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Several HIGHLY unrelated things.

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

1. I watched “Intervention” on Monday and it was the usual. “My name is Brooke / Steve / Vanessa and I am addicted to meth / Oxy / huffing Febreze / whatever.” Followed by footage of their crappy life on drugs. The super-bummed-out family tells how he / she was a precious little angel as a child. One of them inevitably says, “Always smiling, always happy.” The drug enthusiast who is the focus of this particular episode makes a comment about how they don’t know how they’re going to go on like this, and if they’re on an opiate they doze off while they say it. Cut to commercial. It’s the same every time. But something stood out for me on this week. The chick was addicted to black tar heroin and had been for five years, since she was sixteen. I was impressed with her. She was practically an advertisement for the stuff. She looked great (aside from the slurring of the words and the small weird bumps on parts of her arms from injecting in one place too much) and her description of how heroin feels, mmmm, it sounds delicious. Something about warm honey flowing through your veins – I wanted to whip out anything that could be construed as a tourniquet right then. (Relax, I am not going to start dancing with Mr. Brownstone. Everyone stay calm.) But that’s not the thing that stood out. At one point, they talked about how she’s homeless and sleeping on the street with her boyfriend, and then they showed her wearing a white shirt. A white shirt that is white. Following that they showed her shooting up in the white shirt, which remains white. I wear predominantly black because of a variety of reasons, but one of the main ones is that I find it damn near impossible to not stain my clothes with soy sauce or any other food I might place in my mouth. It will, guaranteed, end up on my boobal area. So I am to understand that a homeless heroin addict who is making pinholes in herself that then cause her blood to leak out is more capable of keeping her clothes clean than me? Because that’s what I’m taking away from this. And gosh darn it, if that don’t make you feel bad about yourself, I don’t know what will.

2. Eels! Specifically moray eels. They give me the heebie-jeebies because their mouths extend too far back, or maybe their eyes are too far forward and close to their nose, one of the two. I was watching a special on them recently and thought they had reached maximum creepitude but I was incorrect. Scientists were wondering how the moray eel pulled its food into its mouth and throat, and through careful scientific study it was discovered that the eels have a second set of jaws that pop out, grab the food and drag it inside which, I don’t know about you, is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard. Want to see some video of it? Think carefully before you answer that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv2DkzOPBXw

Guhhhhhhhhh.

3. In honor of ten years of dating, I forced Cricket to express his love for me through a sparkly object I can wear on my hand. I love this ring. It’s big, it’s old, the stone is an antique cut, it’s platinum, and it’s got rubies (my birthstone) all around the edge set in gold. The first few weeks I had it I couldn’t stop looking at it, so my co-workers nicknamed me Gollum. And when we moved to our new offices this last week, A small Gollum figurine managed to make its way onto my desk. I took a picture of my ring with Gollum holding it. It just seemed right.

Posted in Advertising, Nature, Stuff, The Telly | No Comments »

A typical day for me.

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Someone recently asked me what my typical work day was like. I thought that was an interesting question and I would go about answering it the best I could. I have some days (very few) when there’s little to do, and some days (way too many) when I just slog though piles of work for thirteen hours straight. I’m giving an example where I have some work to do, but it’s not consuming my every waking moment. Enjoy.

9:52 a.m. - Show up at work. Make enormous vessel of herb tea. Meet up with co-workers (there are five of them) to discuss previous evening’s activities. Consider laying down on disgusting never-washed carpet and going back to sleep.

10:07 a.m. – Read emails. Answer work emails. Divvy up work between me and my co-workers. Børkke walks in to office to have meeting about daily work tasks. She has composed a new song about cheese.

10:07 a.m. -10:11 a.m. – Listen to horrible Michael McDonald-style song about cheese.

10:12 a.m. – Discuss what everyone’s going to have for lunch.

10:14 a.m. – 1:43 p.m. – Design a Keynote presentation, or a brochure, or an email signature, or a headsheet for a meeting, or a letterhead, or photoshop some images. Listen to unch-unch-unch dance music the whole time while wearing big floofy earphones. Refill giant tea mug twice. Go tinkle forty-seven thousand times because of it.

1:44 p.m.-2:03 p.m. – Actually eat some real-person food. During that time, check myriad of websites like Buzzfeed. Snort-laugh repeatedly at videos while wearing earphones so no one knows why you’re laughing. Reinforce pre-conceived notions that you’re mentally unbalanced.

