This is not to my liking.

My wife, who is in the business, pointed to a disturbing trend that has emerged over the last few years. Not to be sexist, but this trend coincides with the rise of female clients—I’m not saying female clients are good or bad, I’m just remarking on a trend.

It used to be when you went to a client meeting you greeted your client with a considerate nod, a warm hello or a firm handshake. Maybe a hand-clasp or a pat on the back. Today we have moved way beyond that. Today, we hug, we kiss cheeks, we hug and hold. What's next? Groping?

This is all wrong.

It’s fine to be genuinely fond of people and clients. Such feelings can be expressed, I believe quite well and quite sincerely via a polite handshake. The hug is too much—faux affection (affauxtion) and, worse, it becomes obligatory. Hug one, you have to hug them all. If you don’t, you’re an exclusionary hugger. Or if you recuse yourself, you are a misanthrope and a hug-denier. Either way, you call attention to yourself through your not hugging.

Let’s just stop this. Now.

This is a cola nut.

Oh, more than 35 years ago, Geoffrey Holder starred in a series of memorable commercials for the soft-drink 7-Up.

"These are a cola nuts," he would say, holding up small brown cola nuts. "These on the other hand, are un-cola nuts," Holder would say, holding a lime and a lemon. He continued. "...As you can see, they're a bit different from cola nuts." (You can watch the spot here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinBKqSCSac&NR=1

It occurred to me tonight watching Obama's TV special that he is the un-cola. And he has, for nearly two years now, followed the un-cola strategy. Looks different. Is proud of his difference. Is different.

It's a strategy that in the long-run never really worked for 7-Up. We'll see how it does for the un-cola candidate.

You think you have it bad.

This morning I picked up and began reading Robin Robertson's new translation of Euripedes' "Medea."

Medea is over 2500 years old--it's pretty good stuff. And as bad as life in your agency gets, don't for a moment think you are living in the darkest or gloomiest of days.

Let's start with Medea's opening coda:
"Your name means 'healer,'" she said.
"Well, heal this,"
drawing back the red sheet and showing me
our two dead sons, full of wounds."

More on this later.
Just something to think about for now.

Oh, the humanity.

A mellifluous co-worker just called my attention to the ad copy below and above.

There are many things that make me question the sanity of our species. Our evisceration of the environment. The way we periodically dabble in genocide. Ethnic and religious slaughter. Republicans.

And now this:

"Introducing the First Vibrating Power-Mascara by Lancome."

"New Oscillation. Vibrating. Infinite. Power-Mascara."

"Revolution: Vibrating power. For ultimate lash transformation.
Extends. Separates. Virtually multiplies."

Ôscillation (note the sombrero over the "O") Powermascara $34

And here's the kicker: the worst economic crisis in a couple decades and people are spending $34 on vibrating mascara.

A new word.

I went to the highly-publicized Chanel mobile art exhibit in Central Park this weekend. Oh so lovely and oh so pretentious.

First were the pretty small-breasted girls wearing black Chanel sweaters. Get this--they have to return them at the end of the show. God forbid salary-women should wear such finery.

Then came the exhibit itself. You are loaned an mp3 player and asked to pick your language (Yiddish not available.) A smoky, too-much-whiskey, too-many Gaulousis voiced guide guides your every step. "Turrrrrn left and valk up the starrrrrrrrs."



Now combine "faux" meaning fake with art and what do you get? Faux + art = Fart.

T-shirt for the times.

Skating horses. Absurdity as reported by the Times.

Ogosuki, Japan. Special to The New York Times.

This small island in the China Sea just 30 kilometers (18 miles) off the coast of central Japan is known, and has been known for millennia, for three things: the fragrance of its lush cherry blossoms which are regarded as Japan's most lovely, its ancient wooden pagoda which dot the hills of the island and its rare breed of horse, the Ogusukiri.

The Ogusukiri live nowhere else. Like Shetland ponies, they are small but sturdy and are particularly well-suited to the narrow lanes of the mountainous terrain where farmers have been using them for thousands of years as dray animals. That all changed one day some decades ago when a local farmer, Tanaka Takimoro strapped a pair of hand-made ice skates on his Ogusukiri, Bonsai, and taught the horse to skate.

Takimoro, speaks in the halting English he learned while working for Allied occupation forces in the immediate aftermath of World War II. (Ogosuki was occupied and used primarily as an Allied convalescence and recreation center. The last American troops didn't leave the island until 1972.) "For much of the year our many little lakes are frozen. The Ogusukiri are smart and playful. I thought they would enjoy to skate."

Enjoy they have. On an island where winter comes early and leaves late, on any given day dozens of Ogusukiri can be seen with rough-hewn double-bladed wooden skates, called Ogususkati, strapped on their hooves gliding on the ice. The skating has become a phenomenon across Japan and a major source of revenue for the island.

Takaski Shinsei, mayor of Ogusuki prefecture, says that thousands of visitors from the mainland fly in every weekend to see the horses. "They see, they stay, they pay. And they bring back each weekend more visitors to see the Ogusukiri. The Disneyland has animals doing amazing things, but they are cartoons. Here, it is real. Here the horses do skate and the people laugh."

Theatre of the absurd.

I have been told I have a Marxian (the brothers, not Karl) sense of humor. A heightened sense of the absurd. I usually respond by telling people I have no sense of humor, I just tell the truth.

Well, here's one for you--direct from the pages of The New York Times.

The highest paid person on McCain-Palin's campaign staff for the first half of October was a woman called Amy Strozzi.

She was paid $22,800 as Sarah Palin's "traveling makeup artist."

In addition, a woman called Angela Lew was the fourth highest paid, earning over $10,000. She was Palin and Cindy McCain's hairstylist.

More inflated language.

I went into the kitchen of my agency this morning to get my customary bowl of oatmeal and I noticed the type on a box of disposable utensils:

"EMERALD PLASTIC CHAMPAGNE KNIVES."

I don't know where to begin, except to say I didn't know you needed a knife to drink champagne.

A 1950 view of the 2008 election race.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, America faced a tremendous internal terrorist threat. That came from US Senator Joseph McCarthy who used the fear of communism to subvert Constitutional principles. To cite Pulitzer-winner Haynes Johnson: "McCarthy offered simple answers to complex questions. America's problems, its mistakes, its failures, could be explained by evil forces conspiring to do the country harm."

Margaret Chase Smith, America's first female senator and a Republican from Maine, spoke out against McCarthy. She said: "I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny--Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear."

Yes, 1950.
Yes, 2008.