Do You Trust the Hathaway Man?
Commercial Craziness
I hate television commercials. I always turn the sound off when one looms. Generally, I also avoid looking at the screen until, by a glance, I see that my show (usually a sporting event) has resumed. However, in my peeping at the tube, I have noticed a strange trend relating to SUVs. It appears that their only purpose in life is to be driven to the edge of a cliff.
Advertisement Craziness
I have no idea what this means:
Banality of the Day
“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
(What if life neglects to give you sugar also?)
Lost to History
People have been making lists of formerly-ubiquitous items (like dial telephones and typewriters) that have outlived their usefulness or have been superseded by other inventions. Add to your list traveler’s checks (even American Express no longer issues them).
No Present like The Times
After many years of subscribing, I had to give up getting the daily paper many moons ago because of erratic delivery in my portion of Ultima Thule. Before the hard copies stopped coming, I sensed that the paper was edging away from me. There were two portents in the Styles section. First, there was an article extolling the merits of wearing designer Band-aids—even when not scratched or bleeding. Second was the search by a contributor who was keen to discover his “signature scent.”
This week I was given reason to wonder if the paper was edited for any real human beings. The object of my concern was an article entitled “$2 Million Homes in Buenos Aires.”* The article described three interesting housing options in the capital of Argentina. Now, here’s where the Times lost me. How many people eager to uproot themselves to the Southern Hemisphere, I wondered, had 2 million smackers underneath the sofa pillows just ready to plunge them down on property in Buenos Aires? Did the Times first survey its readership to determine if there are numbers of such dissatisfied (rich) persons itching for a change? At a production meeting did the discussion go as follows?
“Let’s see: we have 15 readers who would like Montevideo; 37 for Rio; 69 for Buenos Aires; and 13 for Lima.”
“Then it’s Argentina for us. Geoffrey, get someone in Real Estate to dig up some apartments—make ‘em fancy. Kinda like Soho-ish.”
Ahead of the Times
Probably no group of humans are more prescient than cartoonists. Here is a drawing by James Stevenson for the November 16, 1960 issue of The New Yorker—and a picture of the automobile Elon Musk shot into space on February 6, 2018.
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