Crackerjack book-industry reporter Hillel Italie writes today about the depressed publishing business.

I find this interesting for a number of reasons, not least of them the fact that I'd hate to see evidence that the world is abandoning book readership en masse. But I also think it relates directly to the continued claims from the music industry that its woes can be blamed solely on the scourge of Internet file sharing. After all, the book business has fallen on similarly tough times, and (Harlan Ellison's lawsuit notwithstanding) it can't point to any organized grassroots movement to copy and distribute book-length texts, for free, over the Internet. So instead, the publishers blame the economy, the dot-com crash, the 9/11 hijackings -- anything but the publishers themselves.

That's fair enough, I suppose. It is a tough economic climate, and the book business has always had a hard time with salesmanship. I remember when, maybe five years ago, late-night TV used to be punctuated by actual advertisements for books, which were almost comical in the way they breathlessly tried to sex up variously with heavy-breathing testimony to the suspense and thrills contained within. The level of sophistication rivaled that of movie trailers from, say, the 1950s or radio ads from the 1970s.

Those ads were a relic of brighter days in book publishing -- the times when the massive, unprecedented expansion of chain book "superstores" nationwide made publishers giddy with pleasure. Finally, they could deal in significant numbers of books with just a handful of book buyers instead of the rag-tag agglomeration of idiosyncratic mavens that was the independent bookstore market. (Indie bookstore trade group the American Booksellers Association, where I worked during those troubled times, filed price-discrimination lawsuits against first the publishers and next the chains themselves, with varying degrees of success.) The market was "expanding," to hear the chains tell the tale, and no wonder -- consumers were pleased with the hefty discounts offered when the chains came to town. Later on, of course, once much of the competition was out of business, most of those discounts disappeared.

I don't get to read as much these days as I should, or as I'd like to. The last book I read was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, which was a wonderful experience. But though the mind is willing, the brain is weak. My pleasure centers are more readily stimulated by movies, for sure. Even when I sit down and say, "OK, tonight I'm going to watch that tape of Le Corbeau," the lure of the Xbox and two hours of Knights of the Old Republic is awfully strong.

Which leads to my point: the competition for old media, like books and CDs, is new media. To some degree, I suppose that includes Internet distribution of pirated music files. But more to the point, new media is videogames and DVDs, Weblogs and online discussion groups. Even television, the ultimate passive entertainment, is taking a hit as couch potatoes vegetate in front of their 17-inch flat-panel LCD monitors instead of the Trinitron.

I'm pretty confident that I know what the beleaguered music industry needs to do to save its ass: lower prices across the board, revitalize an affordable but profitable distribution mechanism for the single (the ideal sampler for album sales), and loosen its iron grip enough to create an e-distribution system that allows consumers to make unfettered use of high-quality digital files while offering remuneration to the artists (remember, guys: there is no such thing as "copy protection"). The path for the publishing industry is murkier, especially since it's unclear that anyone, anywhere, wants to read book-length texts on any kind of video display. Having been burned once by over-investing in CD-ROM projects, the book industry may be gun-shy about working up similar intelligent, interactive products on DVD, but it might still be worth a look.

Better yet, see what Amazon is trying to do to enhance the value of book content -- woefully underrepresented on the Internet as compared to magazine content, scholarly dissertations, etc. The BBC reports that the main problem is getting skittish publishers to agree to the plan to make material from thousands of books available in a searchable database as a tool to promote sales. But can they really afford to be so suspicious of new ideas? As consumer tastes in mass media change dramatically the only sane strategy seems to be leveraging technology to enhance your business model, rather than letting it erode your business's value and appeal.

This just in: Rappers want to be pimps.

OK, it's not news to anybody with a clue or half a sense of rhythm that some rap music has glorified pimp culture as an ultimate expression of lowdown style and glamour, and maybe the stereotypes are worth some exploration. I found the story at CNN, which credits only the AP, but other outlets give a byline to Nekesa Mumbi Moody — the AP's national music writer. To be fair, the story hits a lot of the right marks, soliciting multiple viewpoints and getting stuff like the Li'l Pimp quote from Chris Rock, which made me chuckle. But if radio-friendly rap remains fairly simplistic in its thinking (like most radio-friendly music these days), there remains so much variety and vitality in the genre that it seems weirdly ignorant for a writer who knows her pop music to declare, "You'd be hard-pressed to find a rap song these days without at least some passing reference to pimps." I mean, that's just bullshit. Maybe her editor made her do it.

Why not write a trend piece on, say, political consciousness in hip-hop, where Public Enemy was among the first artists to dis the Bush Administration (in "Son of a Bush" [lyrics] [Amazon.com]) and Mr. Lif remains one of the very few to actually criticize U.S. foreign policy in the context of 9/11 ("Home of the Brave," [lyrics][Amazon.com] for starters)? I know, I know, because pimpin' is a hot-button issue of both race and gender — as well as being kind of funny when put in a hip-hop context — while political dissent is unpatriotic at best and outright treason at worst. The story suggests that aspirations of pimphood may reflect wish fulfillment on the part of black folks who are used to being on the bottom rung of the ladder, which at least lends a subtext to the decadent fantasy. But there's a lot more going on in rap music than pimpin', dogg.

