Philipp Roth - The Counterlife

On the surface a book about being Jewish and potency and what it means – more fundamentally it raises the question of what makes us who we are. What is nature and what isn’t.

“As long as he was potent there was some give in his life between what was routine and what is taboo. But without the potence he feels condemned to an ironclad life wherein all issues are settled. “ (Roth, 2005, p.34).

“the humbling realization of what the affair with Maria had so painfully exposed: the fact that he was somehow not quite coarse enough to bow to his desires, and yet not quite fine enough to transcend them.” (Roth, 2005, p.52).

“Henry appears to have left his wife, his kids, and his mistress to come to Israel to become an authentic Jew.” (Roth, 2005, p.78).

“Then it wasn’t roots that he had unearthed (in Israel) (…) It was the opportunity to be uprooted, to depart from the path that had been posted with his ame the day he was born, and in the disguise of a Jew to cunningly defect.” (Roth, 2005, p.136).

“The treacherous imagination is everybody’s maker – we are al the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other’s authors.” (Roth, 2005, p.149).

the pastoral:”at the core is the idyllic scenario of redemption through the recovery of a sanitized, confusionless life. In dead seriousness, we all create imagined worlds, often green and breastlike, where we may finally be ‘ourselves.’” (Roth, 2005, p.326).

“Well, that’s over. The pastoral stops here and it stops wth circumcision. (…) Circumcision makes it clear as can be that you are here and not there, that you are out and not in (…) Circumcision is everything that the pastoral is not and, to my mind, reinforces what the world is about, which isn’t strifeless unity. (…) To be born is to lose all that.” (Roth, 2005, p.327)

Dave Trott - Creative Mischief

A great collection of wisdon on advertising from the most outlandish sources – thus being all the more exciting.

“If it’s funny it’s not bad taste.” (Trott, 2009, p.5).

“There’s the story of two explorers walking through the jungle. Suddenly they hear a tiger roar. One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his back pack. “Your’re crazy, you’ll never outrun a tiger,” says the other explorer. “I don’t have to outrun the tiger,” he replies. “I just have to outrun you.” Conventional thinking is that the best man wins. That’s also lazy thinking. How do you beat someone who’s better than you? As Maurice Saatchi used to say. “I don’T have to win. I just have to make you lose.” (Trott, 2009, p.16).

“AS Chruchill said, “Never let the truth spoil a good story.” (Trott, 2009, p.28).

“On a voyage to of constant discovery. That way you squeeze every drop of your time on the planet.” (Trott, 2009, p.48).

“See he was a guy who was interested in rising inside BMP, and the only way he knew how to do that waby internal politics. I was interested in building a career in advertising. And I thought the only way to do that was through the work. So internal politics didn’t interest me.” (Trott, 2009, p.57).

“That’s why every agency has one type of briefing form. And every problem gets shoe-horned into that template. And every answer looks the same. As they say, “When the only tool you’ve got is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.” (Trott, 2009, p.68).

“If the final film is the same as what’s in our heads, we accept that because we’re comfortable with it. It’s expected. But if it’s not what’s in our head, we’re disappointed. We feel let down. That’s why it’s worth remembering, we could be wrong. We have to keep an open mind.” (Trott, 2009, p.71).

“My point is, that was a pretty stupid risk I took, but I learned from it. I learned never to take a risk that can kill you. But I also learned: no risk, no reward. And, by and large, no risk that you take in advertising can kill you.” (Trott, 2009, p.75).

As professionals we can’t simply say: I like it or I don’t like it. We have to say ‘It works, because..’ or ‘It doesn’t work because…’: “ “It works because …” is right on three counts. Number one: “It”, we’re talking about the piece of work, not just someone’s opinions. Number two: “works”, we’re talking about the function it’S supposed to deliver, not how it makes us feel. Number three: “because”, we have to back up what we say, with reasoned argument.

