Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Vivian Stanshall - Crank (Part One)
One of my all time heroes, introduced by one of my other all time heroes.
silliness from Burger King
loving this short doc about the day Burger King took away the whopper
http://www.whopperfreakout.com/
http://www.whopperfreakout.com/
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
kasms at Club Motherfucker 8/12
Rachel screams beautifully. The band are brilliant. Primal. Definite. Rawk. Love it.
cooking the books?
An annual report that has to be baked in an oven before it can be read. Erm, call me old fashioned but I find it a little odd that they want to tell the world that they're cooking the books... More...
Thursday, 6 December 2007
My 12 inches of fame
This was my leaving card from my last agency. Eternal love and respect goes to Andy McKinna who did the whole lot. My most treasured possession.
The button itself
thanks, Katie Craig.
So why the Fuckit button? It was my friend Katie who came up with it. She told me that one of the best things about me is my well-developed fuckit button. I think she meant by this that I'm a plucky little fucker. That I don't let my fear of failure, my embarrassment, my insecurities hold me back. That I'm alive enough to live. (That's not a tautology, by the way). As such, it's the nicest thing anyone has ever said me and will forever be my personal mantra - certainly for work, probably for love, too.
I get very angry with myself when I can't locate my Fuckit Button, or when I wimp out on pressing it. Must try harder.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
unsubscribe
Latest campaign by Amnesty International
http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/
Harrowing stuff. But sadly necessary.
http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/
Harrowing stuff. But sadly necessary.
long copy
Look, I'm a writer, of course I love long copy ads. Which is why I really wanted to like the new Wispa ads.
But it just doesn't grip me. It's all nostalgia and not enough charm. In fact, I got a bit bored halfway through and started thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch (I'm hoping they've got a roast on downstairs: they always overcook the beef but roast dinner is roast dinner is roast dinner, no?). Anyway, back to the ad. It took ages to read. And the pay off? The reward? Nothing.
Which made me embark on a search for some decent long copy. Which took me to the site of Neil French. I particularly like this one
and this
But it just doesn't grip me. It's all nostalgia and not enough charm. In fact, I got a bit bored halfway through and started thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch (I'm hoping they've got a roast on downstairs: they always overcook the beef but roast dinner is roast dinner is roast dinner, no?). Anyway, back to the ad. It took ages to read. And the pay off? The reward? Nothing.
Which made me embark on a search for some decent long copy. Which took me to the site of Neil French. I particularly like this one
and this
this is not a spoof, this was brought.
Truly brilliant. Only a true master could come up with, and sell in, something this silly. Thank you, Mr French.
fight a virus with a virus
Quite an interesting experiment that began in the summer.
Write a sentence to help save lives is an attempt to write a book 'virally', the proceeds of which will be used in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Clearly form and content is joining up neatly here. Or not so neatly as the case may be: it's a complete mess, the narrative lurching all over the place, much of it utterly inane. Every attempt anyone makes to pin the story down is undone within a few posts, as someone comes in and starts on something completely disconnected. Except the story does move on: there are tiny successes - passages that sparkle with energy, lucid moments that make it all worthwhile.
How very like a virus.
The project's creator, Ann M. Mack, writes:
"Picture this: Hundreds of people from around the world co-authoring a book in the name of a good cause, the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The idea started out simply enough. As I was walking home from work one sunny Friday afternoon this past June, my mind wandered back to the two and a half hour car ride to my parent’s home in Cleveland following my grandmother’s funeral across the state in Toledo. My brother Jeff and I were trying to entertain his antsy 6-year-old daughter, Frances. I suggested a storytelling game my siblings and I had played as children on car trips—a game where one started a story by coming up with a sentence, another would continue it with another sentence, and a third would say another line and so on.
There it is, I thought. That’s the answer. You see, I had been struggling to figure out what I could do in my grandmother’s memory after her passing in May at age 95. I wanted to do something big. It needed to be something that would do justice to her exemplary life of selflessness.
