That Tears It

U.S. audiences have become benumbed, but last week a Canadian eavesdropper on U.S. television looked hard and loosed a cry of outrage. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when a charming, unidentified, beautifully gowned woman would stand in the corner of my living room tearing toilet tissue," complained Vancouver Province's Columnist Eric Nicol last week. He had tuned in on Seattle's Station KOMO just in time to see the commercial for Delsey tissue during the NBC Perry Como show.

Explained Nicol shakily: "We have this madonna of the tissue, throatily advising us that there is no waste as she plucks two pieces apart. We wait in vain for her to produce a comb and give us a musical selection. It becomes clear that her purpose is not artistic but utilitarian.

"In the past, the great arts, such as poetry and music, have attempted to be transcendent, carrying us out of ourselves for communion with something exalted and splendid. But not television. Every few minutes television reminds us that we are one with the brutes, the slaves of body processes, and ever prone to topple back into the primordial ooze."

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