Recently, I re-watched You’ve Got Mail. I don’t think I’ve seen this movie in seven or eight years, since before I knew anything about the book industry, before I lived in New York City, before I’d heard of Books of Wonder, before B&Ns and Borders were as ubiquitous as they are today, and finally, before most people had moved away from AOL dial-up.
It’s interesting to see how fast this movie has aged. I feel like I’m watching a period piece. What also interests me is all the little publishing inside jokes that I never before would have noticed. When Greg Kinnear’s NYO columnist character attacks Tom Hanks’s bookstore chain owner, he call him an “enemy of the mid-list writer.” Parker Posey’s “Patricia Eden of Eden Books” is a harsh, gossipy, whatever-it-takes publisher that it now, to me, eerily reminiscent of a certain publisher who recently lost her job over a murderous memoir. I’m probably the last person to notice any of this, but hey, this flick came out while I was in high school.
Oh, and Dave Chapelle plays Tom Hanks’s friend. So weird.
Okay, let’s give a book away.
This week’s winner of the Book Pimp Giveaway is… PATRICK. Patrick, please email me with your choice of book.
Have a great weekend everyone! It’s my birthday (this weekend), so I shall be celebrating. Of course, last year was a “cubed” birthday. This year is what…? 7×4 is the best I can come up with. Not quite as cool. Also, I think it’s official that I’m in my late 20s. I can no longer claim “mid.”
January 19th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Happy Birthday !
And by the way You’ve Got Mail is one of my favorite movies. It’s about our favorite thing “Books, Books, and More Books”. But I gotta admit, I do get a bit of a laugh when I hear that dial-up sound in the beginning. I don’t even remember what life was like before broadband.
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January 19th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Thanks, r-grrl.
It’s actually a charming flick, but I think my favorite Hanks-Ryan pairing is Joe Vs. the Volcano. I don’t know why…
I also can’t remember life before the internet. Did people just go around not knowing things as important as who that guy was in that movie that time? What would I do without imdb and Wikipedia? It’s the apotheosis of trivia.
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January 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You still have a few years before you catch up to me! Hope you have a fantastic weekend celebrating!!
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January 19th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Happy Birthday!!! Hope you enjoyed your special day!
As for You’ve Got Mail – love it! It’s one of Meg’s best performances – love the scene where she’s sick and Tom Hanks comes to visit! Also her description of the Fall – the smell of pencils! Sorry to say that I didn’t catch the book/publisher references, but then again – I’m not in the business. It’s neat to hear your perspective thought – I’ll pay more attention to it the next time I watch it!
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Happy Birthday, Diana!!!
I think the occasion warrants extreme exclamation point usage.
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Happy Birthday, Diana! And I said the exact thing when I turned 28. I’ll be 29 this year, and would be dreading it terribly, if it wasn’t three weeks after my release.
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:19 am
I’m so sorry! Was too busy wishing Diana a Happy Birthday that I forgot to say:
Congratulations, Patrick!! Hope you love whichever book you decide to take!
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Happy Birthday!
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Happy Birthday. I hope you have a wonderful day.
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January 19th, 2007 at 11:46 am
HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, D! Nothing wrong with being on the back side of your 20s. Speaking from experience, things get a LOT better from here on out.
I try to catch You’ve Got Mail every few years. The last time was right before I went to New York to meet my editor for the first time, and I realized what a love letter to NY that movie is. I mean, have you ever seen the city look so beautiful? They really highlight the seasons, the charm, the food, the cafes–how could you not want to visit after seeing that?
Congratulations to Patrick, although Diana, you must know that he wins everything. It’s really kind of spooky. But what’re you gonna do.
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January 19th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Charge your glasses! Toasts aplenty!
Our Diana’s eight-and-twenty!
Here’s to her and all her books,
With their clever plotting hooks,
Their twists and turns, their curves and bends,
Telling of Amy and her friends.
For SSG, Sub Rosa, too,
Our congratulations due
We humbly tender; we can’t wait
For Number Three to apparate.