Though Frances had fallen asleep before our story even began, I wanted to have a go at another one. This time the story would be global and virtual. It would take on a life of its own, and its end product would reflect its countless contributors.
I launched a blog (http://writeasentence.blogspot.com/), posted the first sentence and sent the link to friends, family members and colleagues, asking them to write a sentence of their own and pass the link on to others. The incentive: I envision publishing this as a book and directing the proceeds to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. My rallying cry has been “Write a sentence to help save lives.” It can’t get any more blunt than that.
What a perfect vehicle for my grandmother’s memory, I thought. Not only did she selflessly care for people throughout her life, but she was a born storyteller; I spent many an evening growing up listening intently to tales of her childhood on the farm in Custer, Ohio, and adulthood in the “big city” (Toledo), where she worked as a beautician, nanny and caterer, married my grandfather and had two children. I realized that contributors to the story would also feel strongly about someone or something in their lives, so I encouraged them to dedicate their writing to that someone or something, too.
The results have been heartening. Since the story began in July, it has attracted contributors ranging in age from 19 to 49 in every corner of the world: New York, London, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Karachi, Manila, Bangkok, Berlin, Beirut, Bombay, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Dubai, Vienna, Tokyo, Sri Lanka, São Paulo, Stockholm, Dhaka and more. And that isn’t counting those who wrote in anonymously. People have dedicated their sentences to their grandmothers, grandfathers, spouses, children, siblings, friends and others who are dear to them. They have dedicated their contributions to “unspoken desires,” “all those who want to go beyond whispering,” “another day of living” and “the rest of my life.”
I think of this story as a technology-fueled social experiment that is tapping into the collective conscious. It’s open-source innovation on steroids—the creation process in the hands of people of many different nationalities, cultures and backgrounds. The link has been posted all over LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, where a group numbers nearly 200.
As one member of the Facebook group observed, “The story appears to be taking on a life of its own. ... I could see me getting quite involved in it.” I agree. It’s been quite a thrill to watch the story unfold day by day. Purposefully, I did not designate a theme or tonality. It’s up to contributors to develop the plot, one person and one sentence at a time.
I have to admit, though, that this has been difficult at times for me (as a type A personality and writer by trade) and the agents and publishers whom I have approached. Decentralizing the authorship means relinquishing control, which can be understandably trying for those in the literary world. The story requires the reader to be open-minded and willing to disavow preconceived notions of how a book should read or a plot should progress. The word I use to describe it is “dreamscape.” (To play into the dreamscape nature of the book, I envision asking artists to donate illustrations and images to help tell the story visually.)
I have come to embrace the unstructured form the book has taken and see it for what it truly is: a demonstration that people of all ages, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds can come together when mobilized for a common cause. What a powerful message that is!
So I will continue to encourage people to contribute until my imposed deadline for the story’s conclusion (midnight EST on World Aids Day, December 1, 2007), and I will continue in my efforts to secure a publisher. I will be like my grandmother—one of those headstrong people to whom Juan, a 23-year-old from Bogotá, Colombia, dedicated his sentence: “Those who never see that ‘but’ word in their lives.”
It will be fascinating to see the form this eventually takes - I hope it's well executed. If it's a success, and sells lots of copies, then it really will be some achievement. Good luck to Ann and her team.
Write a sentence to help save lives is an attempt to write a book 'virally', the proceeds of which will be used in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Clearly form and content is joining up neatly here. Or not so neatly as the case may be: it's a complete mess, the narrative lurching all over the place, much of it utterly inane. Every attempt anyone makes to pin the story down is undone within a few posts, as someone comes in and starts on something completely disconnected. Except the story does move on: there are tiny successes - passages that sparkle with energy, lucid moments that make it all worthwhile.
How very like a virus.