Have to admit I was a little pleased to hear about the good news/bad news situation at the weekend box office.

The bad news for Hollywood? Megasequel Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life debuted with a lackluster $21.8 million, less than half the opening-weekend take of the original, despite your typical saturation advertising campaign and a slew of unavoidable marketing tie-ins. (That compares poorly with a reported budget of $140 million) Instead, Spy Kids 3-D was the big winner, pulling in $32.5 million and proving the continued drawing power of franchises targeted at the so-called “family” audience.

The good news? Well, Seabiscuit made $21.5 million on 1200 screens, which is pretty damned good. Fellow non-sequel Pirates of the Caribbean performed at about the same level, as did Bad Boys II.

What does this prove? A couple of things. First, the soft openings of Lara Croft and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle break the trend – probably begun when Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me made more in its first weekend than the first film did in its entire theatrical run – of sequels performing better than original films, making them a no-brainer for studio execs and ensuring mainstream moviegoers a steady summer diet of essentially regurgitated meals. (Also on point, I’d argue, is the fact that both Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels were terrible originals whose money was made solely on the back of savvy ad campaigns.)

Second, it breaks the trend of a single property (The Matrix, Hulk, Bad Boys II) towering like a big black monolith over everything else in release, simply by virtue of the number of bucks being thrown at the marketing budgets. Instead, audiences forked over big money to see something vaguely resembling a variety of films, from stoopid R-rated action to prestige equine biopic.

Paramount distribution exec Wayne Lewellen offered Reuters reporter Gina Keating an apologia for Lara Croft’s performance, noting that this was the first time five movies had each grossed more than $20 million over a standard Friday-through-Sunday weekend. (He also suggested that poor sales of the newest Tomb Raider videogame had something to do with it, but actual gamers knew the franchise was tired before the first film hit screens.) No doubt the original plan at Paramount was for Croft to hit somewhere north of $40 million, crushing everything in her path under the strength of her gigantic, pneumatic … never mind. Let’s just say that this particular adolescent fantasy has been quashed.

Looking at the films themselves, a trend-monger could conclude that girl power has had its day – that audiences aren’t as interested as they once were in seeing hot chicks kick ass. If Hollywood takes that as one of the lessons of summer 2003, it will be a shame. I’m definitely interested in seeing the ladies break themselves off a piece of that ludicrous-summer-action-blockbuster pie. The problem, as far as Charlie’s Angels and Lara Croft are concerned*, is I’d like to see them do it in movies that don’t suck.

* I'm talking originals here; I haven't seen the new models.

MUSIC VIDEOS

When I first got home from the hospital, I spent a lot of time in front of MTV. Herewith, I attempt to justify that particular time sink. (After the nasty comments from Clash fans angered by my review of Westway to the World, I'm really hoping I can tweak the Jewel fanbase, just to restore some sense of balance to my world.)

JEWEL, "Intuition," 2003. [C]

Remember when Jewel was the sensitive Alaskan songwriter with the big tits and the pretensions of being a poetess? She recently told an interviewer that she has now realized that women can be sexy and smart – at the same time! Good for her, since her breasts look real pretty in that push-up bustier. I give her credit for pulling me about 30 seconds into this video before I realized that it wasn't merely a hysterically misguided attempt at career rehabilitation. I duly noted the mock product-placement shots, in which our singing/songwriting protagonist tilts her head back and swigs a fictional brand of soda or shakes her moneymaker in front of a light-up sign like the ones you see at road construction sites reading "JEWEL." (And, amusingly, "BIG PIMPIN'.") Ah, I thought to myself, nodding my head furiously. This isn’t actually a crass commercial pop move — it’s a satire on the idea of a crass commercial pop move. Which, if you’ve hired Shakira’s producer to calibrate your sound for maximum sales, is a pretty crass idea in itself. And here’s the best part – while the video openly mocks commercialism, the song was pre-sold to Pfizer, whose Schick division is using it to sell Intuition-brand razors that keep America’s women looking all hairless and girly. Ah, such irony! Such self-awareness! Tis a pity she’s a whore.

LIZ PHAIR, "Why Can't I," 2003. [B+]

A straightahead performance piece that takes place mainly inside of a Liz Phair jukebox, where every CD is a loving homage to jacket design strategies from the history of pop music. Each album title draws lyrics from the song, with Phair and her band performing on the CD cover. Everyone is shown off to their best advantage in this, one of Phair's best videos. Despite the album's allegedly Avril-derived slant, this clip seems tailor-made for people of a certain age who love their record collections. I haven't seen this on television, but it's available for streaming here.

