Eight hours in the car was rewarded with the image above, taken just North of Rolla with. I never realized sunsets were so fleeting. Lunch with my old friend Bob Fox and his beautiful wife Connie and oldest son, Steve (my namesake, I’m told). I don’t see Bob and Connie often enough. I took the scenic route back with XM Radio providing the soundtrack. Richie Havens doing “Just Like a Woman”…and a really pretty version of “Fragile” by Cassandra Wilson. If you’re still relying on “KISS 103-whatever” for your music, you just just don’t know what you’re missing.
Faith Popcorn on future of advertising
I’m looking for an interview with Faith Popcorn that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The question/answer that I found most interesting was:
WSJ: What do you think about the advertising business today? How will it evolve?
Ms. Popcorn: I think it’s on its way to extinction. In three to five years you will see consumers rejecting advertising-which will cause agencies to scramble as they try to make a living. Right now, they are opening trend departments, public-relations arms and viral-marketing departments. It’s about trying to reinvent themselves — but they are very late to the game.
101 Ways to Save the Internet
Paul Boutin offers 101 Ways to Save the Internet. A few of my favaorites:
* Upgrade phone booths to Wi-Fi
* Death to fax machines. Send us an attachment instead
* Stop with the jokes
* Turn off your HTML email It makes you vulnerable to viruses – and bugs us.
Questions from Pattern Recognition
What I want to ask you is
Who are you?
Where are you?
Are you dreaming?
Are you there? The way I’m here?
Pattern Recognition, page 256
Apophenia
The spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things.
You can explore the concept further in Pattern Recognition.
When your heart breaks…
“When your heart breaks, you should die.” — Angels in America (HBO)
Instead of a view
“Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.” — Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs
Wal-Mart Super Centers, etc.
From a website called Scarf Creations:
“Mike Smith has been a Elvis fan since he was 3 years old, when he heard his dad’s 8 track of Elvis. Mike’s career started when he was 25 years old and he performed in Kennett, Missouri. Mike has performed throughout Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and Tennessee… at private parties, nursing homes, charity events, country clubs, restaurants, Wal-Mart Super Centers, etc. I perform in three stages of “Elvis” from his wild suits, 68 leather , to his most famous jumpsuits.”
“Besides doing Elvis, Mike works full time for Pepsi Mid-America in Sikeston, Missouri. I have performed 75 shows in the 3 years of my career as an Elvis impersonator and my recent being “The Jailhouse Rock” in Illinois.”
Christmas in Kennett
We’re blogging this Christmas Eve from Terry and Nancy’s home in Kennett. Everyone but Ripley and I are packed in at the First Presbyterian Church for the annual choral extravaganza.
A few minutes ago I had some delicious chicken salad that Nancy made. She said it was quite likely that Lance Armstrong enjoyed some of this very same chicken salad earlier today. He and Sheryl Crow were in for an early Christmas and Nancy sent over some sandwiches. We are but two ships, knoshing in the night.
The past we imagined
“The future is there, looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become. And from where they are, the past behind us will look nothing at all like the past we imagine behind us now.”
Almost a year ago, I posted this line from William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. It still bothers me to think that my past (good and bad) is not fixed. Permanent. That today’s past will look different to a future me. On the other hand, I’ll probably feel differently tomorrow.