The best toys of all time.

I've just been emailed an article in "Wired" magazine entitled "The 5 Best Toys of All Time." It got me thinking.

For the last few decades or so Wired, and journals like it, have run an enormous number of articles that fall into two categories. 1) The "This-Will-Change-Everything" category and 2) The "Things-that-Mankind-Have-Known-Forever-Are-No-Longer-Germane" category.

We've read in recent years about the death of print, the death of television, the death of agencies, the death of bricks-and-mortar, the death of "the death of" articles.

We've also been treated to about a gazillion gizmos that will change everything. Lonely Girl 15. The segway. Just last week in the "Times" we were told to get all heated up by a new thermostat.

All that is why I liked this article so much on the best toys of all time. They are according to Jonathan Liu:

1. A stick.
2. A box.
3. String.
4. A cardboard tube.
5. Dirt.

You can read the piece here: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/01/the-5-best-toys-of-all-time/all/1

The same reductio ad absurdum quality can probably also be applied to our business. We can analyze the quantum appeal of pixel manipulation, we can create apps that allow you to create more apps, we can augment reality while we change the paradigm to decrease costs, but when push comes to shove, a gag, a pratfall, a funny expression or an intelligent appeal do more to drive more business and brand value than any new "toy."

It's that simple, really.

Or, as Preston Sturges noted in his "11 Rules for Writing a Hit Movie,"

1. A Pretty girl is better than an ugly one.
2. A leg is better than an arm.
3. A bedroom is better than a living room.
4. An arrival is better than a departure.
5. A birth is better than a death.
6. A chase is better than a chat.
7. A dog is better than a landscape.
8. A kitten is better than a dog.
9. A baby is better than a kitten.
10. A kiss is better than a baby.
11. A pratfall is better than anything.

My cousin Herb.

My cousin Herb and his father before him had a small leather goods company that made high-quality attache and brief cases for men. Schlesinger Brothers was founded in 1919 and stayed in business until about ten years ago when in was bought by Tumi. The cases Schlesinger built had fallen out of favor with most men preferring soft-sided bags with straps they could throw over their shoulder.

One weekend I was with Herb, he was my father's age and more of a father to me than my own, and he talked about closing his factory which he had relocated from Camden, NJ to a small town called Berlin, NJ.

"In the old days," he remembered "men would come in and apply for positions. We didn't look at applications. We didn't background check. We didn't ask for their employment history. We didn't care that they 'interviewed well.'

"We gave them space on a bench, leather, wood, nails, hardware and tools and we told them to make a bag. If the bag they made was good, we hired them."

A Saturday in New York.

My wife, ever-resourceful as she is, and I are members of the Metropolitan Museum which is just a few blocks from our apartment. One great advantage of membership is that you can pop in for 30 minutes and scout the place out and see what you want to go back to see later in more depth.

The museum today was like a flower that just opened. It was so full of beauty it was ready to burst.

We went specifically to see the new galleries dedicated to art in the new Near East galleries which featured art and artifacts from the parts of the world we are trying to blow up, Iran, Syria, Iraq etc. The Met, of course, does an astonishing job and has a breath-taking collection. They've recreated whole rooms, from floor tiles to benches to window treatments. The result is stunning and transformative.

From there we went to a collection called "Infinite Jest." A panoply of satirical cartoons lambasting, among other things, the profligate and pretentious rich.



Then a gallery of about 200 Steichen photographs.

Then, in an effort to battle the persistent cough and cold that's affected me these past two week, we walked to the 2nd Avenue Deli which opened in my neighborhood over the summer and is located, somewhat inexplicably on 1st Avenue. There we had the greatest art of all--a light dill-flavored chicken broth with two really good kreplach.

Art is great and powerful. Many of the pieces we saw were thousands of years old. Others have endured through the centuries. That's all well and good.

But there's nothing like a really good kreplach.

--

For non-Jews:
Kreplach are small pasta dough triangles filled with ground meat or mashed potatoes. Similar to dumplings, they are sometimes called Jewish ravioli or Jewish wonton. Sometimes kreplach is boiled and served in soup. Other times kreplach is fried and served as a side dish. It is customary to eat kreplach before the Yom Kippur fast, on the last day of Sukkot, and on Purim.

Alan Seus, 1926-2011.

Alan Seus, a comedian on Laugh In just died. He handed me a lot of laughs when I was a kid. You can read his obituary here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/arts/television/alan-sues-a-laugh-in-cast-mainstay-dies-at-85.html?hpw

Industrial advertising.

This might be a little disjointed but hopefully I'll get around to a point.

I went to work via a different route this morning and saw a billboard festooned with McDonald's golden arches. That, together with some recent media news got me thinking.

What's happened to almost everything that touches our souls--from hamburgers to advertising to publishing--has been industrialized.

We create "marketing engines" that are distinguished not for their interest, motivation or persuasion but instead aim to reach the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost.

Just as McDonald's has created a "hamburger engine" to distribute the greatest number of patties at the lowest possible cost.

The original intent--to make something distinctive and delicious is gone. The technocrats that run ad agencies and major corporations aren't lovers of advertising or hamburgers.

