For me, pop culture is an obsession. I remember reading a bio of Alyssa Milano when I was 9 and building a photo collage of the Beverly Hills, 90210 stars on my bedroom wall when I was 12. By the time I was in high school, I was renting movies that never quite made it into theaters in my city and could tell you which movies were most likely to win an Oscar that year.

My love of movies and fascination with celebrities is arguably worse now that I live in L.A., so I’ve created a separate blog all about pop culture. It’s called As Seen From a Red Ikea Couch, named for the place I’m usually sitting when watching a show, finding times for movies, or reading the latest gossip. I’ll post excerpts of some of the best posts from the pop culture blog here, along with the latest about projects I’m working on and thinking about.

The new blog is the place to find my musings on movies, TV, books, celebrities and all things pop culture — you know, the important stuff. See you at the Red Couch!

Flickr photo by DaveAustria.com.

So, Google Maps it was. I decided to create my first interactive map telling the story of how Americans spent Nov. 4, 2008. Flickr’s Creative Commons provided the photos, while I collected the videos on YouTube.

Check out the map at TheLoop21.com. If you have suggestions for other tools to use, please pass them on.

Who’s healthier: women who stay thin at all costs, even if it means crash dieting or working out obsessively, or women who eat a balanced diet and work out but still have a belly? You know, women like the ones pictured above, who were featured in this month’s Glamour magazine.

I’m gonna go with the second group of women, but apparently some people disagree.

Let me explain. In its September issue, Glamour grabbed a lot of attention for publishing a photo of plus-size model Lizzie Miller practically naked in a story about body confidence. I loved it, and so did a lot of other women.

But there were also critics, who said the magazine was adding to the country’s problem with obesity. In a follow up story in Glamour’s November issue, Genevieve Field quoted a reader named Angie as an example: “Putting a young model who is obviously overweight and living an unhealthy lifestyle in your magazine to make some people feel better only serves to propagate that unhealthy lifestyle. Shame on Glamour for thinking this was sexy!”

Wow, that’s harsh. All I can say is I’ve always thought there’s a huge difference in having a sorta squishy stomach (normal) and being obese (health issue). Maybe these readers are fortunate in that they have model-like body types, or maybe they just believe all women should do whatever it takes to look the way the media and society tells us to look. Either way, they don’t seem to understand that skinny doesn’t necessarily mean healthy and vice versa.

I guess by their standards Crystal Renn, a now plus-size model featured in Field’s Glamour piece, was perfectly healthy when she was an anorexic runway model. I’m sure photos of her taken back then were free of fat and cellulite. And there would be nothing wrong with Amy Lemons, another model in the story, feasting solely on champagne and water on days when she was working, like she said she did before becoming a plus-size model. (For the record, Field reports that any model larger than a size 6 can be considered a plus-size model.)

If that doesn’t convince you, just think about the women you know. I have friends who work out a lot, yet they’re about the same size as some friends who don’t work out at all, even though we all know exercise is critical to our health. Weight is not the only factor that determines our health.

Lizzie Miller’s photo doesn’t prove she’s healthy or unhealthy. All we can tell from the picture is that her body is different than those of the women in the rest of the magazine. We all have our own healthy weights, and it’s about time the fashion and magazine industries realized that.

Yes, I want my magazines to create fantasies, but I’d like them to be somewhat attainable fantasies that make me want to push myself a little harder, not some ideal I could never reach without endangering my health. Please do show a photo of a woman who looks something like I might if I stuck to a more rigid workout schedule and bought a new outfit and lipstick, not an image of a woman I might slightly resemble only if I went on a 30-day fast and had surgery to alter the width of my hips.

For so long, flipping through fashion magazines has been all about seeing women with one body type — long and lean, which is not exactly inspiring to those of us who have to shop in the petites department. I wondered if it was only me who thought that, but then I read that this summer the Anna Wintour of British Vogue wrote a letter to designers complaining her magazine often has to alter photos to make models look larger. She added that sample sizes are so small, magazines now must hire women with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” to model them.

