Ad Nauseam A Survivor's Guide To American Consumer Culture Edited by Carrie Mclaren and Jason Torchinsky

Ad Nauseam A Survivor's Guide To American Consumer Culture Edited by Carrie Mclaren and Jason Torchinsky

This book is a compilation of essays from the magazine Stay Free. These essays are critiques of American consumer cultue. They focus on various subjects in advertising covering such topics as the history of medical quackery in advertising, corporate culture, advertising techniques, and other anti-consumerist topics. Many of the essays are quite funny. There is a mix of history, criticism, surveys, interviews, photographs, and pranks.

There is quite a bit on how advertising effects our daily lives. For example the reason we cannot get free glasses of water at restaurants without asking is because of the recent trend selling bottled water. Also, advertising has moved into our schools with pictures of candy in our textbooks and jury selection being effected by television shows like Miami Vice and L.A. Law.

The book is helpful if you want to immunize yourself from impulse buying. The advertising tactics of raw emotional appeal, pictures instead of words, and convincing people consumption is automatically good are critiqued. We learn how advertisers created an emphasis halitosis and dry skin as well as many other modern maladies.

The best thing about this book is the humor. There is a very funny article on the history of "Subliminal Seduction" debunking it. The article makes reference to the book, The Clam Bake Orgy by Wilson Brian Key one of the silliest books I have ever read.

There are black and white pictures throughout the book. Some of the better ones are the Marlboro baby and a tattoo of the Nikes logo on a persons ankle. In addition to pictures there are quizzes at the end of some chapters.

This was an entertaining and informative book to read. It might turn off some people with its anti-suv, prank lovng, privacy oriented, remove all ads from school political correctness, but if you want to convince your dog to love your ipod this is the book for you.

Daily Thoughts 6/26/2009

Portrait of a Man of Noble Birth With a Book by Hokusai

Daily Thoughts 6/26/2009

Today has been a pleasant day. I read some more of Ad Nauseam on the subway to work. It is a rather entertaining critique of advertising. A lot of it is very funny. I especially liked an interview on an extreme fan of the Little Mermaid. People are devoted to commercial products in extreme ways.

This morning, I have been organizing things a bit to prepare for next week.

I also learned that the American Library Association has a Wiki. There is a section on it for graphic novels which is something I enjoy a lot. http://wikis.ala.org/professionaltips/index.php/Graphic_novels

Today was a rather quiet day. We are labeling in the sorting area for books. We are also rearranging the shelving. I pulled some more gift books to be added. We are creating another bookmark this time for books on autism.

I took a break this evening and watched some of the Max Fleischer Betty Boop cartoons on dvd. I checked it out from the library. Fleischer Studios has some fantastic old fashioned cartoons. I find the music and artistic quality to be better than many of the more modern cartoons. Small Fry by Fleischer Studios is one of my favorite cartoons.

Daily Thoughts 6/25/2009

Statue of Astrid Lindgren in Stockholm

Daily Thoughts 6/25/2009

On the train to work I read some more of The Carrot Principle. It is focused on the idea that recognition drives goal setting, communication, trust, and accountability creating better results. It is a book designed to sell a business study much like the book Good To Great.

I wrote another bookmark in publisher. This time it is for inspirational christian fiction. We have a lot of churches in our city. I tried to find the bestselling authors. With the bookmark, I also did an order for christian fiction titles.

I have also been doing weeding and keeping the displays up to date. We had a visiting librarian from the system looking at our ESL collection this morning for weeding and selection of new materials.

I picked up another book to read, Ad Nauseam A Survivor's Guide To American Consumer Culture, Edited by Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky. I am not that fond of most mass consumption. I do consume a lot of books though. I am a bit focused on reading all the time.