Wednesday, March 21, 2012
One thing.
As readers of this blog know, I read a lot. My appetite for books, for knowledge borders on the insatiable. I am interested in a lot of things. I often think that if I were more focused, less peripatetic and esoteric, I would be teaching in a university somewhere far away from the fleshpots of Madison Avenue.
Years ago, I worked with Tony Kaye, the storied director. We worked closely together on a package of unscripted spots for IBM. Working with Kaye was an education. Before each shot, he would get in my face, sticking his beak about one inch from mine.
"What do you want them to say?" he would ask.
"Well," I fumbled "I want them to talk about their fears about data security."
"One thing," he would say.
I would try again to clarify.
And he, edging closer would say even more insistently, "One thing."
Often I am enmeshed in a 700 page book on the tank battle at Kursk or a 400-page biography of Alan Turing. I read such books, as I said above, cover to cover.
But in the end, I usually get one thing from them.
Sure, I might retain more than one fact. I might recall a lot of anecdotes. But one big idea is all I usually can handle.
There's a job open at a private school in Manhattan that I'm interested in applying to even though I have none of the stated qualifications. It's a job teaching middle and upper school world History. As I wrote a note to the interviewer in my head, I said this:
I understand history on three levels.
1. The dates. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue and all that.
2. The events. Like the importance of the Diet of Worms.
3. The meanings. The ramifications of seismic occurrences on humanity and the globe.
It's basically one thing.
This does not mean it doesn't take 700 pages of reading or a lifetime of thinking to get there.
But when you get there, you'll know.
There's just one thing.
Years ago, I worked with Tony Kaye, the storied director. We worked closely together on a package of unscripted spots for IBM. Working with Kaye was an education. Before each shot, he would get in my face, sticking his beak about one inch from mine.
"What do you want them to say?" he would ask.
"Well," I fumbled "I want them to talk about their fears about data security."
"One thing," he would say.
I would try again to clarify.
And he, edging closer would say even more insistently, "One thing."
Often I am enmeshed in a 700 page book on the tank battle at Kursk or a 400-page biography of Alan Turing. I read such books, as I said above, cover to cover.
But in the end, I usually get one thing from them.
Sure, I might retain more than one fact. I might recall a lot of anecdotes. But one big idea is all I usually can handle.
There's a job open at a private school in Manhattan that I'm interested in applying to even though I have none of the stated qualifications. It's a job teaching middle and upper school world History. As I wrote a note to the interviewer in my head, I said this:
I understand history on three levels.
1. The dates. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue and all that.
2. The events. Like the importance of the Diet of Worms.
3. The meanings. The ramifications of seismic occurrences on humanity and the globe.
It's basically one thing.
This does not mean it doesn't take 700 pages of reading or a lifetime of thinking to get there.
But when you get there, you'll know.
There's just one thing.
Some enchanted evening.
In the midst of my reading I happened to think of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "Some Enchanted Evening" from the musical "South Pacific," particularly a couplet from the third verse:
"Fools give you reasons/Wise men never try." Here are the complete lyrics:
Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.
Some enchanted evening
Someone may be laughin',
You may hear her laughin'
Across a crowded room
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter
Will sing in your dreams.
Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.
Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone.
Once you have found her,
Never let her go.
Once you have found her,
Never let her go!
-
Those lines: "Fools give you reasons/Wise men never try" have extraordinary relevance in most of the great advances of mankind over the last few dozen millennia. They were certainly resonant in Princeton when the "code" for our modern age was being written. Experimentation, intuition and imagination carried the day. Not just intelligence, logic and research.
After nearly 30 years in the advertising, I think those lines have a lot to teach us. There are scores of candy-asses running around agencies, and clients, and research companies--that have all the answers. They have boiled down the known universe (which--according to how much you know--is the unknown universe) into a series of "if-then" causalities.
They have mechanized advertising in order to take ideas and serendipity out.
They have time-sheeted things to eliminate inspiration.
They have new-speaked processes to obfuscate.
Reality isn't full of answers.
It's full of questions.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Diction.
I am often met with rolling eyes when I roll out my vocabulary.
