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Douglas Holt and James Twitchell

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from: James Twitchell

The Importance of the Ephemeral

Posted Tuesday, May 29, 2001, at 12:54 PM ET

Hi Doug,

I think we're going to enjoy this gig. It has everything I like: superficial medium (e-mail), superficial subject (advertising), and superficial commentary (a personal favorite).

In the spirit of the piece I want to thank you for putting me onto this book The Empire of Fashion by Gilles Lipovetsky. Usually I can't stand those French sociologists, but this guy is a hoot. OK, the translation seems as if it were done by a computer program or the guy is an occasional gasbag. Plus the title is wrong. It should be The Empire of the Ephemeral, which is what it was in French. But the second part of the book is startling and has me--whoops!--thinking.

(BTW: Doug and I don't know each other. We met at a convention of enviros in February--"Beyond American Consumerism" presented by the Boston Research Center--where I represented the forces of chaos and the devil. That's when Doug told me about this book; it was published about 20 years ago and pretty much ignored.)

All this has me thinking about the importance of the ephemeral. Like why it is that the first 100 pages of Vanity Fair (the magazine not the book) are so much more interesting than the articles. All those ads for needless stuff. Ditto infomercials. I love 'em. So let's start there, with clusters of ephemeral ads. I'd like your hit and run on one of the more interesting clusters, the display ads on Pages 2 and 3 (and sometimes 4-6) of the daily New York Times. On Sunday they expand to two columns, but the format stays the same. All my life they have been there, and all my life they have been essentially the same. Tiffany in upper right, Cartier upper left, Saks middle right. What the hell are they all about? Never changing. Always there. Metronomes.

It's like the Times is saying before the news, before our opinions, have a gander at this. THIS is what it's all about. Or is that just an English professor who is paid to talk nonsense?

Anyway I'd like to know how a sociologist sees them. Or, if you'd rather not, we can look at something else.

I gotta go teach. I'm teaching summer school. The romantic poets. I know you're not working this summer. Maybe you can find time between Jerry and Oprah. Hey, it could be worse. You could be having to listen to me drone on about Shelley.

Best,
Jim

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718192021
from: James Twitchell

The Importance of the Ephemeral

Posted Tuesday, May 29, 2001, at 12:54 PM ET
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James Twitchell is supposed to be teaching English literature but is more interested in the marketing of stuff. He has written books on advertising (Adcult USA, Twenty Ads That Shook the World) and has a mild defense of luxury consumption coming out next year (Living It Up: Why We Love Luxury). Douglas Holt is a professor at Harvard Business School.
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Let's talk about coffee. Joseph Britt., below, was just one of many--follow the thread, and consider the question of tipping the barista. He still had time to discuss milk, here, too. And Brendan Herlihy took on ice-cream here. Neill Hamilton is looking for more "dissent, anger, blood feuds... I want the people writing in the Breakfast Table to open up life long vendettas" here (he always is, he's the Breakfast Table's official trouble-maker), but Richard Walrath enjoyed the banter: "it's almost like being there with the third cup of coffee."]


We're really talking about two different things here, aren't we? Coffee, and then all the froofy coffee-influenced liquid dessert-style beverages that take up most of the space on coffee house menus. I have nothing against the latter (because making fun of them is always a good time), but coffee is a really serious subject. If you're going to drink something nearly every day, it might as well be good. This is why I've never understood all the sneering condescension directed at Starbucks. Pre-Starbucks, most coffee served in public places was awful--you were ahead of the game if you ordered came out hot, caffeinated and with no taste at all. OK, most coffee served in public places is still awful, but with Starbucks you at least have the choice of having a good cup of coffee.

I confess I think Starbucks is slipping, based on extensive research I've done at the Minneapolis Airport. They used to offer a rotation of different coffees--Sumatra, Mocha Java, even New Guinea--but now seem to mostly serve up a couple of blends with names like "European" and "Christmas." Talk about your brand marketing. Also they routinely serve the coffee so hot you wonder if there is something wrong with the water they're using.

--Joseph Britt

(To reply, click here.)


 Maybe the students in Mr. Twitchell's anecdote couldn't tell good poetry from bad without guidance, but this doesn't strike me as being universally true. Poetry isn't my thing, but music is, and I have no trouble separating the good from the bad using only my own ears. If there wasn't something intrinsic in good art, we wouldn't, over time, have come to a general agreement about the relative worth of, say, Mozart vs. Salieri.

--Chloe Pajerek

(To reply, click here.)

 (5/30)

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