Month: September 2001

Attack!

I heard some guy on the street telling a cop that he just saw a plane hit the World Trade Center. He didn’t look like a crank, but the cops seemed as dumbfounded as I was confused about why they were listening to him. Until I looked up and saw the cloud of smoke in the sky. I went up to my office on the 20th floor of a midtown office building, where I could see the smoking top of the WTC through the window, while a TV showed a replay of the second plane colliding with one of the towers. They’ve shut down all the airport, bridges, tunnels, and downtown subways while they wait to see if the damage is done for now, or if the city is actually under attack by terrorists.

I’m trying to log on to various news sites for updates, but I think there are going to be lots of logjams on the new feeds today.

My brother was in the WTC when the bomb went off there in 1993, and he heard this massive boom and turned around to see hundreds of people starting to run his way. Before he was even able to figure out what was going on, he had to turn and run before he got trampled.

Day to day, we forget to worry about things like this, but every once in a while we’re reminded that it’s damn dangerous to live in a major city with so many powerful symbols. We’re a big, sitting duck in many ways.

But I’m OK, in case you’re worrying, Mom.

Consumers Should Be Seen and Not heard

I’ve been completely absorbed in Naomi Klein’s No Logo : Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies lately, which is a fascinating read. Granted, it’s preaching to the choir in my case, but she really does a wonderful job of articulating a lot of things that stick in my craw about the state of marketing and branding these days, among them:

We have almost two centuries’ worth of brand-name history under our collective belt, coalescing to create a sort of global pop-cultural Morse code. But there is just one catch: while we may all have the code implanted in our brains, we’re not really allowed to use it. In the name of protecting the brand from dilution, artists and activists who try to engage with the brand as equal partners in their “relationships” are routinely dragged into court for violating trademark, copyright, libel or “brand disparagement” laws — easily abused statutes that form an airtight protective seal around the brand, allowing it to brand us, but prohibiting us from so much as scuffing it.