Inside Peek

Once upon a time, our venerable news anchors….Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and others… ended their programs by thanking us, their viewers, for inviting them into our homes.  That doesn’t happen anymore, of course.   Now, in this new world, what with the virus and all, the cable news anchors and pundits are reporting from their homes and inviting us into them. 

That means that we get a peek inside their libraries, dens, and living rooms.  We’re privy to their home decorating styles, their reading preferences, their taste in art and their general approach to life at home.   Most of them speak in front of clearly staged bookshelves.  There is, of course, the occasional renegade.

One of those is Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Is he reporting from a library, office, family room?  It defies definition and so does he.  He’s become so much to so many.  No pretense in his space.  Just information, data, and boxes and boxes of materials that he needs to digest and present to us intelligently and knowledgeably.

Another renegade is a very opinionated, highly educated, lawyer whom we respect.  He delivers his reports in front of a painting I would really, really like to own.  I can’t have it of course.  It’s his and besides we don’t have a lot of wall space available and this is a big piece.  A great big piece.  It’s painting of a shed on a blue background.  That’s it. Simple, elegant, enchanting. 

This level of voyeurism is just plain fun.  Even though the in-home/on-air spaces have been sanitized and curated, I feel like I know all those experts a wee bit better. I just wish the books on those shelves hadn’t been quite so carefully placed so nosy people like me can’t read the titles and judge their owners by their books’ covers.