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Media Detox

By Cullen Murphy
Posted Monday, Feb. 15, 1999, at 6:42 PM ET

Yes, giving up the news for Lent is something I have thought about, and dismissed out of hand. I've actually gone cold turkey on various occasions--a long weekend here, a short foreign jaunt there--only to be embarrassed at a later date by the inexplicable lacunae in my knowledge. (Princess Diana--no!!! And I'm still not quite convinced that there was ever a Chernenko regime in the USSR.) In truth, at this point I'm probably news-dependent, and require a regular maintenance dose; almost anything will do. Some while ago, on an endless car trip, I remember listening to BBC reports about rebels advancing through the suburbs of Freetown, Sierra Leone. From hour to hour nothing much changed, except unconfirmed reports that rebels had captured a few more blocks of geography that meant absolutely nothing. Circular Road. Queen Elizabeth Docks. Pathetic.

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Is there a methadone form of news?

One form of news embargo that I could imagine willingly adhering to isn't exactly of the giving-up (= sacrifice) variety. This is a form that was pioneered, if memory serves, by Calvin Trillin. If I have the particulars right, Trillin and his wife have been accustomed to make one another a gift of whole realms of subject matter. He might give her Lebanon, gene-splicing, and antitrust law. She might give him the European Union, liberation theology, and nuclear proliferation. The idea was that each of them would do all of the necessary reading in the "gift" areas, endowing the other person with several carefree tracts of time. This system probably explains how Trillin can produce extraordinary little pieces like the one in the February 8 New Yorker about the ticktacktoe-playing chicken. This article had special significance for me because, 20 years ago, my other breakfast table-companion and I spent part of our honeymoon on Mott Street, in Lower Manhattan, losing game after game to the ur-Zen master of the chickens that have been trouncing all comers ever since.

But back to Lent. Am I wrong in thinking that the idea of "giving [something] up" has overflowed its traditional sectarian catchment? The concept seems to have become the sort of thing that just about anyone can be heard subscribing to. It would make sense: the therapeutic culture has permeated everything by now, and I suppose that Lent can be seen as a longer (and much less expensive) version of a stay at Canyon Ranch, with a quasi-spiritual gloss.

In an odd way, though, I'm looking forward to Lent: It seems to be coming at the right psychological time. I almost added the words "in the news cycle," which shows you my condition. (The close conjunction this year of Presidents' Day, Valentine's Day, and Ash Wednesday is an alignment so apt as to preempt commentary.) But I have been giving some thought to the subject of personal deprivation. And you?