Pink Air

You don't win silver. You lose aquamarine.

When I told people that one of the things we'd be doing in the US this summer was moving the car I'd kept in storage for ten years, they'd assume that it was some valuable vintage model (Nope. 1994 Saturn.) or that it had inestimable sentimental value (Meh. Not really.) What they never guess is that I keep it because it is bright aquamarine blue.

It makes me smile just to look at it.

One of the trends I've noted with alarm over ten years of US visits has been the gradual contraction of the automotive palette down to one color: silver.

DuPont's annual car color preference report has documented the lamentable rise of silver (AKA Metallic Gray, Truffle Mica(!), Ocean Mist, Light Platinum, Cognac Frost, Titanium Chromaflair, Alabaster Metallic, Polished Metal) from nowhere to #1, a position it has held in a steely deathgrip every year since 2000. Until last year, when it was replaced by (wait for it) white. Or in Europe, black.

Color preferences were relatively conservative long before 2000. (Why is it that most people say their favorite color is blue, but blue has never been anywhere near the favorite color for cars?) But the silver streak was unprecedented in the 54 years that DuPont has tracked colors. (Guess what color it beat out for the top spot in 2000. Green. Do you even see green cars anymore?)

I don't know why the silver boom. Maybe people became more concerned about safety. We don't want metaphorical animals anymore, but literal cages. Maybe it's more supply-driven. Some people complain that variations of silver are the only option available without placing a more expensive special order.

But whatever the cause, I wish it would stop. Maybe it's because I always loved Hot Wheels  (And is it just me or is that the best 50 Cent video ever?), but I think color is one of the best parts of the car. A few years ago, I saw an immaculate bright metallic pink convertible town car at a gas station in Oakland. I still regret not taking a picture.

An interestingly colored or decorated car (if you have a car in the first place) is almost a public service. Not surprising that Dutch people would appreciate that. This group encourages people to pimp their bikes so that "everyone that you come across can enjoy your cheerful radiance. People look at you and smile. That feels good!" It's snarky because it's true.

And it doesn't have to be that bright. Oh no. Look at these car color combinations from the Twenties and Thirties. Aren't they great? I would love to see some of those on the road. But today, only the Beetle and the Mini are showing the flag at all for color. Even Saturn has abandoned us.

But there are still some people resisting silver. (Some are more bitter than others.) I hope we all live to see the production innovation that makes it possible to pick custom car colors as easily as wall paint.

God's stapler

Why are puns used so often as titles for books and articles? Even if I don't fully understand the reference being made or it doesn't really make sense, I still get a fairly consistent though vague feeling from this kind of wordplay, as if I'm already being prepared to believe what I'm about to read. Why should a pun generate preemptive credibility?

When I'm trying to condense the whiff of meaning around language into something more solid, I often play a game that Emily and I used to play as junior planners. We would replace all the words in an ad with nonsense syllables and read them out loud to hear just the tone, and often it's the tone that holds all the meaning. The words are just blank carrier waves. Here's a common tone structure for a conventional print ad in which you can hear the headline, body copy and tagline:

Download print_tone.mp3

When I play the tone of a title pun like "Animal Pharm", the NYT magazine exposé of "pill-popping pets", I hear the "Law and Order" chapter title sound.  The show's producers call it the "doink-doink", a seriously underpowered name for that heavy metal duo of syncopated thumps. I think of it as the sound of god's stapler, whacking up pieces of paper on the cosmic bulletin board. Eventually, the pieces will form a recognizable shape, a story, but right now you can't see it. And in the end, you may not like what the story says about the world and your fellow man. But the stapler doesn't care about how you'd like things to be. All you know is that the things you're about to see are undeniably true pieces of a puzzle, recorded, logged, tagged and doinked. There is a connection, a true and dramatically satisfying conclusion to which you will be inexorably drawn by logic, as long as you accept the truth of the pieces.

Good puns make unexpected connections. But even when they're not good, as titles they promise apodictic drama: "The linguistic connection exploited by this pun reveals and confirms a deep truth about the world". In other words, if there's a good pun to be made, it must be true. Kind of like the way scientists believe elegance to be a required quality of valid theory.

We sometimes use a similar method in planning. One of my planning mentors once told me that etymology is planning trick #1. Look up the derivation of a key word central to a brand and use that to come up with a deeper meaning you can communicate.  Of course, earlier meanings of a word or word family don't necessarily reveal much about what people mean when they use a word today.  But like a good pun, it sounds true.

Bohemian rhapsody

Traveling around the U.S. the past few weeks, I've visited San Francisco, Boulder, Santa Cruz, Portland and Madison. Kind of a grand tour of liberal America minus the 3A's of Austin, Ann Arbor and Asheville. And like the Grand Tourists of 19th-century Europe, I've seen all the classics: Priusii, Obamae, the winged victory of Nike. I've also seen how expensive it is to live in liberal America these days, especially in places awash in tech wealth.