The project's creator, Ann M. Mack, writes:
"Picture this: Hundreds of people from around the world co-authoring a book in the name of a good cause, the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The idea started out simply enough. As I was walking home from work one sunny Friday afternoon this past June, my mind wandered back to the two and a half hour car ride to my parent’s home in Cleveland following my grandmother’s funeral across the state in Toledo. My brother Jeff and I were trying to entertain his antsy 6-year-old daughter, Frances. I suggested a storytelling game my siblings and I had played as children on car trips—a game where one started a story by coming up with a sentence, another would continue it with another sentence, and a third would say another line and so on.
There it is, I thought. That’s the answer. You see, I had been struggling to figure out what I could do in my grandmother’s memory after her passing in May at age 95. I wanted to do something big. It needed to be something that would do justice to her exemplary life of selflessness.
Though Frances had fallen asleep before our story even began, I wanted to have a go at another one. This time the story would be global and virtual. It would take on a life of its own, and its end product would reflect its countless contributors.
I launched a blog (http://writeasentence.blogspot.com/), posted the first sentence and sent the link to friends, family members and colleagues, asking them to write a sentence of their own and pass the link on to others. The incentive: I envision publishing this as a book and directing the proceeds to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. My rallying cry has been “Write a sentence to help save lives.” It can’t get any more blunt than that.
What a perfect vehicle for my grandmother’s memory, I thought. Not only did she selflessly care for people throughout her life, but she was a born storyteller; I spent many an evening growing up listening intently to tales of her childhood on the farm in Custer, Ohio, and adulthood in the “big city” (Toledo), where she worked as a beautician, nanny and caterer, married my grandfather and had two children. I realized that contributors to the story would also feel strongly about someone or something in their lives, so I encouraged them to dedicate their writing to that someone or something, too.
The results have been heartening. Since the story began in July, it has attracted contributors ranging in age from 19 to 49 in every corner of the world: New York, London, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Karachi, Manila, Bangkok, Berlin, Beirut, Bombay, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Dubai, Vienna, Tokyo, Sri Lanka, São Paulo, Stockholm, Dhaka and more. And that isn’t counting those who wrote in anonymously. People have dedicated their sentences to their grandmothers, grandfathers, spouses, children, siblings, friends and others who are dear to them. They have dedicated their contributions to “unspoken desires,” “all those who want to go beyond whispering,” “another day of living” and “the rest of my life.”
I think of this story as a technology-fueled social experiment that is tapping into the collective conscious. It’s open-source innovation on steroids—the creation process in the hands of people of many different nationalities, cultures and backgrounds. The link has been posted all over LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, where a group numbers nearly 200.
As one member of the Facebook group observed, “The story appears to be taking on a life of its own. ... I could see me getting quite involved in it.” I agree. It’s been quite a thrill to watch the story unfold day by day. Purposefully, I did not designate a theme or tonality. It’s up to contributors to develop the plot, one person and one sentence at a time.
I have to admit, though, that this has been difficult at times for me (as a type A personality and writer by trade) and the agents and publishers whom I have approached. Decentralizing the authorship means relinquishing control, which can be understandably trying for those in the literary world. The story requires the reader to be open-minded and willing to disavow preconceived notions of how a book should read or a plot should progress. The word I use to describe it is “dreamscape.” (To play into the dreamscape nature of the book, I envision asking artists to donate illustrations and images to help tell the story visually.)
I have come to embrace the unstructured form the book has taken and see it for what it truly is: a demonstration that people of all ages, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds can come together when mobilized for a common cause. What a powerful message that is!
So I will continue to encourage people to contribute until my imposed deadline for the story’s conclusion (midnight EST on World Aids Day, December 1, 2007), and I will continue in my efforts to secure a publisher. I will be like my grandmother—one of those headstrong people to whom Juan, a 23-year-old from Bogotá, Colombia, dedicated his sentence: “Those who never see that ‘but’ word in their lives.”
It will be fascinating to see the form this eventually takes - I hope it's well executed. If it's a success, and sells lots of copies, then it really will be some achievement. Good luck to Ann and her team.
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