It’s changing, the world is: shifting. In another few weeks, it’ll have slouched as far as it can, like a rocking chair that’s juuuuust about to tip over. And then, hopefully, it’ll creak upright again (whatever upright means in a place where all axes are relative).

There’s an anxiety that comes from bowing so deeply to the sun. It hurts the lungs, compresses them. At times, it’s hard to breathe.

It’s a Pavlovian response, really. The tension spreads slowly, keeping pace with the slow spread of sunlight, the widening gap between sunrise and sunset. The wires pull tight with the first blast of summer heat — which in my case is the first day I turn on the living room A/C, the day I sprawl on the sofa, a light sweat making me juuuuust that much uncomfortable. It’s then that I think to myself: less than a month ’til hurricane season.

A few years ago, that wouldn’t have bothered me at all. But now, it’s like, it’s like boarding a plane in a thunderstorm, or packing to spend a vacation with the in-laws: there’s a bumpy ride ahead and nothing to do but take some downers, chug a beer, and suck it up.

Chances are good that we’ll get through this year just fine. Chances are good that if someone takes a beating, it won’t be us. Chances are good that our chances are as good as anywhere else, but no better.

FYI, I’ve never heard of Gel Semina, but apparently, the company’s website has separate areas for gay and straight customers. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it does give their marketing team license to get a little more outrageous, since they can tailor their messages to different demographics.

(What is it with me and sex ads and demographics, anyway?)

Oh, and Gel Semina also runs mildly amusing videos:

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x5v1bz

Brazil is off the chiz-ain, yo.

In response to Scab, who happened to post the companion piece, Jim Hopkins’ “This Is Acid”.

Also: I had NO idea there was video footage of Ms. Trax.

Also also: Trax? Trax…. Sounds Basque, no?

So here’s the deal: if you deforest your nads, Philps will plant a tree on your behalf:

[if you must know more: www.shaveeverywhere.com/deforestation.html]

Proof that you can combine poor hygiene aesthetics, terrible product promotion, and (alleged) corporate social responsibility in one battery-powered package.

[via Towleroad]

[via AwkwardBoners]

I can smell it. At least I thought I could.

I spent most of yesterday in Baton Rouge, and when I returned to New Orleans and opened my car door, something was definitely wrong.

We have a lot of unusual scents in my neighborhood — most of them good. Like the smell of coffee wafting over from the roasting facilities by the levee. Or the scent of Hubig’s pies being pulled from the oven.

This was different. It was soft, but vaguely acrid. Man-made. Bad. Not as strong as the chemical leak we had in Hahnville last year, but noticeable. Even to someone not gifted with le nez.

My first thought, of course, was the oil spill. But that couldn’t have been it — could it? At the time, the slick was still miles and miles off the shore of Grand Isle, and New Orleans is miles and miles from Grand Isle. (At least 90 as the crow flies, I think.) Surely I was just being paranoid.

But others reported smelling something, too — so many that it made the evening news. No one seemed to know where it was coming from. So far as I know, they still don’t.

The scent isn’t there today, but then, the weather’s changed. This morning is humid, stuffy, a wall of suspended water; I can barely smell the banana I’m eating.  That’s a far cry from the crisp, dry air of yesterday that might’ve — might’ve — carried anxious molecules of petroleum up over the mouth of the Mississippi River, across breeding grounds for terns, turtles, and tuna, all the way to my little corner of the precious, precarious Faubourg Marigny. So really, who’s to say?

Equally weird and disconcerting? The tone of the nonstop news coverage. “It’s coming in!” “Where’s it going to hit?” “How bad’s it going to be?” That’s not the sort of language anyone wants to hear just as we’re heading into hurricane season.

Even so, the two events are related: today’s oil spill will mangle the marshlands that would ordinarily reduce the force of tomorrow’s hurricanes.

Hooray for irony.

1. No, seriously: B.O. Is The Sweet Smell Of Success. Thankfully, this is more innocuous than it sounds and has nothing to do with SJP.

