@ sixes & sevens

Priceless humor

Did anyone else not win a "one-of-a-kind, commissioned portrait of you, painted by Julian Schnabel: priceless?" offered in the most recent issue of the New Yorker magazine?

I'm impressed. This ad campaign is offensive on so many levels it's hard to figure out just where to start. It might have been easier to swallow if it were anyone besides Julian Schnabel. But that's almost besides the point. How about the crass tastelessness of commissioned (self-)portraits? I suppose you could ask Schnabel to paint a portrait of a homeless person: that might be fun. But why bother?

(Insurance) agents of social control

It's not often I'm compelled to promote an advertisement. Since my father has been associated with public broadcasting for nearly his entire life, I was raised to be very suspicious of the entire for-profit sector, especially the insidious ways they promote themselves over the air. Maybe it's no surprise that so many of his children ended up in not-for-profit jobs in not-for-profit institutions.

But this video came up during a sports broadcast and I was so blown away by the clever co-opting of social behavior that I instantly email my coworkers (poor dears). Or was it because it featured images of taichi in the workplace with the voice-over intoning, "What happens if reducing stress reduced accidents, too?" It even looks like the same style of taichi that I've been doing at work for months now. By the way, the firm responsible is Zurich, who's tag line is "Because Change Happenz".

The Zurich web site has a much higher quality version, but it requires running an applet, which has stymied several peole I've forwarded this to.