TV in the 60s was a vast wasteland with occasional oasises of excellence — on the quarter hour. Here are three classic commercials. Little visual haikus with a commercial element.

Remember . . .

Rembrandt was paid to paint the burghers.
Michelangelo, the patron saints.

First, Blechman’s Christmas season promo for CBS.

Invent a malady and provide a cure.

Lastly and most fastly.

Match the dictator with his pre-political profession.
A. Hitler
B. Mussolini
C. Stalin
D. Pol Pot
E. Mao

1. Journalist
2. Art student
3. House painter
4. Librarian
5. Divinity student

Answers:
A3, B1, C5, D2, E4

Did you notice, no lawyers? WTF.

Shot the source photos for this in Bedford, Indiana in a place I heard referred to as Bosnia.

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The component images of this photo remix were shot at a nicely overwrought hotel in French Lick, Indiana.

The emphasis on the external context of a work is most compelling in texts which combine, like a collage, artistic and non-artistic components (e.g., the realistic novel with its frequent digressions of a referential nature) or which employ special, “extra-textual” devices (e.g., the epilogue and prologue) to create a distance between the author and the work and explicitly to place the latter in a historical and social setting.

I thought

at first

that there was

some sort of a problem

of course

if you think there’s a problem

there IS a problem

even if that’s the only problem

which it isn’t

this problem has to do with depth

too much here

too little there

perched

nearly naked

on a rotten timber

above a fathomless hole

in the dark

with flat-soled salesman’s shoes on

best just not to move

really I’m lightly

food poisoned

from the buffet

in the guest suite

of a molded plastic products distributor

near the convention hall

where for three days

plastic paid all the bills

wait wait wait

if I just lie down

right where I am

and stay absolutely still

they’ll eventually find me

and put me in a room

with a tv

with a remote

which I can tune

to a nature show

with little ferret-like animals

cute ferret-like animals

(hell, they could be ferrets)

running all over

and I can get out of the bed

and climb on a chair

and put my eye

right up to the tv

and feel the electricity in my cheek

and see the bright little pixies

that hid my clothes

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A little Elizabeth Taylor, a little Joan Miró, a little Arthur Schopenhauer, a little Alain de Botton.

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Where are we before we’re born? The little death. Here in a little house.

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Tears, cracks, rifts, schisms, borders, skins, interfaces. Real and imagined. Visible and invisible. Emotional and rational. Everyday. All the time.