icecreamisbetterwithafork:

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles.

3 awesome short films, for our viewing pleasure.

Learn is my favorite, but if you like it I’m sure you’ll enjoy Move and Eat as well.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

“People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it…”

-Elizabeth Gilbert

Really it’s my year-long reading list, but since it’s nearly summer it felt like an appropriate title. Some of you might know I plan to read 12 books this year that I’ve never read before. So far so good:

The Girl who Played with Fire

Freakonomics

Falling Man

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Blink

Born to Run (in progress)

I’m back to taking suggestions, so send them my way. Next on the list is Choke.

I was watching the third game of the NBA finals with my parents last night when my dad commented on a commercial that I now can’t remember any details about other than the product it was advertising: Heineken.

“I’ve always thought of Heineken as an upscale beer.”

As you often do with parents, I heard what he said, noted his comment and forgot about it almost immediately.

Today however, I was reading Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman who, in one of the chapters, discusses advertising and how media and advertisers attempt to trick the public into thinking ideas are associated with products, but being a smart bunch of consumers, we know exactly what they’re doing. Which he says is why these types of advertisements work.

I’m kind of going somewhere with this.

In Klosterman’s book he begins this chapter about advertising strategy using Pepsi as an example and then moves on the a much more interesting topic, one of my favorite television shows: Mad Men.  First he explains to the reader why the show is brilliant, and exactly why I love it so much. It’s a bit of a digression for this post, but interesting nonetheless.

“As a piece of entertainment, Mad Men has done everything right.  It’s perfectly cast and brilliantly paced, and it uses symmetrical symbolism in a way rarely attempted on television—every plot point is mirrored by a minor, less overt story line in the same allegorical vein.  No character is drawn without flaws.  By placing itself in the “secret” 1960s that everyone now accepts as normative (i.e., the subversive and the damaged masquerading as suburban bliss), its white-collar characters are able to get away with living archaic, un-PC lives that (a) feel completely authentic but (b) would be impossible to depict in the present.  … And part of what we upwardly mobile, media-obsessed goofballs adore is the program’s perverse glorification of the ad man.  It makes advertising seem like the greatest career imaginable.  Watching Mad Men makes me want to trick housewives into buying Tide.”

Klosterman goes on to describe the shows protagonist, Don Draper, and his Ad pitch for the Kodak Carousel (a circular slide projector for home movies). Draper’s goal is for Americans to associate a feeling of nostalgia with The Carousel.

Later in the chapter Klosterman discusses how Draper pitches an ad idea for Heineken that tricks people into thinking the beer reflects a level of high class that Budweiser lacks.  He argues that these types of ideas, which were once considered an advertising scheme, are now a norm that we, the consumers, acknowledge and actually use as a motive for purchasing goods.

“Why did you say you consider Heineken to be a classy beer, Dad?”

“Because it’s an expensive beer.”

Maybe my dad thinks it’s more expensive because of the commercials. Or maybe he thinks it’s more expensive because it is actually more expensive than his beer of choice, Yuengling.

The underlying stuff might not mean much to some people, but I see what you’re getting at Klosterman.

Also, Eating the Dinosaur is a great read.