Field’s Glamour piece promises the magazine really, really plans to continue using models with a “wide range of body types” and to make those so-called large models look as amazing as the smaller models. I believe the magazine’s sincere, but I’m not sure how easy it will be for it to stick to the promise, especially if women out there don’t want to see models in a variety of sizes.

I really don’t understand why they wouldn’t. The critics should understand that no one’s talking about eliminating skinny models from glossy magazine pages or publishing photos that glorify obesity. The simple idea is to show beautiful looks for all of us, to send the message that all hope is not lost if you weren’t born with the same body type as Gisele. More importantly, it could help some women see their body in a new way, improving their self-image and self-esteem. How could there ever be anything unhealthy about that?

Photo courtesy of Glamour.

This Woman’s Work, Kate Bush
No need to comment.

Do You Feel Me?, Anthony Hamilton
My husband introduced me to this song. I love that it sounds so old and classic. Is it a remake?

Puddle of Grace, Amy Jo Johnson
This song perfectly captures what I really like (and some people find annoying) about my favorite show of all time, Felicity.

Sideways, Citizen Cope
A new obsession, after seeing it in the movie Ghost Town.

Laughing With, Regina Spektor
My favorite song from her new album, Far.

Run, Baby, Run, Sheryl Crow
The best song on her Tuesday Night Music Club album, even though it gets absolutely no radio play.

Come Pick Me Up, Ryan Adams
Found this on the Elizabethtown soundtrack, I think. Even years later, it takes my breath away when I hear it.

She’s Gone, Hall and Oates
Reminds of me being a little girl. My dad was a huge fan of Hall and Oates.

Maybe Tonight, Nicole Atkins
Beautiful.

A little more upbeat but still good for a rainy day:

Love Will Come Through, Travis
I listened to this ALL THE TIME during grad school. No big meaning, I just found it soothing.

Get You In, Better Than Ezra
One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands.

Sparks, Coldplay
Most of Coldplay’s songs were made for melancholy, true. But I’ve been listening to this one a lot after noticing it one of the zillion times TBS showed Wedding Crashers.

Walk On, U2
All That You Can’t Leave Behind was the soundtrack to my senior year in college.

Last week I started both Joan Didion’s The White Album and Susan “Cindy Brady” Olsen, Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton’s Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

Different, sure. But they’re both non-fiction takes on what was happening during the late 1960s (when many of the events Didion recounts happened and The Brady Bunch came together and first aired) and what resulted in the 1970s.

Didion’s book (so far) reads like your friend who knows all the cool kids telling you what California, especially Hollywood, was like in the ’60s. What makes it even more interesting is she sometimes tells it from the perspective of the next decade. She writes about hanging out at home with Janis Joplin, watching The Doors record and finding out about Sharon Tate’s murder, which was particularly haunting since she and Tate’s husband at the time, Roman Polanski, are godparents to the same child.

As usual, she’s saying a lot more than it looks like she is at first glance. The White Album has been on my reading list for at least a year or two now, and I’m very glad I finally picked it up. (You can read Joan Didion’s bio and see photos of her at the American Academy of Achievement Web site.)

The Brady book, on the other hand, I didn’t plan to buy. I decided I had to have it after I saw Susan Olsen and the other authors on a panel at the West Hollywood Book Fair.

As you would expect, it’s not nearly as well written as the Didion book. If you’re a Brady fan, though, it’s somewhat juicy. They shared a few things I’d never heard, even though I’ve read Barry “Greg Brady” Williams’ book Growing Up Brady. A couple: Olsen, Eve Plumb (Jan Brady) and Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady) had their own short-lived singing group (!), and the role of Jan Brady in the variety show almost went to Paris Hilton’s mom.

If, like me, you’ve never seen the variety show, Susan Olsen posted a compilation of some of her favorite moments on YouTube.

Yeah, for once I’m glad I waited for the book.

Dear The Hills,

I’ve sensed this was coming for a while, and with the premiere of new episodes this week, I realized the time for this conversation has arrived. The truth is, I am completely and utterly done with you.

