The best worst ad ever

The last year of the dot com boom was big for Madison Avenue. That year's Super Bowl had one creative standout, one of the most innovative and sweetly funny ads ever conceived. Everybody who saw it remembers it for its pure brilliance. Watch:



So why is this the best worst ad ever? It did nothing for sales. It was brilliant creatively, but the client is subsumed within its genius. It's a high-minded concept, the kind that wins the creme de la creme of the creative awards. But we're in the business of growing our client's business, not our own glory. On that count, this is an abject failure.

I still love to watch it, though.

Solla Solla Enna Perumai

Bollywood's version of sex-drenched song-and-dance combines a combo-zetigest that's a bit of Annette Funicello with a Puckish lead singer who, at least from the filmmaker's pov, oozes raw sexual appeal. Truly weird and wonderful.



Another song and dance number with a cult following. Straight from Bollywood, hips-a-shaking and an animation not seen in our popular culture since Lawrence Welk.



The staff at Salon.com can recreate this entire scene flawlessly. Makes me with I were that young and dedicated to the pursuit of the out-there.

George Carlin on Religion

Sacred cow for dinner, folks!

Poetry in Motion

I can't get enough of this guy's lyrical dance juggling. Chris Bliss:

Brilliant Writing Puts Faces to Abstract Numbers

From Altercation. Tore me up. What power the pen can wield in the right hands.

Mayada Salihi: Red hair, raised in Baghdad, divorced mother of two adorable kids, herself the daughter of a divorced Shia mother and Sunni father. A scrapper. A Baghdadi through and through. Not always factual, but usually a truthteller. Devout fan of cheesy 1980’s American music, particularly Air Supply. Mayada was my translator through much of last year. You knew her too, albeit indirectly. It was because of May, and through her, that we found the schools which you so generously supplied and supported last year. Those who sent donations usually received a letter and pictures from me of the deliveries. May is in some of those photos. She was my friend.

She was well traveled for an Iraqi, having visited Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan in her 20s, but after her children, and Iraq, there is nothing which May loved more than a country to which she had never been, America. Her father was a comfortable government functionary and in those days she lived a life of moderate privilege. She had seen much of the Arab world, but for whatever reason, call it cultural penetration or just internationalism, May grew up fascinated by and adoring America. She started teaching herself English through that most classic of methods, singing along with American albums. As I recall, she told me that it was the Foreigner 4 album at first, and only a little later did she discover the obscenely sugar-coated songs of Air Supply. Eventually, in college, she majored in English.

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Life in a Middle Eastern nation being what it is, however, she had a lot of pressure to marry. Eventually she settled on the wrong guy. He cheated, a lot, and so in a quintessentially American move, so did she. That ended it. Cuckolding publicly reduced her husband and they divorced. She got the kids.

Then we invaded.

A month after the fall of Baghdad May was volunteering, working as a translator for a succession of US and Iraqi forces…too many it seems. Living in Baghdad she got one warning note, ignored it, and was gunned down and left for dead by masked men in the alley beside her house just two days later. That was in the Spring of 2004. But May would not die.

Whisked to a hospital where her identity as an American translator was revealed, she was declared dead back in her neighborhood for the safety of her family, while in reality she went into hiding. Ultimately she recovered in Jordan, but the recovery took months. She could have stayed in Jordan, but in the end, she found that her heart would not let her. The two nations she loved most were now fused in a death-love struggle, she could not leave them alone. Besides, working for us paid better than just about anything else a divorced woman could legally do in Baghdad, and that allowed her to support “H” (her son), “M” (her daughter) and her mother. So she came back.

Working for the same unit again, we kept her out of the city, doing good work elsewhere in Iraq. But the draw of motherhood, and her city, brought her back to Baghdad. It was at that time that we met, in April of last year.

Living now in another neighborhood, May thought she was safe. But as any New Yorker will tell you, even seven million people can make for a small town in some ways. By late summer they had found her again. A note at her home, I have a copy of it which she gave me, told her to stop working with the Americans or she would be killed. But May would not, and I now think perhaps could not, stop. A few nights later she slipped her mother and kids into the Green Zone, buying off another family who had themselves received an eviction notice from the Iraqi government.

