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. With links for 2007-05-31
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“What is left of the city he came to love?”
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Carrie McLaren, not a fan of the product in last Sunday’s Consumed: “To the guy who sells this crap: You want to be carbon neutral? Stop breathing.”
What’s up with Lladró?
A week ago I got an email blast from The Future Perfect about “An exclusive launch of Lladró Re-Deco by Jaime Hayon. Today, the Colette newsletter says:
Lladró presents the Re-Deco collection, inspired by the classic figurines such as girls, flowers and animals, but designer Jaime Hayon’s imbuing them with novel finishes and tones and intertwining the pure white of the porcelain with a platinum touch. … And don’t miss the world premiere of the new Lladró candle collection available on the colette eshop.
Back in January, I noted with some surprise the presence of Lladró figurines in Golden Globes goodie bags, and a comment on that post confirmed my own basic assumption: “I don’t know anyone under 65 who collects Lladro.”
So, is Lladró reinvigorating the brand for a hipper, younger, customer who takes cues from tastemaker retail like Future Perfect & Colette? Is it working? Is this a new version of a sort of forward-thinking camp? Can it all be traced back to something Andrew Andrew did in 2004 (see penultimate item here)?
I’m not sure. Interested in hearing more about the new new Lladró, I replied to the Future Perfect’s (unsolicited) blast, twice, but never heard back.
Winnings
The winner of the contest in the most recent installment of the Journal of Murketing email newsletter is: Shawn of Iridesco.
Possibly more interesting than the contest, and certainly more interesting than the fact that (with one exception) all of you failed to win it, are the details of the prize package. The explicit purpose of this contest was to draw praise and attention to Mr. Josh Neufeld, becauses he deserves praise and attention. Even if you didn’t win the contest, you can still enjoy his work by checking out his ongoing series A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge. Or by clicking links below that will lead you to places where you can buy things.
The prize package consisted of:
Issue Number Two of The Vagabonds. (Mr. Neufeld provided Murketing with several copies of the issue some time ago, perhaps thinking that I would keep one and could give the others to really cool people who would enjoy them. I did that with a few issues, but still had one left to give.
Titans of Finance. I have a bunch of these, for obvious reasons.
Drawn Bits, a collection of comix and writing related to comix.
A Titans of Finance postcard.
Pretty good, huh! I’m sorry that you didn’t win! Except for Shawn, I mean. Who did win.
links for 2007-05-30
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“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reveals there are 107 registered “hippie” trademarks that peddle products or services somehow strategically aligned with Day-Glo paint and paisley.”
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“A 37-year-old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor wants to donate a kidney before she dies and will choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television”
Tips from a thoughtful unconsumer
Here’s an interesting, and maybe I can even say exciting, development:
Back in December I stumbled across your blog and was really taken by the concept embodied by the term “unconsumption”, since right about that time, this is exactly what I was trying to figure out how to do.
About a month later, I started my own blog, twigg hugger, which basically discusses my quest to “unconsume” in as environmentally and as personally satisfying way as I can.
Pretty cool! I bring his up not so much to prove (to myself at least) that people I don’t know personally have actually read things on this site, as to note that twig hugger turns out to be a pretty useful blog: In pursuing this quest to get rid of stuff in a responsible, and thus on some level rewarding, manner, the self-described packrat shares a tips and resources useful to even the most casual unconsumer.
Sestinaverde had earlier contributed several items to the Unconsumption resource page, but of course twigg hugger is now adding to that. This post offers a much more detailed account of using Bookins, a book-swap site, and this one has more on a broadly focused swap site called Throwplace.
The most recent entries have been about getting rid of items from twigg hugger’s somewhat elaborate collection of computer things — including several hundred 5.25″ floppies! Here’s the account of finding a way to get rid of those, through GreenDisk.
There are several more new resources in the blog, which is engagingly written, and which I’ll continue to follow. Meanwhile, I’ll update the Unconsumption page with twigg hugger‘s finds.
[Thanks again Sestinaverde!]
links for 2007-05-28
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Past Consumed subject Publix “has ranked number one out of supermarkets on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, published by the University of Michigan, since it began 14 years ago, whereas Wal-Mart ranks last.”
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Very good, and kind of bleak, story about Newark’s troubles. The end is pretty chilling.
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Excellent post following up this Sunday’s Consumed: “In other words, CreditCovers invites customers to display their individuality and escape the corporate uniformity of financial tools by purchasing presumably unauthorized versions of other corporate sym
The Cover of Money
In Consumed: Credit Covers: Treating the credit card as an “edgy artwork” canvass.
The most recent figures from the Federal Reserve noted an uptick of more than 9 percent in “revolving credit” — that is, the debt carried by the millions of American consumers who don’t pay off their cards every month — putting the total at $888.2 billion as of March. Still, some consumers have come to see the credit card as an emblem of something other than an albatross of monies owed. A few months ago, a company called CreditCovers started selling “skins,” with special designs that consumers can stick over the fronts of their cards, theoretically transforming them from mere financial tools to emblems of identity and potential conversation starters….
Continue reading at the NYT Magazine site, or the Boston Globe site.
links for 2007-05-26
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“A model, an actress, and a smart young businesswoman who’s turned her passion into a successful venture.”
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“Could math help record companies score hit singles?”
Column appears in 
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Kim Fellner's book 
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A