A couple of days ago, I was in a grocery store and ran across hot cross buns in the bakery section.
I don't recall seeing them before. The children's nursey rhyme flooded back to me.
Then I wondered, what is the tradition behind them?
Some say they were part of pagan spring festivals and later given the cross by monks wanting to give Christian meaning to the the tradition. Other accounts speak of an English widow, whose son went off to sea and she vowed to bake him a bun every Good Friday. When he didn't return, she continued to bake a hot cross bun for him each year and hung it in the bakery window in good faith that he would some day return to her. The tradition remained after her passing.
In many historically Christian countries, hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the crucifixion.
That explains their late March/early April appearance.
Happy Easter!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Shock Value.
Using a shocking statistic or an incongruent image is nothing new in marketing.
But, unlike the boy who cried wolf, shock must be done sparingly and with finesse.
The print and TV ads, which appear to be about texting and perfume are really about preventing cervical cancer. They acknowledge their tactic at the outset: "Maybe it's unfair to get your attention this way, but nothing is fair about cervical cancer."
This is how it's done effectively: http://www.helppreventcervicalcancer.com/.
But, unlike the boy who cried wolf, shock must be done sparingly and with finesse.
The print and TV ads, which appear to be about texting and perfume are really about preventing cervical cancer. They acknowledge their tactic at the outset: "Maybe it's unfair to get your attention this way, but nothing is fair about cervical cancer."
This is how it's done effectively: http://www.helppreventcervicalcancer.com/.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Flaunting Tradition?
Maker's Mark has a long and distinctive history of effective advertising in print mediums ranging from magazine ads to billboards.
The bourbon has solidly hewed to its tradition as a gentlemen's sip.
So what to make of their prominent new billboards with two words: Friend Us.
Does it weaken the overall brand image? Is it eye-catching for all the wrong reasons? Can Maker's Mark reach a younger audience this way?
What do you think?
The bourbon has solidly hewed to its tradition as a gentlemen's sip.
So what to make of their prominent new billboards with two words: Friend Us.
Does it weaken the overall brand image? Is it eye-catching for all the wrong reasons? Can Maker's Mark reach a younger audience this way?
What do you think?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Getting it Wrong.
Pairing spokepeople with causes is tricky business. Ditto celebrites doubling as award show hosts.
Case in point: Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) as emcee of the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards.
In advertisments, he comes across not just as an inappropriate choice but slightly creepy (really? a middle-aged man grinding his groin at the camera?).
It's worth remembering that there are lots of ways messaging can go awry.
And worth remembering that a professional with an outside perspective can avert that.
Case in point: Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) as emcee of the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards.
In advertisments, he comes across not just as an inappropriate choice but slightly creepy (really? a middle-aged man grinding his groin at the camera?).
It's worth remembering that there are lots of ways messaging can go awry.
And worth remembering that a professional with an outside perspective can avert that.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
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Thursday, March 18, 2010
A Cool Cat's Writing Tips.
Remember Jack Kerouac, Beat novelist, poet and iconoclast?
He set down 30 tips for writing. Some may reinvent your writing; others may simply confound you.
I especally like #2, 18 and 29.
1.Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2.Submissive to everything, open, listening
3.Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4.Be in love with yr life
5.Something that you feel will find its own form
6.Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7.Blow as deep as you want to blow
8.Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9.The unspeakable visions of the individual
10.No time for poetry but exactly what is
11.Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12.In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13.Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14.Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15.Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16.The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17.Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18.Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19.Accept loss forever
20.Believe in the holy contour of life
21.Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22.Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23.Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24.No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25.Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26.Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27.In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28.Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29.You're a Genius all the time
30.Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
He set down 30 tips for writing. Some may reinvent your writing; others may simply confound you.
I especally like #2, 18 and 29.
1.Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2.Submissive to everything, open, listening
3.Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4.Be in love with yr life
5.Something that you feel will find its own form
6.Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7.Blow as deep as you want to blow
8.Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9.The unspeakable visions of the individual
10.No time for poetry but exactly what is
11.Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12.In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13.Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14.Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15.Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16.The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17.Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18.Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19.Accept loss forever
20.Believe in the holy contour of life
21.Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22.Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23.Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24.No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25.Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26.Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27.In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28.Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29.You're a Genius all the time
30.Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
Monday, March 15, 2010
Russet Beauty. And an Almond-Shaped Face.
Judith Newman, writing in the April issue of O magazine, interviews Norris Church Mailer about the publication of her book A Ticket to the Circus.
Mailer was blessed with a "russet beauty," according to Newman. Presumbably, this was one of the charms that attracted her husband, Norman Mailer, philanderer and novelist.
