Bagels and Bongos

Inasmuch as it has no competing titles, And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl is destined to become a classic of its kind.

Authors Roger Bennett and Josh Kun were recently interviewed on NPR about their journey collecting and annotating their book of album covers. It's particularly worth listening to for the clips from the albums themselves.

While these images may suggest a certain kitschiness to the project, the book seems to be a legitimate labor of love. As the authors note, they were searching for answers to questions about thorny topics like their own Jewish heritage and why so many of these vintage records were available in Boca Raton.

The Coolest Water Balloon Video in the History of the World

NPR’s Talk of the Nation posted what is apparently the coolest water balloon video in the history of the world. (I know, that’s sort of a grandiose statement given that water balloons weren’t even invented until the 21st century.)

In it, mechanical engineers Mark Weislogel (of Portland State University) and Seth Lichter pop water balloons on NASA's low-gravity training aircraft nicknamed the “Vomit Comet.” Four years ago, NASA announced that crews kept track of the amount of astronaut vomit cleaned up in the jet over the years. The total was over 285 gallons. Sounds like Mr. Lichter may have added to that. (Sorry, can’t embed the video; click on the picture below to follow the link.)
Yes, this teaches us very important aspects of physics; as one observer noted, “In addition to the surface tension observations, it appeared they were doing some quick & dirty trials on fluid collision behavior—” Ooh, another one popped!

Advertising Helps Me Decide!

How can a country retain its unique culture in the face of American imports? Is the best course to stop imports from reaching the marketplace, or to make homegrown products that can act as replacements?

Dunno. But I do know that Islam for Today is touting Dara and Sara dolls as “Iran’s Islamic alternative to Ken and Barbie.” The site quotes toy seller Masoumeh Rahimi, who sees the danger of girls playing with Barbie and eventually rejecting Iranian values. She said:

"I think every Barbie doll is more harmful than an American missile."

I guess that makes the Bratz some sort of Doomsday Devices.

Dara and Sara were developed by an government agency known as the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. Since the agency is also in charge of marketing the dolls, it might consider using the ad strategy known as Organic Product Integration (OPI).

No more painfully obvious "product placement." With OPI, instead of just SHOWING a product in a TV show or movie, the product instead becomes an integral and “natural” part OF the show. (I’m all for integration! And organic things are so... natural.)

So now, products aren’t just products anymore. As Nela Ulabi’s NPR story makes clear, now the product is almost a character. Thus, the sponsors of a reality show make sure that contestants will be use their cars/drinks/phones while competing. And those products being discussed by the ad execs on Mad Men? They're not there by accident.

So now ads are always lurking in the background. You can't TiVo them out of the program... they ARE the program! How can American culture survive this onslaught of marketing? Robert Weissman of the group Commercial Alert suggests TV shows be required to warn viewers when OPI is occurring.

But I’ve got a simpler idea: Import more Dara and Tara dolls into the US. The rest will take care of itself.