2:04 p.m. – Have important office meeting. End up coming up with dance moves for The Cheese Song.

2:05 p.m. – Figure out with co-workers how we’re going to deal with the enormous soul-crushing project happening the next week. Make mental note to see friends and do laundry this week, because next week I will be so strapped for time that I will be unable to find time to shower. Consider laying down on too-small uncomfortable couch and going back to sleep.

2:09 p.m.-6:04 p.m. – Continue working on the Keynotes or brochure or email signature, etc. More tea. More bathroom. At some point inflict a video of a bunny/kitty/owl on co-workers. Co-workers feign interest while you make squeaky noises and threaten to pet subject of video to death a la Lenny from Of Mice And Men. BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH.

6:30ish p.m.-7:15ish p.m. – Put on coat and head out for hour-and-a-half commute home.

Peppered throughout the day: “Your mom” as responses to almost all questions, and “That’s what she/he/your mom said” as responses to all other statements. Also, cram as many racist/religious/sexist comments into your day as possible. Compete with co-workers to see who can say the most offensive thing. Hope HR never visits.

Photo of Børkke and me working late one night:

Addendum: Picture of my whole department at the Holiday Party.

Posted in Advertising, New York, Stuff | 1 Comment »

Advertising is totally heading in the right direction.

Friday, November 11th, 2011

I work in advertising, so I really should be on board with the tactics and manipulations of a product’s perception that my agency (and all the other agencies) do. However, when I see advertising, I want to know the product you’re selling, what it does, and how much it costs. That’s it. I don’t want to have this ephemeral mist of words and images trying to create a mood. I hate car commercials where a deep-voiced man talks about performance while they show a corner of a vehicle like a tail light, and the the speedometer and then the Cadillac logo and that’s it. That tells me absolutely nothing about the car. I think a great many people are agreeing with me and so there is a backlash against woo-woo artsy commercials and more sensible, straight-forward advertising. This week I was thrilled to see this banner ad:

And then I read about this commercial for the movie The Immortals. From what I understand, this is a real commercial and not a fan dub. If this is true, then that’s perfect. I was on the fence about this, but I’m going to see this film now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kGCCJQGj94&

Posted in Advertising, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Random Art Bloggery | 1 Comment »

Mirror. Now with Vitamin C.

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

I have a window display case here at work and it had been up for two years with the same art. I got tired of staring at it every day, and the elements were getting dusty, etc. So starting in January, I began making all new stuff for the case. I pulled some pre-existing work from my past, but I incorporated new pieces as well. I made that mirror last time, this one:

And everyone was so excited!!! because they could check their hair and/or makeup in the hallway, so I felt obligated to make another mirror for them this time as well. This time I went with a sunburst using Diet Coke cans, Stop-n-Shop Diet Orange Soda cans (they have a great pattern on them), and Fanta cans. It’s a big hit. Here’s what the window looks like in its entirety:

And here’s the mirror.

You can’t appreciate it because it’s being lit by frosted fluorescent tubes, but in sunlight or incandescent light the cans shine in the most charming way.

Posted in Advertising, My Art/Design/Business | No Comments »

Scales and feathers and sparkles, oh my.

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

I don’t normally talk about fashion here because, frankly, I don’t normally care. I think 98% of fashion is boring. Oh, are dumb-looking scarves in this season? Great. That’s swell. I will continue to wear the same things I do every single day that I’ve worn for the last fifteen years (black stretchy pants, black t-shirt, black trouser socks, black shoes). But I happened to see an article on Emma Watson who is being featured in Vogue this month. I think she’s a classy broad so I clicked the link and lo and behold! Fashion awesomeness! Check it out.

In the first picture, she’s wearing pantyhose encrusted with rhinestones and other whatnot. While that would be unpleasant (I like to cross my legs and the rhinestones would be all kinds of digging into my leg meat) it looks fabu. And in the second picture – oh, I can’t even describe my glee. Plastic fish scales over a ombre-dyed base fabric, the scales being held in place with little rivet-things, and then a feathered collar to top it off? WANT. Which gets us to the point of why I wear the most mundane-looking clothing imaginable. In high school, I used to care a great deal about fashion. I pored over magazines trying to copy the looks I liked. Unfortunately for everyone around me, the looks I liked were never tasteful pantsuits or sweaters. They were always the plastic-fishscales-rhinestone-pantyhose variety of garb. So I would trundle off to high school wearing the most inane garments and wonder why people would make fun of me. At some point I realized two things: one, no one was ever going to take me seriously if I kept dressing in this way, and two: you have to be very thin and very tall to pull off a great many of the looks I was emulating, and I am neither. So I decided to simplify things I would just pare my clothing down to the easiest things I could think of and focus my attentions elsewhere. I won’t lie though: sometimes I miss dressing like an extra in Cirque du Soleil.

