you can learn a lot by observing . installation #03 . 07.25.11
I received an anonymous email, the subject line blank, from an undisclosed mailer-daemon via an untraceable IP address. I retrieved the suspicious email from my junk box and proceeded to read the fwd:ed post. I've reposted it here because I think the writer expresses a valid point of view. I don't know if the correspondence would pass the snopes.com for real or for sure standards; true or false, urban legend, you decide. Not for nothin’, I'm mean, I'm just sayin'.
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July 25, 2011 2:42pm pst - mail delivery failed - mark as unread
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On a perfectly random and cloud free Paradiso day... where the temperature was a mild and pleasant 87 degrees, though to some, particularly them that complain about everything, it felt more like a comfortable, but, "could have been better" 87 degrees, with one degree of separation between us, owing only to the cool southern breeze blowing north by northwest against our backs, or into the wind, depending on which direction you're facing, along the right coast, and I don't mean the correct one, ‘cause it doesn't come with added values as advertised. But then that's the point.
I was minding my own business walking through a well-trafficked concourse in a quasi downtown-city-center-type-of-lifestyle-evolution-center, a demographically correct descendant in a long line of overextended super-sized malls where the self righteous number crunching, "too much is never enough for me" types, meet on the corner of Every Street & Nowhere Avenue in order to practice cosmedaesthetical devotion to the almighty, "Say amen!", three-way Monte, while conjuring deceptively hard to follow practices caste upon beauty school graduates; all the while, fooling some of the folks enough of the time.
It was then that I should chance upon a glass encased directory... drawing attention to what would surely be construed as a local "top" hair salon & spanktuary, if not for real, certainly in the fig newton of sum body's nabisco mind... only to observe subliminal and obviously faux attributes in the glass encased display of beauty.
I bothered to notice the enclosure in the first place because the hair was remarkably intricate and I wanted to see who manufactured this elaborate, if not particularly wearable, hairstyle.
I make it my business to read fashion and beauty magazines, keep up on trends and notice little details like: the model, her haircut, color, style and makeup, the clothes and accessories, the lighting, the pose, the composition, the image itself and the credits. I enjoy looking for the credits. Reading the names I learn the contributors. I take pleasure, pride and sometimes envy, when I discover a friend or colleague had done the hair or makeup. That’s always cool!
Giving credit where it is do, some photographs provoke thought, many inspire and others are designed to draw you in, then distance you from your senses, followed by your moolah.
An intelligently designed image will create a false perception leaving you with the impression and expectation of a kind of talent that cannot be replicated for real, but somehow seems accessible to you from the people who posted the photo, though the posters had nothing to do with its creation. As if I were a magnifying glass I scoured the margins for credits. I couldn't find any.
On the unaired pilot of his new television show Copacetic Style, the show’s resident fashion maven, Leslie Wayne said, “As I see it, with the exception of high-end Madison Avenue advertisements, if a salon or hairdresser were to provide hairstyling, makeup, cuts, and color for a photo shoot, then there are three self evident Occam's razor truths. To that end, i. you would want the world to know that you did the hair and makeup, ii. you would want to avoid being superfluous by stating the obvious; or, iii. you or your salon did not do the hair and in that case you would simply lie by omission.” Logic, rationale and the devil’s advocate notwithstanding, the subliminal effect has done infiltrated your cognizance.
Now, it isn't uncommon, and it is an accepted practice among folks who wish to create a perception beyond their actual means, to participate in a cooperative promotion, which may have been bought, paid for and exploited with the intent to create some reality show anticipation, and less than fantastically truthful perception, of whatever unrealistic expectation they would perpetrate on our sensory consumptions, per se, as well as, furthering brand awareness of the Fortune 500 company who picked up the check.
The glass-encased promo also featured a "Pull Quote." Entertainingly enough, in the same episode of Copacetic, Mr. Wayne said, “When someone writes something nice about you, knowing full well you are going to share the accolade with others, in order to increase your "credibility quotient" in the mind's eye of the "quota fulfilling” consumer, the fine print clearly stipulates that the "quo-tee" is obligated to include the name of the "quo-ter" as it were. Otherwise any one can just put "anything in quotations" and "pretend someone of renown" actually praised them. It makes sense and dispels reasonable doubt.
There have been other displays of self-proclaimed beauty by this beaut of a salon & spasylum unconscionably perpetrating reprehensible acts of mistaken identity. While I recognize the power of self and promotional strategies, I know this won't be the last time someone with an interest in growing their market share by any means necessary will pull a publicity stunt of calculated shenanigans. Personally I prefer the sound of my byte to have a bias toward something substantially real. And that's my marketing bent.
Bent as I am, I suspect life isn't easy for most people. If I were candid, I'd tell you I am a terribly troubled human being; that it takes something for me to generate myself every day. I don't wake up in the morning all cool and what not. If I somehow make aspects of life look as if they come naturally it takes something from me.
Like clouds in the sky, I watch petty thoughts go floating though my brain. I have doubts that I will ever measure up to a standard I've become and will almost always never measure up to. However, I have no intention of becoming a poster boy for purging, or perjuring myself by being candid. Whatever it is I'm up to I want to be thoroughly used up before I burn out like a brief candle in the eye of a hurricane.
After all, aren't we just one degree of separation away from one another, trying to sort things out, finding our own way, carving our names in the stone of some small niche of an island known as Marquet Cher.
When push comes to shove and you find yourself admittedly between a rock and hard place, like Joseph Heller dealing with a mild case of Ken Kesey's syndrome, what else is there between us but feeling the cool southern breeze blowing through our hair, with the window open, or the top down, against our backs, or into the wind, depending on which side you're taking.
At the end of a cordial day let’s come clean. Doesn't it always come down to the weather anyway? That’s what we all have in common. The weather connects us by degrees of separation.
Just another self-proclaimed civilian activist, in a great metropolitan hamlet, fighting for truth, justice, and some other way, almost any other way, than this way or that way.
(Reprinted without permission because it was anonymous; touché avec moi nom de plume.)
"Be cause; New York is wherever I am."
coming in (a) future installment(s) ...
"being a heterosexual male hairdresser is just like being god."
"a science, an art and the human element"
"the tao of (dry) haircutting" ... 10 dry cutting secrets revealed
© 2011 David Kinigson and the musified group. all rights reserved.