OK, I’m done now – Hallmark’s calling -
(To work for them would be so galling),
But before I call it quits,
Or my muse goes on the fritz,
Charge your glasses! Toasts aplenty!
Our Diana’s eight-and-twenty!
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January 19th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Um, 2 square 7 and 2 00 7?
Happy birthday!
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January 19th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Happy Birthday, Diana!
Bummer that I didn’t win. Again. {sigh} But I’m following your lead and giving books away today too…and yours is one of them!!
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January 19th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Happy Birthday!
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January 19th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Happy Birthday Diana!
You’ve Got Mail is an all-time favorite of mine. Funny, it doesn’t seem dated at all to me, be/c it has computers, chat rooms and email. I don’t even notice details like dial-up. I think it’s a generational thing — my kids would probably watch it and say, mom, that’s so out of date, lol.
Anyways, have a great birthday!!! 28 is a very nice age to be.
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January 19th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Happy Birthday!
I loved peripheral book spotting while watching You’ve Got Mail. Fun!
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January 19th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope it’s a wonderful celebration for you.
As for YOU’VE GOT MAIL, I’m going to be the dissenting vote here. While I liked the movie overall and think the cast of characters is rich and deep, I thought that Joe Fox was deceptive the whole movie to the point of ruining her business and then deceiving her even further to get her to fall for him. He knows who she is, yet she doesn’t know he’s the mystery online mine. He manipulates her through his text messages and even in person. The whole thing seemed incredibly forced to me and I felt that she was manipulated into falling for him…the man who shamelessly put her out of business.
I know…throw eggs and rotten tomatoes at me. Wait ’til you hear my take on IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. :::EEEG:::
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January 19th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Happy Birthday, Diana!
And (sorry Mahhhley *g*) You’ve Got Mail is one of my favorite movies. I own it and watch it often.
Sadly, living out here in rural no-man’s land, I do still have dialup. Fortunately I don’t have AOL. *g*
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January 19th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Hmmm, I disagree, Marley. Though You’ve Got Mail is not my favorite film, and is probably my LEAST favorite film adaptation of that story (I prefer both the Jimmy Stewart version and the Judy Garland version), I think Joe was acting pretty above-board.
No, he didn’t tell her who he was when he took his young relatives to her store, but he didn’t go there to case the joint. They insisted that he go, and he didn’t think it was right to provoke a fight with her while standing in her store, which I think is nice of him. Then, at the party, which is neutral territory, you can see that he’s embarrassed to be caught.
However, all the business advice he gives her online is good — both before he knows who she is, AND afterwards. When she writes to him after he meets her at the coffee shop, he tells her that whatever mean thing she said to the man who is trying to ruin her, he probably deserved it. Yes, he plays with her a little bit when he sees her there, but she’s been badmouthing him on television. He’s getting his medicine served to him.
But he takes no JOY in closing her store. It’s just business. And you can see how hard it was for him to support HIS family’s business and the hundreds if not thousands of employees when he overhears her in his store talking about books she knows. He employs ALL of her employers. He tells her she should try writing books, He supports his girlfriends’ idea to try to employ Meg’s character as an editor. He doesn’t want her ruined. But what is he supposed to do? Close?
And the only reason he lies to her afterwards is because he knows if he tells her, he’ll lose her. He needs to wait until she gets to a point where she can forgive him. Which is why he keeps trying to make friends with her “in real life.” And every time he does, he asks her, in a very Beauty-and-the-Beast-at-dinner way, if she can ever, ever, ever forgive him for being the one responsible for her business closing. They were very skillful in the way they handled that. He can’t bear to lose her, so he needs to know. If she had at any point said that she is ready to move past it, he’s going to say “So, guess what? I’m NY152.”
She’s a bigger person than me, though, I’d never forgive some jerk who destroyed my family business, even if it was through no fault of his own. He didn’t set OUT to destroy her. It wasn’t malicious. He just had a more viable business model.
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January 19th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Hey, Happy Birthday! Did I know you and I were born on the same day? (Different years, god knows). I think that’s very cool.
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January 19th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Happy Birthday, Diana! Hope it’s a great one!
