Glengarry Glen Ross endures mainly as a spectacular display of verbal warfare and alpha-male gamesmanship. There’s a musical quality to it, with a great composer and a great chorus hitting the complicated runs of broken dialogue and solos that weave into profane poetry and nuggets of philosophical wisdom. Perhaps the greatest sign of the movie’s success, owed equally to Mamet’s script and this cast, is that it does a great sales job in itself, convincing us that there’s nobility to men who lie for a living — a bill of goods we’re all too happy to buy. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Sep 29, 2011 -
67 comments
‘Everyone is a worker.’ That is a powerful statement, if you think about it. Richard Scarry wasn’t afraid to paint contemporary American society in such bold strokes. Nor was he afraid to explain commerce and capitalism to children. -
What Do People Do All Day.
posted by Artw
on May 4, 2011 -
34 comments
São Paulo Fashion Week, the nation’s most important fashion event, has been forced by local prosecutors to ensure that at least 10 percent of its models are of African or indigenous descent. The model scouts see it differently - it's all about what sells. "The goal" Brazilian model scouts say, "is to find the right genetic cocktail of German and Italian ancestry, perhaps with some Russian or other Slavic blood thrown in. Such a mix, they say, helps produce the tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin and light eyes that Brazil exports to the runways of New York, Milan and Paris with stunning success." Yet, "on the pages of its magazines, Brazil’s beauty spectrum is clearer. Nonwhite women, including celebrities of varying body types, are interspersed with white models. But on the runways, the proving ground for models hoping to go abroad, the diversity drops off precipitously."
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Jun 8, 2010 -
38 comments
Whole Foods takes London.
This South Kensington flagship store is the "quasi-messianic" company's biggest ever, comprising 80,000 square feet spread out over three floors offering 10,000 grocery items.
In true American style, shoppers can choose from 1,000 different wines, 425 cheeses, 40 types of sausage, 55 in-store chefs, a pub called The Bramley, a sushi bar, a champagne and oyster bar and a DJ-booth to play music for late-night shoppers.
The locals seem overwhelmed by it all.
posted by chuckdarwin
on Jun 29, 2007 -
86 comments
Busted! In one of the biggest counterfeit busts in years, a 19-month investigation reached its climax on Tuesday as federal officials conducted early-morning raids throughout the NY
metropolitan area, arresting 29 people, seizing more than $230 million in merchandise and ultimately dismantling three operations believed to have imported more than $700 million in fake products over the last 24 months.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Jun 27, 2007 -
147 comments
Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.
The prepared text of the speech delivered by Dana Gioia at Stanford University Commencement on June 17, 2007.
posted by cgc373
on Jun 26, 2007 -
153 comments
A Mall Divided (youtube) - a musical tale of commerce, employment and electrical distribution for our times.
posted by Artw
on Dec 18, 2006 -
9 comments
" Jim's ghost was in my ear, and I felt terrible". Like all top classic-rock franchises, The Doors can exploit a lucrative afterlife in television commercials. Offers keep coming in, such as the $15 million dangled by Cadillac last year to lease the song "Break On Through (to the Other Side)" to hawk its luxury SUVs. To the surprise of the corporation and the chagrin of his former bandmates, drummer John Densmore vetoed the idea. He said he did the same when Apple Computer called with a $4-million offer, and every time "some deodorant company wants to use 'Light My Fire.' "
posted by PenguinBukkake
on Oct 5, 2005 -
119 comments
Could any of us really score a photo scoop? Scoopt is an on-line photo agency that purports to help us amateur photographers
sell photos to news outlets. You join for free, but they take a 50% cut of the profit. Is it worth that to have an on-call agent? Just in case I happen across a major news event some day? On the other hand, I like being a part of the Creative Commons world of
Flickr, where my "artsy" shots are available for further artistic use.
posted by mmahaffie
on Aug 12, 2005 -
5 comments
All Pop Art. Do you like Andy Warhol pop art? Did you want
your face to be on it? Is your narcissism overwhelming? I always viewed pop art as having a sense of irony, poking fun of mass culture. When mass culture then embraces and produces pop art based on themselves, is this a reflection of the apocolypse? I think this is similar to going back in time and meeting yourself.
posted by geoff.
on Nov 7, 2004 -
12 comments
U.S.Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens [...]The report also found that businesses and their attorneys were 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs and their attorneys to be sanctioned by federal judges for filing frivolous claims or defenses. The report, Frequent Filers: Corporate Hypocrisy in Accessing the Courts, is available by clicking here.
