A Week Of Extremes: Darkness And Dazzle
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
The annual Christmas party I host in my home for my group of friends was taken to an entirely new level of merrymaking last week when the power in the entire town sputtered out about an hour into the occasion. I had already moved this party from its usual Saturday placement to a Thursday because the men who planned the College Football Playoffs clearly didn’t, for one single minute, consider how their scheduling would affect ideal nights for Christmas parties. I decided to view the new Thursday night party situation as a positive and just send thoughts and prayers to any suffering guests when they got up to go to work the following Friday morning. If anything, I assumed that the party would be a little tamer with the Thursday placement and figured any chance of suffering-at-work the following day would diminish. And this likely would have been the case. But then the power went out.
I guess all my future parties will be in the pitch dark now because that was great fun! Also, shout out to whoever invented batteries. And double shout out to whoever came along after that person and invented battery-powered faux candles. When the miles of electric Christmas lights and regular house lights that I spent actual hundreds of dollars on for this party sputtered out, everyone in my house erupted in a roar of resigned laughter, turning to any confused or concerned Oxford guest standing nearby to say some version of “Welcome to Water Valley!” or “You’re getting the real Water Valley experience now!” But, due to the battery-powered faux candles I had placed everywhere, my house suddenly looked romantic and like we were partying in 1886. I felt like a Wagner with no money and a contemporary view of human rights. And that was a lot of fun! I suggest that the town of Water Valley shut off the power for a couple of hours on Halloween or New Year’s next time and see how it goes! Don’t do Thanksgiving, though. It won’t go well.
Two days later, in an exact opposite lighting situation, I attended the Ole Miss football game and watched us win the first round of the College Football Playoffs! The event was so well lit with flashing lights and a constant bombardment of fireworks that I felt like I was experiencing July Fourth inside a skate center. There were so many flashing lights that I was slightly concerned with the possibility of mass photosensitive seizures. At one point, an army of flying, lighted drones formed themselves into gargantuan letters that spelled the word “REBELS” in the sky over the entire stadium, and I found myself thinking about the series of historical events, discoveries and zeitgeists that bottlenecked into that quite singular phenomenon. I was glad to witness it in real life because you just can’t make it up.
By the time many of you read this column, it will be Christmas Day, and I hope that Santa Claus brought you all that you want. And, assuming everyone stays warm, if what you wanted doesn’t work when the power goes out, then it’s not what will make you happy anyway. What makes a person happy are the people who stick around with you in the dark.
Merry Christmas, and buy some batteries.
