Posts Tagged ‘Kelly Bensimon’
The Coke Side of Life
June 2, 2011 | by A. S. Hamrah
“Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” —Andy Warhol
Evel Knievel on the set of Viva Knievel, 1977.
Coca-Cola is the brand par excellence, the marca di tutti marche, the brand the other brands dream about being (even though the brands never sleep). Nothing else is even close. When it comes to what a brand is, Coke, as they say, is it. According to the branding consultancy Interbrand, Coke has a “brand value” of seventy billion dollars, which is twelve billion more than its nearest competitor, IBM. That’s a strange measurement, brand value, because it takes several nebulous things into consideration, including probably love. While many people are fond of Coke, some of them to the point of addiction, who even likes IBM?
Coke’s status is not merely economic or pop cultural or emotional or psychological. Coca-Cola transcends those categories to compete in the broader realm of speech, of monosyllables. We’re told that Coke is the second most recognized word in any language, after okay.
There are 6.9 billion people in the world, and according to The Coca-Cola Company they drink 1.6 billion Cokes a day. I don’t have the figures for this, but it may be that right now the only thing people on this planet are doing more than breathing is drinking Coke. There may be more people drinking Coke this very minute than sleeping. There may be more people drinking Coke than awake.
A Week in Culture: Rita Konig, Part 2
June 17, 2010 | by Rita Konig
This is the second installment of Rita Konig's culture diary. Click here to read part 1.
DAY FOUR
7:00 A.M. NPR. Turns out it is pledge week. That explains the intolerable service! I can’t retain any information other than the stuff they are giving away.
8:00 A.M. New York Times story on children’s menus. Nicola Marzovilla hates them1.
7:30 P.M. Times dinner at Bill Keller’s house. Walk into a room of faces I don’t know. See one I recognize across the room. Phew. Can’t think why I know him. Am seated next to him at dinner. Penny drops. I have been watching him (quite a lot) making stew on the screen in the back of my Jet Blue seat. He is Mark Bittman, food writer from the Times. So I tell him. “Sigh, Yes, I get that a lot.” Pretty much end of conversation. Ben Brantley, theater critic, on other side. Heaven. Realize this is my moment to ask about the shark fin in the Obama picture. So I ask: did they choose it on purpose? Was this a big joke at the Times? No one had noticed! Bill goes off to find a copy of the paper. Apparently, it is more likely to be a dolphin. Think I hide my disappointment reasonably well. By the end of dinner conversation has turned to Real Housewives.
DAY FIVE
9:00 A.M. Flight to Savannah for art classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Last April, sitting on a panel during their Style Week, I told founder and president Paula Wallace that I really wanted to learn perspective drawing. Presto! Am on my way for three days of private tuition.
10:00 A.M. Plane is TINY. Actually, I find that small planes are less scary than the big ones. We are jammed in like sardines. Read The Far Cry and eat mini pretzels. I am now loving the book2. Read it all the way to the end. It is such a Persephone3 book.
1:00 P.M. Get picked up at airport. Keith Johnson was on my plane and is also going to SCAD to shoot for his show “Man Shops Globe.” Arrive at Magnolia Hall and start lessons, almost immediately, in the Carriage House with Peili Wang. He has two HUGE plastic bags filled with art materials. The most exciting is a box with a grid of every color of marker pen! I feel about eight years old.
9:30 P.M. Back from dinner and get into bed with new iPad. Watch "Real Housewives Reunion.” Kelly Bensimon is so stupid, she is like Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda. Move on to Glee pilot. It is so cheery after all those bitching women. Want to break into song—“Don’t stop believing”—and I hate musicals! I do LOVE Jane Lynch, though. And she just got married. It was in the Times Style section4.
Annotations
- J’AGREE. Well, in principle. I always want to eat everything on them: grilled cheese, pasta, chicken nuggets and French fries. This article has a bajilion comments from annoying parents showing off about all the sophisticated food their children have been eating since the age of two.
- The weather has turned. Theresa is turning out to be such an interested child. She comes across all these characters on the boat, and where her frightful father either dismisses them (usually the women) out of hand or takes to them (usually the men) immediately, she is more questioning and of an independent mind. I am feeling very fond of her.
- Persephone reissues novels that have fallen out of print. Mostly 1930s and 1940s. I would think they’re quite feminine. I can’t imagine men being very interested by them. But they are brilliant, usually about human character and frailty.
- Was amazed she was in it. I can’t bear that section.
