The one useful thing about getting spam from Amazon.com is that it reminds me that I still have several hundreds of dollars left to spend collecting my personal research material into popular entertainment that I fancy.
Though, this morning, it proved to be a harsh reminder of how consumerism works with fan boys and girls like myself that "need" to have everything. Box sets I bookmarked have been discontinued by the retail manufacturer, some DVD titles have just stopped being printed altogether, and those that have not have been added to my list because they are now the only way I can get them.
Yes, while the face value of what I have marked does seem like I'm just a nerd collecting detritus, the sad fact of the matter is that this is really research into what it is that makes me fawn over these creations. I could say one thing when you ask me that one day and another thing another day. The only way I can actually say what it is that makes me love what I watch so much is to spend an obsessive amount of time with them, risking the very thing that made me love them so much if I have to.
Anyway, the moral of the day is that you can't really wait out consumerism thanks in part to the concept of "limited editions." That's why I dropped $50 for a hardback comic book printed on high-quality sketch paper that I'll never open because it's shrink wrapped to protect it from damage while it was being shipped. That's also why I spent another $20 getting that same comic book only in paperback so that I can actually read it.
1 comment:
Jon,
I can understand these feelings without much effort. While I am into old fashioned books, I feel the same way about some of them that you do about the video and the comic books.
I am sure that I have a few things in the house that are no longer available and that there are some people somewhere who would love to have them. But I'm probably not going to make any effort to find those persons.
I worked for Ingram Book company in the 1970's, a time when publishers were buying each other out and merging and eliminating titles from their backlists. Hundreds of library orders came in for titles no longer available or out of print (if there is a real difference). I suspect that we are in the beginning of another period where this is going to happen -- this time with DVDs and CDs and other non-traditional-book items.
Nothing wrong with collecting a few things if you keep it under control. But there's really nothing creative about collecting in and of itself, especially when you keep all the good stuff shrink-wrapped.
Robert
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