note to self: start with inspirational problems

how to get better ideas

note to self: there is no I in customer

Chefs cook and create dishes when they are not hungry, people eat when they are....(anon)

note to self: standing on shoulders of giants

same game different name

A while back Grant McCracken wrote an interesting post about geeks and playas..


I would propose that they are not ying and yang of popular culture, but momentary features of a larger thing. They just happen to capture a timeless mass appeal want and need in a way that fits: getting laid that is...

Larger thing

They both belong to what can be called (as stated by Mr Bruckheimer the producer) the process-culture that we are currently living in. People love to know the how and the what of stuff. If say the 80's and early 90's where the era of High concept ( as invented by the late Don Simpson) the late nineties and 2000 are the age of process (or as John Grant called it, the age of Apollo).

Constant change
Playa/pimp and geek in the this era = the martial arts expert/businessman/sports hero and funny sidekick in the 80's (think nick nolte and eddy murphy, tom arnold and arnold Schwarzenegger, maverick and his sidekick in top gun, sam malone and norm). Bruce Willis in Die Hard could be seen as the transitional form from modern to post modern hero..(but that is a different post for another time).

But the playa and the geek have a method to their madness...it is not pure action..more thinking on your feet. The difference is complexity. The story behind the story. Like MTV's Made show, Do you wanna come in, Heroes, Sopranos, Lost and all the other examples. In the 80's people wanted the hero to win, now we wanna know how he does it, why he does it and what he is doing when he is not a hero. but a hero is still a hero.

Sign of times

It swings back and forth, complexity and simplicity. In times that are good, people are laizes faire, in times that are rough, they want a sense of control. In areas of great data supply we want to be able to make sense of it all, where as in area's where there little data around people want to be able to visualize a better ending, not worry about the pitfalls of how to get there. Not yet anyway.

Would be interesting to see what the top American shows around the world are, and to compare them to the feeling about the future in countries around the world.

I would not be surprised to see a correlation between optimism + lack of data and a need for result shows (like top gun and rambo, which are still huge movies in eastern Europe) and on the other side pessimism + data overload and a need for process shows. If anyone has some data..it is more then welcome.

Note to self: a sense of awe

"We use all of the five senses to create the sense of a sixth one"

Criss Angel, Mind Freak

10 Commandments of nouvelle cuisine

January 2008... the time everybody wakes up from their food and liquor induced sleep and makes the commitment to getting back in shape.

In light of that (and my own fascination with great cooking and even more, great chefs) I will be posting tidbits from the art of cooking.. there are obvious links to marketing, comms, planning, business etc. Sometimes I will expand on them (when I feel I have some usefull comments), but mostly/hopefully you'll get the point just by reading them.

So...let's start with the ten rules of nouvelle cuisine, as written by Gault and Millau:

1. Thou shalt not overcook

2. Thou shalt use fresh, quality produce

3. Thou shalt lighten thy menu

4. Thou shalt not be systematically modernistic

5. Thou shalt nonetheless seek out what the new techniques can bring you

6. Thou shalt avoid marinades, the hanging of game, fermentations, etc.

7. Thou shalt eliminate brown and white sauces

8. Thou shalt not ignore dietetics

9. Thou shalt not cheat on thy presentations

10. Thou shalt be inventive

Enjoy....

. “IF HE USES TEN SYLLABLES IN A LINE, IM GOING TO USE FIFTEEN

Here is a piece from an interview with Bun B. In it he talks about rapping against competition.

Sometimes you gotta zig sometimes you zag, and sometimes u just gotta out do the opponent. There's a lesson in there somewhere....

to read the whole thing go here

BLVR: So a lot of the work you’ve done in recent years—before your solo album dropped—has been guest appearances on other people’s records. I’d like to know a little bit about the practice of writing those rhymes.

BB: Well, the first thing I do is I try to listen to whatever rapping is already on the track. I listen for cadence and melody to see how the track’s already been written, and to make sure that whatever flow or flows I decide to run with, or patterns or melodies that I decide to put into the song, that they’re not already in there. Then I try to see if there’s a different part of the subject matter that I can talk about. If there isn’t, I try to see if I can analogize it, break it down, flip it another way. If that can’t be done, the best thing I can do is pretty much out-rap the guy. And when I say out-rap the guy—say, if he uses ten syllables in a line, I’m going to use fifteen. If he uses fifteen, I’m going to use twenty, twenty-five. If he’s rhyming two or three words within two bars, I’m going to rhyme four or five words in two bars. I’m going to out-skill you.

BLVR: Treat it as a technical exercise.

BB: And just put more into it. Basically, I’m going to take what you did, the bare-bones structure of what you were trying to do, how you were attacking the song, and attack it in pretty much the same way, just with more intensity to show you that you could’ve come harder. Like, I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to tell a cat how to rhyme his rhyme.

BLVR: He didn’t know how to spit it.

BB: Saying it all wrong. You know, like, that’s not how that bends. Which is pretty funny to me, because it means that subconsciously, you can rap, but your conscious mind won’t let you go hard. It might be that they get intimidated. I’ve been intimidated before, you know, but I stepped up to the plate.