I read a lot—about a big thick book every week or so. I love words and study
them. I learn new words, delightful, vibrant, lusty words and I enjoy using
them.
I know how to temper things depending on my audience. In
fact, I take great pride in my ability to simplify complicated processes or
ideas. If I use a large—or unusual—word in your presence, it’s usually because
I make the assumption if you’re reading my blog or if we’re having a
conversation you can handle it.
What’s more I am annoyed and exasperated by both the lack of
precision and the overuse of cliches and flaccid phrases found in most
communications. In fact, if I ran the zoo I would fire people for calling
websites “robust,” experiences “awesome” and anything “kewl.” (I would also
boil in oil anyone calling me “Bro,” even my brother, Fred.)
Language is my currency. I try to use it carefully,
surprisingly, attention-getting-ly.
Today I heard a story about language that really handed me a
pretty good laugh. It involved a phone conversation between an account person,
I’ll call her “Jill” and a client I’ll call “Wanda.”
JILL: Wanda,
what’s the matter. You seem a bit frazzled.
WANDA: There’s
a lot of shit flying here today and I’m feeling overwhelmed.
JILL: Well,
let me underwhelm you.
That’s all.
I’m done for the day.
But it's a really nice logo.
Shit happens.
For focus groups.
See, shit really happens.
IPG has lowered our per diem to less than that of a Guantanamo inmate, so of course we are staying at a cheap ass hotel.
You know the type.
Pubic hair in the bathtub.
Not yours.
A business hotel run by people who probably never traveled for business.
The carpet is sticky.
The decor is depressing.
Did I mention pubic hair in the tub?
But they have a really nice logo.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Noise.
Right now I am in the middle of George Dyson's new book "Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe." It starts back in those dark, pre-computerized days with Alan Turing and Johnnie Von Neumann figuring out (with the help of others, of course) the basic architecture and underlying assumptions computers still follow today.
Right now, it's about 1948 or so and the action is happening at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Princeton, New Jersey based Think Tank where so many advances came into fruition. The brilliant men and women there labor around the clock trying to make a machine work amid the chaos of unreliable and over-sensitive vacuum tubes. They also have to reckon with terrestrial forces--electrical surges, magnetic pulses and errant radio signals.
What they must to do to make the computing machine work is, simply "filter out the noise."
Today we live in the computer era. Every transaction and interaction we engage in is, it seems, through the medium of a computer. They are integral, intrinsic, insistent in our lives.
What we haven't learned to do--what we haven't gotten with all our getting--is a filter.
The noise is ever-present.
I went to a lecture on Sunday by a professor of Music called Orin Grossman. Grossman talked for an hour about how to listen.
He was right in pointing out that until the dawn of the 20th Century, it was nearly impossible to listen to music. There had to be an orchestra, or a quartet or a band around. And if they played Beethoven's "Eroica," you might go five years or more without having the chance to hear it again.
Today, we have too much. We have so much music we don't know how to hear it.
We have too much noise.
In music.
In politics.
In relationships (I do not need to know all my Facebook friends tell the world.)
And certainly in advertising.
We simply can't, as a society filter out the noise.
No wonder so many of our most-personal computers have stopped working.
Right now, it's about 1948 or so and the action is happening at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Princeton, New Jersey based Think Tank where so many advances came into fruition. The brilliant men and women there labor around the clock trying to make a machine work amid the chaos of unreliable and over-sensitive vacuum tubes. They also have to reckon with terrestrial forces--electrical surges, magnetic pulses and errant radio signals.
What they must to do to make the computing machine work is, simply "filter out the noise."
Today we live in the computer era. Every transaction and interaction we engage in is, it seems, through the medium of a computer. They are integral, intrinsic, insistent in our lives.
What we haven't learned to do--what we haven't gotten with all our getting--is a filter.
The noise is ever-present.
I went to a lecture on Sunday by a professor of Music called Orin Grossman. Grossman talked for an hour about how to listen.
He was right in pointing out that until the dawn of the 20th Century, it was nearly impossible to listen to music. There had to be an orchestra, or a quartet or a band around. And if they played Beethoven's "Eroica," you might go five years or more without having the chance to hear it again.