“It was rainng as the two leading Zn masters met to debate their different styles of teaching. The first Zen master was seated drinking tea. The second master entered and sat opposite him. The first master said, “On which side of your shoes did you leave your umbrella?” The second maser paused and realised he didn’t know. He immediately gave up being a master and became a pupil of the first Zen master. By not knowing something as simple as that. He realised he had been thinking about the debate instead of actually being alive. You see, the only time you can be alive is now. (…) We worry about the future, and we regret the past. (…) So we live our lives, not out in the world, but in our minds.” (Trott, 2009, p.125).

“John (Webster) had no memory of what happened yesterday. (…) So nothing was ever boring.” (Trott, 2009, p.126).

Tolstoj - Sämtliche Erzählungen - Dritter Band

I am simply in awe of these stories and the philosophy that is so elegantly woven into them.

“Sie war voller Glück. Sie brauchte niemanden, und deshalb fühlte ich, daß man ohne sie nicht leben konnte.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.117).

“Und die Menschen streben im Leben nicht danach, das zu tun , was sie für gut und recht halten, sondern danach, möglichst viele Dinge ihr Eigentum zu nennen.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.143).

“Die ganze schwere Last des Lebens war von ihm genommen. Er schloß die Augen und neigte den Kopf – niemand hielt ihn fest. Sein Hals bog sich nach unten, die Beine begannen zu zittern, der ganze Körper schwankte. Er war darüber eher erstaunt als erschrocken. Alles war ihm so neu.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.166).

“Je mehr ihr eurem Zorn nachgebt, desto schlimmer wird es.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.313).

“Und er begriff, daß Gott jedem Menschen eine Steuer auferlegt hat, die mit Liebe und guten Werken bezahlt wird.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.369).

“Du willst das Böse austreiben, aber es gewinnt auch über dich Gewalt. Einen Menschen erschlagen ist nicht schwer, doch das Blut bleibt an der Seele kleben. Einen Menschen töten heißt seine Seele mit Blut beflecken. Du glaubst, du hättest einen bösen Menschen getötet; du glaubst du hast das Böse ausgetrieben, aber nein: in dir sitzt nun das Böse drin, und es ist schlimmer als das alte. (…) Man sole keine neue Sünde auf sich nehmen, sondern weiter dulden.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.374).

“Mein Acker war Gottes weite Erde. Wo ich sie pflügte, da war mein Acker. Der Boden war frei. Von eigenem Land wußte man damals nichts. Sein eigen nannte man nur seine Arbeit.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.412).

“Dies ist unser Glück: als wir reich waren, hatten wir nicht eine Stunde Ruhe, hatten keine Zeit miteinander zu redden, an unser Seelenheil zu denken und zu Gott zu beten. So vile Sorgen hatten wir. Bald hatten wir Gäste …. (…) So haben wir gelebt; eine Sorge folgte der andern, eine Sünde der andern. (…) Jetzt stehen wir frühmorgens auf und redden in Liebe und Eintracht miteinander; wir haben über nichts zu straiten, haben um nichts zu sorgen.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.438).

“Ich sehe nun, daß das Böse nur durch Böses vermehrt wird. Je mehr Menschen das Böse verfolgen, desto mehr Böses schaffen sie. Man kann also das Böse nicht durch Böses vertreiben.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.453).

“Eines Tages saß der Taufsohn da; er wollte nichts mehr, er fürchtet nichts mehr, und sein Herz war fröhlich.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.463).

Hegarty - Turning Intelligecy into Magic

I love every single story in this book – they all make Hegarty’s point that if we want to make something memorable we better tell it as a story – but exactly that story seems to be slightly missing from the overall book. Yet, still a great read for everyone even mildly interested in advertising. Below you’ll find some of the best stories from the book:

“We’re also in the entertainment industry. In fact, you could argue that advertising, from the moment it was born, was trying to entertain us.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.9).

“without understanding those fundamental facts of engaging, entertaining and exciting an audience, digitization isn’t going to help you, it will in fact destroy you faster. That’s the power of the net.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.10).

