Pink Air

Pre-Christian Cristal

From "Advertising in the Roman Empire":

An ad for a tavern in Pompeii reads in part, "If you will have given the sum of two asses, you will drink better wines; if you will have paid four, you will drink Falernian wines."

Comfort and nostalgia

Walking to school behind Russell, Arthur and Anne, I started to remember what a great feeling it is at Arthur's age to move through a complex environment knowing that your parents, the ultimate source of safety and acceptance, are right behind you. As we get older, the need for comfort gets to seem a bit shameful. Which is silly.

Marketing, on the other hand, has always treated comfort very seriously, if sometimes dishonestly. But the traditional approach has always been backward-looking, based on the idea that "the past was better". Which is mostly silly.

It would be interesting to look at where and how people find comfort today. Is comfort necessarily nostalgic? Can we be comforted by new things?