Author: Aaron Weber

The Master Debaters

Harvard Bookstore and the Brattle Theatre are putting on a panel discussion with the NY Review Of Books and the Guardian tonight at seven at the Brattle, followed by a big-screen showing of the debate itself.

If I were to attend, I’m pretty sure I’d end up screaming with rage and fear, and then getting drunk, and missing work on Thursday. So instead I’m staying home and hiding under the bed until November.

No Cabe Duda

Editorial from El País: Los estadounidenses pueden renovar el 4 de noviembre el maltrecho liderazgo simbólico de su país. La opción demócrata es el único camino para recuperar el capital político y moral que han perdido en estos años.

Not like an op-ed in one of them furriner newspapers would sway anyone, but it’s still good to know what the rest of the world thinks of us.

Doomed To Repeat History

The Economist has republished its coverage of the 1929 crash online: “If we are justified in assuming that the setback in American industry will only be temporary, we may look forward to steady development in 1930, free from the incubus that has of late been hampering world conditions.”

Oops.

You know, I think the 30’s was when my grandfather learned to like eating raw onions. (As in, raw onions and nothing else. As a meal.)

Vivian Darkbloom at PA’s Lounge

Last night bookdwarf was out at a bachelorette party so I went over to PA’s Lounge to see a couple bands. I don’t get over there much but when I do, I kick myself for not going more often. It’s got an atmosphere that’s been ably described as “VFW Hall” — complete with sassy bartender who insists on showing “The Notebook” on one TV to balance out the baseball on the other, and a crusty old guy who’s been there drinking away his pension check since midafternoon, repeating himself and clumsily trying to chat with the opening band members. No attitude at all. I like that kind of vibe.

And I definitely like $3 generic beer.

The event was billed as a CD release party for The Sunsets Quick, and they were pretty good. The first band, Forsythe, have a lead singer who sounds like Cat Power, and a great drummer. Plus, they actually use a marimba for a few songs, instead of just setting the synth to marimba mode. That’s pretty nifty.

The highlight, though, was the middle of the three performers, Vivian Darkbloom. Their track “Cold War,” if there were any justice in the music biz, would be on heavy rotation. Lines like “I loved our cold war, we never had to mean what we said, we spoke like our governments” and “you list me as a friend, but it’s complicated, I guess the whole world knows now” are just brilliantly clever. And then there’s the fact that the lead has attached a Wii remote to his guitar, and wired it in some way so as to have the motion sensor affect the tones coming out of the instrument.

Financial Crisis? What Financial Crisis?

My Suzuki SV650 and Megan’s Ducati Monster, now both for sale on Craigslist.

I can’t decide if I think that more people will be switching to motorcycles for the fuel savings – and to used bikes because they’re cheaper – or whether people will be less inclined to buy any kind of motorcycle at all….

I guess we’ll find out. Worst comes to worst, I get to keep my shiny toy til 2009. That’s not so bad.

Direct Marketing Has Funny Words

There are some ugly words in the word of direct marketing, and I learned them last week.

Onsert, for example. It’s an object which is glued to the exterior of a magazine rather than being inserted between its pages. Or squinch analysis, which refers to balancing production cost and potential sales value of every square inch of a catalog. There are others, but I won’t horrify you.

Direct Marketing also full of weird, special definitions of things. For example, “Dimensional” means anything in a box or tube, while “flat” means not only flat, but also larger than normal envelopes. Envelopes don’t count as “flat” – they’re just envelopes.

And then there are the ugly facts. Things like the fact that all those advertising techniques you hate persist because they work. Or that the average turnover in a call center is 90% every 90 days.

Still, there’s some good stuff out there. I learned that Planned Parenthood has had a dramatic surge in donations recently, simply because Sarah Palin is practically doing their fund raising for them by this point. They barely have to send a letter, because the need for their services has been made so real by Palin’s candidacy.

We saw a prize-winning mailer was an oversized postcard with a small hole in the middle. The front side said “Can you fit your arm through this hole?” On the back: “A child dying of starvation can.” It was a mailer from Doctors Without Borders, raising money to bring medical care and food to children in Darfur. How many lives did they save with that campaign?

Was it more than our class presenter killed by running a series of Virginia Slims dimensional promos in the 80s?

There’s a lot of ugly business out there, and not all of it is dimensional tobacco promos and the hot new catalog from Landmines-R-Us. Some of it is collectibles.

Other things are just murky. We spent about twenty minutes examining the emotional appeal of a bank that had a multi-pronged campaign advertising home equity loans. Of course, many of those great loans are now in default. Here’s a compelling campaign for undergraduate credit cards… an area that combines irresponsible marketing with irresponsible lending and irresponsible spending to create financial nightmares for people in their twenties – not to mention plenty of opportunities for identity theft.

Still, it’s not the fault of the marketers if the credit approval standards drop, or if students rack up ten grand in credit card debt at 18% without really thinking about the interest payments (oh, they’re aware of them, they just ignore them.)

Is it?