Pop Chart

LOVE IT

• A city in China has set up no-cell-phone walking lanes to encourage pedestrians to pay attention.

• Coca-Cola is bringing back Surge, the Mountain Dew–like citrus drink it axed in the early ’00s; it cited “passionate and persistent” demand among “brand loyalists.”

• Retired soccer star David Beckham tattooed a quote from Jay Z on his hand: “Dream Big, Be Unrealistic.”

• Beloved Dr. Seuss characters such as the Grinch and Horton appear in the new book Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories.

VERBATIM

‘If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart.’

MARTHA STEWART, on Gwyneth Paltrow, who runs the lifestyle site Goop

PERFECT DATE

Artist David Hockney gives finger painting a new meaning with The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven), a series of printed iPad drawings that depict different days of the season (above: March 18). The prints are on display at New York City’s Pace Gallery until Nov. 1.

THE DIGITS

$5,000

Expected price of the TiVo Mega, a new DVR device that will have roughly 24 terabytes of storage–enough to record approximately 26,000 hours of video (or about 128 every-Simpsons-ever marathons). It’s on track to hit stores in spring 2015.

QUICK TALK

John Cho

The story of My Fair Lady gets a social-media makeover in ABC’s Selfie, premiering Sept. 30. In it, Karen Gillan (of Doctor Who fame) plays Eliza, who’s more obsessed with Facebook friends than real ones. Cho, 42, plays Henry, the Luddite teaching her people skills.

–NOLAN FEENEY

Now that you’re starring on Selfie, do you feel pressure to take a lot of them?

No, I don’t know that it’s a good idea for people to take their own photographs.

You have that in common with your character.

I am a little curmudgeonly about new media, but Karen admonished me and said, “You should be tweeting more.” I have been more active, and it is more interesting than I thought.

Were you ever on Facebook? Never.

I have this nightmare that one day I will have to look at every picture I’ve ever taken with people in an airport or in bars or restaurants, and it will make me very sad. It will be like the Vietnam memorial in Washington–a descending wall of sadness.

A lot of people have mocked your show’s title. Are you worried they won’t watch?

I was scared, because the word selfie sounds terrible. And it should! It’s a good gag reflex we have as a society.

It sounds like Henry is a proxy for the audience, then.

If you think you’re going to dislike the show, watch the show–there’s somebody who would dislike the show on the show.

“ON MY RADAR

• Frozen

“My [6-year-old son] didn’t like Frozen very much. The possibility of siblings being separated was too much for him. He loves his sister very much.”

WORLD CLASS

American photographer Paul Strand traveled the globe, but it was his time in Ghana that produced some of his most captivating work. Invited by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President and Prime Minister, after its independence from Britain, Strand captured the rapidly changing country through portraits like this one of a schoolgirl (Anna Attinga Frafra, Accra, Ghana, 1964), which appears in a Strand retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Oct. 21 to Jan. 4.

ROUNDUP

Spice Up Your Life

America’s love of pumpkin spice, cultivated in part by Starbucks’ seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte, is deepening. People spent $308 million on pumpkin-flavored products last year, up 14% from 2012. Here, a few of the foods that have been launched to capitalize on the craze:

CREAM CHEESE

A perfect addition to your pumpkin bagel, pumpkin-spice cream cheese can turn your breakfast into a daily celebration of fall–assuming you’re not grossed out by the spread’s hummus-like peach color.

MARSHMALLOWS

Though one review of Kraft’s pumpkin-spice marshmallows said the confections actually tasted more like gingerbread, marshmallows are an easy way to take your seasonal latte to the next level of pumpkin mania.

POP-TARTS

There’s no actual “spice” marketed in these limited-edition snacks, but it’s clear what trend Kellogg’s is trying to cash in on. At least these treats list pumpkin as an ingredient: Starbucks’ famous PSL has none.

JELL-O PUDDING

Lazy bakers, rejoice: Jell-O has an artificially flavored pumpkin-spice pudding product that can double as pie filling if you’re not up to the challenge of making an actual pumpkin pie with actual pumpkin filling.

GUM

If you want to get the taste of pumpkin out of your mouth, make sure you don’t pick up Extra’s pumpkin-spice gum–which launched in August to mixed reviews–in the checkout aisle. Its flavor is made to linger.

TASTY

TACKY

LEAVE IT

• The producers of the Miss America Pageant misspelled Jane Austen as “Jane Austin” during a bio segment.

• Kanye West stopped a concert in Sydney to demand that fans stand up–including one in a wheelchair (which West made his security confirm).

• As part of an unsanctioned promo, a Pizza Hut in Melbourne offered a “free small animal” with every order of 10 large pies.

• Zeus, the world’s tallest dog–who stood 7 ft. 4 in. (224 cm) on his hind legs–died in his hometown of Otsego, Mich., at age 5.