Isolation Is The Mother of Necessity
By Charles E. Kraus
My granddaughter says, “hold on,” actually, she doesn’t say it, she just leaves the screen, either going to get something or just going. She’s almost three which is a little too young to have internalized Zoom Etiquette. She returns clutching her Lucy doll. Lila wants me to wear hats, lots of them. “Gramps, wear your hat,” she tells me.
Every hat I’ve been able to find is lined up on the floor near my chair so I can reach down and retrieve an endless variety of headgear. Not only switching one for another, but occasionally placing one on top of another. I’ve developed a little Caps For Sale routine. Lila holds up books and toys to show me and discuss. My wife, Linda, takes over and reads our granddaughter a story, first the words, then the pictures held up in front of the screen. Like everyone else in these crazy times, we are all glued to our devices.
My wife, she’s 74, just hosted her first Zoom gathering. Five women with the combined tech savvy of … well they know as much about wireless connectivity as … me, and when I place a cell phone call, I turn the phone on, hold it to my hear and wait for a dial tone. Still, she figured out the procedures. Her friends’ faces lined up across the top of the screen, a row of individuals, many reaching down, around, pushing, shaking, trying to figure out how to adjust audio and the angle at which the camera was capturing their faces.
Due to a technical glitch, one woman was unable get any sound on her computer. She continued to attended the visual portion of the Zoom meetup and worked the audio by calling my wife on the phone. Linda put her own cell on speaker. Problem solved. As they say, nowadays,isolation is the mother of necessity.
Faces, mug shots — the usual or unusual suspects. FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, mostly Zoom, I’ve been seeing my family, friends and associates, closeup under glass. In the broadcast world they call the head and shoulders view a tight shot. With most apps, pictures are way tight. Blemishes, patchy beards … recently I noticed that a neighbor of mine has a slight clef in his chin. Only took me twenty years and a zoom chat to detect it.
We live in Seattle, but now join the kids and the grandkids (Northern CA) for dinner almost nightly. Pass the ketchup, please. Six-year-old Alice moves the bottle closer to the ipad, a sort of symbolic response to sharing dinner. “Here Gramps,” she says pretending to hand me the bottle. As we go around the table telling one good thing about the day and one thing we didn’t like, I notice just how comfortable everyone has become being in front of the camera.
There is a certain amount of faux eye contact that takes place during these long distance conversations. By force of habit, or force of nature, we keep initiating eye-to-eye contact. A frustrating effort when you find yourself peering into the eyes of the visual representation of those you love most dearly. But at least we are communicating.
I’m a children’s entertainer, and of course, all my shows — for schools, libraries and private parties, have bee cancelled. Or they were cancelled until I began working them on Zoom. First chats with individual children. Me in my costume seated next to my dog puppet, a kid sitting at home in front of a screen, often with a parent nearby.
These video chats are more interactive than watching a cartoon. Which color balloon should I blow up, I ask. Do you know any magic words? Maybe you could think up a new one, how about combining the first names of three friends? The magic word is ThomasDanielleRebecca! But that’s only if I make the silk scarf appear. To make it disappear, you have to say it backwards … RebeccaDanielleThomas! Perfect.
Moms started asking me if their kid’s friends, other isolated children, could participate. Not just friends, how about cousin Ester in New York, and Eno in Los Angeles? Sure. My puppet jokes work for one child or for many. “See all the children on their screens,” I say, and Biscuit The Dog Puppet replies, “this is great. On the ice screen? I love ice cream.” If you’re five, that is funny.
This morning, I booked two shows for a school in Los Angeles that has been holding Zoom meetups for their students. Full shows … Instead of just wearing the top half of my costume plus a pair of jeans, I’ll need to put on the entire outfit.
Tomorrow, Linda and I are “hiding” a collection of dolls and stuffed animals in our back yard, under bushes and behind trees. Lila and Alice will be watching on their phones as I tour the yard searching for the “missing” toys. We will scan the grounds with my phone, hoping to spot each and every doll and stuffy. By the way, there are prizes. You might want to join us.
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Charles E. Kraus lives, writes and performs in Seattle.
