the rest. They are usually buried in the back somewhere. Everything is so "in your face" nowadays.

My issue is that these mainstream women's magazines didn't used to contain porn on the covers (and the article titles are absurd). I have no problem with consenting adults buying porn, but I do take issue with it becoming deemed acceptable for the check-out aisles.

I like this parody: http://www.lovelyish.com/751925489/the-best-cosmo-parody-cover-ever/

 

[LizzieMaine]

Exactly. The obsession with thrusting scrawny naked bellies in the faces of people that just want to get their milk and eggs and butter in peace is entirely a modern-era development. You will look long and hard for a women's magazine prior to the '60s that dwelt on such things.

Believe it or not, women's magazines actually used to be written for intelligent, thinking women -- the Ladies Home Journal from the thirties thru the fifties was one of the most progressive, well-written bastions of serious women's journalism ever. And not a single half-clothed pneumatic-bosomed anorexic-bellied androgyne in sight. Nothing better than leafing thru an issue or two on the front porch with the ballgame on the radio and a cold Coke to sip.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A favorite comic of mine recently featured this lovely J.R.R. Tolkien quote, and inspired me to start stargazing again. I took this photo last evening.

That's a gorgeous pic -- makes me realize how much I miss seeing the stars. I have a very bright streetlight right in front of my house, which keeps the neighborhood goons, hoods, thugs, and drug dealers at bay, but it doesn't do much for my stargazing. I was quite an astronomy buff as a kid, when we didn't need quite so much outdoor lighting, and still have a copy of "The Beginner's Star Guide" (1912 edition) on my coffee table.

 

[AmateisGal]

Exactly. The obsession with thrusting scrawny naked bellies in the faces of people that just want to get their milk and eggs and butter in peace is entirely a modern-era development. You will look long and hard for a women's magazine prior to the '60s that dwelt on such things.

Believe it or not, women's magazines actually used to be written for intelligent, thinking women -- the Ladies Home Journal from the thirties thru the fifties was one of the most progressive, well-written bastions of serious women's journalism ever. And not a single half-clothed pneumatic-bosomed anorexic-bellied androgyne in sight. Nothing better than leafing thru an issue or two on the front porch with the ballgame on the radio and a cold Coke to sip.

Agreed. I have several 1940s issues of the Ladies Home Journal and they had some very good articles - I especially love all the short fiction and even entire novels that they published. Some of the editorials are very good, too, nothing like the inane stuff you see today in Cosmo (though to be honest, I haven't picked up a Cosmo magazine in years so I don't know how much further it's degenerated...).

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Will be great if they find a headless drug dealer amongst the goodies, or maybe even a dealers stash haha.

Out here there was a case like that some years back. A woman murdered her husband, stashed his body in a trunk and placed it in a storage unit. However, she neglected to pay the rental on her unit so it was auctioned off and she was frantically trying to buy back the trunk from the person who won it! :doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

Helen Gurley Brown has a lot to answer for. One of my neighbors is a Cosmo subscriber and her copy of a recent issue was delivered by my house by mistake. Good thing it came wrapped in plastic -- I'd have had to send my mailbox out for prophylaxis.

 

[AmateisGal]

Helen Gurley Brown has a lot to answer for. One of my neighbors is a Cosmo subscriber and her copy of a recent issue was delivered by my house by mistake. Good thing it came wrapped in plastic -- I'd have had to send my mailbox out for prophylaxis.

lol lol lol

 

[William Stratford]

Helen Gurley Brown has a lot to answer for.

Indeed. Progenitor of the Sex in the City "behave like a whore" attitude.

 

[Undertow]

...Believe it or not, women's magazines actually used to be written for intelligent, thinking women -- the Ladies Home Journal from the thirties thru the fifties was one of the most progressive, well-written bastions of serious women's journalism ever. And not a single half-clothed pneumatic-bosomed anorexic-bellied androgyne in sight. Nothing better than leafing thru an issue or two on the front porch with the ballgame on the radio and a cold Coke to sip.

I found a book someone had thrown away that was published in the early 60's and was focused on cleaning tips around the house. It was most definitely directed toward women and for the most part, it was relatively pedestrian.

What interested my lady and I was how the author (a woman) discussed cleaning tips. The tips were clever, and they assumed the reader was clever, too. They were useful and they weren't shoddy - they weren't directions on how to best use duct tape and superglue.

By the tone of the book, it seems the early 60's were still a time when women were at home taking care of the family. They were in charge of how a household was run. Most importantly, they were spoke to as people in a position of authority and in command of intelligent brains.

 

[AmateisGal]

I found a book someone had thrown away that was published in the early 60's and was focused on cleaning tips around the house. It was most definitely directed toward women and for the most part, it was relatively pedestrian.

What interested my lady and I was how the author (a woman) discussed cleaning tips. The tips were clever, and they assumed the reader was clever, too. They were useful and they weren't shoddy - they weren't directions on how to best use duct tape and superglue.

By the tone of the book, it seems the early 60's were still a time when women were at home taking care of the family. They were in charge of how a household was run. Most importantly, they were spoke to as people in a position of authority and in command of intelligent brains.

That's a good point. I think that those women running a household and staying home to raise the children were highly respected - probably more so than the women who worked in offices alongside men. Unfortunately, this also started a war between women themselves that continues today: who is better? The woman who stays home or the woman who works? Instead of embracing both as worthy endeavors, one side likes to put down the other.

Women - we are our own worst enemy in a lot of ways.

 

[Angus Forbes]

I think that those women running a household and staying home to raise the children were highly respected

Quite so, indeed, at least in my experience. Nobody talked down to my grandmothers, who were both quite dignified and intelligent, and nobody talked down to my mother or my aunt unless they wanted to have their head handed to them . . .

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the things I most appreciate about the LHJ of the Era is the balanced way it presented material of interest both to career women and housewives. People forget that the '30s were very much a Golden Era for the "young business woman," with inroads being made in many fields, and the Journal covered subjects of interest to them in a very forthright way. Housewives, meanwhile, were treated as home economists, not as dizzy little broom-pushers who needed help knowing which end of the handle to hold.

The Journal was also exceedingly frank on sexual matters without sounding and acting like a two-dollar floozy about it. The Journal -- in the late thirties -- was one of the first mainstream American magazines to take a public stand firmly in favor of birth control, and presented information on such topics thruout the era in a very forthright way, assuming that its readers were grownups who were looking for practical counsel and were open-minded enough to take it.

There were plenty of 1930s authors who took women and women's issues seriously. I'm a big fan of Marjorie Hillis, whose 1937 "Live Alone And Like It" was one of the year's best-sellers, and touched a real note with the unmarried, unattached "business girls" of the time. Its advice is practical, intelligent, witty, and understanding -- and I think, still of value today. I recently loaned my copy of "Live Alone" to one of the kids from work, a 25 year old who's just gotten her first apartment -- and she's very taken with the book.

 

[scottyrocks]

I do love ME-TV so I can watch The Brady Bunch, That Girl, Family Affair, Bob Newhart and other sitcoms. I need to stop rubbernecking when I flip through the channels; sometimes I stop on a "reality" show with my mouth agape and eyes crossed trying to take it all in because they're so incredulously inane. Next thing I know 30 minutes have gone by and my eyes and mouth are sore.

You, my dear, are probably the very reason these shows are on! You're flipping through the channels, are stopped dead in your tracks by the reality moronathon you see on E! (fer instance) and the Nielsen box sends the info to the deepest bowels of TV ratings headquarters where they then determine that this new crop of shows is making a gazillion bucks for the advertisers, whose scruples are no better than the producers of the shows. <tongue now removed from cheek>