Don’t get me wrong, you’ve been fairly good to me. I really appreciate that you’ve always been up front about who you are; I’d seen Laguna Beach, and I knew what I was getting into from the very first episode. More importantly, when I moved to L.A., you introduced me to one hipster hangout after another. I may never have eaten Caffe Primo’s delicious fig and goat cheese panini if it weren’t for you.

The problem is — well, there are many. I thought a list might be helpful.

Read the full post at my pop culture blog, As Seen From a Red Ikea Couch.

Photo courtesy of MTV.com, where you can watch full episodes of The Hills, if you’re still into that.

Like Vogue, the magazine it follows, the documentary The September Issue draws you in and dazzles. No matter how much you know or care about fashion, you’re obsessed with what’s in front of you, wishing somehow you were part of what’s happening (or being worn).

I wanted to see the movie for two reasons: I’ve always been curious about the making of fashion magazines, and R.J. Cutler, a producer for the documentary The War Room, directed it. (I highly recommend The War Room, by the way, if you’re at all a fan of political movies or James Carville and George Stephanopoulos like me.)

The September Issue immediately pulls us behind the scenes of photo shoots that result in gorgeous, lush images. We see Vogue’s infamous editor, Anna Wintour, offering advice to designers whose names we know, even if their expensive creations don’t hang in our closets. Staffers bicker about the clothes models will wear and, once the photos are shot, which will grace the pages of the magazine.

Along the way, we meet Wintour and a few other people who make it all happen. She was a lot sweeter and less Miranda Priestley than I expected, but thankfully, the movie doesn’t hinge on Wintour being the boss from hell in The Devil Wears Prada. We also have the drama of whether Sienna Miller will cut her “lackluster” hair (she won’t) and whether photographer Mario Testino shot a photo suitable for the cover (he will).

Best of all, as a lot of reviews mentioned, we have Grace Coddington, Vogue’s creative director. She helped balance out the cattiness, even when she was being catty herself, because she wasn’t worried about anyone’s weight or hair, just the artistic beauty of the photos that would appear in the magazine.

In the end, The September Issue left me with the same feeling I have when I finish reading a fashion magazine like Vogue. I’m always glad I opened it and took the time and money to do so, but I’m pretty sure I won’t open that issue again. Not that it didn’t impress; it did. But it also accomplished what it set out to do — build an out-of-reach, fantasy world where high-end fashion rules at any cost — so perfectly you all but forget about it when the credits roll. That’s when you remember you’re wearing jeans from Old Navy.

Photo from The September Issue Web site.

But today, I read in Variety that Diablo Cody will write and produce a Sweet Valley High movie. Awesome!

With the writer behind Juno involved, the adventures of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield could be even more fun than in the books. I would expect Cody to insist on finding actual teens to play the twins and their friends, including snobby rich girl Lila Fowler and her male equivalent, Bruce Patman. Note to movie studios: It’s weird when you try to make us believe people a decade out of college are in high school, a la most of the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210. I mean, that show was lucky Luke Perry was so hot.

Diablo Cody’s version of Sweet Valley High also should have an awesome soundtrack — mostly pop mixed with just the right amount of hard rock, for when bad things happen, like Todd Wilkins’ motorcycle crash or Regina Morrow’s death after she gives in to peer pressure and tries drugs.

I’m not sure how much Cody will be able to cram into one script. Or how much she’ll want to, but I think she’ll try to keep some serious moments and handle them in a way that keeps them from being too campy.

Unless, they go in a better direction and embrace the campiness by setting the movie in the ’80s. That way, Liz and Jess can keep their Fiat.

Dirty Dancing is without a doubt one of the two or three movies I’ve seen the most in my life. It was my mom’s favorite, and I, in a display of good taste at a young age, quickly adopted it as one of my own. Honestly, I can’t remember exactly what I liked about it the first few dozen times, before every line was etched into my memory, but I’m confident it had something to do with a certain Mr. Patrick Swayze.

In case you’ve forgotten just what made Swayze great, I’ve come up with a list of his best moments in song. Read the full post at my pop culture blog, As Seen From a Red Ikea Couch.