I've lived in New York my whole life. I live now just six or seven miles from the hospital in which I was born, two miles from where I went to college, and fifteen miles from where I went to high school. But my inundations with New York haven't left me jaded or any less wondrous at all it has to offer.
Today Spring is in the air. A long-awaited Spring after a bleak and snowy Winter and the threat of snow as recently as yesterday. But today the air is warm, little tow-headed boys are playing catch with their Jamaican nannies in Central Park, the crocuses and daffodils are blooming and buds are showing their colors on trees that until recently were as grey as old soldiers.
My wife and I took a medium run and ended up by the Frick Collection, where in addition to their usual splendors, there's an exhibit called "Rembrandt and His School: Masterworks from the Frick and Lugt Collections." Dozens and dozens of Rembrandts with only dozens and dozens of viewers. (One of the great things about the Frick is that it's near the Metropolitan, the Whitney and the Guggenheim. These larger museums take the huge tourist crowds, leaving the Frick to cognoscenti and scores of art students copying the Rembrandts.)
No advertising point today. Though I'm sure there's one buried here somewhere in that art that's 350 years old is worthy of study but no one in our business seems to study advertising older than the last awards show.
But like I said, no advertising point today. It's too nice out.
God George, you're always so dark on the business. Critical is one thing. Black hearted is another. If it's all such shit, why not do something else. Do you think what you create is "Rembrandt worthy"? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteGive the industry and yourself a break. It's not all shit. A lot is, but a lot isn't.
Pete
Pete, I like complaining. I love this business. I hate some things about it, but there's little I would rather do.
ReplyDeletePete,
ReplyDeleteI don't see it that way.
You can love advertising (the 10% that's great) and not love all the people in it or what they do (the other 90%).
Every morning Picasso got up depressed, moaning that he was finished and couldn't do it anymore.
Eventually everyone would get fed up and ignore him.
Then, with no one to listen to him grumble, he'd go off and create another masterpiece.
Nothing wrong with a bit of misery, used constructively.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
ReplyDeleteSo I'm unreasonable too but incapable of leading any progress.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post.