Ho, ho, what the hell?

I was…I don’t know, I was doing something the other day, and I had the TV on. As usual, unless it’s a foreign film or something that actually engages my interest (or something so gobsmackingly bad that I’m nailed in place, like the Father Brown series currently running on PBS), I wasn’t really paying attention.

Look, the TV for me is basically a talking lamp. It’s background noise for doing other things.

Anyhow, there I was, doing whatever it was, and I heard some Christmas song being  done entirely by little bells. So I glanced up, thinking it was the Hershey’s Kisses “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” commercial—you know, the one where the chocolate doing the “yeeeeaaarr!” note kind of goes bananas.

But no. It was not. It was a line of boxer-shorted guys shaking their stuff just like the kisses did. Only to “Jingle Bells”. And it ends with the guy on “sleigh” doing essentially what that Kiss does; with, so to speak, a flourish. Play it again, you’ll see what I mean.

Imagine my surprise—and my gobsmacking paralysis to see this: I mean, really—I kind of stood there, mouth agape, eyes blinking in disbelief. It was a huge change from my expectation of cheap little chocs—to cheap little…oh, never mind.

Then I realized it’s for Kmart. And not yo mama’s Kmart, apparently.

(Although, in fairness, when I went to look up the video, I couldn’t remember what the commercial was for—store, shorts, Chippendales, what. Which means it’s not the best possible ad—you’re supposed to lock into the product being sold. Or maybe it just means that I’m not a Kmart customer and there’s nothing that’s going to change that.)

And it’s generated some controversy, as you might imagine.

For me, the bells in a commercial is always going to mean Hershey’s kisses doing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, even though I don’t buy them or eat them. But I’m going to be a lot more careful when I look up the next time I hear those bells.

And it’ll be interesting to follow Kmart’s sales performance this season. And other, you know, performances.

Let the flashing begin

We’re moving inexorably into the Holiday Season, as you know. (As of Tuesday, at least, the town of Los Altos actually had its civic Christmas décor out. Ugh.) And don’t know about you, but I could use a flash mob to help me into it.

(As an aside—yesterday I went to Dreamforce, the Salesforce user conference extravaganza. Wouldn’t you know—the one day it actually rains after more than nine months of not a drop is the day I have to walk from the Caltrain station to Moscone Center. The Salesforce people also hadn’t counted on rain—this year they took over Harrison Street, between Moscone North and South, for what was probably intended to be a bucolic experience, complete with AstroTurf, but no one was taking advantage of all the little tables.

(I have to say, too, that Salesforce partners and companies that build applications that integrate into Salesforce, are not nearly as interesting as the security companies I talked with at the last Moscone event I attended, the RSA Security Conference. Plus—these people were desperate to scan your badge. I watched one of the chicks at one booth offer someone walking past a chocolate square. When the woman took it, the chick demanded her badge for scanning. That’s harsh, man.

(However, my point here is that any conference or trade show is a perfect venue for a flash mob of some sort. Why is no one filling this need?)

So here’s a flash mob in Köln, playing the “Star Wars” theme. Enjoy.

Concise communication

Since I’ve been on a historical rampage, let me share something with you. I came across this in my Twitter feed—a letter to the Telegraph in 1913. In it, one Bertha Brewster summarizes the whole Woman Suffrage issue, as well as offering the only two possible solutions, in a total of 56 words (including salutation and closing):

Two thoughts on this:

1) She was right.

2) Who’s gonna argue with someone named Bertha Brewster?

These honored dead

In the months following the carnage at Gettysburg in July, 1863, there was a movement to turn part of the battlefield into a national cemetery honoring the fallen of both sides. (Yes, primary consideration was for the Union dead. But, you know, it was probably hard to tell some of them apart, and, in the end, every one of them was somebody’s boy.) By mid-November they were ready to dedicate the burial grounds.

Those in charge had invited Edward Everett, former president of Harvard College, former US Representative and Senator from Massachusetts, former Governor of Massachusetts, former Ambassador to Great Britain, and former Secretary of State (under Millard Fillmore), to deliver an address properly commemorating the occasion. Everett was one of the foremost orators of the day—and it was a day when orators were, uh, rock stars.

