At Large

The slightest moment can be a trigger. Something unexpected appears and brings back a memory or creates a small explosion of insight. It’s the “Aha! moment” when we least expect it.

We had viewed The Devil Wears Prada 2 and drafted a modest pirouette of a review. We had seen the original when it was first released, but one or two things have happened in the past 20 years since then, and specific memory was a bit foggy, so we decided to find TDWP1 on a streaming service and settle in for the evening. 

We managed to get 30 minutes into the film before the lure of something more compelling became a trigger. Why did this year’s offering engage when the first effort seemed to move so slowly and be so lugubrious? Punch up the remote. Look for something else. Perhaps a third curtain call for Peaky Blinders?

Pacing. The way in which the director and the editors had paced and placed the shots; the use of music; the splashes of light and color; and the helicopter, drone, and crane shots sweeping across the screen were just different. They were faster in the contemporary piece. With 20 years of music videos, 30-second network television commercials with one-second smash cuts, and CG-infused Marvel Universe feature films intervening between Devils 1 and 2, sensibilities and tastes have changed. Maltese Falcon is a great film … but it moves with the speed of molasses.

Signs of age?

Pan the camera right (“swish pan”) and focus on the cluster of “tweens” hunkered over their cell phones in Irving Farm or Sweet William’s or Dunkin’ and sample the accumulated impact of a world that simply moves faster. Their thumbs dance on their phones like rain hitting the windshield. True, it may be a “sign of age” as Jake Holmes sang five decades ago, but whatever the cause, the effect is profound. There is a steady pulse of impatience that runs through life. There is no longer a “news cycle.” News is instant. There has been a crashing decline in conversation. Text, don’t call. I want an answer now. Swipe left. Swipe right. Move on.

True, there may be some who feel like life was moving too slowly, so the uptick in speed is a welcome upgrade. “Move along, Boomer.” 

On the opposite side of the ledger, there will be those who long for a slower, more contemplative lifestyle. “You dang kids! I remember the good old days …”

In a pluralistic society, either option may be tolerated – if we can dispense with the pejorative nicknames, the angry overtones and the implied superiority.

But, how do we cope with the implied fury of a new generation that seems to exhibit an attention span similar to hovering fruit flies as thumbs flail on mini keyboards punctuated by occasional outbursts of impatient frustration? Sir George Still identified it as “defective moral control” in children in 1902. What a jokesmith. That’s a bit too harsh, to be sure. 

Impatience and destructive fury

More recently, the term “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” became an accepted diagnosis when patience is non-existent and learning is stifled. ADHD. Is it a shorthand novelty reserved for the emerging generation, or has it been a hidden condition now elevated because as a culture we’re gasping hungrily for instant technology? 

We’re no critic of speed. Far from it. When the lust for speed turns into impatience and destructive fury, however, “the line it is drawn and the curse it is cast” as Dylan prophesied in The Times They Are A-Changin’. 

There are many, many things on our “to do” list – as individuals, as communities, and as a now-troubled nation. It might be best, in the long run, if we begin with the tasks at home and take the required moments to “teach our children,” to paraphrase Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s first blockbuster hit song. Take a moment. Listen. Think it through. Find the words, and articulate them. Take another moment. Talk.

Besides, why are a handful of jittery “tweens” sitting over there drinking double-shot, double-sugar iced coffees at 3:30 in the afternoon? 

Just sitting! 

That may be a trigger for another day. •