It's also a marvelous way to describe a redhead.
I was also struck by Newman's description of the male Mailer in the accompanying photograph as having "an expression of lordly possession."
Just last night, my sweetie called me beautiful.
How? I asked.
"Your almond-shaped face," he replied.
For years, I just thought my face was narrow.
His assessment was a new and welcome perspective. It changed my outlook. And it earned him some brownie points.
These are reminders that right words delight, conveying details that are spot-on and memorable.
Mailer was blessed with a "russet beauty," according to Newman. Presumbably, this was one of the charms that attracted her husband, Norman Mailer, philanderer and novelist.
It's also a marvelous way to describe a redhead.
I was also struck by Newman's description of the male Mailer in the accompanying photograph as having "an expression of lordly possession."
Just last night, my sweetie called me beautiful.
How? I asked.
"Your almond-shaped face," he replied.
For years, I just thought my face was narrow.
His assessment was a new and welcome perspective. It changed my outlook. And it earned him some brownie points.
These are reminders that right words delight, conveying details that are spot-on and memorable.
Friday, March 12, 2010
True Names.
Compassion--and compassionate writing--are hallmarks of Buddhist monk, activist and author Thich Nhat Hanh. His poem Call Me By My True Names is an eloquent and resonant work.
Call Me by My True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
1989
Call Me by My True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
1989
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What's in a Name?
Can your name pull you to certain professions? Yes, says Psychology Today in the March/April 2010 issue.
I can attest to this.
When I hand people my card or introduce myself, I am often get a cocked head or a quizzcial double-take. Then, invariably, the a comment about my last name.
Yep, I'm a writer with the last name Wright.
And that's not a fluke, says Dr. Lewis Lipsitt of Brown University who has collected names that matched their bearers' vocations, such as Dr. Fish who founded the Oceanographic Insitute and Robin Fox who authored a book on animal behavior.
But why? Lippsitt believes we may be oriented toward the "calling" of our name, become more interested in the subject.
He's working on a book about his theory.
I can attest to this.
When I hand people my card or introduce myself, I am often get a cocked head or a quizzcial double-take. Then, invariably, the a comment about my last name.
Yep, I'm a writer with the last name Wright.
And that's not a fluke, says Dr. Lewis Lipsitt of Brown University who has collected names that matched their bearers' vocations, such as Dr. Fish who founded the Oceanographic Insitute and Robin Fox who authored a book on animal behavior.
But why? Lippsitt believes we may be oriented toward the "calling" of our name, become more interested in the subject.
He's working on a book about his theory.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friends Make Friends Look Cool.
I hate having my picture taken.
But my talented photographer friend Dave Fisher made it easy (and his wife Julie served homemade lasagna).
In addition to several business pix, he created this cool image.
Check out his extensive portfolio at www.JandDImages.com.
But my talented photographer friend Dave Fisher made it easy (and his wife Julie served homemade lasagna).
In addition to several business pix, he created this cool image.
Check out his extensive portfolio at www.JandDImages.com.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The State of "NOW."
My cool friend David Cohen is planning Atlanta's first #140 Conference.
The New York-based founders say the #140conf events "provide a platform for the worldwide Twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business."
David attended one of the early 140 Conferences and says, "I saw people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Jeff Jarvis speak along with cool mommy-preneurs and music and TV people and just thought it was a great, different, weird event."
David thought Atlanta should be "next." So he got a greenlight to launch #140 here.
Says David, "I'd like to see a great event that cross-pollinates different communities touched and strengthened by the cultural ripple these technologies cause. I'd like to hear stories of leadership and innovation (not necessarily just tech innovation) and idiosynchratic, delightful surprising uses.
Get involved at: http://www.facebook.com/140ATL?ref=search&sid=657675503.1192990190..1
The New York-based founders say the #140conf events "provide a platform for the worldwide Twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business."
David attended one of the early 140 Conferences and says, "I saw people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Jeff Jarvis speak along with cool mommy-preneurs and music and TV people and just thought it was a great, different, weird event."
David thought Atlanta should be "next." So he got a greenlight to launch #140 here.
Says David, "I'd like to see a great event that cross-pollinates different communities touched and strengthened by the cultural ripple these technologies cause. I'd like to hear stories of leadership and innovation (not necessarily just tech innovation) and idiosynchratic, delightful surprising uses.
Get involved at: http://www.facebook.com/140ATL?ref=search&sid=657675503.1192990190..1
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