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A bunch of stuff.

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

1. I’ve seen some neat things in my travels around the city recently. Bryant Park is getting its annual overhaul (plants go here, skate rink goes into storage, lawn gets rolled out, etc.) In the area where they keep the lawn mowers and rakes, I noticed that it is guarded by a similiar owl to the one that hangs out at the Herald Square park near my job. Here’s the owl guarding my park at work:

And here’s the owl guarding the fertilizer and lawn chairs.

He’s right at eye level. I have ignored the bible’s teachings and thought about stealing this guy many a time. However, I suspect that he is bronze and therefore very heavy, and also getting arrested and going to Riker’s Island for attempted owl theft, then getting shoved in a cell with someone who has a stellar collection of human heads in their fridge, that does not appeal to me. So Mr. Owl gets to stay there…for now.

2. There’s a store on my route to work called Zara and they have these rad chrome ants in their window display. They’re big and they’re shiny and they’re awesome.

3. There’s this ad on the Metro-North for The Weather Channel that is just awful. First of all, the wording is ridiculous.

Here are the words on the ad:

At the Weather Channel,
we’re delivering more than just the weather.
We’re connecting people with their passions.
The ultimate-lifestyle-media brand,
on tv, online and on mobile…
connect here.

Okay, first of all, no. You can try to get all deep and whatnot, but you’re just there to tell me if it rains. That’s it. Sometimes the people in advertising take themselves waaaaaay to seriously. Yes rain? No rain? That’s is all there is. Stop it.

Second, that lady’s face is TERRIFYING. If you look long enough, it looks like she has a deformed mouth with two rows of teeth, like a freakin’ shark. Also, could she open her mouth a little wider? What is she doing, trying out for The Mummy movie? Here, look for yourself:

Posted in Advertising, New York, Stuff | No Comments »

I don’t know what you’re doing right now…

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

…but you need to be reading this website.

http://27bslash6.com/

I love this man. He’s a designer with some serious snarky snark. I only wish I had the steel gonads to write the responses he does. Here are my favorites:

http://27bslash6.com/missy.html

http://27bslash6.com/easter.html

http://27bslash6.com/p2p2.html

Posted in Advertising, Random Art Bloggery, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Jessica and the not-particularly-great 24 hours.

Friday, May 13th, 2011

I’m not having a stellar time over here in Jessicaville. One of the things that have gone wrong in the last 24 hours: My entrails and I are having differences of opinions. I would like them to work, they would like to take a hiatus from their appointed tasks and re-watch all of seasons of The West Wing. Hopefully we can come to a reconciliation at some point. Until then it means I have to eat things like gruel and porridge, basically things that look like clinical depression in a bowl. I grow weary of weak tea.

I had a very pleasant yesterday, when I gave my very first lecture to a group of librarians on simple design techniques. They were not mean to me and had good questions, it was all lovely. I got home where my computer was in sleep mode. I wiggled the mouse and tapped the spacebar and wiggled the mouse and tapped the spacebar and…nothing. So I shut it down, gave it ten seconds and turned it back on again, where it promptly went into sleep mode and could not be roused. I then looked around for seven dwarves because clearly I’m sharing my home with Sleeping Beauty (B’doom CHING! I’m funny!). I called Cricket and informed him of my woes, so after work he came over and took the side off my Tower of Power, tinkered around in there, and sadly informed my that my hard drive has Teh Computer Deaths. So until my new hard drive arrives in a week, I have a sculptural element in the corner of my bedroom. The screen, it taunts me with its blackness. “I could play music or surf the web, buuuuuuuuut I don’t think I will. Neener neener.”