They are lovers of efficiency. Create multiple communications distributable over dozens and dozens of touchpoints that inhabit a communications ecosystem.

So systematically they destroy the companies they lead by abnegating their original purpose.

The sad fact is, it seems to me, that advertising has little to do with creating great ads. It's about content strategy, ecosystems, fractal landscapes, data visualization, content syndication.

These are the topics which occupy our days.

Outside of a stuffy conference room I've never heard anyone use any of those terms.

They are meaningless.

So is much of what we do.

Thank god for advertising.

A reminder.

Uncle Slappy has a cough.

The phone rang at 6:45 this morning.

That can mean only one of two things. One of my daughters has a problem or Uncle Slappy needs to talk.

It was Uncle Slappy.

"A cough," he started, "A cough I have for three weeks and can't get rid of."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Slappy."

"To Dr. Richard P. Cohen I am going this morning."

"Good, he'll probably just give you an anti-biotic and knock it out of your system."

"Richard P. Cohen, the doctor, not Richard T. Cohen, the podiatrist."

"I got that Uncle Slappy." I waited, pregnantly for Slappy to continue.

"I just hope ammonia I don't have."

"Pneumonia, Uncle Slappy."

"That too," the old man said, and he hung up the phone.

Faded New York.

I just read a book review in "The New York Times" about the fading advertising signs of New York. You can read it here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/the-handwriting-on-the-wall-says-gigi-young-originals/?hp

Here's a little from the review:

"Advertising murals painted by hand on blank brick side walls in the 1800s and 1900s were supposed to have disappeared by now. Color slides were supposed to have disappeared by now. Books were supposed to have disappeared by now...

"They all survived longer than expected. That happy confluence has yielded “Fading Ads of New York City,” a new 224-page book from the History Press. It showcases...[a] loving record of hand-painted “ghost signs” that lasted long enough to go from eyesore to historical asset..."

I've ordered the book and if I like it, I'll tell you more.

New York, 1970.

When I was a kid, 40 or more years ago, the world was a very different place than it is today. I was in 7th grade and like my brother who was a grade ahead of me, I had been enrolled in Latin. My teacher, and my brother's was a man named Howard Comeau.

I don't know how Latin is taught today but back in 1970 or so it was probably taught much the same way it was taught in 1870 or 1770 or, even, 1370. It involved an enormous amount of rote memorization, recitations, translations, dictations and mneumonic tricks, many of which I remember to this day. (There are but four masculine nouns in the first declension and they are a PAIN. Poeta, Agricola, Insula and Nauta.)

We were drilled and drilled and drilled some more. All of us had to be able to conjugate verbs like machinery. I can still rattle off Sum Es Est, Summus Estis Sunt, etc. like a sonofabitch. We were also drilled so that we could decline Bonus Bona Bonum, Hic Haec Hoc, etc. through the five cases both singular and plural--30 words with different endings in under 30 seconds. My best was in the sevens, more than respectable, but Connie Jacobs (who once got sent to the principal for calling something asinine) was the class champ--she declined Bonus in under five seconds.

None of this knowledge has really been helpful to me in my life and career. I do enjoy reading Roman history (in English) and when in Rome find that I can muddle through inscriptions on monuments.

The real value of this torture transcended Latin. I was forced to use my mind, to discipline it in ways that I fear have vanished. The power to understand, store and retrieve information--to recall conversations, dates and ideas, is vitally important. Mr. Comeau and Latin taught me that.

Mr. Comeau also taught me a lesson about the semiotics of dress. This was the early 70s when all the old rules about girls wearing dresses and boys wearing trousers to school were disappearing. Kids started wearing t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. The old order was collapsing.

There was a dance one Friday night in my Jr. High. Mr. Comeau was a proctor and reminded us that we would not be allowed in the gym if we weren't wearing a jacket and tie. We were outraged and couldn't understand why the dress code was so strict.

Mr. Comeau explained it simply: "you won't roll on the floor if you're wearing a jacket and tie."

--

BTW, if you're ever in the mood for a good movie I think about when I think about my education, get ahold of the 1951 classic "The Browning Version." It's directed by Anthony Asquith, written by Terence Rattigan and stars Michael Redgrave.

My iPhone.

I got an iPhone about six months ago and here's how it's changed my life: I had been carrying three devices, a personal Blackberry, a work Blackberry (because I couldn't get my work mail on my personal phone) and an iPod. Now, I carry just one device and, therefore, my life has improved.

Some design stuff sucks about the iPhone. When I cradle it against my shoulder and ear, I often activate the mute button. I lose a lot of calls that way.

The thing that really annoys me about the iPhone involves apps. When I'm in a taxi on the way home, I often play Solitaire. My younger daughter just this past weekend introduced me to a game called "Fruit Ninja." When I turn on these games I get a little pop-down window that cloyingly tells me "Welcome back, George."

You know, I'm kind of embarrassed to be playing the lame-brained games. Surely there's something better I could be doing with my time. So I resent the assertiveness of the apps welcoming me back.

I think of these welcome greetings much the same way I think of a lot of online utility. It's there and we can do it, but it doesn't really serve any important, legitimate purpose.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.