In Iraq, as it is in many other countries, its all about who you know. May thought that she could work her personal connections…this person knows that person whose second cousin is a deputy minister of agriculture…to pull the right strings and keep the apartment, and her family, together. I had a hand in that, while I was there. It was a distraction from the work I was supposed to do, but in some ways you could say that it was also the work that needed to be done. I left in February. Apparently, not long after I left, she was evicted.

May couldn’t live outside the Green Zone anymore. To do so would be to invite risk to her kids and her mother. So the kids went to live with her Ex, and her mother went to her sister. May found a small place for herself, a single room apparently, inside the Green Zone.

Motherhood is a strong pull though. May would leave the Green Zone fairly often, alone in her car, to go see her children for a few precious hours.

At the end of the month of May, just after returning from my pre-wedding honeymoon, I found an e-mail in my inbox from one of my friends back in Baghdad. Nobody had wanted to tell me, at least initially, but now they felt they should. Two weeks earlier, while driving through the city to see her kids, May was intercepted and kidnapped by Ansar Al Sunna. Their standard tools are the AK-47, rape, and the power drill (with which they torture their captives, drilling holes through body parts until finishing them off with a drill-bit to the head). The day before the e-mail, the police found the husk of my friend’s body in downtown Baghdad. Ansar Al Sunna had taken full credit. Now I understand hate.

Mayada Salihi, 1970-2006. (Link) Please remember.

Crying yet?

The enormous implications of design, brilliantly told

My new brain crush. While he's no Ze Frank, then, Ze Frank no him either. Similar brilliance, entirely different delivery, sui generis thought. Big words can be our friends too, now.

Enjoy.

It's a backwards world, friend

From the mouths of babes and a portable camera. Did you know that China's putting the whole cha-cha-cha on us? I learned much watching this short film.

Ze Frank, Boy Genius Stuck in Grown Man's Body

Sigh. What genius lurks behind those saffron eyes?

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

Two excerpts from Frederick Douglass's powerful Independence Day speech from 1852. Read the whole thing and long for the days when oration had real power.

From the website History is a Weapon, via a brilliant post on Metafilter.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

and

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout-"We have Washington to our father."-Alas! that it should be so; yet it is.

The evil, that men do, lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.

BTW, the House failed to reauthorize Voting Rights Act, and President Bush says he doesn't know a thing about it, while claiming, "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

History needs to kick us in the butt.

Rise Above the Snarking Snarkers Who Would Malign You For Sport

Life makes some people cynical. Looking for the worst? You'll find it.

Some would have you believe their negativity and cynicism are actually hard-won wisdom, a kind of advanced degree in critical thinking. But in fact, cynicism and negativity do not add up to wisdom; rather, they add up to negative patterns of thought that can be habit-forming and destructive.


It takes minimal cleverness and maybe seven facial muscles to produce a smirk sufficiently smirkly to paralyze creativity. We've all had ideas, work, art, children, partners, etc., all victims of murder by smirk. It's an awful feeling. Even a non-lethal injection of scorn has the power to shut down many people once and for all.

Someone recently told me a significant percentage would rather be hit by a bus than speak in public. Imagine willing to risk such physical damage just to forgo public speaking, a very rewarding skill to develop with all sorts of fringe benefits. The fear of being publicly scorned is so deeply ingrained that we might not even figure out the core fear.

The smirk murderer gets a cheap (and fleeting) sense of superiority from their generous disdain. "Look how clever I am to have seen this thing for the drek that it is." Negativity is not a philosophy, it doesn't uplift anyone, it teaches nothing constructive, and it hurts people in more ways than we'll ever know.

One thing is for sure, a life spent avoiding the risk of falling prety to smirk murderers can become a kind of prison. Expecting the worst can attract it.