Finally, I came back to work today to hear a tale that chills me to the very core. Here is the story as told to me. Upstairs, an employee came into their office to find a poopy smell and two hefty piles of crap on the floor. I was like, WTF?!?? I mean, I’ve seen the rats outside the building and they are big, but really? When the employee called office services, they found out that we have bedbug-sniffing dogs that come through here, and one of them must have just let it all out in the office. All my co-workers were like, Oh isn’t that just a hoot? NO. IT IS NOT A HOOT. I don’t want to have to deal with that kind of thing, EVER. If I wanted a job where large animals took dumps in my workplace, I would have become a park ranger. I am not a park ranger. I am a graphic designer. NO LARGE DOGS CRAPPING IN MY OFFICE.

Also, allergies.

Posted in Advertising, Apartment, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Retouching. I can has it – sort of.

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

My job needed some nice-ish pictures of Heineken bottles for a project we’re working on, so I went and picked up a six-pack and photographed them in a variety of positions (“Okay, lean a little in, nice, smile a bit, good…”) in a conference room while my co-worker held up a large white piece of paper behind them. When I finished, I realized that unretouched photos, even ones of bottles, look, well, not great. So I spent the five hours makin’ ‘em look purty. Take into account that I don’t really know how to retouch things, so I was making it up as I went along.

First of all, retouching is really hard. Every time you fix something, you notice something else that doesn’t look right. It’s an ouroboros of annoying. The main problem I came across (aside from having to edit out dirt flecks and light flares for what seemed like forever) is that Heineken’s bottle is darkish green and their beer is tea-colored. However, they like to give the impression that their bottle is bright green and their beer is golden and lit from the inside with a heavenly light, like an angel accidentally dropped a halo into it. I’m not going to get that effect taking photos in a conference room with natural light. So I did the best I could lightening and greening-up the beer, while not modifying the label or the cap, which didn’t need greening. I reiterate, a colossal pain in the patoot. Mad props to my retouching friends who do this for a living. My hat goes off to you.

Posted in Advertising, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

Art.

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Last weekend I saw the move Exit Through The Gift Shop and I feel a need to talk about it. First of all, it’s an excellent documentary. It got great reviews and is well-worth watching, and it’s streaming right now on Netflix, so go see it. That being said, I was infuriated by the last third or so of it. Here’s the basic plot summary (don’t read this next paragraph if you want the film to be a surprise):

There are street artists. No one has ever documented their actions. There is a crazy French vintage-clothing-store-owner named Thierry (Terry) living in Los Angeles who is obsessed with videotaping everything. His cousin is Space Invader, a well-known street artist. Thierry films his actions and is introduced to other street artists, including Shepherd Fairey. Shepherd introduces Thierry to Bansky, the most famous street artist ever. Other stuff happens. In order to edit Thierry’s heaps of footage of both Banksy and other street artists into a film without Thierry being involved, Bansky tells Thierry to make some art and have a small show, basically to get him out of Bansky’s hair. Here’s where I start to fill with rage. Thierry, who has no artistic training or skill or experience, rents a gigantic building in L.A. and hires a massive staff to make his “art”. He is clearly crazy, his artwork is utter pointless crap, but he understands hype, so he hypes the hell out of his show. When his show opens, tons of people show up, people who are desperate to be “cool”, Thierry sells all his crap art and rakes in a million dollars. Jessica bursts into flames. The end.

Here’s the deal, people. Artists aren’t the people who come up with the ideas, okay? We all come up with ideas, all the time. Good ones, dumb ones, weird ones, etc. “What if blah blah was a blah blah blah?” The artists are the people who pluck ideas, theirs or others, out of the ether and make them into something we can see and touch and feel. They are inspired by something and the make something in the hopes that you will feel the same way they do about that thing. I’ll give you an example from my own life. I worked with a guy named Jd at BBDO, and he mentioned to me that every time he went to a new job, shortly after he started everyone else was fired, a whole new staff was hired and everything started anew. Apparently this seemed to happen every time he switched jobs. It was a joke with him and his friends that he was like Kali, the Hindu God of Destruction and Rebirth. I thought that was a funny idea, so I made a ink drawing of him as Kali.

I did not have the idea. I heard it, I liked it, I executed it. Who’s the artist in this situation, Jd or me? So when you (and when I say “you”, I mean you, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst) hire a big ole staff and you wander in and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool to cover a skull with diamonds?” or “I think a giant sculpture of a balloon animal would be neat,” and then you leave the building while your staff actually makes the thing and you touch nothing, but then you go and take credit for all the work, that doesn’t make you an artist. That makes you a hype machine. Your staff is the artist. And I hate you.

By the way, I love the skull covered with diamonds and the giant balloon dog. That’s not the point.