midafternoon.
She takes on all the great networks one by one. Visits their stages if she can get in, or calls on corporate offices and sets up ad hoc job interviews. They all love the languages, and she’s obviously vivacious enough to do PR, so she gets good penetration. She’s in her good clothes—the tight little suit and the big lethal hair. Killer fragrance and the smile nailed on, and off she goes.
She infects everyone at MTV, but gets nervous when one of their marketing clones decides to do a search on
Klic!
She smiles and steps out of his office to take a call, puts the phone to her ear and just keeps going out onto the street.
It feels good. It feels wonderful. She’s on top and if the germs on her hands are still good, she’s taking God’s revenge with every breath she takes, every taxicab, every elevator button pushed, every handshake. She runs on espresso and chocolate, and is not shy about taking on targets of opportunity. She goes into the
New York Times
offices and asks to put in an ad, then stops the whole process to think about maybe buying a bigger one, or maybe she should talk to someone else about proposals for
Klic!
’s upcoming U.S. market launch. With newspapers tanking and ad revenues sinking, they bend over backwards to accommodate her.
Elevators rising, falling.
At one point she catches sight of herself in a mirror—a buzzing Italian diva, bursting out of her fitted power shirt, heels drilling all the way down into the diseased psyche of the Americans. Like a leper hiding under layers of theatrical makeup. Shameful, decaying, and broken. She glimpses herself in the reflections on windows, on polished granite, in the facets of revolving doors, lenses of security cameras … Now she is a brain virus, she thinks. Some germ that divides and divides, leaving the victim berserk, memories lost, perceptions gone awry. She will spark nightmares, hallucinations, delusions.Now they will talk in tongues and flay themselves as they are driven mad.
And nothing shows on her face. Nothing at all.
When entertainment and information merchants are proud of a show, there are always posters, shrines to promote the current hits produced or picked up by whatever corporation she’s visiting. Walls of smiling or smoldering young actors—boys still in the throes of puberty, girls waiting for the right guy.
Then there are the so-called reality shows, the business shows. Celebrity gossip and game shows. As one penetrates deeper into the well-appointed offices of the studios, the décor shifts, displaying memorabilia from more-venerable hits. Often she will recognize an actor’s face from a familiar role—Eva Longoria in
I segreti di Wisteria Lane
—but there are plenty of icons from television shows so ancient they are unintelligible, cultural artifacts that should be in a museum:
The Lone Ranger, I Love Lucy, Mork & Mindy
.
By late afternoon, she is dazed and needs to sit down somewhere to rest her feet and eyes.
It’s insane. Everywhere there is advertising. Where she looks, or where she chooses
not
to look—pays off for these people. Oh, it’s not much, but later, statistically, when she thinks of spending some money, she’ll make a decision. Usually that decision will be made in ignorance, with no hands-on knowledge. At that point she will pick a brand—maybe the last one she’s seen, or the first one that comes to mind, but always one that she
trusts
or
likes
. Those feelings can be measured, those feelings can be evoked with images. And it’s everywhere.
You can’t look away. They won’t let you.
America is the site of a good idea gone insane, she thinks. Its fragile psyche is propped up by a few precarious narratives. A hero will come along into the executive office. America is the biggest, the best, the most successful. She wins the most gold medals, has the meanest army, the highest tech. Americans are proud to respond should they be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.
She takes on all the great networks one by one. Visits their stages if she can get in, or calls on corporate offices and sets up ad hoc job interviews. They all love the languages, and she’s obviously vivacious enough to do PR, so she gets good penetration. She’s in her good clothes—the tight little suit and the big lethal hair. Killer fragrance and the smile nailed on, and off she goes.
She infects everyone at MTV, but gets nervous when one of their marketing clones decides to do a search on
Klic!
She smiles and steps out of his office to take a call, puts the phone to her ear and just keeps going out onto the street.
It feels good. It feels wonderful. She’s on top and if the germs on her hands are still good, she’s taking God’s revenge with every breath she takes, every taxicab, every elevator button pushed, every handshake. She runs on espresso and chocolate, and is not shy about taking on targets of opportunity. She goes into the
New York Times
offices and asks to put in an ad, then stops the whole process to think about maybe buying a bigger one, or maybe she should talk to someone else about proposals for
Klic!
’s upcoming U.S. market launch. With newspapers tanking and ad revenues sinking, they bend over backwards to accommodate her.
Elevators rising, falling.
At one point she catches sight of herself in a mirror—a buzzing Italian diva, bursting out of her fitted power shirt, heels drilling all the way down into the diseased psyche of the Americans. Like a leper hiding under layers of theatrical makeup. Shameful, decaying, and broken. She glimpses herself in the reflections on windows, on polished granite, in the facets of revolving doors, lenses of security cameras … Now she is a brain virus, she thinks. Some germ that divides and divides, leaving the victim berserk, memories lost, perceptions gone awry. She will spark nightmares, hallucinations, delusions.Now they will talk in tongues and flay themselves as they are driven mad.
And nothing shows on her face. Nothing at all.
When entertainment and information merchants are proud of a show, there are always posters, shrines to promote the current hits produced or picked up by whatever corporation she’s visiting. Walls of smiling or smoldering young actors—boys still in the throes of puberty, girls waiting for the right guy.
Then there are the so-called reality shows, the business shows. Celebrity gossip and game shows. As one penetrates deeper into the well-appointed offices of the studios, the décor shifts, displaying memorabilia from more-venerable hits. Often she will recognize an actor’s face from a familiar role—Eva Longoria in
I segreti di Wisteria Lane
—but there are plenty of icons from television shows so ancient they are unintelligible, cultural artifacts that should be in a museum:
The Lone Ranger, I Love Lucy, Mork & Mindy
.
By late afternoon, she is dazed and needs to sit down somewhere to rest her feet and eyes.
It’s insane. Everywhere there is advertising. Where she looks, or where she chooses
not
to look—pays off for these people. Oh, it’s not much, but later, statistically, when she thinks of spending some money, she’ll make a decision. Usually that decision will be made in ignorance, with no hands-on knowledge. At that point she will pick a brand—maybe the last one she’s seen, or the first one that comes to mind, but always one that she
trusts
or
likes
. Those feelings can be measured, those feelings can be evoked with images. And it’s everywhere.
You can’t look away. They won’t let you.
America is the site of a good idea gone insane, she thinks. Its fragile psyche is propped up by a few precarious narratives. A hero will come along into the executive office. America is the biggest, the best, the most successful. She wins the most gold medals, has the meanest army, the highest tech. Americans are proud to respond should they be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.
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