“’Turning intelligence into magic’. At its simplest this is what has defined BBH’s best work” (Hegarty, 2011, p.10).

“You are someone with the chance to change the world and inspire large audiences. I was excited by advertising because it gave me a platform to talk to the masses.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.22).

“And with ideas, the more you have them, the better you get at having them. That’s one of the reasons why advertising is such a stimulating environment in which to work.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.24).

“typically a great piece of thinking that gradually become compromised in an attempt to get the client to buy it instead of putting it out of its misery and starting again. There is always a belief in these situations that, somehow, the compromises won’t show when the finished work is produced. Sadly, this kind of whishful thinking affects us all.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.25).

“The unpredictability is what males what we do in advertising so exciting – you literally don’t know where you’re going to end up.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.27).

“But using irreverence for its own sale is dangerous. Do that and you risk becoming irrelevant. The function of irreverence should be to help question and, in doing so, offer a possible solution.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.34). “humour has an important role to play in advertising. We use it because it’s a way of making relax and listen. When your audience is in that state of mind they’re more likely to remember what you’re saying and act upon it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.35).

“A brand isn’t only made by the people who buy it, but also by the people who know about it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.43). “fame is fundamentally important to a brand’s success. Why? Because it is a form of shorthand in the decision-making process that takes place in a hugely competitive world. (…) Fame adds value and protects the brand from competitive pressure. (…) The dictionary defines fame as ‘public renown – great esteem. “(Hegarty, 2011, p.43).

“But today things are different,. For today’s audiences it’s not about status – that’s class ridden and old fashioned – it’s about staying ahead. (…) Wearing the right pair of jeans in the right finish doesn’t cost a fortune, but it does require an understanding of fasion.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.52).

“At BBH we refer to ourselves as an ‘ideas factory’ – a factory that helps to manufacture brand difference. (…) service industry.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.59).

“if you’re genuinely going to be better than your competitors, you’ve got to love what you produce above everything else.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.60).

“I’m much happier when a client talks about the business problem they are trying to solve. I always think getting them talking about their business, the things they understand is more productive than their talking about the abstract business called advertising.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.79).

“It’s amazing how many agencies never behave like a brand despite the fact they’re constantly advising their clients on brand behaviour. Great brand have a point of view – they stand for something.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.87).

“it’s essential that brands remain constantly youthful. Why? Because if you’re youthful, you have a future.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.90).

“So it’s simple really, isn’t it? You want to win more pitches? Then have a better showreel. And play it up front.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.94).

“And, of course, when employed correctly, storytelling can make things incredibly memorable, especially for brands.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.96).

“you don’t instruct people to do something – you inspire them.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.102).

“a brand is an agglomeration of stories linked together by a vision.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.102).

“He quite rightly brought me to my senses , saying that the worst thing that could happen inreality was that we could fail. If we failed with BBH it wouldn’t stop me being an award winning art director.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.150).

“brands more often than not go wrong because they lose touch with their roots and the values and qualities that made them successful. This doesn’t mean you simply talk about the past, but it does mean that connecting a brand’s audience with the positive beliefs that established the brand’s original success is important.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.155).

Coming up with solutions were the agency wants to change the product: “It saves them having to find a solution to their problem and instead it rests with the product.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.163).

“We argued that if music could be global, film could be global and art could be global, why couldn’t advertising?” (Hegarty, 2011, p.171).

“’words are a barrier to communication’. Not because I didn’t value them – I did – but all too often they were over used to explain an idea instead of enhancing it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.187).

“It’s an obvious point to make, but I believe that if creativity is at the heart of you company and your company is not constantly evolving and expanding, then it’s dying.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.205).

“Always remember that creativity is a business tool –never be ashamed of that.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.212).

Mr Sammler’s Planet – Saul Bellow 1969

A critique of American society and its legalization (or acceptance)of crimes as long as they make profit for the market.