But what about all those liberal and liberally educated people who haven't profited from the tech boom? A lot of them are about to retire and find that neither home equity nor pension programs, public or private, will be sufficient to maintain their lifestyles. I imagine that many of them will have to make the transition from bobo to boho and a new culture of senior bohemianism might emerge.

Bohemianism hasn't been a very visible thread in American culture in the past couple of decades, but it's experiencing a tech-oriented rebirth amongst the young reuse/recycle, make-it-yourself crowd. As a bunch of older Boomers find themselves in surprisingly straitened circumstances, they'll look for ways to maintain their interests and sense of self on a budget. Bohemianism, an identification with artistic, intellectual (and inexpensive) values, is one way to do this and one that might have immediate appeal to people who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies.

Where will they live? Probably in the cheapest, warmest places they can find. Maybe in 25 years, the Midwest and South will sprout growing boho boomer burbs (Bohobos?) with architecturally interesting social housing networks and, if Medicare ever gets sorted out, affordable health care infrastructures. Public cultural institutions might find a new life there. New community colleges focused on continuing education. Who knows, maybe young people might rediscover the pleasures and benefits of living among hip elders. And The Eagles will always have a place to play.

United we wait

It’s no secret that the U.S. air transportation system is broken. What’s interesting is the way that people are accommodating to it.

Right now, I’m sitting at San Francisco airport, where my flight has been indefinitely delayed because “the crew has refused the plane.” Never heard that before. A few minutes later, the captain came to the gate to explain his decision. A gauge showing the fuel level in the tanks on one side of the plane isn’t working, so while there’s no indication that the plane would be flying lopsided, there would be no way to know until it was too late. I noticed three interesting things about this event.

First, having the captain explain the delay is kind of like having a Sony engineer show up at your door to explain why your television doesn’t work. The attendants at the gate are like marketing. They may be nice, but you always doubt their knowledge and their honesty. Their job isn’t making a better product. It’s keeping you happy.

Second, having the captain speak at the gate feels like a protective coating has been rubbed away. In a kind of dual-reversal of roles, it feels as though we the passengers are being asked to take on an additional layer of responsibility for our own safety. I imagine the next step will be showing us the ground crew’s inspection report so that we can look up comparison data on the internet and make our own judgments about the plane’s health. Kind of like what’s happening with doctors and patients.

Finally, the captain mentioned that his was the third crew to refuse to fly the plane. In fact, he mentioned it three times in the course of a two-minute announcement. I can’t help but think that this was a coded statement of protest against an airline management that’s trying to save money by putting passenger safety at risk while the crews are heroically standing up for our safety. Is this true? Labor relations theater? Both? I don’t know. But in the end, the message is: we, the people who actually fly the planes, want you to know that we don’t trust our management. And neither should you.

Zombie Santa

This Santa doll hung in front of a Bay Area construction site for years until it died and reanimated as a zombie. (I wish I'd thought to start a time-lapse series when he was still new and jolly.) I don't know if the builders considered him a good luck charm or a way to scare off curious children, but if you get brains for Christmas this year, don't say I didn't warn you.

Music friendship

A friend of mine sent me a link to a music school in Myanmar where students and teachers, many of whom lost their own homes, are now coordinating and carrying out cyclone relief projects. Gitameit Music Center (gita=music, meit=friendship) is both a school for local musicians and a focus for international music exchange, and their connections to Western musicians have helped them get the word out about what they're doing and how important it is since many international efforts are being blocked at the border.

Listening to the stories of their students and teachers got me to donate when general reporting on the overall devastation had not. That's not so surprising. Personal stories are generally more powerful than broad description. More surprising, at least to me, was how credible and impactful I found the fact that they aren't experts, just people who were trying to learn a part, lost in some difficult passage, when they were reoriented by the weather.

Irony Will Eat Itself

Philippe sent this link to a viral video from Qualcomm. ("Viral" only in the sense that the makers apparently want it to become viral.) It's a fake ad for a wireless handset that's implanted in your hand. Get it? (Okay, the name is funny.)

What's strange is that this site links to, and is meant to publicize, a Qualcomm campaign called "Wireless Life" which is also about non-existent stuff from the future. But for some reason, we're supposed to take this stuff more seriously. Seriously? After making fun of futuristic tech-puffery vaporware, they lead you into their own futuristic tech-puffery vaporware.

I think that in the age of Colbert, people are so soaked in irony they've forgotten what irony is besides a way to show that you don't take yourself too seriously and that you "get it" (whatever "it" is.)

Business advice for zombies

I'd rather read the book described on the spine:

Back to content then I guess

Perineal media

Sitting on a wet bicycle seat isn't the worst thing that can happen to you, but still. So I don't mind the new media trendlette of giveaway bike seat covers here in Amsterdam. This one warns that too much biking can lead to testicular cancer. The cactus is nice but the best part is the SMS code for donating: FIGHT BAL.