The reverse is true, too. When you face the world with honest expectations of basic human goodness, people respond in kind. There's a kindness and guilelessness people with optimistic expectations exude. People, young, old and in between, all respond to someone who's actively ready to believe the very best of them.

I've been running an experiment. I generally do expect goodness from people, but I've been making a concerted effort to make that more obvious.

I get a lot more smiles. I have chats with interesting sptrangers all over the city. It lifts us both up to a nicer place where we can begin to conceive of brotherly love.

Plus, I'm happier. Life feels less fearful, my relationships deepen, and my prospects become more abundant. Once in a while, I actually notice that I've had a long spell of being pleased, grateful and content.

Have I ever been fooled by expecting the best? You bet. I've got a couple of BeeEffDee stories on that subject. Have I been cheated? Once or twice. Has it been worth it? Absolutely.

Crossposted at the ,/a>. Here's the new location: 100 Bloggers

Target Audience: Crazy People

This is just too weird. Coming from an old-school outfit like Folgers, I'm wondering about the long term effects of coffee consumption. See for yourself, it's practically hallucinatory:

Coudal Partners

"Copy Goes Here" is a short film created for no good reason, serving no perceivable purpose, there's no morality play in the subtext. It's just useless and wonderful. This is the kind of weirdness one can expect when creative and energetic people are allowed to play in their spare time rather than look busy.

They got a nifty little absurd film that says really nice things about the corporate culture at Coudal Partners . They take risks, and there are people who won't like them for it. But they've given other people reason to like them quite a lot.

Great alternatives in brand development.




$50 for the first person who deciphers a link between post and picture.

Sex and violence? Not all that useful a tool after all.

Cognitive Daily is one of life's sweet pleasures. It's like a themepark for the eclectic mind.

The brain is an interesting place to explore, one full of surprising revelations. Turns out, ads appearing in programming heavy on heaving bosoms and murder and mayhem don't perform as well as when appearing in more wholesome fare.

This ought to have huge implications for agencies, their clients and media buying decisions. We all love our sex and, well, sex. Some like violence--whatever--between consenting adults in the privacy of their own planet--just don't let me see it. I have tender sensibilities.


One thing is for sure, if anyone's agency is buying ads on those prurient dating shows, or during gore and guts shoot-em-ups, or the likes of Jerry Springer, it might be a good time to look for a new agency.

Here's the story:

[Published in the prestigious journal Psychological Science] . . . Bushman studied 336 adults in central Iowa by showing them violent, sexy, or neutral TV programming (some of the programs included 24 and Cops [violent], Sex in the City and Will and Grace [sexy], and America's Funniest Animals and Trading Spaces [neutral]). Each program contained the same 12 commercials. The commercials were chosen from a selection of products that were relatively unfamiliar to the study group: "Senokot Natural Vegetable Laxative," "Nutra Nails," and so on.

[snip]

Is that the sound of the world becoming less seduced by titilation? Naw. That was my stomach. Time for lunch.


Bushman sees some refreshing consequences if advertisers catch on to the failure of titilation and savagery:

. . . if advertisers would refuse to buy advertising on shows with sexual/violent content, they could help their own bottom lines because the ads on these shows don't sell as well. Society would be helped because violent/sexy shows would soon be removed from the air due to financial insolvency -- and violent programming is associated with aggressive behavior while sexually explicit shows can lead to anti-social sexual attitudes.

If this kind of programming is neutralized as a viable commercial vehicles, sex and violence might just return to their natural place in the human experience.

Seth Godin

Nearly an hour of Godin goodness.

For all you graphics folks

Why is it so hard to talk to each other?

MMODERNISTA! Gets Cadillac: Pearls Before Swine?

Photo by Porbem via Flickr.

After decades with Leo Burnett, GM is taking its Cadillac account to a brash upstart in Boston, the five-year-old ad agency, MODERNISTA!

Make no mistake about it. MODERNISTA! is not your father's ad agency. They seem painfully polished, and are as avant garde as can be and still touch filthy lucre.

