Category Archives: Poetry

Poetry, Security

Germans drop English as marketing language

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The devaluation of the US dollar has been disappointing, but now I see that the English language may also be losing its value abroad. DW has an amusing report about the move to more native phrasing in German advertising:

One reason for this shift is purely practical. While even native speakers struggle with the double negatives of Adidas’ promise that “Impossible is Nothing,” a study commissioned last year by advertising agency Endmark revealed that Germans respond to most English-language claims with sheer bewilderment.

Faced with a dozen Anglicisms, only one-third of those questioned in the survey actually knew what the slogans meant. Few grasped the point of “Come In and Find Out,” the ubiquitous promotion for the Douglas cosmetics chain. Most consumers, it emerged, thought they were being invited to enter a store and then find the nearest exit.

Would the same group express sheer bewilderment at the logos as well? Does it really matter if they truly understand the phrase or icons if it registers a positive sentiment or simply serves as an identity? I thought that was the point of marketing, not to connect on a more meaningful level.

What does Douglas mean? What does Adidas mean, for that matter? Or more to the point, should anyone really care if they want to buy the product sold under a particular identity? Differentiation is key, according to Businessweek.

It has been permanent jurisdiction in German courts since the 1970s that two, three and four stripe designs infringe adidas’ three stripe trademark. The distinctive mark enjoys a worldwide brand awareness of more than 90 percent. According to the German Federal Court of Justice, the public recalls and recognizes such well-known and distinctive brands rather than un-established marks. It is therefore likely that consumers associate and confuse signs with two, three or four parallel stripes with the adidas trademark.

The objection that the questionable stripe motifs are not used as trademarks, but merely for embellishment or decoration, is negligible. This is because the consumer is accustomed to view parallel stripes on apparel and shoes as evidence of origin and not as a simple design motif.

Ninety percent? That’s impressive, but does anyone really know what the stripes mean? I guess the issue really is that English is no longer seen as sexy or cool enough to move product on its own. Not clear if that’s because of association (e.g. Bush deflating the value) or just a trend, but chances are that its both.

History, Poetry, Security

Bush, Cheney and the Origin of the Word “Terrorist”

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I hate to ruin the punchline, but there is a fascinating op-ed in the NYT called “Bush’s Dangerous Liaisons” that compares the current US administration to French Revolutionaries:

To defend the nation from its enemies, Jacobins expanded the government’s police powers at the expense of civil liberties, endowing the state with the power to detain, interrogate and imprison suspects without due process. Policies like the mass warrantless searches undertaken in 1792 — “domicilary visits,” they were called — were justified, according to Georges Danton, the Jacobin leader, “when the homeland is in danger.”

[…]

Though it has been a topic of much attention in recent years, the origin of the term “terrorist” has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and pundits alike. The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hate freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor of course to “Islamofascism.”

A terroriste was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during la Terreur.

Good reading. I checked wikipedia (where else?) for the etymology and found this nugget:

A leader in the French revolution, Maximilien Robespierre, proclaimed in 1794, “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.”

The footnote suggests this fact comes from Mark Burgess, A Brief History of Terrorism, Center for Defense Information. Further reading led me to a poem called Robespierre by Georg Heym, translated by Antony Hasler:

He bleats, but in his throat. The bland eyes stare
into the tumbril’s straw. Sucking, he draws
the white phlegm through his teeth from chewing jaws.
Between two wooden struts a foot hangs bare.

At every jolt the wagon flings him up.
The fetters on his arms rattle like bells.
Mothers hoist their children up, and yells
of cheerful laughter cross the rabble’s top.

Someone tickles his leg. He does not see.
The wagon stops. He looks up. At the end
of the street he sees the last black penalty.

Upon the ash-grey brow the cold sweat stands.
And in the face the mouth twists fearfully.
They wait for screams. But no one hears a sound.

It would seem history shows people often confuse terrorism with the principles of security and safety.

History, Poetry, Security

The Daily Show on the Irony of Art, but no Banksy

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I was a little disappointed with John Stewart’s piece on art authentication. While humorous, he attacked the notion of art and consumerism but skirted the more controversial subjects of graffitti and censorship.

It seems to me that Banksy would have been a better example than Van Gough or Pollock. He is apparently about to have an auction and many of his works are said to be worth hundreds of thousands, while at the same time others still brand his work as too controversial or just an eye-sore. His themes remind me of the sharp jabs of Tom Toles yet in a more public forum and without the consent of the people who own the canvas. On the flip side he does not charge for admission.

