Literacy pundits wept this week over a controversial re-release of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables, which is now in the public domain and can be reprinted and reformatted by anyone who thinks they can earn a dime from it, regardless of whether or not they’ve actually read it themselves. Rather than publish it with a cover that reflects one iota of the content, dark forces working through CreateSpace instead revamped little Anne’s image by disposing of everything about her except her gender. Presumably a skewed focus group or an ad executive with a one-track mind advised that today’s younger readers are 75% more likely to read a classic novel if the cover resembles a supermarket magazine.
Do the guilty parties have a point? Some publishers have found that quality content alone, regardless of pedigree, is often not enough to entice new readers, especially if the content is really old and uses archaic terms such as “gables”. Schoolteachers do their best to inform students of the perks and wonders of reading, but they only have so many months to force the kids to read as much as possible before they’re turned loose on the world and free to avoid books for the rest of their lives. If the writing itself isn’t enough of a draw, if the recommendations of elders send them in the opposite direction, how else are the classics supposed to attract new generations of audiences?
Clearly the answer is repackaging that catches the casual eye at any cost. Sure, photogenic NĂ¼-Anne bears no resemblance to her textual counterpart and is somewhat of an affront to dedicated Anne fans, but you’ll note the Amazon listing as of this writing lists this new edition as sold out. Either someone ordered it pulled due to the media scrutiny, or the plan worked beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
Fun trivia: I bought my very first ebook at 
Sasha’s parents may be divorcing and deserting Paradise in separate directions, but judging by the evidence presented in tonight’s new episode of Bunheads, “Take the Vicuna”, their forgotten credit cards are keeping their daughter company in their absence. Their magically limitless credit line is enough to secure her new luxury apartment, cover the utilities bills (and hopefully the learning curve that goes with those), provide two carts’ worth of startup food and accessories, and still have thousands left over to throw a righteous housewarming party for her core friends, several classmates, the grownups who didn’t abandon her, and for reasons unknown Aubrey (Victoria Park), her onetime cheerleading captain. The snacks are plentiful, the guests receive parting gifts, and the decor is so over-the-top ornate, you’d think Sasha shares an interior decorator with Tom Haverford from Parks and Rec.
After seeing Zero Dark Thirty as part of my annual Best Picture nominee binge, I exited the theater with just one thought on my mind: I’d hate to be a guy trying to start a new country in this day and age.
If you’re among those fans rooting for Michelle to remove foot from mouth and get back in good graces with her surfer bartender oceanographer near-beau Godot, this week’s new episode of Bunheads, “The Astronaut and the Ballerina”, may have been a disappointment for you. Michelle approaches, makes bad jokes, digs her hole a little deeper, gifts him with a copy of Finding Nemo because of oceanography, but then watches her baby steps to forgiveness interrupted by a surprise visitor: her deadbeat brother Scotty!
After months of squeezing in an episode here and there whenever time permitted (which was rarely), tonight I finally finished watching all five seasons of The Wire. It’s sixty episodes of the most politically charged, complicated, incisive, meaningful, profane, discomfiting, provocative, challenging television I’ve ever seen. It’s not a show for everyone, but following the storylines of its roughly eight thousand different characters (give or take three) became an unprecedented adventure that part of me secretly hopes has left me scarred and ruined for any other TV show or fictional tale that dares to try impressing me in the future. Its multifaceted examination of life on the streets of Baltimore at every level made my own lower-class upbringing look like the life of a prince, put my comparatively benign hometown in perspective, and has made it hard for me to read any local crime news without wondering how much they’re not telling us.
My annual quest to see all the Best Picture Academy Award nominees continued last weekend with the scrappy indie competitor of the lot, Beasts of the Southern Wild, a magical-realism fable about stubborn penury-dwellers who do their best to ignore ripped-from-the-headlines natural disaster and do whatever they want whether it’s healthy for them or not. Not since No Country for Old Men has a film left me so depressed.
Tonight’s new episode of Bunheads, “I’ll Be Your Meyer Lansky”, saw the return of one of Michelle and Fanny’s most dreaded mutual enemies: their accountant, Eric (Ron Butler). Though they ostensibly “run” a dance studio as an awkward partnership, neither of them is big on bookkeeping, finances, profit margins, simple math, or numbers in general. Consequently, the studio is tanking hard, thanks to the Nutcracker fundraiser disaster, Fanny’s reluctance to bill many of her poorer students, and both instructors’ penchant for canceling classes on a whim and/or plot device. 
I hadn’t originally planned to see Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Unlike many of my longtime Internet peers, his films aren’t an automatic draw for me. Though Reservoir Dogs has been a qualified favorite of mine since college, the rest have been a mixed bag. His previous work, Inglorious Badwerds, was a mature, complex, riveting film about WWII and about the role of film in WWII, but was hampered by Brad Pitt’s Kentucky-fried B-movie brigade who snuck in from the direct-to-video good-ol’-boys revenge flick next door. From the trailers, Django looked to me like a 2-cool-4-school blaxploitation Western. Call it Shaft in Texas or Black Grit. Despite the talented cast involved and the joyous responses from the critical majority, it didn’t really sound like my kind of movie.
The advance screening of Broken City I attended last night was made possible through a marketing promotion run by a social-event notification service, from which I’d considered unsubscribing months prior. Lucky for me, their very first useful offer crossed my path at just the right time.
Some evenings at the theater, the marquee only has two choices: $200 million action blockbusters and $5,000 found-footage camcorder flicks. If you’re yearning for a simple, mid-sized film with no CGI monsters and at least two famous actors, Broken City offers an R-rated option for fans of crime drama in general and tough-talking guys in particular. It’s a capable primer for anyone who’s never seen a film about political scandal or government corruption, and comfort food for those who can’t get enough of watching little guys taking down big dogs.
2012 was my worst year for comic book enjoyment in the last fifteen years. I’ve collected them for thirty-four years, ever since the well-stocked spinner racks at Marsh Supermarket caught my eye at age six and opened new worlds of imagination and heroism. For the majority of my life they’ve been my primary hobby among all my hobbies. Once upon a time, friends could count on me to spout the occasional essay about a particular series, event, historical recollection, or rage-filled response to an aesthetic offense. When I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover last April, I thought the topic of comic books would inspire a lot more posts than they have so far.