Boo!
Posted onHappy Halloween – try not to O.D. on sugar. Below is Google’s logo today:
Month: October 2008
Who is Ana?
Posted onI have been staring out my office window at a billboard that says “See the World Through Ana’s Eyes” for the past few weeks and had no clue who Ana was, what world she was looking at and what the billboard was advertising. A search on the Net only brought up Flickr albums of people either named Ana or people who know an Ana who thought the billboards were cool. I spammed my company asking “Does anyone know the meaning / purpose behind these billboards?” and got a lot of inspired but in the end incorrect responses.
Finally, bored and starting at the billboard last Friday I tried one more web search and found a link to a tweet (that is a Twitter message for those not in the know – if you don’t know what Twitter is, well, then you are even less in the know) that informed me it was an ad for Ana Tzarev who is opening a gallery of her work in November. I contacted the PR firm Fitz & Co. who is representing Ana and spoke to Bethanie Brady who confirmed that yes, the Ana in the ad is Ana Tzarev. She said,
the text-only black and white campaign will give way to a city wide public art exhibition of colorful large-scale (some 4-stories tall) reproductions of the artist, Ana Tzarev¹s work. In anticipation of their November opening, Ana Tzarev Gallery has worked with New York based cultural marketing firm LaPlaca Cohen to create this campaign to share Ana Tzarev¹s work with all of New York.
The billboard across the way has already changed over and I’ll try to update this post with before and after pics soon. In the meantime, kudos go to all who worked on the campaign as they were able to keep it’s message under wraps for quite some time. My co-workers are all very Net savvy and no one could figure out what the billboard meant. Sure, that pissed some people off but in the end, if you are advertising something, you want people to be talking about that something.
Now, where Ana gets the money to open a gallery and purchase all of these billboard ads is another question altogether…
"And The Endorsement Goes To…"
Posted onNewspaper editorial boards across the land are endorsing candidates left and right as Election Day is right around the corner. Regarding the Presidential race, a number of endorsement have been made for both Obama and McCain but all of the noteworthy ones have all gone to Obama. These news making endorsements are interesting for a few reasons, like history, personality and geography, and I’ll illustrate three that have gone Obama’s way.
First there is the history department. How does the fact that the Chicago Tribune has endorsed a Democrat for the first time in its paper’s history sound? In doing so, the paper said Obama is the “strongest candidate to address the nation’s economic woes and lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.” The fact that this paper endorsed Obama is huge. The paper’s founder in fact helped found the GOP. The paper ha been around for 161 years and you would have thought they would have endorsed at least one Dem in that time but the answer is no – Barack is the first and their endorsement is a powerful one.
Next there is the personality department. If a major Democrat endorsed McCain, it would be news and vice versa. So, if you didn’t know by now Colin Powell said he was voting for Obama last week on “Meet the Press.” His reasons were sound, incredibly detailed, well thought out and very tough with which to argue. I just sat back and marveled at how damning this must have been to McCain. Not what you want people talking about, that’s for sure.
Last, regarding geography, people all over the nation are paying attention to the endorsements that come from different regions of the land. One such regional endorsement especially caught my eye tonight: the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s largest and most read newspaper, has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Among the reasons, it stated in its editorial:
Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.
Election day is only 9 days away and so far, to quote the Dead, “What a long strange trip its been.” I cannot wait to see how it all shakes out. I’m hopefully for a true change and for my daughter’s future. I’m still nervous, polls and all, and will be until the morning of November 5th when I truly know how this whole thing has turned out.
The Knux
Posted onI read an article titled The Mining of Hip-Hop’s Golden Age a few weeks back which gave me a good list of meta-rap groups like the Cool Kids, Pacific Division, the Knux, Kidz in the Hall and Plastic Little to discover. For the past month, I’ve been checking them all out and in the process I’ve once again been amazed at how easy it is to use the Net to hear (maybe not “own” but hear) new music.
If you’ve never heard the term meta-rap, these types of groups “make music that is a commentary on what came before it. In hip-hop, which can be ruthlessly forward-looking, this is a novel development, and it has made for compelling and diverse music.”
One song that has been stuck in my head for the last month is Cappuccino by “The Knux.” I dig it and I hope you do too. Happy Friday – enjoy!
Little O'Reilly Tells It Like It Is
Posted onPlease do not watch the clip below while drinking a hot beverage or while operating heavy machinery:
Best line? “Go drive your electric cars into the ocean. I hope you hit a whale on your way to France.”
If this kid wasn’t so like Bill-O, it wouldn’t be half as funny…
Being a 21st Century Veep
Posted onA recent NYT article “Vice President: The Heartbeat Job” is about what it means to be a Veep today. Not enough has been made of the VP debate when Palin interpreted her potential future job’s role & responsibilities or the “Article One Smackdown” that Biden laid on her when he said that Cheney has been “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had in American history.”
In the article, Joel K. Goldstein, a law professor at St. Louis University and author of The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution says,
“There are so many incoming missiles that the president is really going to need help no matter how he structures his presidency. Yes, we need to know whether the vice president is ready to occupy the highest office, can handle a crisis and be trusted with the nuclear codes. But, equally important, do they have something to offer that will be meaningful in helping the next administration succeed?”
I think (hope – pray) it’s pretty clear that Biden has a lot to offer Obama while Palin has very little to offer McCain. Score one to the O ticket.
The NYT also feels that not enough has been made of how Palin responded to the Veep question in the debate. Their opinion piece Dick Cheney, Role Model is a nice read as well.
Wanna Talk About It?
Posted onDid you watch the debate tonight? I did. I watched it on CNN’s HD channel and got to see six analyst scorecards on the side of my screen scoring the “fight.” Five out of six thought Biden had more positive points than Palin. I was also emailing back and forth with my buddy who is involved with the Obama campaign throughout and followed the live blogging on both the NYT site and Andrew Sullivan’s site. Surround sound!
Overall, I agree with everyone’s (i.e. NYT, MSNBC, Andrew Sullivan, NYT and CNN) reaction. Palin did a decent job. Biden did a better one.
There were no game changers tonight. Overall, Biden did not make any gaffes and had the emotional moment of the evening when he choked up about being a single parent. Palin helped herself more than John McCain. While no Republican now wants to kick her off the ticket, she definitely did not convince America that McCain is the better choice than Obama. In fact, everyone will be talking about the bailout tomorrow and not even this debate. Not good for McCain’s chances.
Election Day is now almost one month away and one cool election related web site is FiveThirtyEight which is run by Nate Silver, a super stats guru. 538 equals the number of electoral votes that are up for grabs and right now Nate is calling it 331 – 206 for Obama.
I think the best moment of the night was when Biden schooled Palin on the Constitution. He gave her the “Article One Smackdown” and invoked the dreaded word “Cheney” when the Veep question came up which really will resonate with a lot of people. Her response was wishy washy. Biden’s was fast and firm.