Is That … Pink Herring?

April 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm (Consumerism, You Tubes)

“The statue that advertises its modesty with a fig leaf really brings its modesty under suspicion.” ~Mark Twain

The video above (thanks to NoLunatic) is a quick clip of one of my favorite subjects: Truth in Media. Specifically this one is Advertising vs. Reality (werbung gegen realität).

I don’t credit Noam Chomsky with my interest in this subject but rather early exposure to a children’s song about truth in advertising (“Batteries Not Included”). However, I’ll grant that Chomsky, and not a poorly wrought kid’s song, probably revealed media manipulations to most Americans. (Although, he’d probably prefer being known for his work in linguistics. Who knows, though?)

Chomsky seriously disappointed me when he said Oswald killed Kennedy. Psh. Come on, Noam. Really? The magic bullet? It’s probably tough being a famous dissident. People are going to ask your opinion on a number of things you’re not informed about. But really, no one believes The Warren Report anymore.

Speaking of political dissidents and thought makers, FP is conducting a poll to find The Top 100 Public Intellectuals. Voting closes May 15. My man Al Gore’s on the list. No, Perez Hilton isn’t.
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Eh? Speak Up

April 24, 2008 at 1:50 pm (Art, Consumerism, Freedom)

“The squeaky wheel doesn’t always get greased; it often gets replaced.” ~John Peers

Pin-Up Girl on the Telephone by Joyce Ballantyne

High technology has birthed a new way of conducting business. Ignore people! It’s all the rage. Sure, this business model’s been around for a long time, but recently it’s been refined to include advances in new technology.

As business communications got easier, faster, and more convenient with answering machines, computers, cell phones, and wireless technology, everyone enjoyed more and more freedom. We could golf or take road trips or raise hairless dogs or work from home while wearing a feather boa instead of waiting for calls and emails. We could be successful and fulfilled and half-naked (if that was our thing)! Huzzah!

But now, admit it, these conveniences are intrusions, nuisances, and monumental annoyances. For example, you let the machine answer your calls, but then you have to call a million people back. And no one answers their freakin’ phone anymore!

Or you only communicate via email, but emailing people back becomes your full time job. Plus, your stupid, smelly clients are always misinterpreting tone. You make one joke about smoking crack …

The solution, of course, is to stop returning calls and answering emails. Send the implicit message. “I don’t have time for you.” If someone calls you out on your avoidance tactics, just blame technology. “I have an aggressive spam filter.”

Doctors, from what I’ve heard, are the worst offenders. But I’m seeing it everywhere. Cultivating a good reputation doesn’t carry the weight it used to anymore. You can be rude and ignorant to your clients, customers, and potential contacts. No worries. There’ll be someone else to take their place. The unwashed masses are not unique and special individuals. They’re just hands with money. Consumer vermin.

But what do you do when you have needs and you’re faced with silence? If you speak up, there’s no guarantee someone will listen. But if you don’t speak up, no one will ever hear. So, if you want something done, the new business model calls for vigilance. Be the squeaky wheel! Squeak it up!

On the other hand, if you’re seeking to get ahead or build a good reputation in business, just answer your phone and return emails and calls you missed. Of course, you run the risk of being overwhelmed…at which point you’ll have no other choice than to turn off your phone, install an aggressive spam filter, and stop responding to those greedy, half-wit, squeaking vermin.
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Down The Tubes: My First Seder

April 19, 2008 at 9:46 pm (Familia, Food, Freedom, Friends, Holidays)

“Passover affirms the great truth that liberty is the inalienable right of every human being.” ~Morris Joseph

Let My People Go for $19.95

It’s passover season, which means it’s time to install your faux matzo toilet seat (if this offends you, take it up with the people at Stupid.com, they talked to god about it).

One year for Passover I prepared a Seder meal for my family. I figured, hey, I’m not Irish, but I eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. And I’m not Christian, but I eat hard boiled eggs and ham on Easter. And I’m not Chinese, but I celebrate the Chinese New Year. So, in the interest of fairness to all of the groups I don’t belong to, I figured I might as well have a brisket, charoset, and kugel for Passover.

I thought my first Pseudo Seder went well. I told the story of Passover to my family and enthusiastically invited them to eat like royalty because they’re free! But they haven’t begged me to carry on the tradition. I think it lacked authenticity.

If I had more friends of religious and ethnic variety who felt like including me in their cultural rituals I wouldn’t have to cobble things together for myself from dubious sources on the internet. Ah, well, I guess I’ve learned a valuable Passover lesson. I’m free to have Pseudo Seders and my family is free to wish I’d just made corned beef and cabbage.

