Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean
And they while away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they’re covered in flowers
In the back of a black limousine
La-de da da da da da
La-de da da da de de
Talkin’ about you and me
And the games people play . . . .
Joe South won a Grammy for this song in 1972. After seeing the movie Quartet last year, Bill couldn’t get rid of “Are You Havin’ Any Fun?” I’ve been going around humming “La-de da da da da da.”
Songwriters are basically poets. Fine poets don’t live in ivory towers. I think that they often see life and people with a very clear vision that they distill with an economy of words. South’s song is about busted romances, but I think that it could be applied to today’s culture, its games, and social media.
I enjoy games such as euchre, Scrabble and canasta, but rarely have an opportunity to play them. I use my computer for research, e-mail and writing, but I’ve never used it for games. I don’t have an iPhone which, I suppose, is a sort of miniature computer.
Today’s electronic wizardry that allows people to cross international boundaries would amaze my parents’ generation. One of our friends plays bridge via the Internet with various people from around the world.
One of our nieces signed me up to play Farmville. If you’re successful at tending your crops every day, you can work your way up to a plantation with an antebellum mansion. I’ve never been a good gardener in the real world, let alone the virtual one, and my crops died because I didn’t water them every day. People also play Mafia Wars internationally. Our niece won a fleet of Cadillacs. “Next I can win a jet plane.” I said, “Where are you going to park that airplane? Out in front of your house?” I guess that I prefer physical reality.
To each his own choice of pastimes. I dislike the word “pastime.” Why in the world do we want to while away the hours and pass our precious time away? That black limousine is going to arrive all too soon! I’m talkin’ about you and me: We all do it. I waste a lot of time in unproductive pursuits such as reading cookery magazines with recipes that I’ll never cook or watching TV. However, life might not be much fun if we took everything seriously.
My choice not to play games on my computer is a conscious one. I know that I might become addicted as I’m rather competitive. Vicki says that there are even support groups for people who become addicted to games such as Candy Crush.
As I click away at my laptop’s keyboard, I keep thinking about Thoreau and the works that he accomplished before the typewriter was invented. And just think of Shakespeare’s output! However, I wouldn’t want to return to the days of listening for the ding of the typewriter’s bell when one reached the end of a line.
“Words, words, words.
My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below.
Words without thought
never to Heaven go.”
— Shakespeare, Hamlet
Chaim Potok had a rabbi say in one of his lovely novels that anything that helps people talk to one another is a blessing. I love the miracle of e-mail and being able to communicate with acquaintances and relatives all over the country via e-mail. However, will people ever learn not to write sensitive things down the way Governor Christie’s associates did? There is very little privacy in today’s world, and few secrets in cyberspace.
That sage, Ben Franklin, said, “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” The girls from a nearby town who sent nude pictures to their boyfriends have learned this the hard way. wclarke@comcast.net