In a rare fit of passive
ennui last night, I watched television. After animated sitcoms and the occasional documentary, the TV I enjoy most is advertisement. I often feel the need to deride the voiceovers, snicker at the so-called actors, in the name of Resistance. One commercial message in particular caught my attention (for more than 2 minutes): the
Independence Day, 2000
fireworks display on the
Hudson River. "The Spectacle of a Lifetime", or some such
hyperbole. Since my
childhood, I have
resigned myself to the notion that the
Bicentennial display was the spectacle of
my lifetime, and all I really remember of it was
the lopside-head man. Apparently, I was wrong; TV says
the best is yet to come.
My first
M-80 is etched more clearly in my memory than any officially-sanctioned
pyrotechnics. I was more intimately bound up with that privately purchased
explosive than all the rockets at the city stadium. I suspect and hope the real "spectacle of a lifetime" is an
intimate experience, rather than a
public circus.