2. Taco Bell Foundation for Teens Awards $1.8 Million to Teen Serving Organizations Fighting America’s High School Drop-Out Crisis. Which seems a little short-sighted, because without high school dropouts behind the register, where would the fast food industry be? But you know, good for them, doing the right thing.

3. Most understated headline of the day: A Hip-Hop Contest to Promote a Brand. If the New York Times really wanted to ramp up readership, it would’ve titled the article, If Auto-Tune Can’t Make You Sing, Maybe a Big Dick Can.

4. In hilarious but unsurprising news: Wynonna’s Next Release Available Exclusively at Cracker Barrel.

5. Finally, the trophy for Worst Ad of the Week goes to these guys:

“Your business just got easier”? As I recall from fourth grade (yes, we learned chess at my snooty elementary school and I was nerd enough to love it), this situation is at best a stalemate, and at worst, illegal. A king can’t move adjacent to another king, because that would, of course, put the first king in check, too. So basically, what we have here is an advertisement for shady business practices, and IMHO, businesses are shady enough without encouragement from magazines.

And as if that weren’t awful enough, there’s a companion ad that shows just how little these people understand the piano.

At long, long, long last, my dear closepersonalfriend Christeene has an EP for sale, featuring the naughty, jaunty “Fix My Dick”; the Mary-J-meth ballad “Tears from my Pussy”; and my personal favorite, the four-in-the-morning-k-hole experience otherwise known as “slowly/easy”.

Presumably you understand that neither the music nor the videos that accompany them are in any way safe for work unless you work from home, and even then, your walls should probably be well insulated. You know: Gladys Kravitzes are everywhere.

Anyway: let the buying begin!

And for those who’ve forgotten the wonder of Miss Christeene (and who’ve slipped Gladys a roofie), a little afternoon pick-me-up:

http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf

This has nothing to do with anything, really, but since I’ve been working on so many ads and other graphic design pieces the past few weeks, I’ve spent lot of time wondering: what’s the best way to tell a story? That came up the other day when I stumbled across a slew of “edgy” condom ads, and it’s arisen again this morning, thanks to two unrelated pieces that deal with the same issue: freedom of the press.

The first comes directly from Reporters Without Borders, courtesy of Saatchi & Saatchi Paris:

Advertising Agency : Saatchi & Saatchi Paris, France
Client: Reporters Without Borders
Creative Director: Christophe Coffre
Art Director: Florian Roussel
Copywriter: Guillaume Blanc
Artistes: Stephen J Shanabrook & Veronika Georgieva
Retoucher: Panit Pundarik
Published: April 2010

And the second is a subscription pitch for Italy’s Il Manifesto — one that leverages data from Reporters Without Borders to play up fear of censorship:

Advertising Agency: TheName, Rome, Italy
Executive Creative Director: Carlos Anuncibay
Creative Directors: Alessandro Izzillo, Daniele Dionisi
Art Director: Alessandro Izzillo
Copywriter: Daniele Dionisi
Account Director: Luca Micheletta
Photographer: Andrea Melcangi
Published: March 2010

The two asks are very different — the former is soliciting donations to a nonprofit, the latter is soliciting subscriptions to a daily newspaper — but the emotional appeals are nearly identical. And that raises the question: which story sells? Is it the first, which clearly identifies a shared enemy and creates an immediate, visceral bond between the organization and the (presumably non-Chinese) reader? Or is it the second, more conceptual piece, which entices the viewer to linger longer on the page?

I suppose there doesn’t have to be a winner — Geico’s simultaneous gecko/caveman/creepy-money-with-eyeballs campaigns make it clear that multi-pronged approaches work just fine. But if I were trying to make a statement, and if I had a limited budget (as I always do), and if I had to choose one, which would I pick?

Although I love the simplicity and elegance of the second piece, I’d probably wuss out and go for the first because of very stupid, technical reasons:

• it’s got a face (phenomenologically, I think that’s important)
• it’s a big face
• it’s a recognizable face
• it tells the story very quickly

The paper texture is also a nice tie-in to the journalism message. And — call me crazy — but it’s vertical, and as a big ol’ drama queen I love tall, dramatic verticals.

Yes, people: these are the things that I think about at 5:30am on Wednesdays.