June 2008
59 posts
“Communication is unlikely . . . →
If you get what I’m saying.” — Chairman Jimmy. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. My post from last week elicited several comments, which was heartening. On the other hand, most…
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-6-29) →
Beirut
My Morning Jacket
Radiohead
Don Caballero
NPR
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
“The average amount of television watched by individual viewers during the...”
– This is an old press release from Nielsen, but it shocks me. I am so not average as I spend (on a heavy day) 30 minutes watching TV.
everytime The Bends plays in itunes it makes me stop what i’m doing. such a great album.
The Constitution →
I’m going to try and read a section a day.
Wondering how many people have read the constitution? Thinking I want to.
from the gut vs. research →
As a researcher I often feel that much of what I do could be accomplished by just going from the gut. Many of the questions I’m asked to answer could (and should) be answered by instinct, not surveys…
I Never Liked You by Don Cabellero on American...
If you can put the competition’s logo on the ad .... →
I’ve heard this rule invoked by dozens of creative directors over the years as grounds to reject a concept. I recommend that this criticism be tossed on the slag heap along with other bogus rules…
Watchnot their best, but a decent episode of The All-For-Nots.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-6-22) →
Taj Mahal
My Morning Jacket
Magnolia Electric Co.
Bob Marley
Bob Dylan
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
Pressure Cooker: wonderful. High energy, moving, and hard to keep a dry eye. Great documentary.
About to watch Pressure Cooker. Hope its as good as Baghead.
Baghead was good: very funny and a bit scary.
Waiting in line for Baghead. Excited and hope its good.
Welcome to LA: noon-time traffic jam.
Roar →
With the Cannes Lions happening and everyone struggling to be the first to pat everyone on the back I remembered back to this great clip I saw in one of the “behind-the-scenes” judges videos for what…
Travel service needed: airport security line alerts (a la traffic).
Off to the LA Film Festival. Planning to see Baghead (directors of puffy chair) and Pressure Cooker (doc about culinary school).
online video debate
the LA Times ran an article on Hulu yesterday in which it summed up the prevailing argument, “the issue boils down to this: Will low-cost original programming, à la “lonelygirl15” or those grainy, amateur YouTube clips, continue to dominate online video? Or will the little guys get crowded out in a new, heavily commercialized era, led by expensive, slickly produced studio shows...
the future of fitting rooms
I hate trying on clothes. I find it to be a hassle and very inefficient.
What if instead of needing to try on clothes, every time you walked into a department store it scanned your body and created a virtual you, a hologram that followed you around and would try on clothes for you? That way we could see how clothing fit on “us” as another person sees it. And, what if a 3D you...
Dined in Santa Cruz. Great town, even on a Monday night.
"Skip the pun"? Not so fast. →
As Sally Fields once pointed out, “’Pun’ spelled backwards is “nup,” and a nup is a nup. I appreciate the point that Tom Tom made about looking beyond, or beneath, the pun, is his post of June 12.
New Magnolia Electric Company song obession:...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-6-15) →
NPR
Grace Chicago Consort
Dirty Three
Palace Music
Silver Jews
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
Visiting w Chicago friends in San Fran. We will have our first house guest. Woo hoo!
Attending the Chicano studies graduation to watch my sis in law graduate at UC Davis.
What Teaching Teaches →
By Timothy Delaney An MRI of a typical creative person’s brain would no doubt reveal a highly developed right lobe (that’s the intuitive side) and a somewhat atrophied left lobe. Most great…
bird in a tree in my neighbor’s backyard is making at least 15 different noises. One even sounds like a frog. Must be an escaped parrot.
“Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a...”
– Atlantic Monthly (article and quote about how the Internet is changing the way our brain’s work).
The 11 1/2 Biggest Ideas of the Year (Atlantic... →
Skip the Pun →
I am not anti-pun. I find that, on occasion, I actually enjoy them and that they are the right answer. However, I’ve also found that behind most pun-lines, there’s are real lines trying to get out.
thought: are algorithms the new editor (for news stories), critic (for movies) and DJ (for music)?
The Soundtrack of my Copy →
I don’t know about you, but music plays a large role in my creative process. Not so much in the concpeting stage, when my partner and I are batting around ideas. But when it comes down the the brass…
how do you define advertising? →
Princeton defines advertising “as the business of drawing public attention to goods and services.”Is that how you define advertising? Is that how you think of your job?
Lest We Forget →
Here’s the thing. At least in the realm of most consumer advertising, when a person experiences an ad, it’s a brief moment, a tiny drop in the stream of their consciousness. They notice the ad, if…
“Now that the cost of posting things in a global medium has collapsed, much of...”
– Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
I’m (slowly) reading Clay’s book and will post excerpts I find interesting.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-6-8) →
NPR
Josh Ritter
My Morning Jacket
Thelonious Monk
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
Watchthis made me laugh and think of my days living in Chicago trying to convince my wife (from San Diego) that Chicago could offer “nature”.
Soliciting baby names for a girl. Winner gets to name a child.
Watchsince i work at Netflix, I couldn’t resist.
failure
I read this on Seth’s blog quite a while back, and have subsequently printed and put it on my office wall. Hopefully by having it constantly visible it will guide my decisions.
William Beatty, writing for amateur scientists:
The road to failure often contains:
Secrecy
The conviction that someone is about to steal your idea
Focus on selling your idea to the government or a big...