Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Evolution and solar radiation.
A while back I believe I mentioned that scrapping is so virulent here that businesses have taken to securing their rooflines — the frontier that must be crossed to get at the valuable rooftop air conditioners, with their coils of tasty, yummy copper — with razor wire. That was so 2006. Note the adaptation of this gas station/mini mart on the Grosse Pointe border:
A tasteful cage. Adaptation! There’s hope for us yet.
In honor of Hell Week, more three-dot linkaliciousness:
First came the earthquakes, great heavings of the earth the made a mockery of all man’s works. Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for wearing a blonde wig and sporting the worst southern accent since community theater. But mankind didn’t know it was doomed, that this truly was the first rumblings of that rough beast, its hour come round at last, until sunspots drove all the Toyotas crazy.
Roy Edroso is leaving New York for love. Best of luck, Roy. That must be some love to trade Brooklyn for Bryan (Texas). He’ll still be blogging, at least until he gets shot in a bar for being a filthy hippie.
The New York Times business section takes a look at the sticky topic of feminine hygiene advertising. Hmm. Well. OK:
Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying “down there,” which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms. Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.)
“It’s very funny because the whole spot is about censorship,” Ms. Harris said. “The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we’re saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina.”
I’d like to see the script that uses that word before I pass judgment. Vagina may not be a dirty word, but it’s certainly an overused one. I’ve carried one around every day of my life, but it only took about 18 months from the day you started hearing it on broadcast television to get thoroughly sick of it, especially at an all-star event like a Joan Rivers roast. I’m with the screenwriter of “The Opposite of Sex” on that one:
Lucia: Vagina, vagina, vagina. Does that word do anything for you?
Bill Truitt: I don’t think it does much for anyone, gay or straight.
The ad executive complains you can’t say “vagina” in a tampon ad, but I’m not sure I want to see it there. “Buy Tampax tampons! Your vagina will thank you!” (That could work, actually.)
J.C. was cleaning out his video archive and sent this. Always nice to remember the good times.




(Order your Amazon through me and I earn 4 percent. Click the “powered by Amazon” logo.)