WRITER - Vancouver Lifestyles -
Quiet Please! We're Talking Here!
It’s almost finished.
Call it D-Day Minus 41.
Soon, the XR7-Magna82 will launch and Peace on Earth will reign again.
When I press the Button, here’s what will happen: All the cell phones in the world will evaporate.
And here’s the Paradise to which you can look forward: You can sit on a park bench. You can go to a first run movie or a concert. You can read a book in a café. Remember reading?
The idea for the XR7-Magna82 had been buzzing round my fevered brain for some time now, but the Kicker happened only last Wednesday. My son turned 39 last Wednesday and I had invited him and my daughter and her husband to lunch at a fancy restaurant. I was even earlier than usual so I stopped the car on Beach Avenue and walked across the lawn with book in hand.
The book is called, “The Good German,” and it’s fantastic! Apparently George Clooney and Kate Blanchett have already made the movie. And why not? An American reporter flies into Berlin in 1945, ostensibly to watch Churchill, Truman and Stalin make history at Potsdam. In fact, the reporter has come to find his lover, a married German woman, who may or may not have survived the Russian siege of the last days of the Third Reich. To complicate matters, a murder occurs. Think Graham Greene and John le Carre at the height of their powers. Four plot lines being carried perfectly forward at once. And elegantly. Wow!
So, I scope out two empty park benches overlooking English Bay. It is a Wednesday morning at half past eleven.
I read maybe a page. A car pulls up directly behind me in the parking lot. A man and his German shepherd get out. The man sits on the other bench beside me and talks loudly into his cell phone. One minute, peace, quiet, the trees, the water, the great read. The next minute, a guy yelling into his cell phone. It’s eleven thirty on a sunny Wednesday morning in Vancouver.
“Oh, that’s great.”
“What? Are you talking to me?” Shades of Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
“I said, “Oh, that’s great.””
He turns away and lowers his voice. When he is finished, he apologizes.
“I’m sorry. Sometimes, when I talk on the phone I don’t realize how loud I am.”
“No problem.”
But the mood has obviously been broken. The stolen moment has been shattered.
The man fidgets. He can’t sit still. It never occurs to him to walk the dog. He has brought no book or newspaper. Remember reading? He shuffles little pieces of paper he finds in his billfold. When he starts his next cell phone call, I leave for the restaurant.
At a recent evening with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, it appeared that the ushers were in Olympic training. How many times did they dash up and down the aisles of the Orpheum to tell people to turn off their cell phones? One man completely lost it. He leaned over two rows of seats to tap some geek on the shoulder and tell him to turn off the cell. It warmed my heart. I’m not alone. I’m not the only one. Maybe he’s working on the XR7 as well.
At a fancy West Side bakery, a woman enters, talking on her cell phone. She is stylishly dressed, perfectly coifed. Clean lines everywhere. She walks to the front counter and, without saying a word to the staff (How could she? She’s talking on her cell phone), she points to a baguette. The clerk serves her. But he is clearly a better man than I. I would lose my job. Because I would ignore her, and if and when she finally emerged from her terribly important phone call, I would say something really useful like, “When you can look me in the eye and ask for a loaf of bread, that’s when I’ll be happy to help you.”
This is unbelievable but true. As I am writing this, something happens. I’m in a coffee shop. A young woman starts talking on her cell phone. But she is standing directly above me and leaning towards me as she speaks. I turn in my chair and say, “Excuse me, you are talking into my ear.” She says, “No, I’m talking into the phone.” And I say, “AND, you’re talking directly into my ear. Would you please turn away or go away.” I’m writing about cell phones and this happens. You can’t make this stuff up.
Now you see the Zombie people. They are everywhere. Looking like the living dead, escapees from a George A. Romero horror movie, they sleepwalk down our public streets in a kind of trance. The Thumb is working furiously. The Thumb has replaced the Other Thing as the most important appendage. Punch, dial, scroll, punch, dial, scroll. Who called? Who did I miss? Who missed me? Who loves me? Who needs me? Who wants me? Whom can I call? Shall I wear my pant legs rolled?
The elves are busier than ever. The cell phone will now carry movies, TV shows, live porno, fishing tips, travel bargains and, most important of all, poker championships. Remember reading?
My people have been amazing. Amazing! Once they understood the parameters, it only took them a few days to build the prototype of the XR7-Magna82.
It is almost finished. Prepare. D-Day Minus 41 is almost upon us.
Oh, excuse me. Sorry, I have to take this.