Today, we have too much. We have so much music we don't know how to hear it.
We have too much noise.
In music.
In politics.
In relationships (I do not need to know all my Facebook friends tell the world.)
And certainly in advertising.
We simply can't, as a society filter out the noise.
No wonder so many of our most-personal computers have stopped working.
My barber.
One thing I have going for me is a healthy head of hair. It's thinned a bit over the years, receded a few millimeters here and there but nonetheless my mane is full and, if you will, luxuriant.
In New York over the last few years there's been a proliferation of barbershops. The old ones all but disappeared in the 80s and 90s, the guys who would slather on Pinaud's "Lilac Vegetal" or "Clubman" after shaving your neck with a straight razor.
But since the breaking up of the Soviet Union, dozens of emigres, usually Jewish and from the old country have opened up small shops where you can get a decent cut for under $20. The give their shops names like "Jean Romano" or "Gents" but the Mezuzahs slanting on their door jambs give away their ethnicity.
I don't get my hair cut often, about four times a year, preferring a "hairstyle" for myself that is somewhere between Einstein's and Kramer's. Accordingly, I have never been able to have breezy conversations with barbers. I never know what to say, and frankly, those usual topics of barber-barbee conversation--sports and breasts--are not things I care to speak about. So, I make it a rule that I don't talk to barbers. I want to sit back, get trimmed and get out. To tell you the truth I don't even like when they hold a mirror behind me so I can see the back of my head. Again, I don't know what to say and, further, who the hell cares what the back of my head looks like.
Another rule I have is never to go to a barber more than three times. I figure if you see the same guy more often than that, you are in a bit of trouble. He's no longer "a barber." Now, he's "your barber."
He's your barber and now, you have a "relationship."
I don't want a relationship with my barber. I barely want a relationship with 96% of my friends, relatives and co-workers. I already, in fact, have too many relationships in my life.
The idea that I will have a relationship with a store or an airline or any other brand is absolutely ludicrous.
All I really want is to be left alone.
In New York over the last few years there's been a proliferation of barbershops. The old ones all but disappeared in the 80s and 90s, the guys who would slather on Pinaud's "Lilac Vegetal" or "Clubman" after shaving your neck with a straight razor.
But since the breaking up of the Soviet Union, dozens of emigres, usually Jewish and from the old country have opened up small shops where you can get a decent cut for under $20. The give their shops names like "Jean Romano" or "Gents" but the Mezuzahs slanting on their door jambs give away their ethnicity.
I don't get my hair cut often, about four times a year, preferring a "hairstyle" for myself that is somewhere between Einstein's and Kramer's. Accordingly, I have never been able to have breezy conversations with barbers. I never know what to say, and frankly, those usual topics of barber-barbee conversation--sports and breasts--are not things I care to speak about. So, I make it a rule that I don't talk to barbers. I want to sit back, get trimmed and get out. To tell you the truth I don't even like when they hold a mirror behind me so I can see the back of my head. Again, I don't know what to say and, further, who the hell cares what the back of my head looks like.
Another rule I have is never to go to a barber more than three times. I figure if you see the same guy more often than that, you are in a bit of trouble. He's no longer "a barber." Now, he's "your barber."
He's your barber and now, you have a "relationship."
I don't want a relationship with my barber. I barely want a relationship with 96% of my friends, relatives and co-workers. I already, in fact, have too many relationships in my life.
The idea that I will have a relationship with a store or an airline or any other brand is absolutely ludicrous.
All I really want is to be left alone.
Friday, March 16, 2012
With apologies to Thorstein Veblen.
Way back in 1899, Norwegian-born University of Chicago professor Thorstein Veblen wrote a ground-breaking study and critique of "consumerism" called "The Theory of the Leisure Class." I won't go into discussing the book here. It's way too "heady" for me--especially while I'm quartered safe out here in Minneapolis.
