Viewership

So now They've canceled The Guiding Light

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/01/guiding-light-canceled-af_n_181863.html


Not that I was watching it at all, in 30 years....

My Grannie was a fan of As The World Turns,
&, since I was with her most of my preschool days,
so was I...
I remember when Lisa was a dewy-eyed adolescent.
I was always struck by the gravity & aplomb
despite unrelenting tragedies
of the pale heroine Ellen....
(silent waters run deep)

But I watched ATWT only once or twice in 20 years
just to see who was still around
& how many gray hairs & wrinkles around the eyes
they had sustained.

The last soap opera I tuned in was an accidental glimpse
of a show I can't even remember the name of...
but it had twin dwarves, one evil & one well-meaning
(unless it was only the Evil One working a ruse),
& a whole lot of wallowing around in bed.

I was shocked, truly, & to the core.

No, I've been way too busy for a very long time
to get hooked on a daytime soap
& yet I am sorry to hear that the empathy quotient
on the part of the stay-at-home demographic
has waned so low due to personified love-lorn mops & brooms,
tooth-whitening, ab-melting products,
& relentless medicine ads
(ask your doctor about it),
& any number of other key factors I'm blissfully unaware of
(perhaps the former audience members are all on the Internet blogging),
has resulted in the demise of a melodrama born in 1937,
an ironic birthdate,
such a watershed
despite being a globally wretched year, indeed.

Other 1937 classics will abide, & so might The Guiding Light,
in another venue. I hope they don't fill the spot with more Punditry.
Or another haughty, snippy Judge from who-knows-where
stating the obvious to the stupid & never missing a cheap shot.

I hope I'm too busy with other things to even find out what replaces it.
Something in the human heart thrives on vicarious suffering.
So, I expect it will have something to do with Suffering.
What, I ask you, does not?







Have Fun!