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Booklist Reviewed The Hard Way

April 15, 2008 at 12:05 am (A Writing Life, Books, The Hard Way)

“…those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.” ~Michel de Montaigne

Miniture Books From The Grolier Club\'s exhibit

Kristine Huntley reviewed The Hard Way for Booklist Magazine. (If you want to read it at Booklist Online, you have to subscribe – 30 days free!) If you don’t get a thrill seeing the review in its original setting, here’s a copy of what Kristine Huntley so generously wrote:

The Hard Way
By Julie Luongo
Release: June 2008.

272p. Forge, paperback, $13.95 (9780765316677).
REVIEW. First published April 15, 2008 (Booklist).

Like the novels of Melissa Bank, Luongo’s first offering is a novel-in-stories. Her protagonist, Lucy Venier, spends her twenties floundering in careers and relationships that are wrong for her. Lucy tries her hand at journalism, advertising, sales, and even law school, but none of the professions feel like the right fit for the artistic Lucy, who is most at home when painting or filling her surroundings with her creations. Her taste in men is even more misguided: she dates a feckless, unfaithful newspaper editor; an arrogant cad who magnifies her self-loathing; and an incomprehensible loser who gambles away $800 on her credit card. The only winner of the bunch is Ben, who is both charming and funny and believes in Lucy, but his proposal and their subsequent engagement feel suffocating. Though Lucy’s boyfriends aside from Ben are almost unrealistically unappealing, her sharp observations (“I’ve stopped reading women’s magazines, so I feel less and less trivial everyday”) make her a heroine worth rooting for. — Kristine Huntley

Yeah, I’m totally rooting for her.

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Blog is a Mixtape

April 13, 2008 at 5:42 pm (Art, Music)
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“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” ~Confucius

Ban Kantiang Beach Bay Resort Firethrower by messiestobjects

I made a mixtape at Finetune.com of 45 songs mentioned on julieluongo.com since I started this blog. If you’ve been reading since then, you might enjoy it … for the nostalgia. I know most of you hate the music I like. You’ll be glad to hear that I’m still trying to expand my underdeveloped musical tastes. Maybe by next year my mixtape won’t have any 70s music on it. Who knows.

Here’s the playlist (you’ve been forewarned):

1. Waiting In Vain by Annie Lennox
2. Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin
3. That’s It That’s All by Beastie Boys
4. Daytripper (Album Version) by Beatles Tribute
5. Hook by Blues Traveler
6. Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
7. Across 110th Street by Bobby Womack
8. Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway
9. Meanwhile, Rick James… by Cake
10. Making Time by Creation
11. I Drove All Night by Cyndi Lauper
12. Everyday I Write the Book by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
13. 1234 by Feist
14. Say You Will by Fleetwood Mac
15. Hey Julie by Fountains of Wayne
16. Touch Of Grey by Grateful Dead
17. The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani
18. I Was Only Telling a Lie by James Taylor
19. I’ve Just Seen a Face by John Pizzarelli
20. Part of the Process by Morcheeba
21. The Obvious Child by Paul Simon
22. Feelin’ Love by Paula Cole
23. Rally by Phoenix
24. When You Were Mine by Prince
25. Stay With Me by Rod Stewart/The Faces
26. Wild Horses by Rolling Stones
27. The Jackal by Ronny Jordan
28. Black Boys On Mopeds by Sinead O’Connor
29. If It’s Love by Squeeze
30. Josie by Steely Dan
31. Dry The Rain by The Beta Band
32. Sly by The Cat Empire
33. I Never Loved a Man by The Commitments
34. I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness
35. Powerman by The Kinks
36. Australia (Album) by The Shins
37. New Slang by The Shins
38. What Ever Happened? by The Strokes
39. Ball and Biscuit (Album Version) by The White Stripes
40. AKA Driver by They Might Be Giants
41. We Want a Rock by They Might Be Giants
42. Your Racist Friend by They Might Be Giants
43. You Don’t Know How It Feels by Tom Petty
44. Crazy Love by Van Morrison
45. Freedom of ‘76 by Ween

Photo: Ban Kantiang Beach Bay Resort Firethrower by messiestobjects.
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Repent Tupperware Borrower

April 10, 2008 at 6:03 pm (Freedom)
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“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” ~Voltaire

St. Vitus\'s Cathedral in Prague by messiestobjects

The other day someone told me she was praying for my salvation. She also told me that my friend wouldn’t get into the kingdom of heaven if she didn’t stop being so horrible and judgmental. I wonder…is it judgmental to call someone horrible and judgmental?