I would like to think it is a particular work or theme that is found objectionable, rather than the nature of the art form, but that is not the message from those involved:

A spokeswoman for Tower Hamlets Council said it had not thought of selling the potentially valuable artwork to help raise money for council services, but did not rule out such action being considered in the future.

[…]

Tower Hamlets councillor Abdal Ullah said: “We need to be clear here, graffiti is a crime.

“It spoils the environment, makes our neighbourhoods feel less safe, and costs thousands of pounds each year to clean – money that could instead be paying for valuable local services.”

It is not yet known how many of the artist’s works would be affected.

The future of a Banksy piece painted on a wall in Bristol recently went to public vote, with 97% of people saying it should be kept.

Perhaps, then, Banksy’s crime is not in the manner chosen to create art but in the message. My guess is that an authority has to be exceptionally confident and secure in its position to allow freedom of expression and creative works. The Tower Hamlets insecurity and subsequent reaction (on the premise of exerting control) could actually increase the value of Banksy works and raise support for graffitti.

BANKSY

The cost of preventing an immitator of Banksy is higher than most tagging artists since the originals come from stencil. Can you tell a real Banksy?

The Tower Hamlet could use this point to their advantage and host talent competitions to supplant Banksy’s stencils with local ones with more general appeal. On the other hand, his work is nothing if not controversial and sarcastic and so a mainstream competition might not have the appeal for rebellious “artists” — like most competitions in art, even Banksy could lose if the criteria includes making people comfortable. He certainly has critics:

Here’s a mystery for you. Renegade urban graffiti artist Banksy is clearly a guffhead of massive proportions, yet he’s often feted as a genius straddling the bleeding edge of now. Why? Because his work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots. And apparently that’ll do.

Clever to idiots? That about sums up the definition of something with broad appeal, no? How long did it take for Pollack and Van Gough to be seen as genius? Mainstream? How much longer would it have taken if they used graffitti as their medium rather than private canvas?

BANKSY

I love the “anti-climb paint” sign, almost as much as I like the rat characters themselves.

Here is an excellent commentary on the surveillance society in Britain, which has been unable to crack the identity of Banksy.

Poetry, Security

Stop all the clocks

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by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I keep thinking about the ongoing noise of industrialism, the blaring pipes and mufflers of the brand-conscious consumerists, and wondering why silence is associated with mourning. At what point does the battle to outdo each other in noise become so overwhelming that it takes on the persona of despair and silence becomes the song of joyfulness? On the other hand, silence is given out of respect, so is noise a means of taunting and disrespect?

One thing is still for certain, while silence is power and comes from control, noise comes from a lack of control.

BART started work on its tracks between El Cerrito and Richmond earlier this week in an effort to quiet a high-pitched squeal grinding on residents’ nerves, according to a spokesman for the transit agency.

A machine that fixes noisy tracks at a rate of one-tenth of a mile each day is scheduled to work the line from Albany to Richmond, spokesman Linton Johnson said.

The work started after complaints mounted the past year, he said. The machine smoothes tiny ripples that form on the track over time, causing the noise when trains roll by.

Smell is another matter entirely, although Benjamin Franklin apparently did his part to discuss the two and recommend solutions. But seriously, on a related note (pun not intended), I found an interesting study in Biology Letters about crickets who silenced themselves to survive:

On the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, more than 90% of male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) shifted in less than 20 generations from a normal-wing morphology to a mutated wing that renders males unable to call (flatwing). Flatwing morphology protects male crickets from the parasitoid, which uses song to find hosts, but poses obstacles for mate attraction, since females also use the males’ song to locate mates. Field experiments support the hypothesis that flatwings overcome the difficulty of attracting females without song by acting as ‘satellites’ to the few remaining callers, showing enhanced phonotaxis to the calling song that increases female encounter rate. Thus, variation in behaviour facilitated establishment of an otherwise maladaptive morphological mutation.

Would humans have to adapt their mating behavior to compensate for a more quiet life? Imagine a night out that shuns loudness, but instead emphasizes silence, or even the delicacy of sound. Could muscle-car drivers, truckers and bikers survive without loud pipes? Will quality of sound ever supplant quantity at parties? No mourning, just joy at the beauty of quiet time. I predict that in the next ten years, quiet will become increasingly valued.