Perhaps because I’ve felt as if I’ve finished a couple, but my eyes have been drawn to marathons of late. Maybe it’s that irritating commercial from Marathon Oil, whose new jingle implores you to “put a tankful of freedom” in your guzzler. (Does that make the Prius the official vehicle of the Socialist Marxist Party?). …
May 24, 2015 Welcome, friends, family, friends of family. Dearly Beloved: We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. That line comes courtesy of Prince and Annetta. When I asked the couple what they’d like in their vows, Annetta quipped that the first thing that came to mind was the …
By circumstance and TV viewing habits, I’ve been particularly attuned to the advertising world of late. And while I still believe corporations will be the ruination of America (we seem to have forgotten that money burns), business may be unintentionally performing a public good. Consider: Three years ago, six states recognized gay marriage. Today, it’s 36 — plus …
The ArcLight Hollywood is a famous theater on a famous intersection choked by famous traffic. It’s impossible getting to the Cineramadome at Hollywood and Vine without taking the clogged arteries that surround those L.A. hearts. Tourists, street performers — and aggressive panhandlers — teem at the intersection, which serves as a sort of catch …
Some commercials can’t help but eclipse the shows they sponsor. Like this, which, at 0:21, captures sir Theodore’s embarrassed eye aversion as if he’d starred in it.
I daydreamed about American business today. I don’t usually. It’s ugly. Business is what we substitute for living in the animal kingdom, where most residents meet their fates by being eaten. So, too, in business. The race to the swift. The weak are devoured by the strong. Mercy is not in the equation. Except when …
Of all the romance languages, can anything touch music’s resonance? It’s weird familiarity and otherworld-liness? What is it, if not a language? One that resides somewhere in all of us, usually as receptor, but sometimes as that rare transmitter. And my god! the brilliance of those who can speak it. Even the burnouts and dummies. …
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here, that life exists, and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass “Am I doing the right thing?” Not before, nor since, have I asked …
The Hollywood Bowles 