This woman once said that the Lord told her to return some plastic containers to the loaner of said containers. Imagining this conversation gives me such glee:

Human I Know (HIK): Oh, hey, Lord.

Lord and Savior (LAS): Hello! Thanks for all of the recruiting.

HIK: Oh, you’re welcome. I don’t know if it’s working.

LAS: Not really. Especially not with Julie.

HIK: I feel sorry for her.

LAS: I know you do. I was listening when you told her so.

HIK: Any advice?

LAS: Forget her for now. I want you to return all of the plastic containers you have that belong to other people.

HIK: Do I have to fill them with baked goods?

LAS: No. Just make sure they’re clean.

HIK: Thy will be done.

LAS: Oh, you don’t have to talk like that. I’ve approved of the evolution of language except for anything that takes my name in vain, of course.

HIK: You approve of evolution?

LAS: Haha! Of course not. I said evolution of language. Language!

HIK: Whew.

LAS: That Darwin guy was cracked. People find it hard to believe they came from clay and rib bones, but they’ll believe they came from chimpanzees?

HIK: Would you like me to kill evolutionists?

LAS: No. We don’t kill. Not anymore. Not for that, I mean. Well, not now, at least.

HIK: But you kill with the smiting and the wrath.

LAS: Hello? Supreme being here. I have totally different rules for myself. Try to keep up.

HIK: Whatever you say.

LAS: Um, can you go back to saying “thy will be done?” It just sounds better.

HIK: Thy will be done.

LAS: Not right now. I mean later. Surprise me with it.

HIK: Forgive me.

LAS: Yes, yes. Of course. If you do the Tupperware return right and tell three, no ten, tell ten people today that you’re praying for their salvation and I’ll forgive you.

HIK: You are most generous. Is there anything else I can do?

LAS: No, not right now. But I know how to reach you if I think of anything else.

HIK: Just interrupt the other voices in my head.

LAS: Go in peace to love and serve me.

HIK: Thy will be done.

LAS: Ah, ha. You got me. Nice one.

I wonder, was it horrible and judgmental of me to write this?
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TV or Not TV, That is the Question

April 2, 2008 at 9:53 pm (Consumerism, Entertainment, Freedom, Friends)

“Commercials on television are similar to sex and taxes; the more talk there is about them, the less likely they are to be curbed.” ~Jack Gould

I don’t have cable. Now you know. This might shock people who’ve witnessed me to be a TV junkie all my life from my childhood love of The Brady Bunch to a teen obsession with Jean Luc Picard, many late nights with MST 3000 (Tom Servo, Croooow), and an embarrassing dedication to Beverly Hills 90210.

I’ve watched and enjoyed practically every animated series – from Fat Albert and Scooby Doo to The Simpsons, Daria, Dr. Katz, Drawn Together, South Park, Family Guy, Mission Hill… Oh, the animated shows I’ve loved. Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil, I barely knew ya.

But, heck, you know, TV has its drawbacks. And sometimes it just makes sense to stop watching it, especially when you work from home and are prone to marathon bouts of slack-jawed channel surfing, which is different from enjoying television entertainment. Pointless flipping is like eating a whole bag of cheese curls in one sitting or getting bombed on creme de menthe.

Nevertheless, what I miss about the mindless channel surfing is not being in-the-know. My cultural knowledge is suffering for lack of … dare I say it? … commercials. I can’t believe I’ve admitted to this! I rail against commercialism and consumerism every chance I get … and yet, I miss the knowledge, the shared experience, commercials gave me. Ridiculous as they are, I loved hating them.

Those foot pads that leech toxins from your body while you sleep? I didn’t know they existed until I parked it on my friend’s couch and hogged the remote. The other day I was talking about the woman who invented Pinkberry and someone interjected about American Express. Really? That lady has a commercial? I hear kids singing “IO Digital Cable” (video above) and I know from my ringtone options on my cell that reggaeton is mainstream now, but I’m still singing 1-800-Mattres.

The trade-off is that I don’t get the ambition sucked out of me from watching hours of Scrubs all day and Adult Swim until 3am. Don’t misunderstand. I still watch TV shows – online, through NetFlix, and on DVD. I’m keeping up with 30 Rock and LOST. I’m catching up on Dexter periodically. Naturally, I still watch The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, South Park … I just don’t get all of the references anymore.

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