Let's Be Paris

What a great line. Here's "Disgust" from Elizabeth Scanlon. So where is this smart funny poem? Well, it's in the latest issue of Ploughshares--the one edited by Tony Hoagland. Of course.

Persuasion

I'm concerned that Americans are no longer being taught about persuasion--what it is, how to see through it, etc.--at several points in their lives. I remember being taught about persuasive rhetorical strategies in elementary school, middle school, high school, and again in college (and I went to public school). Is it still like this for America's students? The PR agency Weber Shandwick has been running ads (thanks to Mom-101 for knowing the agency) for the corn syrup lobby for almost a year now, telling us that we shouldn't avoid the industrial garbage* known as high fructose corn syrup (Freeman's blog has links to the commercials). And, every afternoon on the El for the past six months, I've ben staring at Miracle Whip billboards that scream, "We Are Miracle Whip and We Will Not Tone It Down!" I'm not lying (see above). You can thank the mcgarybowen firm. I've seen both of these campaigns for a year now, and I thought everyone realized them for the massive failures that they are.

But, they are still around. So perhaps the campaigns are some type of insider joke--some way that the hip folks at the agencies could take some money from the corporate clients and get a good laugh--maybe even place a few wagers on how the ads would go over with America. David Cross has a good bit about a company that sells eggs using screaming electric guitars and lines like "These aren't your grandmother's eggs!!!!" These aren't stupid people at these firms. Perhaps some of them even know the Cross bit I reference.

Yes, the people at these firms are smart people. And they know what it took me too long to recognize: it's easy to manipulate large audiences if one carefully constructs the message and method of delivery. Miracle whip not boring? Corn syrup good for the body? How many 20-somethings can claim that they were formally instructed in the field of rhetoric multiple times in their educational careers?  That's why it's so easy.

*contains Mercury, folks! Yum!

Mutter Museum Calendar

I just ordered the 2010 calendar from the Mutter Museum. I put it up over the weekend and it's bizarre and wonderful. The images are taken by professional photographers who get access to the collection of the museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The 2009 calendar had an image by William Wegman (no, his dog was not chewing on one of the bones). When I'm feeling stuck, these curious and well-composed images make for good inspiration. Here's the link to the Mutter Museum Store.

Breaking In

Over the weekend, I locked myself out of my house. The only way back in was to break something. Lucky for me, I left the garage open. So, after going down the list of options (windows, locks, doors, door frames), I decided upon the wall between the back of my garage and the powder room. Snow shovels can be remarkably sharp and drywall remarkably brittle. After a few minutes of hacking, I climbed through the hole. Hello, toilet. I never thought I would see you from this angle. I stood in the small bathroom. I looked out into the kitchen and dining room. Through the locked windows, the sun had entered. A cloud of dust and insulation moved slowly in the currents. It sparkled in the light.

Vera Pavlova

Here's some beautiful compression--every word matters in these poems (translations from Russian).

ABOPABOW returns from its leave

with a link to a great poem by Stacie Cassarino. ABOPABOW took a leave as the holidays came. I'm back, and so are the posts. So, if you haven't read "Spoon to the Sky" yet, make your trip on over to Poetry Daily and check it out. Cassarino has written a great poem that captures both the chill and the warmth of isolation (weird, yes; but trust me, there is warmth here) in one's life (self-imposed and otherwise). She's also used carefully placed unstressed syllables and consonant sounds to craft lines that feel like breathing in the winter chill--look at those h's and w's.