Art?

An artist in New York is having an exhibition of photos that'd remind us all of bio lab in school. Its called "Product Dissections", and is basically photos of toothpaste tubes cut up, and pinned...

The logic behind it? According to the artist, "Toothpaste lent itself to be a perfect starting point, because the extremity of its marketing these days has gone into bizarre realms of colors and flavors to attract the new consumer with the bright and shiny and the new and improved. The tubes are also quite anatomical."

Good to see someone trying something different, and trying to make statement against over-hypey 'product innovations' that mean nought, but if this is art then I am Michaelangelo and Monet put together :)

Img (c) Erik Boker.

Holy Ganga beds!

One recieved a 'patriotic' forward a while ago - an article from yesterday's Indian Express about an IIM-A* grad who chose to go back to hometown Patna, and sell vegetables. We are so cool/ different/ great now. Unusual choice of careers. Think big. Give something back. Nice.

Not! One doesn't know who's weirder here - the writer or the subject, but they're both trying really hard...

Some gems:

• 'We are perhaps the only country that grows vegetables in the holy Ganga beds.' : Well, that could be because we're the only country that has a 'holy Ganga', could it not?
• 'Our fertile land boasting of rich history with Lord Buddha and Nalanda would only add to the marketing of Bihar vegetable': Land fertility is connected to history is connected to vegetable marketing? I'm sorry... What?
  
• 'A cart comes for Rs 45,000-Rs 50,000': Bombay Hindi-to-English, translated word-for-word. Writer needs English lessons.
• 'brand name “Samriddhi” (progress)': Writer needs Hindi lessons too (Samriddhi means prosperity not progress).
  
• 'a digital weighing machine assuring of correct calculation' : Weighing scales that calculate? Holy ganga beds!

Appalling ideas (one isn't doubting the nobility of the 'Brand Bihar' aim, just that the guy has no clue how to get there) and writing that reminds one of a line in a Penn Masala song -- 'I failed Inglis, but that OK, baby'.

Sigh!


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* IIM-A: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Stuff I'd never have known without seeing ads on TV

1) There is an actual Hicksville ... somewhere on Long Island, of all places.

2) So you've wrecked your body eating waaaay more than you ideally should. No worries! Buy a diet plan / stepper / vaccum cellulite deleter thingamajig (preferably all of the above) to go from hippo to hip in one month. Seriously!

3) One bartender can crush 3 mint leaves in a mojito glass for so long that the world has heard him doing it (*and* is, strangely enough, dancing in time to his pestle's movement), but when he stops... the mint leaves are still untouched. Bacardi invents the uncrushable mint leaf?