Listen—150 years ago, there was no streaming media, no IMAX theatres, no high fidelity sound systems, no—you know—rock stars. Oration was a standard, accepted form of providing both information and entertainment. Think of them as the infomercials of the 19^th Century. Only they generally went on for longer than 30 minutes. You judged an orator by how long he held your attention no matter the weather.

Everett was a sure bet for multiple hours, so he was good value for the event organizers.

They also invited President Abraham Lincoln to deliver a few “dedicatory remarks”. It seemed like the thing to do, although he definitely was not the draw. Due to Everett's schedule, the dedication was set for 19 November.

Lincoln wasn’t feeling well that day, so he would not have been in top form—although in fairness, even in top form he probably wouldn’t have been rated in the rock star region. Everett’s speech lasted for two hours (and more than 13,000 words), and by all accounts was received with acclaim, both from the crowd and the journalists present.

There was a musical interlude, and then Lincoln stepped up to speak. There’s some question now as to the exact wording of his remarks—there are different versions floating about. But, in comparison to Everett, he’d only just started when he sat down again. Just a few minutes, just ten sentences. Then the choir sang a dirge and a preacher pronounced a benediction. Lincoln didn’t hang around, but took the 1830 train back to Washington, with a fever and a headache.

And yet it’s a stunningly concise summary of the American character at its best, and a continuation of the simple clarity that marked the documents of our Founding Fathers.

I don’t know whether they make school kids memorize and declaim it any more—but if put to the test, I could probably still call up most of it, because even a school kid can get it. (By contrast, “It droppeth as the gentle rain” is about all I can recall of Portia’s quality of mercy speech in The Merchant of Venice.)

It’s worth you taking a look:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln’s brevity disappointed the crowd, and journalists criticized it along party lines. For a while it did indeed seem as though the world would little note what he said there. But we’ve come to recognize that when it comes to encapsulating the democratic ideals on which this country is founded—the unfinished work towards which we should continue striving—no one has ever said a truer word than this speech.

It’s doubtful that any president—even one with Lincoln’s sensibilities—would get away with delivering an address like this these days. (Well, but—Lincoln wouldn’t have been elected these days; doesn’t look presidential, if you know what I mean.) Peggy Noonan in fact has deconstructed how modern professional speechwriters would modify, mollify and magnify all the points necessary to please the maximum number of constituents and piss off the minimum number of everyone else. (Although these days, doesn’t really matter what you say—haters gonna hate.)

So take some time to appreciate that, at one moment in time, we had someone rise to the occasion, speak from the heart—for all our hearts—and get the hell out when he was done.

Gratitude Monday: What you do makes a difference

 It’s Gratitude Monday, and today I’m grateful to have found this story about Austin, Texas, photographer Jamie Moore.

For her daughter’s fifth birthday earlier this year, Moore shot a series of pictures that honors both potential and achievement: the anti-Disney-Princess approach to what a young girl could look forward to.

She chose icons like Earhart, Chanel and Goodall, and made some amazing images. One example here:

The rest are on Moore’s website on the “Not just a girl” page.

What I like about these choices is that the subjects are not perfect by any means. They are tough, confident women whose dreams took them to places many others didn’t want them to be. They flew—literally and figuratively—against the winds of their times; they occasionally crashed and burned. But they kept on.

Since the original story broke (I found it in The Guardian), Moore is looking for contributors to expand the project by photographing girls from all around the world in conjunction with other female role models—Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Josephine Baker, Doris Lessing, Christine de Pisan, Phyllis Wheatley. Well—the list could include hundreds. It's a great project.

Look—I’m not unalterably opposed to Disney princesses. In fact, I quite like Mulan. But the notion that little girls can learn about and aspire to be more than an all-singing all-dancing Barbie is refreshing. You can fly against the prevailing winds in ways large and small, and maybe start with a photograph and the knowledge that others have done the same thing.