Archive for June, 2009
Dance is an art form that isn’t well suited to newspapers, magazines or radio. And choreography isn’t like chopping onions where the steps can be written on a card and followed. But there is dance notation, though only a few know how to read it and it isn’t as exact as a recipe. Over time choreographers have essentially made up the steps of new dances and taught them to dancers. These realities are probably the guiding factors that led choreographer Merce Cunningham to declare that his dance company will die with him.
Okay, so this doesn’t mean that the dancers in the company will die but rather that the company will cease to exist. The 90 year old choreographer notes that dance companies go off track when the head guy dies and eventually what’s left is just a poor imitation. Because memory isn’t perfect, when we watch notable ballets such as, Swan Lake, the Nutcracker or the Firefly, what we see is dramatically different from how they were originally choreographed. And if you’re a choreographer you’ll take issue with that.
A trust will own the rights to Merce Cunningham’s dances which will then be licensed for specific performances. One imagines he is leaving very specific instructions. Fans of modern technology would most likely find this a very odd move on the choreographer’s part.
Today with our high definition recordings, digital media, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray and USB storage, it would appear that digital media are the perfect devices for choreographers to store their works. Even the most miniscule muscle twitch can be zoomed in on for accuracy when it is replayed for new generations of dancers. And most likely digital will be the preferred storage for the trust anyway. It would seem that digital storage is a perfect dance partner here.
In a week marked by celebrity deaths, we are reminded of the role of celebrities in the world of advertising and business. Love them or hate them, entertainers with their high profiles and glamorous looks have the power to drive buying behavior. Yeah, there are folks who claim some sort of high road and internal compass, but not everyone. Some of us want Tiger Woods Golf clubs and Michael Jordan’s shoes. They probably won’t make us better golfers or faster runners but in 2008, Michael Jordan’s line of Nike stuff brought in $800 million in sales.
It isn’t known how many people bought magazines because Ed McMahon was pitching Publisher’s Clearing House, or how much Farah Fawcett drove hairspray sales, but Billy Mays knew how to pitch to us. He drove $200 million in sales to the OxiClean business. So it was ironic that as news of his death broke on one channel, his show, “Pitchmen” was airing on another. As for Michael Jackson, he wasn’t known for his business savvy or his endorsements but his Pepsi ads – at the time a huge deal at $5 million - are thought to be a turning point for celebrities in advertising.
While cosmetics companies are known for hiring models, this year CoverGirl Cosmetics hired comedian Ellen DeGeneres to market its anti-aging line. Maybe it’s funny to look back and realize that using the cosmetics didn’t result in a higher population of good looking women like Christie Brinkley, Tyra Banks or Keri Russell. Or maybe we age more gracefully with laughter. Or we just love Ellen.
Of course marketers everywhere know that the Midas touch belongs not only to those who sell mufflers, but also to Oprah. Oprah doesn’t endorse products – well not officially anyway. She endorses people and they get their own shows or restaurants or books or home accessories line and then they can endorse products. Oprah if you’re out there, we’ve got a product or two with your name – almost on them.
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”
- Jonathon Swift
If you’re an American in Paris, you’re a 1951 movie or you’re a Gershwin symphony. But if you’re an American in Copenhagen where the handicapped parking symbol is backwards and the movie tickets come with assigned seating, well, you might get lonely for the homeland and then what? Then you go to Meetup.com where you’ll find an active group of like-minded – in a very broad way – folk who celebrate American holidays and just get together for tea and comfort far away from home. As to comforts that are Southern in nature – we don’t know.
And you don’t just have to be in Copenhagen. If you’re Cycling in Huntington Beach, Canoeing in the Boundary Waters, Gay in London, Beltway Atheists in DC, there’s a group for you at Meetup.com. And if there is no group, you can start one. Meetup.com is social networking that blends online and offline lives. Inspired by the 1995 movie “Bowling Alone,” about people being disengaged from society and politics – and that has since changed – Meetup.com urges you to “Do Something, Learn Something, Share Something, Change Something.” It bridges the gap between online and on land relationships.
While Meetups may seem like an original idea, it actually is an evolution from a late 50s concept called, “Happening.” Painters, poets and performers of various disciplines would get together for a Happening that was sort of planned and sort of improvised. This would be the springboard for other “ins” such as the sit-in and love-in but not the drive-in movie. It is not known whether the Happenings coupon books originated in similar fashion. But in the digital age, the Flash Mob is also a Meetup or Happening with its newest incarnation being the Pillow Fight Flash Mob where they actually bring pillows. Watch pillow fight here.
Going back in history, there was the day that someone returned to the home base with the wheel. And while a few of the elders were skeptical, the rest of the group said – wheeeee – and immediately embraced the new possibilities of this invention. Others were envious of this attention. Why didn’t we think of that, they wondered. Where did such creativity come from? Then one day after the wheel rolled down the hill, accidentally causing much destruction, some folks recalled – I told you so. But someone else invented the brake and – well, you know the drill.
Ever since the first psychologist, there has been the quest to figure out what drives creativity. Are people born creative? Do they achieve creativity? Or can they just have creativity thrust upon them? One school of thought says those who move to another country tend to be more creative than those who stay grounded in the land of their birth. Some, citing, Paul Gauguin, even made the giant leap of logic to say that living abroad is what drives creativity.
