Not I

Samuel Beckett allows the author to turn language into the motor of dramatic action. You see this clip projected on a wall completely in the dark. This ‘machine gun of words’, a mouth that talks about itself in the third person while repeatedly denying its identity, synthesizes with great formal purity the use of the voice in artistic productions. Love it.

Seen in MACBA (Barcelona, Spain).

Coffee & Cigarettes

Most memorable moment from Jim Jarmusch’s (2003) film. It consists of 11 different shots of people around the theme coffee and … cigarettes. Iggy Pop and of course the always surprising Tom Waits at their best.

The Hitchslaps

My apologies for being kind of inactive on this blog for the past weeks as I’ve been busy with school work and some other stuff which has been on my mind. One thing however that has kept me busy is the legendary Christopher Hitchens who passed away in December 2011 and I blogged about back then (click here). There’s lot of material to be found on youtube of this great man and I can say … I think I’ve seen it all by now. Here I share with you some highlights of his past presence. His debating skills, intellectualism, knowledge, moral thinking and strong personality are not to be forgotten and without any doubt to be supported. I believe and I truly hope this will be a man future scholars will learn and be thought from. This is one of the greatest thinkers our world has seen in the past decades. And if that wouldn’t happen … then the world would be still going the same path: eating itself morally from the inside out.

A ‘Hitchslap’ has become an internet phenomenon by now in which they refer to a strong argument by Christopher that has the ability to completely destroy his opponent reasoning. A you can be sure, he has A LOT of those on his legacy.

Hitchens was fighting at the forefront for the freedom of speech, a humanistic moral approach on mankind, a rational approach of the world and a destruction of the theocratic fascist doctrine that is responsible for the main source of hatred in the world and throughout history and civilization (if not declining civilization). I strongly advise you to dig in more into his books, writings, speeches and thoughts and LEARN from it. He had such a clear, well-defined and objective view on how mankind is better off without this doctrine and thinking for himself.

I suppose for the majority of my readers which are still my friends: this is the time you can choose whether you click on this website to make me happy or whether you actually open yourself to absorb some knowledge and open wisdom, university has not brought upon you yet. I can only urge you to take your time for this. You have no idea how important it is.

On circumcision and the Jewish tradition

On Christian missionary missions and the Catholic Institution

On the role of hope

His last words

This video literally made me cry. Perhaps because it reminded me of my dad who went to the same kind of struggle, but also because you see such a fragile man yet still overwhelmed by a strong will. A person who knows his last days are to be count but holds tight his opinion, vision and belief. A man so decent, moral and human that got tens of death traits daily saying he would go to hell, still battling for that he stood for and dedicated (the last part of) his life to.

Christopher, the scotch and smokes may have killed you, but at least you had it in your own hands. We need more people like you. Intelligent, knowledgeable and fighters against a threat that is destroying our secular society, free thinking, moral decency and personal self-esteem.

To put it in your words:

“To me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet; that I haven’t understood enough; that I can’t know enough; that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And I’d urge you to look at… those people who tell you, at your age, that you’re dead till you believe as they do; don’t think of that as a gift. Think of it as a poisoned chalice. Push it aside however tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”

Thank you Christopher.

When the Light Goes Out …

Why We Wear Boxers

Sometimes advertising does more than bring you a (positive) brand awareness. Advertising has the power to fundamentally change something in the world or show us what exactly has to be changed. Sometimes bigger, moral issues come up. Sometimes smaller stuff. Like why men wear boxer shorts instead of those tight Speedo-looking seventies underwear slips.

In the middle of the eighties, one of first accounts the fresh started BBH won was Levi Strauss Jeans, or Levi’s. Not only did John Hegarty’s team a fantastic job to put an old workmen’s outfit into a young sexy position that still holds its fame; the work they produced also put the new agency on the map of being the new creative hotspot of London (and later on globally). One of the ads, and also one of the most popular ones (next to the poster of the black sheep that later became BBH’s identification mark), was this TV Commercial:

The original script of the TVC had the main character stripping until only wearing a slip. Because that was what the people wore in those days. Especially the young ones, since boxers were considered diapers for the elderly (time changes …). But when the British Advertising Watchdog got their eyes on the script, the forbad the agency and the brand to have a young man only in a slip on national television. So the agency proposed whether they could use boxers. Note that in those days they strongly believed it would decline the appealing effect of the ad because of the just mentioned reason. The Watchdog approved.

Not only did Levi’s sales climb rocket high they had to pull off the ad after a couple of weeks due stock shortage; sales for boxer shorts suddenly set a new record in the country! Suddenly the youth thought differently about wearing boxers and by the late eighties, we suddenly see a shift in male underwear for young people, as of this day still making guys buy boxers instead of Speedo slips. The brand, nor the agency ever meant for this to happen (if only Levi’s sold boxers then as well), yet it did, all thanks to the British conservative system back then.