Zachary Pincus-Roth.com

Laundry Night

Last Monday at 9:45 PM I go to the laundry room in my building and put my clothes in the washing machine. At 10:30 I go to the washer to transfer the clothes to the dryer, and the clothes are sitting in about a foot of water — meaning the washing machine had broken down at some point during its cycle. I try taking clothes out, shifting them around, and adding more quarters, but nothing works. Figuring they’ve sat in soapy water long enough to be clean, I wring out each article of clothing and transfer them all into the dryer. The dryer won’t start.

I consider what laundromats might be open, and conclude that there are probably none. My girlfriend calls, and she suggests I bring them to her apartment, but that requires a disgusting bag full of wet laundry. I’m about to start using the second-floor outdoor hallway railing as a drying rack when I realize that there are lots of other apartments on my way to my girlfriend’s apartment. Namely, all the apartments on my block. Our apartment doesn’t lock its laundry room so maybe there are others that don’t either.

Musical Misheard Lyrics

In the musical “West Side Story,” currently being revived on Broadway, there’s a line from the song “I Feel Pretty” in which Maria sings, “For I’m loved by a pretty wonderful boy.” For many people, the line is a throwaway.  In my family, the line is infamous.

While growing up, my parents played their Broadway cast recordings for my brothers and me during long car trips, and we’d often get into arguments over lyrics, with my mom and dad on opposing sides. These arguments weren’t just about our nagging need to know what the person said. To us, the answers to these questions would define the message of the entire show or color our opinion of the lyricist’s entire oeuvre.

In “Bye, Bye, Birdie,” for instance, there’s a song called “A Lot Of Livin’ to Do.” It’s sung by Kim, the high school student from Sweet Apple, Ohio, and Conrad, the Elvis-like rock star who is supposed to kiss Kim on television before he goes into the army as part of an elaborate publicity stunt. The song is sung during Conrad’s last night as a civilian, as he goes out and parties with the other kids in the town (and, subtextually, it seems, is looking to get laid by one of the kids or perhaps Kim herself).

At one point in the movie soundtrack version of the song, Kim says — and I’m writing phonetically here, so as not to be disowned — “I may break a har-ta-day.” The dangling “ta” is either a combination of the final sound of “heart” and an indefinite article “a,” or the clear beginning of the word “today,” with the fact that a “t” sound from the word “heart” comes right before it being merely coincidental.

My, what big eyes you have ...

Published in the Los Angeles Times

It's safe to say that Anne Hathaway isn't rooting for the Dow to tank. But she should be. According to psychologist Terry Pettijohn, the actress' career might get a boost during a recession. Why? Her small eyes.

Pettijohn, an assistant professor at Coastal Carolina University, helped conduct a study that looked at the top few female box-office stars every year from 1932 to 1995, as ranked by the annual Quigley poll of movie exhibitors. His hypothesis was that audiences would prefer mature features (small eyes, thin cheeks, large chin) during troubled economic times, because they imply that the person is independent and supportive. Audiences would prefer actresses with baby-faced features (large eyes, round cheeks, small chin) during happier times, because they connote a youthful, free-spirited outlook.

Hollywood tries to come up with its best recession fare

Published in the Los Angeles Times

What do you want to watch during a recession? Hollywood is racking its brain to find out.

Foreclosure-free fare such as "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" has performed better than expected, and the conventional wisdom in Hollywood says to keep a light touch. "In a bad economy, people want to escape the harsh reality of the real world and escape into a movie that will make them laugh or where there is a thrill of action and the bad guys are given their comeuppance," says longtime producer Lauren Shuler Donner, whose "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" opens May 1.

But shows such as "Desperate Housewives" and "30 Rock" have been sprinkled with stories of economic hardship, and executives are ordering pilots such as ABC's "Canned," in which a group of friends are fired on the same day.

How to resolve this contradiction? The answers could lie far from Burbank. Psychologists and communications scholars have been studying this issue for decades, shedding light on where our eyeballs turn when times are tough and heads hang low. These researchers conduct studies that measure people's moods -- or induce certain moods -- and then see how they react to various forms of entertainment, from Simon & Garfunkel to "The Real World."