This Could Get Ugly

This weekend I read my first 33 1/3 series book, Douglas Wolk's look at James Brown's Live at the Apollo.

I can see this easily becoming a problem.

In case you don't know what the 33 1/3 series is, it' sort of like the Criterion Collection only for music. The publisher seeks out writers and musicians to write something, anything on what they consider a seminal album. I just started Colin Meloy's Let It Be (the Replacements Let It Be, not either of the Beatles' Let It Be), a sweet memoir of growing up in Helena, Montana.

So let's do some math: music/writing about music + well-designed pocket-sized books + my partial completist OCD = can you see why this is problematic for someone like me? I mean, they couldn't have concocted a better plan to take my money. According to Wikipedia there's only 56 books in the series (so far!) and my Amazon wish list contains, oh, 45 of them. I have no clue who Throbbing Gristle is, but I sure do want to read the book on their 20 Jazz Funk Greats album. I've already put three more on hold at the library (one on Guided By Voices masterpiece Bee Thousand, another on Neutral Milk hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as well as Joe Pernice's novella inspired by the Smiths' Meat Is Murder). The Amazon trolling started this morning with the idea that I should just buy the first one (Dusty In Memphis) and take it from there. You should probably start coordinating the intervention now.

Dang! This is why I have never bought any old Doc Savage paperbacks (even though I really want to, like badly), because I know I'll want all of them. Like Pokemon. Oh man. I'm in trouble.

Anyway, if you're interested, the 33 1/3 series is pretty great, though totally addictive. You have been warned.