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by Lore Sjöberg
Eject
It's pretty rare to find eject on a remote control, and that bothers
me. I can understand the reasoning: you're going to have to extract
your ass from the dents in the couch cushions to grab the tape anyway,
so what to you need an eject button for. And that would make perfect sense
except that the front panels of VCRs are inevitably tastefully illegible,
requiring you to bend down and get so close to the buttons you might as
well press them with your nose. B+
Pause
Pausing your favorite shows and movies is half the reason for
buying a VCR. It really shows those tapes who's in charge here. Whatever
Nicolas Cage is going off about, he's just going to have to zip
it and wait while you grab another Fresca. It's also handy for investigating
rumors of on-screen suicides and playing "Is That a Body Double?" A-
Rewind
Current rewinding technology is perfectly adequate, but I'm waiting
for the VCR that provides Distortion-Free 1:1 Speed Visual Rewind,
also known as "playing the movie backwards." Who doesn't like seeing
movies run backward? Milk squirts back into people's mouths! Cars
pull themselves off lamp posts and miraculously repair themselves while
smoke pours back into the tailpipe! Disney heroes renounce their loved
ones, lose their faith in themselves, and return to their oppressive
origins! It's fun! C
Fast Forward
Fast forward is handy for skipping past commericals in
recorded TV shows, but more often than not I'll fail to recognize the
last commerial in the pack and hit play too late, missing the first few
words in the description of the llama-fat-and-summer-melon bisque on
"Iron Chef." I propose the addition of a "fast-forward, but back
up a skosh afterwards" button. Also, I propose the elimination of
fast-forward modes that are too staticky to tell whether you're still
on last week's ER or you've moved to an old recording of "Seaquest DSV."
C-
Play
Classic in its simplicity, "Play" takes its place along such timeless
buttons as "On," "OK," and "Toast." Some may claim that "Play" is too
naïve for a complex post-podern, pre-contemporary, inter-millennial
world where buttons like "Standby" and "Zero Back" hold sway. However,
without beacons of selection like "Play," we sink
into a quagmire where "control" is relative and we are most
"remote" from our own souls. A
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