Video Fireplace
$20.00
Video Naturals
www.verynicevideos.com
Video Fireplace is one of those ideas that has been around forever. Basically, it is three hours of footage of a fire burning in a fireplace. The idea is that if you don’t have a fireplace, you can still spend a romantic evening with a date on a rug in front of your VCR – albeit with a screw-top bottle of wine. For years, this has been widely viewed as one of the stupidest manifestations of western society.
On behalf of Western Society, I’d like to apologize to “director” Steven Siporin and the good people at Video Naturals for any sneering I might have ever done at this under-rated gem.
I bought Video Fireplace for my wife for Christmas. We have just moved into an apartment without a fireplace and I thought it would be fun to hang our stockings by a virtual fire. What I didn’t count on was being sucked into this minimalist masterpiece. Any fire can be hypnotic and this one is no exception. As the taped footage begins, three or four logs are already burning briskly on a pair of firedogs in a brick fireplace. The crackling of the flames grabbed my attention and before I knew it, I was staring at it just like I would a real fire.
Before I knew it, a plot of sorts developed. The middle log burned through pretty quickly, and fell down the middle, creating a sort of a diagonal line that gave a sort of a reference point to the rest of the fire. Even more interesting (in a very surreal way) was the andiron which appeared from off-camera every ten minutes or so and poked the fire. It was very weird, but as I watched this, I quickly started to anticipate the next time the fire would get poked – “He has to do it soon… maybe… NOW! No? Aaaargh…!” My only complaint about how this plot played out is that no new logs were ever added. (Sorry to spoil the ending.)
Another bizarre thing is that everyone in the room started to treat Video Fire like a real fire. Because it was on the TV, nobody could watch anything else, so we put on music and cooked some snacks. We really did huddle around it.
I admit it – Video Fireplace makes me happy. What makes me even happier is that I shelled out the extra money for the companion video – Video Aquarium. I can’t wait to watch it – I hear good things about the performance by the angelfish.