What I will talk about is this:
Over the last two weeks, preparatory to some new work and some big meetings, I've spent more time with planners than is clinically-proven to be safe and healthy. I've heard about TED and SXSW until pontification is pouring from my pupik.* As Popeye would intone just prior to opening a can of spinach with his pipe: "I've had all I can stands and I can'ts stands no more."
What I realized last night when I was reading about Veblen is that since 1899 we have traveled as a society from "The Theory of the Leisure Class" to a horrifying place--to "The Leisure of the Theory Class."
That's right. "The Leisure of the Theory Class."
We have now in our business and in the world a class of anointed theorists. Call them CWOs (Chief Windbag Officers) who do little, but say a lot with no accountability.
They are the second guessers, the pre-judgers, the "I-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way-ers." They are the the great un-accountables who produce nothing but hot air, nothing that lives and breathes, nothing that has an impact in the market. Nothing you can pin down. They come late to meetings and bring with them questions, never answers. They are suppository suppositionists. Always inserting doubt--never coalescing around conviction.
We pray, all of us in advertising, to many false gods and idols. To award shows that award work that doesn't work except in award shows. To decoration and trends. To technology used by the few, ignored by the many for the betterment of no one.
Do not bow down to the Theory Class.
-
* PUPIK: Belly button. Vulgar: vagina.
What I will talk about is this:
Over the last two weeks, preparatory to some new work and some big meetings, I've spent more time with planners than is clinically-proven to be safe and healthy. I've heard about TED and SXSW until pontification is pouring from my pupik.* As Popeye would intone just prior to opening a can of spinach with his pipe: "I've had all I can stands and I can'ts stands no more."
What I realized last night when I was reading about Veblen is that since 1899 we have traveled as a society from "The Theory of the Leisure Class" to a horrifying place--to "The Leisure of the Theory Class."
That's right. "The Leisure of the Theory Class."
We have now in our business and in the world a class of anointed theorists. Call them CWOs (Chief Windbag Officers) who do little, but say a lot with no accountability.
They are the second guessers, the pre-judgers, the "I-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way-ers." They are the the great un-accountables who produce nothing but hot air, nothing that lives and breathes, nothing that has an impact in the market. Nothing you can pin down. They come late to meetings and bring with them questions, never answers. They are suppository suppositionists. Always inserting doubt--never coalescing around conviction.
We pray, all of us in advertising, to many false gods and idols. To award shows that award work that doesn't work except in award shows. To decoration and trends. To technology used by the few, ignored by the many for the betterment of no one.
Do not bow down to the Theory Class.
-
* PUPIK: Belly button. Vulgar: vagina.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Fear.
If there's one thing that characterizes the modern corporation--more than greed, more than "next-quarter-ness," more than self-centered-ness, it is fear.
We are meant to live in fear.
Fear of our next meeting.
Fear of coming up short.
Fear of disagreement.
Fear of speaking your mind.
Fear of having a mind.
Every 30 minutes or so, a chime sounds and another meeting convenes.
Are you prepared?
Will there be conflict?
What if they hate it?
Every 30 minutes, another spasm of fear.
Fear is the lifeblood of our corporate state.
Fear that you'll be tossed out on your ear.
Fear of competition.
Fear over a host of vagaries that can't be controlled.
Agencies often, sadly, destructively, buy into fear cultures.
They become, accordingly, small, nasty, brutish places
that place ass-kissery uber alles.
We are meant to live in fear.
Fear of our next meeting.
Fear of coming up short.
Fear of disagreement.
Fear of speaking your mind.
Fear of having a mind.
Every 30 minutes or so, a chime sounds and another meeting convenes.
Are you prepared?
Will there be conflict?
What if they hate it?
Every 30 minutes, another spasm of fear.
Fear is the lifeblood of our corporate state.
Fear that you'll be tossed out on your ear.
Fear of competition.
Fear over a host of vagaries that can't be controlled.
Agencies often, sadly, destructively, buy into fear cultures.
They become, accordingly, small, nasty, brutish places
that place ass-kissery uber alles.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
My anti-Semitic iPhone.
If you text "Oy" on your iPhone, the text "corrects" itself to read "it." Giving rise to a new Yiddishism: "It vey."
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