“Corporations think America is too litigious only when they are on the receiving end of a lawsuit,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “But when they feel aggrieved, businesses are far more likely to take their beef to court than are consumers.”[...] more
posted by Postroad
on Oct 10, 2004 -
19 comments
The Father of the Shopping Mall "His most remarkable innovation--unveiled in
Edina, Minn., in 1956--was the first enclosed shopping mall, a climate-controlled community of retailing under a single vast canopy. But it was intended to be more than just a place to shop. It was to provide a center to otherwise centerless developments, offering community, entertainment and even enlightenment. Gruen lamented that Americans, at the time, were living 'detached lives in detached houses.' With his shopping-center designs, Mr. Hardwick writes, '
Gruen hoped to offer a corrective to this grim and soulless American environment.' "
posted by jamsterdam
on Dec 24, 2003 -
30 comments
How to make money off terrorism. This outfit will e-mail you "near real-time notices about terrorism related news and events as a free public service" and expects 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers. According to their
news-release page, "when subscribership reaches significant levels the email alerts will be an effective advertising medium for in-house efforts as well as outside advertisers." As in, for example, "Alert: there has been a biological warfare attack. This message sponsored by Clearasil Anti-Bacterial Soap."
posted by beagle
on Aug 21, 2002 -
13 comments
This saturday is the 2002 National Day of Action Online communities have done a good job of covering stories about big corporations abusing their powers online to squelch the efforts of programmers, researchers, designers, music enthusiasts, etc. But what about their offline agenda? Masquerading beneath the guise of the
Adventure Pass program is an attempt to extend corporate control to our public lands.
From the press release:
"Among others, primary sponsors of the fee demo and Adventure Pass are Walt Disney Corp., KOA Campgrounds, and Coleman Co. If the fee demo becomes law, the legislation will allow these companies and other to develop
commercial enterprises on public forest lands in partnerships with the Forest Service."
posted by johnjreeve
on Jun 13, 2002 -
1 comment
eDesign is a new magazine/web site dedicated to "interactive design and commerce." Nice design; bummer about the frames.
posted by kirkaracha
on Apr 7, 2002 -
13 comments
Click and pay? Imagine if one company held the right to collect a fee each time an Internet user clicked on a Web site link...
posted by Spoon
on Feb 11, 2002 -
16 comments
Don't tax my Amazon Purchase! Legislation is in process to
permanently prohibit taxes on Internet purchases. Whatever will Massachusetts and California do for revenue? Tax a satellite or two, I'd guess.
posted by dwivian
on Aug 3, 2001 -
9 comments
Nordstrom, J.C. Penney, and FTD take some advice from Yahoo's porn advocates and drop Christian on-line store because of its connections to the American Family Association. Just Surreal. Or The Power of Porn?
posted by skallas
on Jun 3, 2001 -
8 comments
I think they got a bargain. A company which was in financial trouble let a kid come in for two weeks as an intern. He took a look at their business, immediately set up a web site for them to sell their product, and they promptly received an order for 70,000 pounds through that web site. It appears it will save their company.
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Dec 28, 2000 -
5 comments
"They appear to have been skilled workers capable of stupendous productivity under harsh circumstances. When they failed, it was not from lack of inventiveness, but because of poor leadership, bad luck or the inherent instability of all-male commercial ventures."
It sounds like the writer is describing the typical failed dot-com. Actually, he's writing about 17th Century commercial colonization of North America. The similarities are quite amusing. Read on...
posted by ratbastard
on Nov 23, 2000 -
1 comment
Western Union's site is down, as
hackers have accessed their "secure" database. Western Union's only suggestion so far is to tell all customers to cancel their credit card accounts. Is anything
really secure on the internet? Do you trust amazon to hold your credit card numbers, Wells Fargo to keep your checking account private, and Kozmo employees not to pilfer your credit card numbers for fun?
posted by mathowie
on Sep 10, 2000 -
8 comments
(close-up on my face, quickly zooming out to an overhead shot as I yell)
Noooooooooo!!!!! TicketWeb, one of the last places you could buy a ticket to a concert that wasn't Ticketmaster, just got
bought out by Ticketmaster. TicketWeb's slogan is "The Online Ticketing Alternative." Not anymore....hello, monopoly anyone?
posted by mathowie
on May 30, 2000 -
7 comments
can states have a foreign policy? the Supreme Court today will review whether state and local governments can protest human rights in other nations by restricting purchases from companies that operate in those countries. the court will decide whether states, by restricting purchases, are making foreign trade policy, which, under the Constitution, is the duty of the federal government.
posted by palegirl
on Mar 22, 2000 -
0 comments
Scientific American has an interesting article on brand loyalty on the web. Researchers at MIT are concluding that people stick with familiar commerce sites. Even though the web is supposed to enable shoppers to choose from any site, they instead stay with their favorite, even paying more for the security and familiarity. The researchers also concluded that $20 off coupons and bargain deals aren't going to bankrupt top sites, because it's a considerable investment (from a user's prospective) to shop at a new commerce site, and the offers offset that cost accordingly.
posted by mathowie
on Feb 21, 2000 -
0 comments
I buy a lot of stuff online:
books,
music,
stereo stuff,
clothes,
camping equipment,
watches, and
computers, but I can never find shoes online. Yeah, I know it's pretty hard to try on shoes over the web, but I have big feet (size 13 or 14 depending on shoe manufacturer) and finding shoes in a store is usually a problem. So I found
some skate shoes at
Fogdog the night before last, and
I noticed the package is going to be here tomorrow. They only charged me $2.99 for shipping, but they sent it 2nd day air. Does Amazon share their records with anyone? Does Fogdog have access to my VISA records? I'm happy to get my stuff quicker and cheaper than I thought, but it seems a bit weird. I keep thinking I'm flagged somewhere in a database as the gullible impluse buying type...
posted by mathowie
on Nov 5, 1999 -
0 comments