Their grunge-ish website is stylish past the point of cool. Past James Dean, past the Sex Pistols and well into Lilith Crane territory. Not so much cool as frigid. Was there a heart there or did I just miss it?

But that's just me. I like rainbows and kittens and duckies and unicorns, taking walks in the rain and rootbeer floats. Their kind of cool generally is rare in St. Louis, but if you're in Boston, you might want to keep a cardigan handy. These guys are chill.

And Here's MODERNISTA!

Their graphics are stained, dirty-looking, reminiscent of the legendary $1 million idea on the back of a bar napkin, with an all-too-intentional non-chalance. They've got a sad-sack, heroin-addicted, weaving mascot reminiscent of Edward Gorley's pen and ink drawings, but without the wit. A witless Gorley is just beastly drawing and weird for weirdness' sake. Unless informed by a certain amount of self-awareness and cleverness, weirdness like this just wastes pixels.

But what do I know? GM is giving them the $22 million account, not Cambium Creative. But I think GM is making the same mistake it always does. Pyrotechnics are no substitute for insight into human character (and don't be fooled, that's the business), fake messiness doesn't make you creative, and just because you call it a big idea doesn't mean it's a big idea.

What Are Big Ideas?

I honked at this line, "At their best, big ideas tell you how to behave as a business--they're not simply an advertising tagline but a living, breathing business idea." Do these directional arrows have an ego issue? The hubris in that statement is kind of admirable, in its own deluded, twisted fashion. Even for advertising.

Big ideas don't tell people what to do. Really great Big Ideas tell something so true and compelling about who and what the company is at its core, that it's obvious. And not stupid obvious. But that brilliant kind of obvious that takes enormous insight to recognize and is hard to come up with because of its renegade elegance.

If a client of ours were looking for a tagline to be the basic behavioral instruction for the company, I would have to look hard at taking such a fool for a client. Now, if we get the Big Idea that succinctly describes the motivation, the ethic, the motor that keeps people passionate, then wonderful. But cart first. Then Big Idea.

Among Modernista!'s claims to fame has been their work for Hummer, a.k.a., the global warming 3-ton phalllus whose fading fortunes are tied topeak oil. The tv spot they showcase consists of a distorted shiny Hummer grill on a distorted dusty road to a driving techno beat. Copy reads: "Giddyap."

What a mild cleverness. In a world full of language so rich and descriptive, it's really empty. What does this so-called Big Idea really say? That you're a coyboy? You like to play? You can't wait your turn. Even though you're driving an $80,000 ozone depletion machine, you're just a little boy at heart. Giddyap puts no foie in my gras.

In truth, the Hummer brand relies on anything but boyish charm. It's bigger and meaner than anything on the road. Losers driving small cars would be decapitated if they rear-ended you--poor bastards. It's the testosteroni-cholestoral deep dish pizza of tank-cum-troop mover. It costs a fucking fortune, but you're rich enough not to care about anything but your immediate earthly pleasures. You might be Napoleonic in stature or might just be a small man, either way, but all those sweaty cowboy dreams make you hate queers. Your wife won't touch you, but your hemmoroid cream would turn into battery acid if you ever got the chance to nail the kids' sitter.

So you drive your ersatz-military phallus to display your masculinity. Like the little red sportscar of yesteryear, the Hummer is a big honkin' combover.

Meanwhile, it's kind of hard to feel sorry for Leo Burnett. With $225 million less in revenue, the cuts will be deep. And while there's not much sympathy for out-of-work advertising folks, I assure you, when cut, we bleed. (Although it doesn't show so much on the black clothes.)

What were they thinking with that pricey Super Bowl ad? Even with all those beautiful women, it wasn't even pleasant to behold. All black and white and hard people and cold metal. Whatever they were paid (airplane hangars and supermodels were involved), it was too much. Here's the the spot if you're so compelled.

It's almost as if the fine folks at Leo Burnett lost their way and when they should have been concepting, somehow managed to order gin and sushi . . . maybe some not-too-good hallucinogens--and cranked out this drivel.

