Word: matchbooks
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Moreover, eBay has exposed America as a nation of collectors. Matchbook covers, cast-iron witches' cauldrons, Pez dispensers, pneumatic grease pumps from the 1920s, Three Stooges memorabilia--you name it, some American somewhere collects it. "We define ourselves by our stuff," says Robert Thompson, president of the Popular Culture Association and a Syracuse University professor who specializes in the study of collectibles. In a democracy, with everyone theoretically equal, people want to be different. We don't have a caste system; we've never had a blood-line aristocracy. We've distinguished ourselves by our cars, by the clothes...
None of this, of course, is entirely new. Advertising, like kudzu, has always existed opportunistically, moving unchecked through the cultural biomass until it finds a niche, then setting down roots. It long ago took hold on such improbable places as the fenders of racing cars and the insides of matchbook covers. The fact that logos and promotions now bloom on the uniforms of professional athletes, in the blinking screens of Internet data and even on the skin of the sad banana ought to be no surprise...
During our visit, Toy Story's Academy Award-winning director, John Lasseter, is excited about a "bug cam" the size of a matchbook. It was designed on a lark by Pixar engineers to photograph real bugs for A Bug's Life, the first in Pixar's five-picture deal with Disney. The hallways are crawling with pictures of exotic bugs and plants that will eventually populate the movie. "It's way cool working here," says Lasseter. "The atmosphere is fun. We respect creative people and make them feel satisfied...
...with planting a suitcase bomb that killed all 270 people aboard 103. The FBI, which believes they've been hiding in Libya, says it will employ "innovative methods . . . to elicit the cooperation of the people of Libya and North Africa," including Internet queries and printing Arabic solicitations on matchbook covers in the region...
Collectors are crazy, a little or a lot--gently mad or glittery-eyed gaga. Nuttiness is the only sane explanation for wanting to possess every matchbook cover or baseball card ever printed or for paying $47 million to own a Van Gogh. Or trying to collect every fact in the space-time continuum by memorizing an encyclopedia or deciding to experience one of every kind of lover...