And you can’t short circuit the process by simply traveling. Living abroad requires that you adapt while traveling just gets you into nice hotels and tourist traps – which is not necessarily a bad thing. Creative people are risk-taking, flexible, open-to-new-ideas types who have intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation. Several civilizations experienced higher levels of creativity after opening up to outside influences.
There is no empirical, cause and effect evidence linking creativity to living abroad but studies indicate that first generation and second generation immigrants are more creative than subsequent generations. It is thought that living abroad gives access to new ways of looking at things and different problem solving techniques. It is also thought that necessity is the mother of invention – though we had no idea the iPhone was necessary before it was invented. Ditto for apps. As it turns out Steve Jobs was born and raised in California – never lived abroad. His biological dad immigrated from Syria but there is no evidence of a relationship. So don’t go moving just yet.
In the dream world people select their partners for life and go on happily ever after. In the real world they visit a web site that beckons – Life is short have an affair. In the dream world, computer programmers write easily readable code with clear labels, if only as a backup plan when their own memories fade. But in the real world, as any new programmer knows, it’s common to discover the exact opposite.
In the real world someone who works ten hours a week and plays video games the rest of the time, is a slacker who lives with his parents who yell at him to take out the garbage – and brings him to Dr. Phil. In his dream world, he’s making around $10 million a year working ten or less hours a week. And to that we would normally say something along the lines of – Dream on. But in the case of Markus Frind, he seems to know what nobody knows. His real world is his dream world.
After wandering across the world of computer programming with unreadable gibberish in the place where program code should have been, he tired of the world of organized work, studied Microsoft’s web tool Asp.net and created Plentyoffish.com, an online dating site. Experience from his own ventures into online dating taught him that it wasn’t exactly cheap fishing for companionship. So he decided his site would be free. After all, shouldn’t a poor slacker have equal dating opportunities?
Unable to afford advertisements for his site, he signed up for Google’s Adsense hoping to make money. He made $5 his first month. But his page views grew by leaps and bounds until folks were lining up to advertise on his site – which is thought to be poorly designed. The paid dating sites started buying advertisement on Frind’s free dating site. And Frind isn’t looking for any more fish to fry he’s happy to make lots while working less.
Art snobbery, not very distinguishable from the art of snobbery, is thought to be practiced by cruel, lonely people who wear black turtlenecks on hot summer days, and speak with a British accent while drinking French wines. And so it was, several decades ago, while art snobs were busily contemplating the meaning of certain works and the struggle between various forces leading up to the work, Claes Oldenburg redrew their landscape. In the world of art snobbery Oldenburg was ridiculed for his whimsical take on everyday objects.
But now the eight decades old, Sweden born artist has triumphed over his detractors, being hailed as a top, American pop artist. Currently the prestigious Whitney Museum is exhibiting some of his works. Oldenburg of the Walker Sculpture Garden’s Spoon Bridge and Cherry Fountain fame, made a name for himself creating over-sized, whimsical sculptures of ordinary objects such as clothespins, trowels and lipstick. Back in the day, art snobs and others had no idea what to make of the quirky items Oldenburg created. The thinking may have gone something like this: Could this be art? Would it stand up alongside the great French works? Should anyone be allowed to decide? Will it bring down the value of neighboring works of art?
Critics and snobs may have their take on the Whitney exhibit as well, but ultimately the best thing about Oldenburg’s works is that so many pieces are not in museums, but rather are scattered about the world in public spaces where all may view them. Set in parks and streets, on college campuses and on top of buildings, the pieces cause children and adults alike to point and stare and comment – Look mom, someone dropped a giant ice-cream cone on that building and it stuck.
When you hear the word popcorn, it’s easy to conjure up visions of the crunching and rustling going on all around you in movie theaters. And isn’t it annoying there isn’t a popcorn holder in movie theater armrests? But the people at Syabas Technology, a digital electronics company looked at the word popcorn and envisioned the Popcorn Hour line of digital home entertainment devices. Now they are taking it to the next level with the Popcorn C-200, the ultimate digital media player that can accommodate a Blu-ray drive.
Once upon a time there was home theater and there was the computer, occupying vastly different ends of the entertainment spectrum. While it may have seemed that never the twain would meet, times have changed. The C-200 makes it possible to view any content regardless of its format, on a television screen. From Blu-ray movies to high-def DVDs to Internet videos, digital photos and MP3 music files, all you need is the C-200 which supports 30 different file types. And yes, we know you don’t actually view music – though some people claim that songs show up as pictures in their heads.
Popcorn Hour’s smart technology, popular in the consumer electronics industry, accomplishes all this with one processor that works as a combination computer microprocessor and a television video processor. They also have standard USB and Ethernet network connectors. Popcorn has systems for personal as well as commercial uses. In short, it’s everything to everyone – something once thought to be impossible.
But it still doesn’t please everyone. While some feel like they’ve been waiting eons for a networked player with this capability, others regret that you won’t be able to use the new system to rip discs to a built in hard drive. Still others aren’t ready to give up their Sony Playstations for new, glamorous and complex interfaces to watch their Blu-ray discs.