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Monday, September 08, 2008

billboard


nice billboard. droopy.

billboard
nobody cares

10 comments:

Nomi Lubin said...

I saw that ad (PSA?) in a magazine for the first time the other day. I mean, this particular version of it, for the first time. Not all "droopy" and neglected like this, of course. Shiny and new. I, like everyone born after a certain year, I guess, remembers those tv spots from childhood so vividly.

I find the line very powerful. It comes to me all the time. Not usually to do with the United Negro College Fund, but in all kinds of way. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. My goodness, it must be one of the most enduring lines in all of advertising.

I know you wrote "nobody cares." But everybody knows that line.

Martin said...

hi nomi... actually i hadn't even realized what the billboard said until after we had driven past it and i was like "stop! i wanna take a picture of that billboard." i liked it formally. i think i had taken a few photos before i even read it.

but yeah it's a great line. i'm hearing it in james earl jones' voice. did he do the announcement maybe?

Anonymous said...

Of course if that billboard was on display in the big city and not in the sticks EVERYONE would care! Because city people take the time to carefully read and consider every single billboard they encounter, day and night.

Anonymous said...

it is a sad and beautiful world

Nomi Lubin said...

Funny. OK, this is a little presumptuous for me to say, Martin, since I've never even seen your work in person. But the droopy billboard, sans the slogan, reminds me a little of your paintings. The scale (not size, but relative scale), the disks, the breaking through to another layer, the slight cosmic feel, slightly decrepit yet at once expansive space.

Is that goofy? I don't know.

Carla said...

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."

Dan Quayle quotes seem timely.

Martin said...

nomi - that is so not goofy, i want to steal that for my artist statement.

Nomi Lubin said...

Oh. Wow. It's all yours.

zipthwung said...

dude my mind is totally waaaasted.

Im downloading "girls with guns"

- you know, to raise the bar on the "conversation"

A quail in the hand is worth two bushes, cuz at least you can throw a quail as far as you can trust a Bush, and throwing up is good to do. Throw up, people! Like lipstick on a hand grenade - at least you get kissed before you get blown. I mean ...ok thats enough of that 4 now LOL! OMFG Im gonna puke.

Martin said...

mostly it reminds me of a steven parrino -

a mashup of the black ones with circle holes cut out + the droopy saggy loose canvas ones...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/demeibergen/874771389/

+

http://anaba.blogspot.com/2008/03/steven-parrino.html

(and it's nice that parrino's says "idiot")