When we moved to Saskatchewan in 1968, our local TV station, CFQC, was a family affair. Every Friday, the General Manager would come on and tell us why he had chosen the programs we would be seeing in the following week. Once, after a trip to Toronto, the General Manager reported that Toronto was a fine city, but it was full of strangers. One April 1st, Vern Pryor who did the noon show which included BINGO, announced that he’d be leaving CFQC because he’d been fired. Only an emergency non-Friday appearance by the General Manager to remind us that it was April Fool’s Day kept the station from being toilet-papered by Vern’s many supporters.
My favourite story about our family relationship with CFQC is that on holiday weekends, the station would schedule an extra late night movie because they knew that we didn’t have to go work the next day. Nice, huh?
We live in more complex times. I couldn’t even tell you how many channels our television here in Regina receives. I gather that explaining some of the programming choices would require the argumentative skills of Eddie Greenspan. Something has been lost, but of course, something has also been gained.
Thursday night, Ted and I went to a local movie theatre to see a live to tape performance of Alan Bennett’s “The Habit of Art”. It was a brilliant National Theatre production. The program notes on the plot are so concise, I’m going to quote them. “A rehearsal room at the national theatre: a group of actors are rehearsing a play called Caliban’s Day about a meeting between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten. There are interruptions from Auden’s biographer Humphrey Carpenter, who narrates the play, and a rent boy called Stuart The director of the play has been called away so Kay, the stage manager, is in charge of Fitz (who plays Auden), Henry (Britten) and the other. The actors continually disrupt the run through of the play to question the author, Neil on the nature of biographical detail and the ‘truth’ of the piece. Fitz keeps forgetting his lines and the stage management have to fill in and play items of furniture. When the day is over, Kay agrees with the author that, one way or another, there is always someone left out.”
When it comes to the kinds of programming available to all of us, including people like me who live in a middle size city, I tend to disagree with Kay. As those of you who read this blog know, Ted and I never miss the MET HD broadcasts of the opera. Our sports-loving son sees every game he wants to see in HD. Our film loving daughter and her husband can see the most experimental film in their living room. Our drummer son can watch Neal Peart. One of our four year old grandsons patiently explained the “On Demand” feature on our television. ‘On Demand’ allows him to watch Sponge Bob Square Pants at any hour of any day. We’ve come a long way.
But as W.H. Auden said. “In the end, art is small beer. The really serious things in life are earning one’s living and loving one’s neighbour.” Now that’s a philosophy that the long-ago station manager of CFQC Saskatoon would have applauded.