News You Can Bruise for 2008 January 4

Once in a while we get a glimpse in the New York Times of the crushing problems that beset the incredibly rich. The problems seem to center around that home away from home, the home away from home. A year ago it was the difficulty of getting an appliance fixer to come on a boat to Dolphin's Ass, MA and fix the stove in your summer home. But what about stocking said home with books? Books don't buy themselves, you know (except on the Kindle). And sometimes your guests want to read a book they'd enjoy, not something you bought because it's the right dimensions to fill a shelf. ("Don’t forget the oversize art books for those tall bottom shelves.")

"At one Manhattan couple’s weekend home in the Catskills, books seem to have a life of their own." I blame Gumby.

It's like an article about arranging a dinner party for mutually incompatible species of aliens. ("If grandparents are going to be the guests, then you should have... photo books of places they’ve lived in or visited, maybe art books or military histories or books on their hobbies.") If I had an extra home I was going to let people borrow, I'd probably stock it with books I'd already read and liked, copies of which I conveniently already own and want to get out of the book-crowded house. If you don't like it you can bring your own books! Get off mah property!

PS: Due to an extended-family sharing thing I actually have access to one of these summer homes, but since it's in Utah I've so far avoided being the sort of person who gushes about 'the summer home', or even goes there.

PPS: Apparently all my writing is now going to have the tone of TF:AR entries.

From that we go way, way downmarket to misleading TV gadget ads, including an early one from 1985. Sumana and I have always loved the actors who feign cartoonish incompetence at everyday tasks so as to make the product advertised look more useful. I never know the intended register of those scenes. Do the rubes who buy the gadgets see the incompetence scenes as mere Seinfeld-esque exaggerations of real everyday problems?

Anyway, that reminded us of the Rototron Cornbobber, so we had to watch that again. Rick Lax, who wrote and co-starred in the infomercial, now has a law school weblog. You, sir, are a mouthful!