“Sammler is obsessed with an understanding what causes a civilization to embrace ruthlessness as the best way to realize its ambitions and handle its fears” (Bellow, 1969, p.viii).

“The thing evidently, as Mr. Sammler was beginning to grasp, consisted of obtaining the privileges, and the free ways of barbarism, under the protection of civilized order, property rights, refined technological organization, and so on. Yes, that must be it.” (Bellow, 1969, p.4).

“Power and money of course do drive people crazy. So why shouldn’t people gain power and wealth through being crazy?” (Bellow, 1969, p.52).

“Of course he was rich, but the rich were usually mean. Not able to separate themselves form the practices that had made the money: infighting, habitual fraud, mad agility in compound deceit, the strange conversaitons of legitimate swindling.” (Bellow, 1969, p.61).

Another theme are the endless possibilities in post-war society and how they actually are restricting to people. Bellow constantly opposes these possibilities with finalities
like the death of his nephew and mankind moving to the moon.

Saint Augustine: “”The Devil hath established his cities I the North.” (…) But now Augustine’s odd statement required a new interpretation. (…) The labor of Puritanism now was ending. The dark satanic mills changing into light satanic mills. The reprobates converted into children of joy, the sexual ways of the seraglio and the Congo bush adopted by the emancipated masses of New York, Amsterdam, London.” (Bellow, 1969, p.25).

“the struggles of three revolutionalry centuries being won while the feudal bonds of Church and family weakened and the privileges of aristocracy (without any duties) spread wide, democratized, especially the libidinous privileges, the right to be uninhibited, spontaneous, urinating, defacating, belching, coupling in all positions, tripling, quadrupling, polymorphous” (Bellow, 1969, p.26).

“For what it amounted to was limitless demand – insatiability, refusal of the doomed creature (death beingsure and final) to go away from this earth unsatisfied. A full bill of demand and complaint was therefore presented by each individual. Recognizing no scarcity of supply in any human department. Enlightenment? Marvelous! But out of hand, wasn’t it?” (Bellow, 1969, p.27).

“In their revulsion from authority they would respect no persons. Not even their own persons.” (Bellow, 1969, p.29).

“Humankind could not endure futurelessness. As of now, death was the sole visible future.” (Bellow, 1969, p.60).

“Feffer could not let him go. Feffer could not be quiet. His need was to be perpetually arresting, radiant with fresh interest.” (Bellow, 1969, p.101).

“In a revolution you took away the privileges of an aristocracy and redistributed them. What did equality mean? (…) it meant that all belonged to the elite. Killing was an ancient privilege. This was why revolution plunged into blood.” (Bellow, 1969, p.118).

“This attempt to make interest was, for Mr. Sammler, one reason for the pursuit of madness. Madness makes interest.” (Bellow, 1969, p.119).

“Both the USA and the UDSSR were, for Sammler, utopian projects. There, in the East, the emphasis was on low-level goods, on shoes, caps, toilet-plungers, and tin basins for peasants and laborers. Here it fell uponcertain privileges and joys. Here wading naked into the waters of paradies, et cetera.” (Bellow, 1969, p.129).

“I think we may summarize my meaning in terms like these: that many have surged forward in modern history, after long epochs f namelessness and bitter obscurity, to claim and enjoy (as people enjoy things now) a name, a dignity of person, a life such as belonged in the past only to the gentry, nobility, the royalty or the gods of myth. And that this surge has, like all such great movemets, brought misery and despair (…). As long as there is no ethical life and everything is poured so barbarously and recklessly into personal gesture this must be endured. And there is a peculiar longing for nonbeing. Maybe it is more accurate to say that people want to visit all states of being in a diffused state of consciousness, not wishing to be any given thing but instead to become comprehensive, entering leaving at will.” (Bellow, 1969, p.194).