MODERNISTA!, if they're smart, will build on Cadillac's truly golden, dusty rose image, which I'd argue still has incredible value to translate into new car sales. It would be time to put away the frightfully, dangerously cool bit, though. Getting down to the bones of a brand has nothing to do with cool and everything to do with feeling.

A good revival takes heart. I'd suggest a thoroughly contemporary approach at a retro-revival of the enduring meme that Cadillac is the best and most luxurious car money can buy. I think there's meat on them brand bones, but tarting it up, as I'm afraid they will do, to make an elegant lady shake her salt shaker like Brittany Spears in hopes a little hip will rub off? That would make as much sense as socks on a rooster. You wouldn't put Aunt Eugenie in a bustier and roller blades.

And just one more thing. I guess I'm on a bit of a rant, but these guys are just so emblematic of everything I was happy to leave behind at some of my worse big agency jobs that I am just going to indulge myself one last little bit.

That name, MODERNISTA!, with that exclamation point every damn time it's spelled, strikes me as that tortured ersatz fun found at boozeless office parties during which people laugh too loud, and merriment is mandatory. aIf you must CAP your NAME then INSIST on EXCITEMENT, isn't that pressing the point?

I'm being pretty rough on them, I know. It's hard to develop a site worthy of the exes and ohs that sacrifice their short digits for the greater good. But we ad folks need to learn something. Tell the truth, don't try spin gold out of straw. We never were any good at it anyway. All we got was a bunch of brassy sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I implore our entire industry. Let's once and for all get over being the cool kids. We're too old to be cool, and if we're not, we ought to be. There are many better things than cool. Cool has jumped the shark. Let's think of something else to aspire to. I'm leaning toward honest, warm, real and human.

A Musical Interlude

Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street.

From an Indian nightclub

Effective use of advertising.

Russian Life in 50s and 60s

This collection of urban life in Soviet Russia during the 50s and 60s are brilliantly evocative.


via BoingBoing

Political Bloggers Are Pandered to Like Fat Cats

Blogging has seriously come of age. DailyKos, a leading progressive blog, hosts a convention of bloggers--I think this is the third year. The article below is ample evidence that what once was considered self-serving emotional claptrap has now tipped to the point of significant influence. In fact, some say the power of progressive bloggers is equal to that of right-wing radio. And to think, we knew it when . . . . Thanks to Suburban Guerilla.

Warner was not the only potential presidential hopeful to glad-hand at YearlyKos. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a 2004 White House contender, threw an after-hours party Thursday night in a packed bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, though the open bar only included a limited supply of bottled beer and cheap red wine. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson showed up Friday morning with breakfast pastries, along with praise for the blogging community and his endorsement of Democrats becoming “the party of [outer] space.” Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack appeared for an education panel before meeting privately with a small pre-selected group of bloggers, without offering so much as a stick of gum.

But no one could compete with Warner, who chose to treat the emerging and ill-defined world of liberal blogging like a major union or corporate trade group. He brought nearly a dozen staffers, including his political action committee’s five-person “Internet team,” and a camera crew to follow his movements throughout the Riviera Hotel, for later online broadcast. When conventioneers checked in, they were given a goodie bag with a laminated invitation to the Warner party conspicuously swinging from the handle. At Saturday’s lunch, where Warner showed his standard slick biographical video and delivered his entrepreneur-turned-Virginia-governor stump speech, each attendee got a black T-shirt, emblazoned with Warner’s digitally enhanced mug and the words “YearlyKos,” as if he had sponsored the event.

“You know when I look around this room I have rarely seen such energy, such optimism, such hope in one place,” Warner told the crowd. “And I am not just talking about those of you I saw at the Blackjack table at the Stratosphere.” His stump speech was light on specific proposals, and heavy with applause lines about the divisiveness of the Bush administration and the need for Democrats to take back the country.

