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Punchline courtesy of Violet Towne – xxx
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Sun 5 Oct 2008
In Praise of the Pickled Herring
Posted by anaglyph under Art, Competition!, Food & Drink, Hmmm..., Poetry
[23] Comments
Today,while looking for something else entirely* I came across an image of a curiously titled painting, ‘In Praise of the Pickled Herring’, by the 17th century Dutch painter Joseph de Bray (someone of whom, until today, I was entirely unaware).
The website where I learned of Joseph, which is dedicated to ‘Food in the Arts’, leads me to believe that this painting is a fine example of ‘Fish Still-Lifes’, an artistic niche that had also previously (and regrettably, I must add) passed me by.
This is the full version of the painting (click to get a closer look), which features, as a centrepiece, a stone table drapped with herrings and onions, and inscribed with the poem that gives the painting its name. It was penned by preacher and poet Jacob Westerbaen, and contains the picturesque declaration that the consumption of pickled herring:
Will make you apt to piss
And you will not fail (with pardon) to shit
And ceaselessly fart…
I immediately set about attempting to track down a complete rendering of Westerbaen’s poem, because if anything at all in this world is certain, it is that Cow readers will be clamouring to learn all that is to be known about literature that involves soused fish, poetry and bodily functions. It appears, alas, that no-one has seen fit to bring the genius of Westerbaen’s herring musings to the digital world, which is a shame because I feel it is more than obvious that there is a monumental dearth of pickled fish verse in our lives today. To that end, faithful Acowlytes I know you will more than rise to the occasion, so I’m declaring a TCA competition:
Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write a paean to preserved fish. You may include references to the digestive process if you wish. Most importantly you should understand that you toil in the shadow of greatness – make Jacob Westerbaen proud!
There will be a real prize this time.
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*Another reason I love teh internets.
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Fri 3 Oct 2008
Take a Tablet For God’s Sake!
Posted by anaglyph under Blogging, Idiots, Religion
[15] Comments
Atlas draws my attention to a story at Times Online about a group called the Evangelical Alliance (representing ‘thousands of churches of most denominations worldwide’) who have handed down what they call The Ten Commandments of Blogging. It seems that church leaders have suddenly become aware of the actual landscape of the internet and are worried that God Bloggers might be falling prey to Satan’s wiles. This is entirely in keeping with my hypothesis that the thing that scares religions the most is that their followers might one day get access to actual facts and start questioning the fundamentalist status quo.
The Commandments that the EA has decreed* include such pithy paranoid edicts as: You shall not put your blog before your integrity (whatever the crap that means), You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind (OK, there goes 90% of the Blogosphere) and You shall not steal another person’s content (there goes the remaining 10%).
Also of note is the weighty You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content. Wha? Does anyone really care about their ‘blog ranking’ so much that it needs a commandment?
I haven’t spent much time on blogs dedicated to Christian Evangelism (I mean, who could really be bothered?) but it seems to me that if the Christian corner of the blogosphere is in such dire need of guidance that the Powers That Be feel compelled to issue ‘commandments’, then it must truly be a seething Sodom & Gomorrah of iniquity and maybe I’m missing out on something.
I get the distinct feeling, though, that it’s all a ridiculous beat-up in the vein of the Vatican’s idiotic Ten Commandments of Motoring and with all that in mind, you can see that I have no choice but to post The Tetherd Cow Ahead Ten Commandments of Blogging:
1-10: Thou Shalt Not Create Blogging Commandments†. It’s pointless and stupid and will send you straight to Hell.
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*One has to wonder how they got the dispensation to do this. After all, the original Ten Commandments were personally handed to Moses by God.
†And yes, I am completely aware of the recursive nature of my actions.
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Wed 1 Oct 2008
Around the Bend
Posted by anaglyph under Daft Advertising, Idiots, Stupidity, Work
[7] Comments
The Reverend’s Adventures in Advertising, Episode 2.
The advertising world has many peculiar little niches and enclaves, and one of these is the realm of the Car Commercial. Cars are to advertising agencies as cows are to Hindus – sacred beings that are talked about in hushed tones and showered with rose petals.
I’ve done the music and sound for a number of car ads and I don’t think any one product ever gets as minutely scrutinized and picked over as the automobile. And almost invariably, after the ad agency creative directors have finished conjuring up hyperbolic pitches full of unbelievable superlatives and interminable drivel, the majority of car advertisements end up being nothing more than pretty pictures of the car in question driving around winding country roads. All the client ever cares about is seeing pictures of the car. Car car car. They can’t get enough of their car. No matter how clever the copy, or how novel the conceptualization, all they want to see on that screen is pictures of the car. What’s more, they fool themselves into thinking that everybody else thinks their car is as fascinating as they do too, and in this they are, for the most part, completely wrong.
One particular car ad that came my way was no exception. As usual, it began with a phone call from the ad producer:
Producer: Hi. We’ve got this great spot that we’d love you to look at. It’s got your name written all over it!*
Me: Uh huh. What’s the skinny?
Producer: W-e-e-e-l-l-l, I can’t tell you too much about it over the phone. The concept behind this one is ultra top secret.
Me: Right. Well, I’d like to know something about it before I commit to it…
Producer: OK, I have some storyboards that I can send you, but it’s super confidential.
Me: No problem. Mum’s the word.
Producer: So if I fax them over now, can you make sure you stand next to the machine. Don’t let anybody see them.
Me: O-k-a-a-y.
Producer: Promise that you’ll stand next to the machine and take them off straight away.
Me: I promise.
Producer: Because this is really Top Secret. It’s all very hush-hush. We don’t want news of this idea getting out before we have it ready to go.
Me: Sure. I understand. Super Ultra Spy-Level Top Secret. I’ll read the boards and then eat them.
Producer: I’m sending them right now. Stand by. [Hangs up]
I wait expectantly by the fax machine. The pages of the storyboard slowly peel out. First frame: a car drives down a country road. Second frame: a car drives over a hill. Third frame: a car drives through a tunnel. Fourth frame: a car drives over another hill. Fifth frame: Closeup – a car taking a bend. And so on.
I think of a possible way I could leak this to the media: “You’re never going to believe this – their car can turn corners! And it’s got wheels. Yup, that’s right, FOUR of the danged things. Underneath. Yessiree. I swear on a stack of bibles – I’ve seen the badly-drawn pictures.”
I didn’t do the ad. I think they saw me as a security risk.
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*This line is usually followed by “We don’t have a lot of money for this one…” In this case it wasn’t.
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Tue 30 Sep 2008
The Bleedin’ Obvious
Posted by anaglyph under Idiots, Simple Graphics Man
[10] Comments
The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~
#32: The Bleedin’ Obvious.
Part of Simple Graphics Man’s job description must surely read ‘Show ability to absolve employer from the stupidity of even the most dimwitted of morons’. How else do we explain this sign – there is actually nothing in the doorway that a normal person could trip over. Unless the point of it is that the sign itself is the tripping hazard, in which case the whole thing is so bafflingly self-referential that we are left to infer some kind of conspiracy by sign manufacturers.
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Thanks to hewhohears for this latest SGM sighting.
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Mon 29 Sep 2008
Violet Towne made me this ultra-geek-chic pin for my birthday.
