This is one of the best ads I have seen in a long time. And I would say the artistry and creativity qualifies it for true art.
Lev Grossman wrote an excellent article in TIME on how recommendation engines work (ie, for Netflix movie selection, and for Pandora radio selection) and how they can start turning us into boringly homogenous & predictive blockbuster consumers of the same stuff within one safe space.
Alas, when it comes to movie choices, the options and parameters are so many, that suggestions I get are often unreliable.
Anyone who has been following the news today about the Gaza flotilla debacle and the tragic course of events, including the loss of lives, of hopes, and of peaceful respectful relations would not be faulted for being gloomy and depressed and for throwing in the towel, thinking that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just not going to be resolved and war is going to doom that region for eternity.
Perhaps it’s the contrarian in me, but I’ve heard this tune and just when things start getting as ugly as they seem to be getting now in the Middle East, an opportunity starts arising to awaken people into their power for positive change – in this case based on a two state solution that recognizes the rights of both peoples.
Behind the scenes, OneVoice has been preparing a campaign to inspire Palestinians and Israelis to visualize a two state solution: Imagine 2018. I shared this campaign with Sir Paul McCartney earlier today and he recognized its potential to shake people out of their complacency or fatalism and into action.
You could argue this is not the time to launch such a campaign – that it is the time to solemnly mourn. And to recognize that there are major impediments, not the least of which is Hamas control of Gaza (a proxy of Iran) and ideological settlers taking Israel and its government hostage.
But maybe this IS the time to take action. For otherwise we will be victims to follies and extremism and partisanship forever.
Maybe the time has come to break those shackles of absolutism and rancor, and to start saying, let’s stop making excuses about why peace is never going to come about, and let’s start building the foundations – in our visions, in our minds, and on the ground – to just make it happen. Two states for two proud peoples. It may not happen overnight. And it may not happen across the entire land at the same time. But you have to start somewhere.
Am on my way back from DC to NYC after a briefing with Paul McCartney on behalf of OneVoice (on whose Honorary Board he sits). Earlier during rehearsals, I was struck at the beautiful simplicity and deep truth of the lyrics of Ebony and Ivory:
EBONY AND IVORY,
LIVE TOGETHER IN PERFECT HARMONY,
SIDE BY SIDE ON MY PIANO KEYBOARD,
OH, LORD, WHY DON’T WE?WE ALL KNOW THAT PEOPLE ARE THE SAME WHEREVER YOU GO,
THERE IS GOOD AND BAD IN EV’RYONE.
AND WE LEARN TO LIVE, WE LEARN TO GIVE EACH OTHER
WHAT WE NEED TO SURVIVE, TOGETHER ALIVE.….
- Sir Paul McCartney (c)
Later this week, Sir Paul is receiving the Gershwin Prize from President Obama.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power ,
the world will know peace."
- Jimi Hendrix (thanks to Len and Libby Taubman for forwarding)
Not lost in translation!
It is interesting that what we are witnessing right now is just simply the digitization of books formerly printed in paper. For over 500 years, books have been written and conceived with Gutenberg’s guidelines in mind (Gutenberg is the inventor of the mechanical printing press).
But since the advent of computers and now of the Internet, so many new possibilities have emerged – and yet the printed world has barely changed. The advent of the Kindle, the iPad and other portable reading devices has so far simply resulted in turning analog print into digital print, while keeping the same linear prose format.
If you stop to think about it, we are stuck in one model that, while beautiful and applicable for much good, is certainly not the only model to serve all potential needs that books can serve.
Over the coming years, the whole way we think of e-books and just "books" will probably change. One day it will not be "surprising" to read, within a book, interactive pictures and images akin to the ones you see in Harry Potter movies – those quirky 3D moving photos within the wizards’ magical newspapers.
And it is also quite conceivable, indeed likely, that multimedia forms will reinvent how we do storytelling and how we provide information. Why stick to just prose, or just music, or just newspaper, or just video? Why not create new models for information that combine elements of them all?
Why assume that a linear story is best? Why think that a book is necessarily different from a video-game? Someone will come up with a book that merges some elements of a game with different endings. Analog examples already exist. And digital multiple-choice endings already exist. But we have not even begun exploring all the new possibilities presented by electronic "readers."
And why assume that a book needs to first be written and published, then read, then auctioned off to a Hollywood producer who then helps create a movie version of the movie? Someone will surely create a way to inform or entertain that combines elements of both – and more.
The potential for reinvention of the "book" is so far totally untapped.
Bono just wrote an opinion piece advocating, among other things for 2010:
So it seems OneVoice should invite Bono to join its Honorary Board, alongside music and change icons like Sir Paul McCartney.
Article pasted below…
While many of the choices on TIME Magazine’s Top 10 lists for 2009 were lame or uninspired, here are a few worthwhile picks:
MOST HILARIOUS VIDEO:
Bonnie Tyler spoof of 80s (Other viral videos: I had already noted great videos including of Susan Boyle, and there are other good ones like this wedding procession, the post-it film "deadline", the mock ad for Flutter that underlines the silliness of the world we live in, and the baby dancing that even my grandmother had forwarded me)
FUNNIEST AD:
Hulu
COOL AND DEEP:
The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.
Also Cool Scientific Discoveries:
I was surfing through TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. While many of their choices seem random and uninspired at best, some gems hidden among their finds included their choice of Adam Lambert’s "Mad World" among their top songs. I read the lyrics several times, pasted below, and listened also to the original Tears for Fears performance (also below).
When I was a kid in San Antonio, Texas, newly arrived from a sheltered upbringing in Mexico City, I enjoyed the song but didn’t relate to it – or understand why it resonated so much among American kids who "had it all."
In Mexico City, in every corner on popular streets there was an indigent kid begging for alms and struggling to survive, so kids that had a home and a family didn’t generally question their lot. Why then, would kids who could eat American cereals for breakfast and go to Malibu Grand Prix feel deprived?
In retrospect, this song hits such a chord with the alienation and loss of meaning that many feel in modern society, primarily in the developed world. Serious challenges of course are faced every day by struggling kids. But much of it also has to do with the framing of those challenges. "How bad do I have it relative to the 30,000 children who literally starve to death every day?"
The search for depth and meaning, and reaffirmation of our special fortune amidst so much wealth and excess, and of our role and duty to find our own way to make this a better world for others, are critical to the health and happiness of future generations.
In very real ways, thinking of others and kinding others (ie, doing conscious acts of kindness for others) gives us meaning and fulfillment.
Mad World lyrics
Songwriters: Orzabal, Roland;
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Goin’ nowhere, goin’ nowhere
Their tears are fillin’ up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
Children waitin’ for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sits and listen, sits and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
A raunchy young world
Mad world
© ROLAND ORZABAL LIMITED;