Selling Skellig

I just finished “Skellig”, which may be one of the most wonderful books I have ever read, right up there with “The Little Prince” and “Great Expectations”. I remember hearing about the book a long time ago and for some reason letting it slip away – probably because it was a kid’s book. On the cover of the 10^th anniversary edition, there’s a round silver sticker that indicates it won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence In Young Adult Literature, but I know now that no one should let that little bit of advertising mislead them. This is a book for everyone.

In fact, there’s a moment where the story warns against such labels. Michael, the main character, has a really cool and caring friend named Mina who teaches him many things and, unlike Michael, she’s homeschooled and more in touch with the world around her, more in tune with its mysteries and lessons. She takes a look at one of Michael’s schoolbooks and flips though it skeptically.

“Yeah, looks good,” she said. “But what’s the red sticker for?”

“It’s for confident readers,” I said. “It’s to do with reading age.”

“And what if other readers wanted to read it?”…And where would William Blake fit in?” said   Mina. “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright/In the forests of the night.’ Is that for the best readers or the worst readers? Does that need a good reading age?... And if it was for the worst readers would the best readers not bother with it because it was too stupid for them?”

At one time, maybe Disney was capable of something as great as “Skellig”, but I think it’s too much of a factory now, with all the stations assembling parts that fit a demographic – or what a demographic is thought to be capable of, anyway. But what an amazing appeal this is that appeals to everyone. What an amazing reach.

The Super Octopus

     An Octopus was hard at work supervising the mollusks. On this particular day, he had one arm polishing the oyster’s pearl, another arm burrowing the shrimp’s burrows, another arm taking calls for the reclusive hermit crab, one arm shaving for the razor clam, one arm dangling the lobster while another arm was whipping the same lobster for not sweeping the floor and one arm holding the student squid upside down to dispense ink on a book report.

      Suddenly, not too far away, a Fire Squid, the species that could flash light in different colors, was struggling to replace some bulbs that had blown out. The Octopus spotted this and responded, “Oh great! Like I need another job!”

     The Octopus had no idea how he could take on more work; his arms were already full. But no sooner had he grumbled, “Damn, if I only had another arm,” when it hit him, “Of course! I’ll get another arm!” He told his doctor to perform an operation and, as fortune would have it, the transplant was a success. “Now bring me that Fire Squid,” ordered the Octopus.

     Unfortunately, the Octopus found it extremely difficult to coordinate all these arms. His hand-eye-coordination seemed to be out of whack.

     He dropped the Oyster’s pearl, dropped the phone, dropped the razor, dropped the lobster, slapped his own wife with the arm that was whipping the lobster, and he spilled all the ink. The Octopus did, however, manage to get the Fire Squid’s lights working, but not without a nasty shock – a shock that knee-jerked the arm out of the shrimp’s burrow and, like a wild hose, gave his wife yet another slap. Chaos ensued throughout the sea. And no one could help, because no one knew what to do since the Octopus was supposed to do it all.

     From a ripple, came a wave of misfortune. His wife, fed up with being slapped around, left him. Then, despite working harder and faster than ever, concentrating ever more intensely on juggling his various tasks, the Octopus got his arms entangled and stressed out so badly that he suffered an aneurysm. Unable to work, the Octopus lost his old job; and though he eventually recovered from the aneurysm, his reputation as someone who could neither motivate nor work well with others prevented him from finding a new job.

     Destitute and alone, he had no choice but to squat in front of the local fish store and beg for a living. So with one arm blowing the trumpet, another arm hitting the bass drum, another arm shaking the tambourine, two arms on the rhythm guitar, two arms on the upright bass, and – because he now had nine arms – one arm holding out the hat to the passersby, he was a one-Octopus band, a job for which he was perfectly suited.

     One fish recognized him and donated a sand half-dollar.

Moral: Without humility, there won’t be much inspiration or, for that matter, much charity.

The Leap

I'm really not crazy about the name of the exhibit, Faking It: The Art of Photo Manipulation Before Photoshop – it seems surprisingly simplistic for the Met. Also, “Faking It” reminds me of faking IT, you know, faking an orgasm, which I really, really don’t want to experience or learn more about. The exhibit, though, is provocative. There’s this one photo, Yves Klein’s “Leap Into the Void,” that stayed with me.

The photo shows the artist soaring over an empty street with a subtle expression of bliss on his face. Down below, a bicyclist rides by, unaware of the miracle overhead, while at the end of the street a train passes by. 

