EXTEMPORANEOUSLY SPEAKING WITH ANNA JANE GROSSMAN

Anna Jane Grossman

is a newspaper journalist lady who's written a couple books. Her latest,

Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By

, pretty much explains itself in the title. It's funny and charming and smart and Anna Jane is cute, all of which tally up to lots of guys having a crush on her. She says she considers herself "someone who's more on the literary and language appreciation side of things," but she also is the same person who sent me a text message last night reading, "Sorry sbway took forever to come. Be ther in 2 min." She is a woman of contradictions! No wonder she likes debates. Tonight at 7:30 you can go argue with her at

Word

in Greenpoint. It starts soon, so hurry up. When I met her at Pete's Tavern last night, arguably the oldest bar in New York, she showed up with a copy of

Gerry Spence's

How To Argue and Win Every Time

. Scary.

Vice: Are you going to actually read that before your thing?

Anna Jane Grossman:

Probably not. I'm probably going to return it.

You should show up with it and psych people out.

I wanted

Debating for Dummies

but they didn't have it. But I'm learning that the art of arguing is the art of living. "We argue because we must. Because life demands it. Because at last, life is but an argument." I couldn't have said it better myself!

That's intense. So what is this thing you're doing? You're just going to argue with people?

I'm going to read for 20 minutes and then there's a debate against people in the store. They said people kept picking up the book on the counter and saying, "Oh yeah, that's obsolete, that's obsolete, that's obsolete… but hitchhikers! Those aren't obsolete! Cursive writing's not obsolete!" So they came up with this idea that people are going to go up against me and argue why boom boxes aren't obsolete.

Yeah, cursive's not obsolete. Look, there's my handwriting. Cursive.

I mean, the joke of it is that everything in the book still exists. I don't think they'll ever be fully obsolete. It depends how you define "obsolete." As I define it, it's objects or ideas that no longer exist because the purpose they served no longer exists, or they've been replaced by something that's categorically faster or better or easier, or perceived as such. There's still people who speak Latin.

Do you think you're an old-fashioned kind of gal?

I am and I'm not. I don't use a rotary phone and type on a typewriter.

I'm terrified of landlines. When I had to use a cordless phone recently I couldn't figure out how it worked. It was scary and weird.

I feel really conscious lately of the fact that [my cell phone] is taking a signal from space and I'm keeping it in my pocket near my ovaries. Landlines to me seem more benign. But I'm not saying that everything old is better. I think there's value in looking at what we're leaving behind. We're so obsessed with whatever's next, and I think people like nostalgia because it's a way to feel grounded.

Well, look where you picked to meet tonight.

Good point. This is supposed to be the oldest bar in New York. There's an argument whether it's this or McSorley's. You think, Who the hell really cares? But people do care, because it's a way to feel connected to something. Think about genealogy. I wonder what it's going to be like for our great-great-great grandchildren.

Right. How do you catalog thousands of digital photos taken throughout your life?

They're going to have a record of me in a way that I certainly don't have of my great-great-great grandparents from Poland.

Your progeny is going to know your period cycle.

Exactly. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. One thing the web does is make us a lot more self-important. My mom is always saying about blogs: "Who cares?!"

Hey, watch it—I'm interviewing you for a blog!

I write a

blog

! I can see the point of "who cares," but I can also see it from people who sit alone at their desks and want some kind of connection…. I think we crave that right now. We live in such a fragmented environment. I think that's why I like living at my mom's right now…. There's always someone to shoot the shit with, even for a minute, which is important. I kind of get that from Instant Messenger.

Ooh, that thing annoys me. And phone calls. Too immediate—people, leave me alone.

Send me a postcard.

Your book is pretty culturally morbid. You're obsessed with death.

I never thought about it that way…. I think I have an overdeveloped sense of nostalgia, but I think a lot of people of our generation do. We've had things so briefly in our lives—we've seen so many things come and go. I think we identify with a constant sense of loss.

I tend to think that people are desensitized the more they experience something. Oh! We are debating! I feel like debates are obsolete. Nowadays you just leave mean, insulting comments on a blog. Hey, let's debate. We'll ask the waiter for a topic.

Waiter:

Would you like some coffee?

We're going to debate. Can you give us a topic please?

About politics?

Anything.

You want something super ideological?

Anything that can have two sides.

Maybe health care reform?

Oh no, I'm going to lose.

Ooh, here's a good one. How about pharmaceuticals and expensive invasive procedures as opposed to more preventative—

Please have mercy! It's after midnight!

OK. Green versus purple. Go!

Yes! All right, I'm taking purple.

Anna Jane:

I'm setting a timer for one minute. I think I can go off the top of my head.

OK, go.

Green is the color of Spring. So said Kermit the Frog, who was green. Barney is not green. And I think that anyone would agree that Kermit is better than Barney. There's more green that occurs naturally in the earth than purple, and that's a color that was invented only a couple hundred years ago exclusively for royalty. Whereas green is a color anyone can experience just by looking outside. And green is the color of mold. And my cell phone. And money. These are all good things.

Hey, your minute ran out a while ago.

OK, your turn. Ready? Go.

Although yes, you are correct, purple is the color of royalty, and I do not tend to have good associations with royalty, purple is also a word to describe prose or a situation that is florid and perhaps pornographic, which I support fully. Purple is also the color of mysticism, spirituality, and the third eye—the color of, um, intuitive omniscience. It is better than green because, although green does imply a fertile earth and it is the color of the heart chakra, purple is the color of trusting your faith in the universe and—

Time! It's "the color of trusting your faith in the universe?"

Yes. And magic.

Says who?

What?

It just is?

Yes. And I didn't even get into violets.

Purple is also the color of human hurt. Like, if I punch you, you're going to be purple.

Fine, you win.