Marry Me a Little

I was on the Amtrak with my friend Scott heading up to a wedding in Mystic, CT a few weekends back, and he figured that was as good a time as any to tell me about another wedding he had gone to recently. Fortunately, he didn’t have to describe this wedding in any sort of great detail, because we had a New York Times piece to do that for us:

WHEN Amanda Blackwell of Columbus, Ga., first met Maj. Andrew Gallo in 2004, he mentioned having gone to West Point. She knew so little about the Army then that she thought he meant a small Georgia town called West Point. She has learned plenty about the military since then…

…They were wed in the Cadet Chapel at the academy on the blustery afternoon of April 17, with blue-gray clouds nudging the green-brown hills of the Hudson Valley. Col. Mike Durham, an Army chaplain, led the couple in their vows as they stood by a stained-glass window on which the words “Duty, Honor, Country” are inscribed.

…Because they share a passion for techno music — he likes to work out to it and they hit the techno clubs in Manhattan when they can — the bridal party entered the reception to “True Grit” by The Crystal Method.

There’s a Sex and the City episode in which “the girls” (their words) try and hide the New York Times wedding section from Carrie because it includes a full-page spread of her ex boyfriend’s wedding to another woman. Other than that plot point and this moment on the Amtrak, I had never thought about the Times wedding section.

“So they review weddings?” I asked. “Or are they more like Features?”

“Kind of reviews, I guess.” said Scott, “Do you really not read this? I thought all girls read this.”

“I have never read it, and I Love Publicity.”

Love publicity as I do–and I do–the thought of attempting to obtain (i.e. pitching) or even agreeing to New York Times coverage of some future wedding of mine is unsettling. I’m not judging anyone else, but for me, the idea of having the courtship, the proposal, and the actual ceremony chronicled, gently analyzed, and judged by millions of readers is extremely unappealing. Furthermore, what do you care about my wedding if you don’t know me? Surely there are more deserving things in this wide world to get excited about.  And what is the benefit to the bride and groom? Some kind of antiquated social currency? Or do people just like to be watched and talked about, generally?

The wedding of the couple above is of loose interest to me because they’re friends of my friend, and my friend went to the wedding in question. I started poking around the section on the Times website, though, and found all sorts of wedding reviews centered on people I have nothing in common with and have never met. Still wasn’t interested, but again, obviously  someone out there is.  Here’s the review “above the fold” on the Times website last week, with my notes:

FOR most couples, the bedroom is a sanctuary from the stress of busy lives, a place to fan the flame of growing love. I guess. Kind of care. But for some seeking to make their way in the tech world, the room often doubles as an office with multiple laptops fanned across the bed, the click of computer keys serving as a 24/7 soundtrack.  Kind of care, but not really.

So it was with Helen Zhu and Richard Ho, who just months after their 2007 engagement founded Chictopia.com, Don’t care a social networking Web site with a fashion twist Don’t care, in their San Francisco apartment. Don’t care.

Mr. Ho, universally described (even by his mother Don’t care) as a typical
computer nerd Don’t care, was asked by Ms. Zhu to communicate better. And more.
This was no easy thing.

“To call Ricky shy is an understatement,” said his friend Milton Chou. “He barely spoke.” Yikes!

I don’t mean to insult Helen and Richard with my apathy, I sincerely don’t. I just cannot imagine the masses finding two people working on a new social networking site in their bedroom interesting (unless, of course, it’s THAT kind of site). Here are some headlines with taglines from today:

Let’s take a gander at “A composer marries a pianist. What better?”, why? Because this is a Music Blog, so what better? My thoughts are again in Bold.

At the end of the 2007 summer session, Ms. Mallonée told Mr. Huebner,
who grew up in Los Angeles, that she was going to move to Southern
California for a teaching job. He assured her she would love it. She
did not. Zing!

By December 2007, she was ready to return to New York, and told him so
when they “innocently met for dinner” Air quotes-ville! Love it! in Los Angeles, Mr. Huebner said.
At that point, he added, they learned that “we really enjoyed the same
things and enjoyed each other’s company.” Good. 

Back in New York, he invited her for Indian food in the East Village on New Year’s Day, and they began dating regularly. Tra-la, la.

So, we have human interest–specifically relationship–press about regular people, about somewhat celebrities (I own multiple The Girls Next Door seasons on DVD, so clearly I am somewhat interested in other peoples’ relationships. They just happen to be people who live in the Playboy Mansion), and, obviously, about actual celebrities’ relationships. Additionally, with the popularity of Twitter, any/everyone can make their every move public. According to Wikipedia (Life’s a Pitch is really such hard-hitting journalism), 41% of Tweets are “pointless babble.” And yet, we all, myself included, assume people want to read our every 140-character thought. “My boyfriend and I chopped carrots!” is suddenly a news item, even if only to 80 other people. I just Tweeted about blueberries. Twice.

But enough about blueberries, back to relationships. Other than weddings, is anything else that regular people do reviewed like that on a national platform? Sure, there’s the Balloon Boy syndrome of local news becoming national news, but are relationships, as crystallized in wedding ceremonies, the only thing we know for sure that everyone in the world cares about?

Googling your own clients is a fun game. Let me bring three examples to your attention, and keep in mind that the Google auto-suggest in searches is based on frequency of searching for those terms.

Here are three incredibly talented and accomplished musicians, and the thing the masses care about more than anything else on the internet is their relationships. And while being incredibly talented and accomplished, Chris, Hilary and Cecilia are not so famous–or, more specifically, not famous in that way–that there has been press coverage about these relationships (e.g. Did you hear? Orlando Bloom is engaged).  Do we care about other people’s relationships because being in relationships ourselves is what we desire most (I’m going to use “yikes” for the second time in this blog post)? And, if so, why aren’t classical musicians’ relationships publicized, or at least made public? Should we give the people what they want, or relish in the current state of classical music pr affairs, where musicians are famous enough to have their relationships searched for, but not famous enough for anyone to find anything?