Gotta love things like this when they're done well. Check out Little People: a tiny street art project. (London)

Labels: neat-o

Labels: tunes

I've been annoying Nik for years with the same mantra: Television advertising is nothing more than spam. Maybe we tend not to think of it as such because TV is an older medium and we're used to zoning out passively whenever ads come on. I shouldn't have to see Hummer commercials. I'll never buy a Hummer, no matter how much they spend on their ads. I'd think that Hummer would want to know that. I'll never buy Old Spice, either. I hate that scent. Proctor & Gamble should want to know that so they can try other product views on me. I don't need Wilford Brimley pitching diabetic insurance to me, and I sure as hell don't need to see another Dr. Pepper commercial. It's all waste.

One of the networks should, at long last, wake up and realize they can make more money, as can the brands trying to reach us, if they scrapped the tired, limited old geographic/channel model and launch a more intelligent and targeted opt-in advertising model. It hasn't happened yet. But I imagine Google has been thinking about it. It's amazing to me that so many companies continue to let Google eat their lunch, and it looks like today is just the beginning.

But but: Even though I'm all set with car insurance, I'd definitely opt in to receive Geico's commercials, especially if they keep putting out gems like this:

Labels: advertising

One of the most fascinating aspects of music, for me, is its relationship to memory. Listening to certain albums takes me back to particular points in my life, and in some intangible way you can feel what you felt back then.

When I hear anything from Janes Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual, I'm suddenly in Tampa with my friend Tyler and his college buddies, driving around looking for Ybor City. Other albums remind me less of specific episodes and more about specific people. If I hear anything from Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom, I'll think of my (unfortunately) estranged friend Jason, who introduced me to it. Same with the Foo Fighter's first album.

If I hear something from U2's Under a Blood Red Sky, I'm on the bus to high school hockey practice, where that album was a team staple. R.E.M.'s Reckoning reminds me of being in the cafeteria in 10th grade, where I introduced "Pretty Persuasion" to a table of eager ears, one at a time via my yellow walkman. Much later, R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi Fi reminds me of a trip to Cali with my cousin Jeff. We rented a convertible and had only the local radio and the brand new cassette, so we absolutely killed that album, playing it over and over and over again. We both liked it, but we didn't really love it compared to other R.E.M. records. It'll always remind me of being lost in the desert mountains with Jeff in the Sebring, wondering if we'd find our way back to civilization before running out of gas, which we just barely managed to do. RadioHead's OK Computer is like a mental time machine back to the waning days of 91 Argyle Street.

They Might Be Giants' album Flood takes me right to my senior year in college, when my friend Pete Siletti gave us an impromptu act to Particle Man that had us on the floor clutching our stomachs. Certain Queen songs make me think of my brother, in particular the night he came home from a Queen concert, still fired up by the electricity of the show. I was ten years old, but I'm still reminded of that time whenever We Are The Champions is on the radio.

And so on. These images, these people, ALWAYS come back to me when I hear these songs. It's not every now and then, they are actually a component of the songs. They appear in my minds eye as I listen. Please tell me that this happens to you, so that I don't think I have some kind of synaptic crossfiring syndrome or something.

Labels: ponderage, tunes

I didn't want to make some insignificant blog entry about the despicable, wretched act of Charles Carl Roberts, the shit head who decided to stop his truck outside an Amish schoolhouse and shoot ten girls before taking the coward's way out and killing himself. I just didn't want to talk about it. Whenever I thought about what he did I felt myself tightening up with anger. I'm sure that any parent has at one time or other imagined the unimaginable fear. Just imagining a tragedy like that can awaken the instinct to protect and secure and defend. It furrows the brow and whitens the knuckles and makes the eyes glassy. Thinking about that awful news story made me wonder what I'd do if anyone ever hurt, or even tried to hurt, my daughter.

I don't think I could peacefully contain that much rage. In my entire life I've never been involved in so much as a fist fight. There has never a need. I've never been wronged to a degree that would warrant violence, and I've never given anyone reason to instigate violence against me. But if it was my daughter in that school...I have to admit that it's possible that I'd do something that I would never have thought myself capable of; I think I'd tear him apart. I think they'd need his dental records for positive ID.

Maybe not. But that's how I feel when I think about such a thing. And I hadn't thought about such a thing until this asshole blighted the world with his insanity.

And then today I read something that stopped me cold. It stopped me so cold I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I read about how one of the community's elders said to his younger relatives, "We must not think evil of this man."

"We must not think evil of this man."

I read those eight words and a cry forced itself out of me—eight words made me feel so small. They're words from a man bigger than me, better than me in a way that I can barely grasp.

I'm agnostic. I don't believe any of us have it 100% right. I don't like what dogmatic beliefs do to most people. But I've never been so moved by a statement of pure faith in my life. No words or act of religious integrity has ever penetrated or impressed me quite like this. This is a faith that must be respected. There's so much faith-driven hate in the world right now, so much ignorance. But what does this man do, while his granddaughter's lifeless body was still being tended to? He takes the opportunity to heal his family on a level that revenge can't, he takes the opportunity to remain true to himself and his community and his faith, despite the agonizing pain in his chest, to teach his younger generation a vital lesson in what they hold most dear.

I hope the media does the right thing and DRILLS THIS MAN'S WORDS INTO THE WORLD'S EARS. Repeat it over and over again. Play it enough times to make sure nobody on Earth missed it flipping through the channels.

We don't often get to hear wonders like this. We see so much filth and badness and meanness and ugliness every day on the news—they make it a window on the dark side of humanity. But it doesn't have to be. The concept of forgiveness is so utterly absent in most of the world...Some might call it weakness, or turning the other cheek. It's not weakness, it's strength, just a foreign kind. The idea of forgiving the killer of your child seems absurd, impossible. I don't think I'd have it in me. But it's the kind of principle that makes a society, a culture, endure. The Amish reaction to this tragedy should be presented as a lesson for the whole world, especially now with new forms of insanity presenting themselves almost daily.

It makes me want to drive the four hours to their community, shake his hand, leave them flowers, plant ten trees, and ask if they might be willing to tolerate my presence for a while as I watch in awe as they go about their lives.

Labels: commentary