Marissa Flaxbart

A Crisis of Book Lust

Over the past few years, I've offcially made the transition from "book lover" to "book collector." The difference mainly lies in the types of books I'm most inclined to buy: coveted presses like Taschen (my favorite) or Phaidon, and gorgeous hardcovers of all kinds. Yes, that's right. I buy books because they're pretty — only, of course, if I intend to (eventually) read them.

Normally, when I see a lovely book, my initial reaction is, "Oooh!" But today, when I walked in to a Barnes & Noble for the first time in ages (there's not one very nearby) and saw a giant stack of beautifully bound volumes, I said, "Shit." I said it out loud. Shit.

In the picture above, you can see just my favorites. The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. Seven novels by Jane Austen. The entire Chronicles of Narnia. Stories by H. G. Wells. The whole Hitchhikers' Guide! I could get one for me and one to replace my friend Mary's copy that I pretty much destroyed in college. They're only $20, for Pete's sake. Sure, they're "Bargain" Collectibles, and anyone can pick them up at any B&N anywhere. But just look at them! Ribbon markers! Embossing! Puffy covers! AND, of course, must-have collector's titles.

I guess I'm just going to have to pace myself. Maybe I'll buy one per month. Or one per week...one per day? No, no. I'll take it slow — after all, it's going to take some time to clear out all that shelf space.

One Month In, One New Comedy Stands Apart: Modern Famiy

Fall 2009 has been a relatively strong one for new TV shows; such seasons happen every few years, as new shows shine bright while their ratings promise is still infinite. It's only October, so we viewers can also hold on to high hopes for our favorite network shows ("Who cares about ratings? NBC/CBS/ABC/Fox will surely recognize that this series can and should survive on artistic merit alone!", etc).

I'm enjoying shows on several networks. My old favorites on CBS (HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, Old Christine) are as good as ever, though new comedy Accidentally On Purpose is middling at best. Fox has a great new show in Glee, hilarious despite, or often because of, its groan-worthy moments (The Cleveland Show, on the other hand, just feels like Seth MacFarlane is punking America). My pick for best new, high-hopes show, however, is on ABC (surprise!). It's the smartly funny, remarkably well-cast single-camera comedy Modern Family. If you haven't seen it, consider this a call to arms. The show is a family comedy, technically speaking, but with clever twists to the classic family archetype that starts with the characters and carries into the plots and writing of each episode. I'm hoping hard that this one will be around for a while to come. But just in case, I'd love it if everyone would watch the next few episodes really hard for me. You'll like it.

Surprising Cross-Promotions: Greeting Cards and Queen

Cross-promtions are everywhere, and sometimes they make sense. Even though the District 9 popcorn bags were kind of odd, the thought process behind the promotion was clear. But how to explain this prominent promotion in the greeting card aisle?

It just strikes me as a little strange. There are songs by all sorts of artist in these music-playing cards; why highlight Queen's involvement in this audio endeavor? For the card company, the benefit is clear (who wouldn't want to hear the cheerful chorus of "Under Pressure" while celebrating his or her birthday?), but what's in it for Queen? 

Michael and Michael Have Issues With a Rowdy Audience

 I've been a big fan of Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black for a long time, and was thrilled to find out that they were headed to Chicago to do a live show, based on the success of their Comedy Central show Michael and Michael Have Issues. When I heard it was at the Metro, I was confused. What kind of comedy venue is that?

The answer? A lousy one. The guys came on at about 9:45 and started in with some conversational schtick, playing hilarious (though woefully unedited) real footage of a recent interview they'd done on Detroit's local morning news. They continued in this casual vein, clearly not hot to peform any carefully-planned material. They were just funny guys being funny. It's not a strategy that works for everyone, but for the first half of the show, it was hilarious. 

As the show continued, however, things started to get strange. After Black explained that their series had not yet been picked up for another season (it may still be), an audience member upset at what he thought was its cancellation shouted "Try harder!" This slight was not to be ignored, and the guys riffed on that for a while, talking to the heckler and making a joke out of it. A long joke. They moved on, but some audience members were under impression that it was now a participation act. Girls in the Metro's balcony, which hangs very close to the stage, started shouting out any thought they had, directing the show through their drunken rambling. If they were trying to derail the whole enterprise and make it about them, these ladies succeeded. It was awkward and unpleasant for everyone.

How should the Michaels have handled it? If they'd ignored the shouting, the second half of the show would likely have been much smoother and shown clearer direction. But ignoring something as loud as this in such a small space would also have been truly odd, and out-of-character. It was a lose-lose.

Maybe I'm biased, but I'm tempted to blame the choice of venue. Sure, opener Jessi Klein was able to deftly handle a couple of audience outburts that occurred during her straight-forward standup set, but it was much shorter. If the Michaels return to Chicago, I'll be thrilled to see them again, but only if their booking agent chooses a different venue. Preferably one that doesn't have a balcony that hangs close to the stage. Oh, and seats would be nice. 

Trending Topics: Another Fishy Statistic

Trending Topics. Fun but fishy. But first, some background:

When people ask me what I majored in in college, I always say "Cinema and Media Studies," or "Film Studies," depending on how loud the room is. What I almost never say is "I also came really close to double-majoring in film and psychology, but I decided in my last semester that I didn't care about completing the second major." I don't say that, but it is a fact. I took a LOT of psychology courses in college. 

Even though my psych studies aren't a part of my one-paragraph bio anymore, I'm glad I took those courses. One of the most valuable things I learned in my studies was about statistics. Namely, that they are dubious. Professional articles detail the studies that create statistics, and these articles are, at best, verbose about sample sizes, statistical significance, etc. But the statistics that trickle down into political talking points and newspaper headlines are often uncited, biased, or just plain confounding (sorry, statistics pun).

So, now to Twitter. On the sidebar of everyone's twitter homepage, there is a lovely list of things that are being most frequently uttered on the service. It's automatically generated, and is fun to take a glance at. Should you ever click on one of these words or phrases, you'll see the most recent tweets that contain them. And you'll likely see a problem with the whole Trending Topics enterprise. 

Some users are simply obsessed with Trending Topics. So while millions of people are tweeting about their excitement over the New Moon soundtrack's early release, a million more (give or take) are tweeting about how psyched they are that "New Moon" is trending. There are users at this very moment having a ball by combining as many Trending Topics into one post as they can. Why? I can't begin to fathom.

 At the time of this writing, "Remotely start your" is trending because of a highly re-tweeted Mashable article called "Want to remotely start your car...there's an app for that". Tons of Trending-Topic junkies saw the phrase, and are riffing on it by tweeting "remotely start your life," or "remotely start your Christmas Shopping." That latter example was tweeted by WithLoveGifts, an online store selling gifts (like "an acre of land on the moon") to people in the UK. Trending Topics as marketing strategy? Clever indeed. 

Clever and fishy.