MADONNA, "Hollywood," 2003. [B-]

A big improvement over the abortion that was the "American Life" video, which wound up being perhaps the most boring thing she’s done since "Take a Bow." Nothing new in this song’s platitudes about celebrity, set to the electro beat she embraced one record ago, but some sharp photography and images laden with carefully contrived sexuality hold the attention. (Dig that lusty handmaiden!) The singer herself is lookin’ pretty good — she even does a credible impression of Kylie Minogue.

NELLY, P DIDDY and MURPHY LEE, "Shake Ya Tailfeathers" [C-]

As I write these words, "Shake Ya Tailfeathers" (the plural appears in the video itself, although MTV claims the song is called "Shake Ya Tailfeather") is showing simultaneously on MTV, MTV2, and BET. On MTV2, the clip led into "Making the Video: Shake Ya Tailfeather," featuring what is inexplicably described in voiceover as "the world premiere" of this already dominant video. All of which just goes to show that when a certain set of naughty bumps are certified to constitute the feel-good hit of the summer, the saturation campaign that follows rivals the media blitz accompanying the booking of something like Bad Boys II — for which the song and video are designed to shill, and vice versa, in a cross-promotional clusterfuck — on thousands of theater screens worldwide. Without meditating on the aesthetic qualities that P Diddy and Jerry Bruckheimer may have in common, I can say it's clear that this one is engineered for the broadest possible appeal. It makes "Hot In Herre" sound positively idiosyncratic. Over a servicable groove, the three rappers extol the superficial virtues of sexy ladies: "how ya dance/how ya fit in your pants." Booty-shaking ensues. I've got nothing against the lascivious display of the female body, per se, but something still rankles about the utterly generic way it's deployed here — not to mention the way our superstars seem in every frame to inhabit a well-dressed world quite apart from the one in which their barely-clad dancers shake it and make doe eyes for the camera. At least the video for last year's big summer hit made it look like Nelly was actually enjoying his female company, rather than using the women as just another display of opulence. Eye candy, sure, but also another endorsement of the horndog hip-hop patriarchy. For cheesecake, I'll take the new videos by Beyoncé or Mya, which are bootylicious on the women's terms — even if the record company dudes are pulling strings just off camera.

KENNA, "Freetime" [B]
Dir: Marc Klasfeld/Vern & Tony

Something I've never seen before – a narrative video photographed almost entirely from the knees down. The story is a more humane version of the first-person debauchery of the Prodigy's notorious "Smack My Bitch Up," with a boyfriend making his girl cry, then taking to the streets. He grabs a flask away from a bum steals a bike that he crashes after riding a few blocks later, then limps into a drug store. And so it goes. Nice work, promoting a song and an artist I'd never heard of.

JANE'S ADDICTION, "Just Because" [B-]
Dir: Alex & Martin

Frankly, these guys have no business, 13 years on, looking or sounding this good. Sure, the manic edge that drove Ritual de lo Habitual is long gone, with the music taking on a packaged and highly produced feel. But they're rocking really hard, and they're blessed with a sound that's familiar but remarkably current after the passage of so many years. The swinging guitar-and-drums crunch has lately been done to death on the radio, but it feels like forever since Perry Farrell's weirdly nasal voice soared over the top of those beats, delivering a sensation of geeky transcension. The video is a low-key performance piece, shot beneath an overarching, light-studded gridwork dome, that underscores musicianship and gives Farrell a chance to posture like it's 1991 again. No, it's nowhere near as good as "Been Caught Stealing," but what is?

OK, remember that whole broken foot thing? Here's the hilarious part: since my foot and leg weren't being used (because I'm 100 percent non-weightbearing with a Jones fracture), and since little fragments of bone matter were dislodged into my bloodstream, my body took the opportunity to play a practical joke and began making a big blood clot! In my leg! Isn't that hysterical? And then, get this, pieces of the clot broke off, and they headed for my lungs! Ha ha! When I showed up at the hospital, breathing heavy but smiling and cracking jokes, they put me on oxygen immediately. Diagnosis? Pulmonary emboli! Six of the bastards, in both my lungs! Get out of town!

It could have been much worse, of course. It turned out that this was not the end of Rico after all, although Rico did spend three nights in the Intensive Care Unit and another four in the Telemetry Ward. Based on this experience, I can definitely suggest a nice hospital stay if, you know, you're dying, but otherwise I can't really recommend it.

For my own part, I didn't really start feeling better until I was actually out of the hospital. As of today, I'm pretty much back to normal -- well, except for that business with the broken foot, which is apparently going to take a nice looooooooooooong time to heal. I even took a drive today to The Black Cow, a funky coffeehouse in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, which is about 20 minutes up the Hudson River from Sleepy Hollow. (Highly recommended.) My stamina on crutches is improving, but it's not at the level yet where I feel like braving the multiplex crowds, so there won't be new theatrical reviews at Deep-Focus.com until further notice. Sorry about that.

I have been writing, however. Not about current films of the cinema, but about whatever I've been catching on Turner Classic Movies, music videos, record albums, whatever crosses my mind. I'm going to start posting some of it in this space, and some of it I'll probably format as regular reviews for Deep Focus. The bottom line: new content coming soon.