oh, sony, sony, sony.

They've changed the billboards and wall hangings in South Station this week so that instead of being inundated with ads for Apple's latest shiny frantabulous fintoozical electromechmusical inventicle, we're now inundated with ads for Sony's latest shiny frinktastic springtronic bookreadatron, which brags about how many books it can fit in its tiny, soulless, inorganic plastic body with no pages to turn.

There's several things silly and wrong with this ad campaign, not the least of which is the fact that the ads show this mystacular bookreadatron sitting next to a stack of now-obviously-obsolete paper versions of the classics: there's Melville, there's Dickens, there's Crichton (one of these things is not like the other!) and on the bookreadatron? The first page to the second chapter of The DaVinci Code.

I'm not trying to snark on Mr. Brown's work, as I have already done that to great effect two years ago, but the bottom of the page, which you can see quite prominently on the ads positioned higher up and the one on the stairstep display, features the thoughts of everybody's self-flagellating albino in big italicized text. These thoughts run along the lines of something like "Truly the Lord has given me shelter and a purpose in life."

Sure, it's an appropriate quote given the context of the book, but I wonder if Sony realizes the heapin' helping of billboardy preachin' they've just given South Station. I mean, if you were to just glance at that part without taking in the whole, you may think that someone's tryin' to proselytize ya there.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Sony knows full well the message it sends with one of the ad's taglines:

"Sexier than a librarian."

Oh, Sony, Sony, Sony. How wrong you are on so many counts, and you have no idea how many (deservedly!) indignant blog posts you've just provoked or shall soon provoke.










And I sure hope mine's one of the first! Whoopee!

and a quick observation

I just realized the Sesame Street ref I dropped in the earlier bit (the "One of these things is not like the other" game song) had a very small lyric change to it at some point, but the meaning was changed entirely.

I mean, the original game featured a shot of four objects: three were alike and one was different, and the accompanying song went something like this:

Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
But one of these things just doesn't belong here
Now it's time to play our game...

How exclusionary! Someone must've realized this at some point -- hey kids! Point out the different thing that doesn't belong! -- and thus the game was changed. Then, instead of three like objects and one different, they showed three kids performing roughly the same activity: jump-roping or something, and a fourth kid doing something different, like maybe hula-hooping. And the lyrics were only slightly altered:

Three of these kids belong together
Three of these kids are kind of the same
But of one these kids is doing their own thing
Now it's time to play our game...

And check it out! Now, instead of guessing the outsider, you're challenged to find the unique one because, in true 1970s fashion, doing your own thing is all right, Jack. (Hell, it's still all right, Jack. Do your own thing and let your freak flag fly!) But I think it's so very interesting that with a slight change in lyrics, the same task is seen from a different perspective and takes on positive connotations.

That's pretty cool.

(But Sony's still wrong.)

(no subject)

Neil said thru the headset "That is... a wrap" and so I said to the studio "Ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap" and I didn't even need to cue any hoorays because there they were.

Red Shift, Interplanetary Do-Gooder in Mission 1: The Terror of Terra-Khan is, as they say, in the can. A full radio drama serial in four episodes featuring voices and sound effects and action and laffs and a vaguely-purplish box of cereal. All that's left is post, pickups, publicity and podcasting. Plus a word for merchandising that begins with "p" and isn't "pimping."

This has been my creative nugget for over a year now, but unlike so many other projects, it's become one that finally escaped from Development Limbo. This is due to a whole cadre of talented, intelligent, funny and dedicated people who brought their time, energy, voices, whip-wielding, and other such useful skills to turn the nugget into something real and true and coming soon to an RSS feed near you. It's happened. We did it. We have a show.

More to come, and more mad props to give, when I'm not so goddamn exhausted.