When he was done, about two-thirds of the audience gave him a standing ovation, many of them clearly impressed with his biography as a red state Democrat and high-tech executive. But dissension was also not far under the surface. Minutes after Warner stepped outside of the convention hall to answer questions from reporters and bloggers, Edward Anderson, a Connecticut blogger whose screen name is DeanFan84, confronted him with a broad-based concern. “Do you understand that a lot of us in the grass roots feel that the money could have been spent better?” Anderson asked the former governor, referring to the Friday night Warner party at the Stratosphere. “We don’t want to join the consultant class. I don’t want our guys getting used to shrimp and martinis.”

2006 Best-of-the-Best Marketing Sites

KnowThis.com has compiled a valuable list of internet marketing sites. Many I knew about, but there are a few new gems there. Check it out.

The Crack Cocaine of Internet Surfing

I have something to confess. A new addiction. YouTube, Google Video, PistolWimp, the list goes on and on. These streaming video sites are the crack cocaine of internet surfing.

Much of it is pure druck, but there's gold there, too.

For instance, last night I watched an incredible monologue "The History of Oil," by British satirist, Robert Newman. He explains how World War I was an invasion of Iraq, something I didn't know. Quality programming.

Then there are all the clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report--I'll never have to buy basic cable to see those titans of political humor again.

In fact, I don't have to leave the comfort of my desk to watch television, with sites like Peekvid, I caught up on Gray's Anatomy on my own schedule.

This has everything to do with marketing. With an expanding Internet, and independent, citizen-provided content, 30- and 60-second commercials are of dwindling efficacy. Ads in the sidebar may get some traffic, but I know I ignore them completely.

If ever there was a need for creativity and authenticity in marketing it's today. The competition is fiercer and getting more ferocious with every click.

Spring went to assertiveness training, can you tell?

Green and Pink. Spring is Wet., originally uploaded by ancawonka.

photoshopping without a license

cottage montage, originally uploaded by Wordswinker.

Noblesse Oblige

The following is excerpted from What Would Jackie Do? An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living, by Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway. Gotham Books, 2006. via http://blog.guykawasaki.com/.


Noblesse Oblige for Beginners: How to Be a Goodwill Ambassador to Strangers, Colleagues, Malcontents

Jackie preferred hailing taxis to get about in New York City. And in those yellow chariots, she would sometimes lean forward and do what so few ever bother to do: ask how the driver’s day was going. In one case, she beseeched the cabbie to quit his shift in order to get home safely in soggy weather. What good is it, after all, to be a cut above if you don’t let your own splendid qualities trickle down to others?

Coddle bit players. It’s terribly wicked not to give props to all of the people who make your path smoother in life. These include the doorman, the mailman—and if you’re so lucky—the cook and pilot. In Jackie’s case, the list also extended to all sorts of minor politicos. Go beyond tips and nods. As a campaign wife, Jackie was able to recall the names, unprompted, or umpteen mayors and convention delegates. And in the White House, she stunned her new staff by properly addressing members upon their first face-to-face meeting.

Don’t (publicly) criticize your enemies or opponents. Leave such base behavior to modern-day politicians and reality show contestants. Particularly resist the temptation to bad-mouth people by e-mail: There’s nothing worse than electronic slurs, which can be endlessly forwarded. Though surrounded by enemies (political) and jealous types (frumpy women), Jackie refused to get nasty. During the 1960 campaign, she declined to take potshots at Hubert Humphrey. And two decades later, when Nancy Reagan got swamped with negative publicity, Jackie waxed empathetic, going so far as to call her to offer advice on handling the press.

Tap higher powers to help the helpless. After you’ve maxed out your immediate resources, look to your left and right, above and below to harness those six degrees of separation between you and the solution to the problem at hand. Don’t be too proud to ask an influential friend to step in on behalf of someone you know—even if the two have never met. That’s what connections are really for.

