Conversations in the dark...

I have just finished watching Emma which is but one of several movies based on Jane Austin novels. In fact, the BBC just put out a whole series of Jane Austin movies for their newly revamped "Masterpiece" series. (You may remember this as "Masterpiece Theatre" but, as is the case with all things in the media, they are hoping to attract new audience members with a smarter, sassier name. Same programs, though, so I wonder how that's going for them. *wink*)

In any event, I absolutely fall in love with Jane Austin's movies every time I watch them. And her books... well, they are sublime. Jane Austin is a wonder with words and I love to hear them trickle from the mouths of actors in period costumes. (I am also a sucker for period costumes so, really, it's the best of all worlds for me! Don't even get me started on Shakespeare....) After watching Emma, I think that we have lost the art of conversation in today's modern world. We are so wrapped up in e-mail and texting and caller i.d. that we hardly ever have the chance to practice. We all complain about getting automated voice systems when we call big corporations but, really, when was the last time we actually answered the phone?

Today, around the world, human beings everywhere turned off their lights for one hour. For one hour people sat in the dark or stood in the dark or laid in the dark, with candlelights and campfires and oil lanterns as their only illumination. I wonder if they talked during this time of electrical stasis, during this time without droning computers and chattering televisions and buzzing telephones. I wonder if the art of conversation lived for just a moment, an hour in the dark, before it was silenced, yet again, by our technological world.