The first woman I called at Penguin Books did admit that she heard of it, but I needed to call another number. No problem. How many things are ever settled by talking to the first person?
I never bought a book with missing pages. Not ripped out, just never there in the first place. The second woman I talked to said she never heard of this one, but there must have been a problem at the bindery. I'll say.
The other night I went to get more details on George Clooney's 2005 "Good Night, and Good Luck," the Edward R. Murrow film he directed and co-wrote that centered on Murrow's pursuit of Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s. The Red Hunt. The Blacklist era.
It's a great film if you know anything about the era and lived through parts of it firsthand, even if you were just a wee one at the time. I distinctly remember adults being scared of who might be a Communist. Growing up I heard the doorman at 150 East 18th Street went to meetings. I always looked intently at this guy in his Mexican general uniform when I delivered flowers and wondered how he was going to threaten my safety. He always held the door open for me and told me next time to use the service entrance. I never did.
When I went to look the movie up in Maltin's 2014 movie guide I was first confused by the listing that went from 'Frank and Ollie' on the bottom of page left, directly to 'Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams.' at the top of page right.
As anyone who has ever struggled with Maltin's published lists will tell you, the alphabetizing is of its own invention. It follows no accepted standard. This presents problems when there is a numerical start to a title, or words after A and I. Spaces are not handled well. Keep looking, you'll find it somewhere. But only if all the pages are there.
Missing pages is a new low for print. I remember there being a story in the paper about how the 2014 edition was going to the last one printed. Mr. Maltin says with all that there is online, no one goes to print as they once did. No one goes to G as they once did either.
So, we'll see if the fresh copy they promise to send me, via UPS, will have all the pages. I asked the woman could they at least first check that at least the ones I mentioned as missing are all there. No, that would be impossible. When I get the replacement, just "recycle" the old one.
Is she kidding? My first reaction will be to see if the new one is at least fatter than the old one. Then I'll see if there's anything missing. Then I'll keep both books. Just for fun.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment