Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

« ? Blogging Brians # »

Book Plug:

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money. I think.
BSD Mall

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12/24/2001 - 12/30/2001
12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001

Tuesday, September 17, 2002
23:31 - Advertising Nation	(top)
I just saw the most sarcastic goddamned ad I've ever seen in my entire life. There are several versions of it, but the best one (naturally) is the longest cut, almost a minute long. It begins with a woman cleaning out her apartment in the caverns of the city, probably Manhattan. She takes a bag of garbage out to the sidewalk-- along with an old desk lamp. She puts them down at the edge of the street, and the piano plays a slow, heart-wrenching, drama-filled dirge as the rain begins to fall on the lamp, its stalk bent slightly like an old man on a cane, its cord wrapped carelessly around its base. It's dark and raining hard. You can see the woman in her room on the second floor; her window is the only one lit, and she's sitting in a chair by the window, reading by the light of her new lamp. It's tall and graceful, with a clear shade; its light streams out over the sidewalk and reflects off the wet surface and into the hood of the old lamp, which looks as though it's glowing warmly with the memory of being needed, turned as though in supplication toward the window's glow. The piano continues its woeful plodding melody as the woman gets up, turns off her new lamp, and gives it a loving pat. The light shuts off, and the old lamp outside is left in the dim twilight of the driving rain. The camera trucks slowly in. You're sure by this point that the old lamp is destined to become the subject of one of those little-tin-soldier stories with which we were all plagued as children; it will come to life, or a little girl will walk by and pick it up and make it part of an art project or a beloved new addition to her playroom, or it will fall over and die... and just as you're positive that the smarm is about to begin in deadly earnest-- you see a guy's legs step into view in front of the camera, and we pan up to his head. He's a bedraggled little Scandinavian guy with rain-wet hair and a long jacket. He peers with a peeved scowl at the camera. "Many of you feel bad about this lamp. That is because you crazy! It has no feelings! And the new one is much better." IKEA. www.unb�ring.com. ...You know, even if I cling to the conceit that I'm not influenced into buying certain products by the imagery spewed forth from the glowing phosphor tube day in and day out, that I eat at Taco Bell because I like the food rather than because they show melted cheese along with the Pavlov bell logo, that I go to see certain movies because of their own merits rather than how compelling the trailers are... there is one other level at which I find myself susceptible to a company's advances. And that is that if that company sees fit to create an ad campaign that I find irresistibly clever or artistic or genuinely funny, I find myself wanting to find some excuse to patronize that company just to support its decision to make good ads. That's largely why I like Volkswagen, and Jack in the Box, and even Apple. And now it seems I'm going to have to add IKEA to that list. From the lowest of the low-brow mind-polluting pap to the richest, most sarcastic and inspired pieces of commentary-laden pop art, advertising is every bit as much the modern art form as, say, movies or Web pages. And it'll probably last longer, too. I don't know what I even think about that. Especially considering how insidiously well-done that horrible "Bad Boys Bail Bonds" ad is. (Those of you not local to San Jose probably have no idea what this particular meme is like. Consider yourselves fortunate.) It's both the price and the boon of capitalism.