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January 19th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
So true, Diana. It was changing times — a shift in the demands of the marketplace — that destroyed her business, not Joe Fox.
This one’s my favorite Hanks-Ryan pairing. I think it’s such a perfect conflict — and a perfect balance between their two perspectives.
Ahh, life before the Internet. The trivia people amassed in their heads was really a valuable commodity back then. Now, not so much.
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January 19th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Jo, I feel like maybe we have spoken about this before…it’s a pretty common time to have a birthday, don’t you think? I hear a lot of people having birthdays now… or maybe I just notice it now.
Actually, to clarify, my birthday is tomorrow… this weekend. Not today. Like Buffy.
wow, great poem, Bill! Thanks so much!
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January 19th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Ah, sweet victory!
I love it when people give me gifts for their birthday. It’s so thoughtful. I know this day is all about you, but seriously, don’t forget about me.
I LOVE “You’ve Got Mail” and just about any other romantic comedy in regular rotation on TNT. Being a computer geek, it was dated the moment I saw it, but I loved it anyway.
And Marley, what good relationship doesn’t involve manipulation? You’re trying to make the person like you… Now, if he started the relationship to run her business into the ground, that’s a different story.
Now to choose a book. Decisions, decisions. Logic says the signed one. Hmmmm…
Robin, I’m waiting for my chocolate.
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January 19th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Happy birthday (from a dedicated lurker who really looks up to people in their twenties who can cheerfully admit that they are no longer “mid”). I really hope it’s a good one for you.
4! + 4, maybe? (I’m stuck with a prime number at the moment, so no neat expressions for me.)
You’ve Got Mail was a cute movie (meaning I could stand it despite the romance – yes, please, just shoot me now, you know you want to). As I told a friend of mine who was amazed that I liked it, at least it revolves around bookstores.
Congratulations, Patrick!
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January 20th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Happy birthday!
“I also can’t remember life before the internet.”
We used to write more and share less of it
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January 20th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Delurking to say Happy Birthday! It does seem to be a popular time for b-days, I’m just a couple days away.
Also thanks for the tip on the release of season two of Joan of Arcadia. I’m waiting for the final disk to arrive (hopefully today). Too bad there’s no more…
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January 20th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Happy Birthday, Friend!! Sure wish I was close enough to buy you a drink or five
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January 20th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Happy Birthday!!!
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January 20th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Have a fangtastic birthday, Diana!
=
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January 20th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Happy Birthday
)
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January 20th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I count 4 ‘happy birthdays’ without even a glimmer of a ‘congrats, Patrick’. That whole ‘28′ thing is so five years ago for me…
I’m disappointed in this group which somehow formed a family.
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January 20th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Happy Birthday!!! Sigh, I remember when I was 7 x 4. Now I’m more like 10 x 4. And then some. Ugh.
Shannon
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January 21st, 2007 at 1:02 am
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIANA!
Wow. 28. My birthday present that year was a one week old daughter. What a wild roller coaster ride it’s been.
I didn’t like You’ve Got Mail much, but I thought the scene where they were IMing (or emailing?) and he’s teaching her business ala the Godfather was priceless.
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January 21st, 2007 at 10:00 am
ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
I won!!!!
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January 21st, 2007 at 11:39 am
Actually, it was five “Happy Birthday”s without a glimmer of “Congrats, Patrick,” unless I’m miscounting. Big grin here.
Just curious, have you decided on your book yet?
(It’s hard to go back to lurking.)
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January 21st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Patrick, some day when you go back to running your own blog, you won’t have to stalk other people’s and horn in on their birthdays, etc.
Until then, everybody else said I should tell you congratulations for them, infinity. So now that’s taken care of.
Diana, great description of the romantic nuances of You’ve Got Mail. I’d forgotten all the nice things he did, like telling her the guy she yelled at deserved it. I know you hate to disagree with Marley (don’t we all), but she’s just plain wrong here and all the rest of us are right. It happens.
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January 21st, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Happy Birthday, Diana!
Sending you a virtual chocolate cupcake and kisses.
Heather
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