In 1980 Jackie summoned medical philanthropist Mary Lasker to help an impoverished sick boy, the son of a manicurist, gain access to proper treatment. As a follow-up to the favor, Jackie wrote her friend Mary a heartfelt note: “Now they don’t feel that they are just a cipher because they are poor,” she scrawled on her Doubleday stationery. “Whatever happens, they know that someone with a noble heart made it possible for them to get the best care they could.”

Turn the other silken cheek. Sometimes you must show people what you are made of by staying elevated when you’d least like to—say, when someone zips into your primo parking space, or snatches the last pair of Loro Piana gloves on sale at Bergdorf’s. Like Jackie, you’d do well to let mild acts of ugliness pass without much fuss.

Traveling with Thomas Hoving, then-director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jackie was stunned—and frightened—by the French paparazzi who swarmed her at a low-key Left Bank restaurant. An infuriated Hoving returned to their hotel, the Plaza Athenee, and demanded that the doorman who disclosed their whereabouts be fired. Informing Jackie of the fait accompli, Hoving recalls, “She got mad at me.” She said: “You suffered a man’s livelihood because of that?”

Mute the call of mammon. The classiest cash is also the quietest. So if you’re fortunate enough to have an endless supply of crisp bills, just don’t crumple them under the noses of those with less. This doesn’t mean you should deprive yourself of fine things. Certainly our lady did not. But wealth does require you to be somewhat stealth about what you’ve got.

Don’t gab on about money, either—yours, your parents’, your boyfriend’s—or your over-the-top plans for it. When Jackie received a $26 million settlement from Aristotle Onassis’s estate, society types needled the widow about how she intended to spend the windfall. “You don’t talk about things like that,” was her stunned reply.

To be a cut above, don’t cut. Even if your social status or connections somehow permit it, resist any temptation to leapfrog over more common folks. This means no line-jumping at Disney World, no flashing that Burberry plaid to snare the next cab. In New York, Jackie waited in crowds like everybody else—or avoided them altogether—rather than nudge her way to the front of movie-house and museum queues.

It's been a salmon day today

From my buddy Rob. It's wonderful to have friends with a nose for linguistic development. As usual, I pass my 411 on to you. A day without words and all that.

BLAMESTORMING : Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was
missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream
only to get screwed and die in the end.

SITCOMs : Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies
turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home
with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiny.


IRRITAINMENT : Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but
you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or
not) was a prime example; Michael Jackson, another.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an
electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above
the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to
solve.

404 : Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message "404
Not Found," meaning that the requested site could not be located.

GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same
no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and
subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that
you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by
mistake)

WOOFS : Well-Off Older Folks.

The wisdom of the fart joke

Wisdom for the ages from Jason Santa Maria:

Before we get into the thick of it, consider one more thing: design is not about innovation. Design is about communication. Innovation in design is usually a wonderful byproduct or direct result of a particular need. Design that seeks to foremost be innovative will commonly fall apart under its own stylistic girth.

That's among the best creative advice I've ever read. We all want to be clever and smart. It feels so good, and the rewards are enormous. When your livelihood rests on the continuous flow of creativity, it's a pressure no one knows but them what knows.

That's why "design is not about innovation" is so important. The same can be said for writing. Writing is not about innovation. It's incredible, ethereal even, when writing becomes innovative. The writing levitates and gets you high. But the communication must come first. Levitation is a wonderful by-product. It's the O, but communication is the sex.

Lunaryuna, Flickr Goddess

glimpse into my mind, originally uploaded by lunaryuna.

The Perils of Negative Expectations

Empirical studies have reinforced one of my pet philosophies. From a great little discovery of a blog, BPS Research Digest, explains "Why it's best not to expect the worst."

The study they cite doesn't point to a correlation between expectations and success as much as the link between negative expectations and negative sense of self. In other words, if you expect to do poorly, and do, you see it as further evidence of a larger personal failure. If you expect to do well, but do poorly, you don't internalize the failure, but give it an emotional shrug.

I think it goes farther than that, though. Expectations influence not only your own motivation, but also the way the world approaches you. It's a matter of energy, to sound quite postmodern about it. Positive attracts positive, negative attracts the same.