Remember that detail in Fahrenheit 451 about how billboards along interstates are long as hell because traditional billboards can't be seen and read from inside the really fast, futuristic cars? So the billboards' pictures and messages had to be stretched out so far that they looked absurd and basically illegible to anyone standing still?
I was thinking maybe TV advertisers should start doing that. I recorded a Mad Men marathon on AMC last week (if Mad Men isn't an American Movie Classic, I guess I don't know what is). When I watch an episode, I obviously fast-forward the commercials, which behavior of course has caused all kinds of hand-wringing and brow-mopping in the ad world.
So maybe advertisers should start running ads that are really distended and weird and only make sense when viewed at fast-forward. I imagine the fast-forwarding crowd also skews younger and tech-savvier than the average viewer, which I think makes them prime targets for advertisers anyway. Or maybe some really clever companies could make ads that can be understood at both speeds: telling a fuller story in the real-time version and a pithier one in fast-forward. Kind of like those zany Mad magazine fold-ins.
Of course, no one seemed that impressed by my last advertising idea, so I'm not getting my hopes up.
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I notice two books have gone by while Peter Carey remains. Any good or are you slogging through it? I read Oscar and Lucinda and loved it, but it's the only one of his I've read.
ReplyDeleteI just watched the third season premiere of Mad Men (first ep I'd ever watched) and loved it. This is the only one of those talked-about series (Wire, Sopranos, Oz, etc) that I can get on my basic Cable package and I'm going to savor that.
I'm just now getting back to Mr. Carey. But yeah, I've been in non-fiction mode. If I had to guess, I'd say this happens frequently after finishing a DeLillo (or a Wallace or a Nabokov). I'm sure even fine authors like Carey wake up in cold sweats at the thought of being read immediately after a literary god. Maybe non-fiction cleanses the palate for me.
ReplyDeleteMad Men is good, yes. But there are so many similarities between it and The Sopranos that it sometimes gives me pause: obscure flashbacks, back-stabbing underlings, bosses in failing health, infidelity and its consequences, oddly likeable anti-hero/protagonists, meddling extended families, slick wardrobes, blah blah blah.
You should probably go ahead and watch Seasons 1 and 2.
I've never seen The Sopranos, partly due to the Cable package, mainly due to my body lacking an enzyme that allows me to find anything having to do with the Mafia interesting. It's tough, but I get by.
ReplyDeleteI like you ad idea, by the way, and I don't think it's far fetched. Already online, there are embedded commercials you can't fast forward through or skip while watching lots of tv shows. I can't see why they wouldn't do likewise with DVR. The problem is that I don't even think they'll go to the trouble to make them in a format as cool as the one described above.
As a side note, my favorite commericals right now are the ones for Brinks home security that feature women home alone during attemtped burglaries. When the alarm goes off, the would-be burglars run away. I like the scare tactic combined with utter fiction element. After busting down your door, I don't think an alarm will scare someone off. Still, it's comforting.
Yes on your ad idea. It's like the ads on rugby fields where it looks good on tv from the camera's perspective, but in person on the field looks like a rhombus gone horribly awry.
ReplyDeleteI thought the lesson on the most recent Brinks's's ad was that she should have invited in/slept with her date, thus not be alone, thus be safe.
-Thus