Part of it was a gag. The photo ran in a newspaper called Dimanche, a fake newspaper – sort of an artsy precursor to The Onion – that was designed to mimic the regular Sunday paper and included texts and visual works by Klein. One theory about this photo, taken in 1960, is that it was protesting the space race that was beginning to heat up. If that’s true, I guess the message was, ‘Leaping into nothing, we are bound to hurt ourselves.’ This seems plausible and maybe that was part of it, but I don’t think that it was Klein’s entire intention.

Mr. Klein had to be thinking about all the new possibilities in this medium. At the time, artists were experimenting with photomontage, multiple exposures, composite portraiture, hand coloring and retouching, all kinds of things, and no doubt Yves Klein wanted to tinker and play, too. Clearly, the caption supports that this was not so much about rocket travel, but about art – “The painter of space hurls himself into the void!” So, was he demonstrating the presence of absence? Was he saying that art is immaterial? Or absurd? Was he simply claiming that we’re now entering a new dimension? I think he was saying all those things. I think he was being provocative, forcing us to not only question whether something was real but to not care whether it was real or not – ‘Accept it on its own terms,’ he seems to say. And it's both silly and profound.

It’s also about the act of making art, our inner space, our imagination. The bicyclist rides by, the train passes by with the rest of the world, and meanwhile who knows what leaps the artist is taking inside his or her head.

In other words, Klein’s goal wasn’t to fake something. Poking and prodding us from different angles, he got us to think about some very real things. We forget about the technique. We don't feel deceived. And we feel stimulated.

Advertising According to Flashman: Or, How Good Advertising Might Get You Laid

After reading a couple of serious books, I told a friend of mine that I could really go for a dose of some intelligent silliness. He seemed to know what that meant and suggested I try the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. In the past, my friend had expressed good taste; he also mentioned that those books were a secret pleasure of Christopher Hitchens. Perfect.

The opening book was hysterical. Harry Flashman is a cad, a rogue, a scoundrel, a British soldier in 1839 who lies and steals and whores his way to Afghanistan and somehow returns to England a hero of the realm. We sympathize and find ourselves rooting for Flashy, because, for one thing, Flashman is no idiot. He cuts to the quick of a situation and, whenever his life is in danger, Flashman seeks what is best for Flashman, knowing that if he sticks to the straight and narrow for the sake of queen and country, it usually means obeying the orders of a bunch of dunderheads. And, you know, he kind of has a point.

At the end of the first book, everybody wants to know about Flashy’s gallantry and glory and Flashy doesn’t mind indulging them – especially when his audience includes a scrumptious tart or two. He reflects about how to effectively trumpet one’s successes, offering the reader some valuable insight:

It calls for nice judgement, this art of bragging: you 
must be plain, but not too plain, and you must smile
only rarely. Letting them guess more than you say
is the kernel of it, and looking uncomfortable when 
they compliment you.

This is good advice for advertisers, who essentially have to brag without appearing like blowhards.

I took “It calls for nice judgement” to mean that the product satisfies a very real need. This applies to how we demonstrate the product, as well. Is it simple? Is it logical? Our thinking has to come off clear-headed and our actions intentional. 

“…you must be plain, but not too plain” means, I think, that we must speak to the consumer honestly and directly and yet still manage to  position ourselves as an expert. We don’t want to pander; we don’t want to condescend.

“…you must smile only rarely” recommends that we not enjoy talking about ourselves too much. Bragging is, let’s face it, self-serving, so the trick is to seem considerate.

“…letting them guess more than you say” goes to the art of our communication, which is as much about what we incorporate into the story as it is about what we leave out. If we tell it artfully, we will conjure the consumer’s imagination and perhaps even inspire.

Finally, “looking uncomfortable when they compliment you” is about showing some humility, about the character of the advertiser, not seeming overly desperate and pushy or confident and presumptuous.

Yes, Flashman is a smart guy. And reading this book as a mature-ish guy, I couldn’t help wishing I had read his memoirs long ago, when I was single and carousing the clubs and could have applied some of its inspiration, when being a scoundrel could have been excused by my immaturity.

As soon as he spins his tales and feeds the golden opinions of him, Flashy reaps the rewards:

                That night was memorable for one thing – I had my 
                first woman for months, for Avitabile (an Italian 
               guard and fellow rascal) had in a couple of lively Afghan 
               wenches, and we made splendid beasts of ourselves.

Flashman got results.