at the end of every commercial break, the show’s trademark shot of planet earth as seen from space, turning, would appear, and the CBS daytime network announcer’s voice would say, ‘You’re watching As the World Turns,’ which he seemed, on this particular day, to say more and more pointedly each time—‘You’re watching As the World Turns,’ until the tone began to seem almost incredulous—‘You’re watching As the World Turns’—until I was suddenly struck by the bare reality of the statement. I don’t mean any sort of humanities-type ironic metaphor, but the literal thing he was saying, the simple
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