“Of course at the moment of launching fom this planet to another somethingwas ended, finalities were demanded, summaries. Everyone appeared to feel this need. (…) each accented more strongly his own subjective style and the pracices by which he was known. Thus Wallace, on the day of destiny for his father, roared and snored in the Cessna, snapping photographs. Thus Shula, hiding from Sammler, was undoubtedly going to hunt for treasure, for the alleged abortion dollars. Thus Angela, making more experiments in sensuality, in sexology, smearing all with her female fluids. This Eisen with his art, the Negro with his penis. And in the serie, but not finally, himself with his condensed views. Eliminating the superfluous. Identifying the necessary.” (Bellow, 1969, p.230).

“The best, I have found, is to be disinterested. Not as misanthropes dissociate themselves, by judging, but by not judging.” (Bellow, 1969, p.195).

“It is fearful! Not to be borne! Intolerable! Let us divert each other while we live.” (Bellow, 1969, p.244

Bulgakov – The master and Margarita

The devil comes to Moscow and confuses all people – sometimes it seems that the devil is a metaphor for the secret police, because magically people disappear and suffer yet no one wants to talk about it. There is also a second story about Pilate, who wants to set Jesus free, but doesn’t manage due to various pressures from society and thus for the rest of his life (and afterlife) suffers.

Moreover it is a book about artists in a dictatorship where they are constantly under threat for what they write and what compromises they have to make and how to maintain integrity or don’t. Easy to say, to ignore the threat, but much harder to do.

Both stories unite the central theme of cowardice – or the self-accusation of cowardice

Bulgakov’s gentle irony is a warning against the mistake, more common in our time than we might think, of equating artistic mastery with a sort of saintliness, or, in Kierkegaard’s terms, of confusing the aesthetic with the ethical. (Bulgakov, 1966, p.xvii).

“’Why, actually, did I get so excited about Berlioz falling under a tram-car?’ the poet reasoned. ‘In the final analysis, let him sink! What am I, in fact, his chum or in-law? If we air the question properly, it turns out that, in essence, I really did not even know the deceased. What, indeed, did I know about him? Nothing except that he was bald and terribly eloquent. And furthermore, citizens,’ Ivan continuedhis speech, addressing someone or other, ‘let’s sort this out: why, tell me, did I get furious at this mysterious consultant, magician and professor with the black and empty eye? Why all this absurd chase after him in underpants and with a candle in my hand, and then those wild shenanigans in the restaurant?” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.117). “Well, what can be done about it? Man is mortal and, as has rightly been said, unexpectedly mortal.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.117).

“Rimsky knew where he had gone, but he had gone and … not come back! Rimsky shrugged his shoulders and whispered to himself: ‘But what for?’” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.120).

“That is a fact. And a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world. (…) that your theory is both solid and clever. However, one theory is as good as another.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.273).

“’Let me see it.’ Woland held out his hand, palm up.
‘Unfortunately, I cannot do that,’ replied the master, ‘because I burned it in the stove.’
Forgive me, but I don’t believe you,’ Woland replied, ‘that cannot be: manuscripts don’t burn.’” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.287).

“but good heavens, philosopher! How can you, with your intelligence, allow yourself to think that, for the sake of a man who has committed a crime against Caesar, the procurator of Judea would ruin his career?
‘Yes, yes …’ Pilate moaned and sobbed in his sleep. Of course he would. In the morning, he still would not, but now, at night, after weighing everything, he would agree to ruin it. He would do everything to save the decidedly innocent, mad dreamer and healer from execution.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.320).

“‘He does not deserve the light, he deserves peace,’ Levi said in a sorrowful voice.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.361).

“’Listen to the stillness,’ Margarita said to the master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet, ‘listen and enjoy what you were not given in life – peace Look, there ahead is your eternal home, which you have been given as a reward.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.384).

“the master’s memory, the master’s anxious needled memory began to fade. Someone was setting the master free, as he himself had just set free the hero he created.” (Bulgakov, 1966, p.384).

Craigh Wright – Listening to music

Great introduction to ‘art music'. Great listening examples and explanations. Unfortuantely not a lot on the 20th century, slightly unfair about dodecaphony and an American bias.