Happy Festivus! Today’s the holiday, first mentioned in the Seinfeld episode “The Strike”, where bitter people who still want to celebrate the holiday season without participating in its pressures and commercialism will air their grievances, by telling everyone all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. My family usually does this sorta thing every Christmas morning when we scream and fight and never end up opening any presents or doing much of anything because we hate each other so much. Yes, dysfunctional. But aren’t we all?
Speaking of Seinfeld, one of my favorite episodes is “The Cigar Store Indian”, not only because it is funny in showing Frank Costanza’s hoarder tendencies in collecting tv guides, but I can relate to it personally. My stepfather used to collect them as well. Let’s just say it was a Festivus miracle when he finally got rid of that crap. Unfortunately there is not an official TV Guide Museum in existence for him to visit, but the web has plenty of collections, whether on ebay, flickr, youtube or this website, which documents every issue as well as those of other magazines.
FRANK: (shouting) “How could you let her take the TV Guide?!”
GEORGE: (to Jerry) “He collects them.”
JERRY: “You collect TV Guide?”
FRANK: “The nerve of that woman. Walking into my house, stealing my collectible!”
