MUSING ON DVDS...

By OMOSEYE BOLAJI

I seemed to make a bee-line for the 2, 3 dvds I wanted at the shop. With great speed I had browsed through the shelves, knowing I would probably find any two dvds I would care to watch, anyway. Thereafter I took them to the cashiers for payment.

It was an attractive shop in the heart of Sanlam plaza in the city. Here musical cds and general dvds, especially movies are sold. I did not come here often, but when I did, I made it snappy. I have never been one for window-shopping.

How technology keeps on advancing, I thought. A few decades ago we listened to music cartridges in cars, trendy small cassettes on our sound systems. Now it was all about c.ds. Back then, for movies it was the video cassettes for films. and there was nothing like cellphones in those days....

Now dvds were the rage. No doubt, coming generations would be taking advantage of apparently slicker technological advances. That is life with its atavistic creative burthen. Now I set about paying for the dvds, the latter placed on the counter.

To my left, a man stared at the 2 dvds I had chosen. I had noticed him rather absent-mindedly earlier. From his accent, it was clear that he was "coloured", using South African terminology – that’s like half caste or, mulatto.

He said to me – “You have good taste in movies. This is the first time I will see someone choose two such old classics - I spit on your grave, and Fatal attraction."

I shook my head deprecatingly.”No,” I said. “I am not really into movies. I mean there are scores of them we can watch daily on general tv, dstv, but I dislike most of them. I am very selective, and would rather buy the few movies that have impressed me over the decades. I guess I am very old fashioned."

“I am a bit like that too,” the gentleman said, now surprisingly following me to the entrance of the shop. "I am a teacher, very worried about our children who no longer read - " He stared at me. "Now I remember! You are to do with books, aren’t you? a writer. A couple of my students love your books. I remember now! ... I am sure you are worried too that few kids read these days."

I sighed. "It’s all this technology. mixit, facebook, cellphones...it's insidious, killing black youth in particular, as they can't prioritise. Most of their time goes on this stuff, exacerbating their illiteracy. I am sure you educators are worried..."

“The way we are going few youth will be able to spell accurately," he frowned, going on. “Now most of them spell in a bizarre way when sending messages on their phones, thinking they are being fanciful. It’s a pity really. Very few youth bother to try to read a book now, whereas in old days even half-baked pupils who went to primary schools read a lot...” We soon parted.

I was thinking: Of course these days the old dvd cassettes now appear to be somewhat ungainly and even awkward. That’s the way it goes as modern technology marches on stolidly. A few decades in Nigeria, for one, people were so proud of their video players and complementary video cassettes.

Strangely enough, in those days it was a "religious" video movie I was so enamoured with - The Ten commandments, starring Charlton Heston. What a film! The sheer colourful spectacle, the magnificent scale and range of the movie blew me away, not to talk of the convincing comprehensive gallery of the actors.

Heston himself who acted the part of the biblical Moses was my firm favourite, with his magnificent focus and plumy, awe-inspiring delivery. As a youngster, I knew by heart all his lines in the film. They seemed (are!) so regal! How about:

“I’m sending down the (River) Nile 20 full barges of such wealth as you can see here...logs of ebony and trees of myrrh, all for your new treasured city... “ Or:

“What the gods can digest will not sour in the belly of a slave!”

Ah, quality movies that can build one (instead of gory tosh)!

PIC above: Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments