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tough_actin_tinactin
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Name: Jon
Birthday: 4/29/1900
Gender: Male
Interests: Jesus Christ. Also break dancing, finding alternate spellings of "liederhosen", show and tell, anyone who dressed up as a Lord of the Rings character for the movie, and special olympics for animals.
Expertise: The mush pot. Yes, you can be an expert at the mush pot. Furthermore, I can create awkwardness using only string, a roll of duck tape and a lifesize replica of MC Hammer. or with much less. I also excel at cross country spelunking, the hula (hoop), impersonating a banana and reveling in subliminal discourses
Occupation: Sales
Industry: Art
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/3/2004
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| All right, kids, time for a fun anti-starbucks conspiracy theory to get kicked off...props to Kagga for reminding me of this issue and prompting me to do a post on it...Prepare yourself for the dubious saga of the starbucks siren...which looks like this
Most coffee snobs (such as virtually everyone who will probably read this post) are aware that Starbucks (or if you prefer, the monastery of Saint Arbuck) gets its name from the character in Moby Dick who was first mate on board the Pequod. First mate Starbuck provided a model of conventional puritan values to the backdrop of Ahab's Byronic heroism in a crazed pursuit of the white whale. The character was further popularized in the 1960s televised sci-fi drama Battlestar Galactica, an incidental favorite of the Starbucks founders. The originators of Starbucks (Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker, and Gerald Baldwin) were quite familiar with American Literature (Zev Siegl was also a passionate admirer of ancient greek literature), hence their creation of the original starbucks logo complete with siren. The three friends felt that it reflected the history of Seattle's seafaring culture in a unique and original way.
This is the original starbucks' siren logo.
In the early 90s, the new logo was adopted because Shultz (big-time attorney from New York who bought out the 3 originators) felt that the old logo was a tad too risque for a major corporate entity. But I find the old logo infinitely more interesting becuase of it's resemblance to this...
this is a bit of detail work from a 15th century Nordic translation of Homer's Odyssey, depicting the Sirens that were later adopted and placed on the starbucks logo.
As most classical mythology buffs will remember, the Sirens in Homers famous epic are a group of beautiful women/monsters that lure men to an untimely death with their beautiful singing. In fact, according to Homer, the siren's song is so beautiful that in order to resist it, Odyssius/Ulysses has to tie himself to the mast of his ship to keep from flinging himself into the ocean to chase the sirens.
Other notable places that the sirens occur include my personal favorite remake of the Odyssey in psychotic southern gospel form, "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" (whose directors, the Coen brothers claim never to have read the Odyssey) and James Joyce's "Ulysses". In both cases, particularly the eleventh or "sirens" chapter of Ulysses, the Sirens put on some sort of performance for the purpose of extracting MONEY from their unsuspecting victims. In Ulysses, the sirens work as bar maids, putting on a generally sexual display to lure men into the bar and extort money from them....
which brings me back to Starbucks' sirens....
Women currently compose almost 80 percent of Starbucks' over-the-counter staff (managerial positions and the corporate office are still, unsurprisingly, dominated by men). We are all, I assume, aware of the marketing strategy employed by Aspen coffee co. in Stillwater, whereby the owner virtually refuses to hire guys. Is it possible that this idea originated at a higher, so to speak, level?
I think, if nothing else, it makes an interesting conspiracy theory....
much love, kids. Catch you soon. | | |
| and just like that, the xanga silence of two months ends! the keyboard pops and hums under the careful guidance of a skilled and ambitious writer, determined that sexy shall not vanish from this world of xanga that we know and love. equilibrium is restored. Tough_actin_tinactin rides roughshod on the horses that are the latest in technology, such as two way calls and weblogging.
St. louis is awesome. I have learned to play the entire album (O) since coming here. I decided to write it like that so that you would have to guess if I meant the Damien Rice album "O" or the Sigur Ros album "perentheses" (Sp?). I went out to forest park for a picnic yesterday. I plan to find a way to get downtown by the supposed "St. Louis Bus System" tomorrow and take pictures of myself doing something vulgar in the general vicinity of the arch.
Shout out to my cousin, Stephen, for his brilliant innovation in the web-based distributor soon to be known as rootbeerkegs.com, the world's largest distributor of soda in keg format. you are the sexy.
This week's clearly mysogonist Nietzsche quote: (Note, this marks a new and exciting tradition in the annals of Tough_actin_tinactin, the institution of the mysogonist quote. be on the lookout for other such classic hallmarks of chauvanism).
"Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.
I'm going back to drinking turkish coffee and eating mamuul.
much love, kids. | | |
| well.....
I'm back.
You know, David Hume has a fascinating theory about the nature of human cognition that states, more or less, that people do not, in fact, learn facts...but rather find ways to connect them to things that they had previously understood.
I am not done connecting all of the experiences I had in china. But I would love to share them with you, piecemeal, like a television changing channels every thirty seconds. If you have an opportunity.
Sorry for not updating the xanga. It was blocked by the Great Fire Wall of China back in late February, I believe.
I'm in OKC until July 5-9 and then back until perhaps August 3rd. give me a ring. (405) 471-4794
one love. | | |
| "I just don't
think I'll ever
get over you"
I'm a walking Emo. sorry, I'll stop being lame soon.
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| THE CODE. The following represents a Code, or rather, as I like to think of it, a way of life. Created by a unanimous three-thirds vote of the New Triumvirate (myself, Jammy, and Huey--or just myself and Jammy as we vote for Huey in his abscence), it is hoped that the following of these tennets of the code will lead us all towards the pinnacle of life in China. That is all. "We live by the code. We die by the code." --an omage to Chadwick. 1) Never trust short people. They're short. You never know what kind of scheming they might take part in to try to make up for their lack of height. 2) Chicks dig Scars. If you disagree with this, you are not a chick. or a scar. 3) Everyone has a number between 1 and 10, although 10 is very rare, being a culmination of all the virtues of the other numbers. Keating is the only one who gets that number. 4) Pink is lucky. If you do not understand why, no-one can tell you. However, hot-pink is not lucky, particularly when you are playing monopoly. 5) Anyone who yells at Dawn in Chinese is swearing. There are no exceptions. 6) The coolness of a city in China is directly proportional to the number of Pizza Huts in that city. Extra points may be awarded for Papa Johns. 7) Liukai is hotter than the earth's core. Although, he is not as hot as the surface of the sun or the top rack on a 24 hour sleeper train. 8) You are not allowed to do the conversion rate between Yuan and dollars unless you have U.S. dollars on your person. Don't be a sucka. everything is cheap in dollars. 9) Wang Ba's (Internet Cafe's) are to be found in dark, poorly-lit alleyways inhabited by smug, surly-looking chinese teenagers. Asking these teenagers where said Wang Ba resides is sure to lead to misdirection. Do not risk communication. We live by the Code. We die by the Code. | | |
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