"Okay. Who's your target audience?"
"People."
"That's far too general. How do you expect to position a brand to everyone? It's impossible. Let's narrow it down."
"So you're saying that the incentive is that they get to look at you and sing your praises foreternity."
"Yes."
"And you think that's an incentive."
"Of course. Wait. What are you implying?"
"It's just that that is most likely not an incentive for the majority of your audience."
"But I created them!"
"But that's not enough. You need them to want what you're offering now."
"Well, that's why I created hell. So if the carrot didn't work, the stick might."
"So the alternative incentive is fear of eternal punishment."
Who's more wrong - God or marketing?
God vs. Marketing
Mud
This afternoon, on the concrete steps of the parkette/amphitheatre, I asked Lilli how she felt about Claude replacing Reena. I suggested it was unfortunately political. She was rustling in her lunch when I asked, and she replied to the space between us, “to my dismay, I realize I have a spartan apple in my lunch instead of an empire.” She paused for exactly one second, then finished, “no – my mistake – it is a navel orange.”
Dust spun around our partially sat-on paper bags. Every day we are weights for our lunch packaging. They crackle in protest with each gust. Today they were yelling. My sandwich was uninspiring. I had hastily prepared it after Breakfast Television and before subway. We heard each other chew but tried not to listen.Abruptly, she asked, “which way do you take from the station to work?”
“Along King, usually the North side most of the way.”Our office is on King. My answer was redundant. She coyly swallowed her last bit of lunch. I smiled briefly and then felt it leave before I was ready. She is French, and objectively pretty; she would be considered so according to the criteria of almost any culture and time I can think of. She is also the director I report to and despite that I think about how pretty she is many times a day. I thought about it then when she stood up too quickly and I remained seated, head beside her thigh.
On the short walk back, a Ministry of Health poster glared at us. Lilli coaxed and assuaged her Blackberry and spoke at it, “to prevent infection, we are encouraged to wash our hands. The message is appropriate, but perhaps these authorities are addressing the wrong audience?” I pictured Return of the Fly with the tiny human hands on the guinea pig, and laughed. She cursed an email from Reena.I heard a slap, then another. Bright noises began all around. The wind blowing our lunches had meant something this time, and we hadn’t been aware of it, lost in routine lunch behaviour. It was the beginning of a rainstorm. The tempo increased until the individuals were indiscernible and we were soaked within exactly four seconds. The sun disappeared within six.
We covered our heads with our lunch bags and started to run. The sidewalk was full, we moved onto the grass. Lilli was a few paces in front. A few feet in on the wet grass she slipped. Her legs slid out in front of her until she was perfectly horizontal in the air. She landed on her back and skidded into a shrub surrounded by wet soil. I slipped the moment she hit the ground but landed on my chest, and slid into her. Both of us were in the mud and laughing.We both struggled to seating positions when I noticed concern dark on her face. She had lost her Blackberry somewhere in the soil. It was too late to care about the dirt or the rain, so we both dug around in the plants on our hands and knees. We were badgers, children. Lilli, semi-panicked tried her best to stop giggling and concentrate. I was aroused but dug my way to a hard plastic shape, and the distraction made it subside.
“Eureka,” I said, and cursed myself for my suppressed inner-nerd showing itself.“How could I live without you,” she said with alarming sincerity, as I handed her the treasure.
I wanted to kiss her and instead I said, “when you’ve been clawing around in the mud your fingernails aren’t just dirty, they’re packed, they’re full.”“Here, try this – there’s a slight creaking sound when you press around the edges of your nails,” she pressed my fingers with hers, “oh, yours aren’t as pliable as mine. When I get sand in my mouth from wind or carelessness, a few grains are enough to send me home.” She paused for a bar and a half of the rain music, and then, “if it was wet sand, and I scooped the earth with my mouth like it was my hand, I’d probably cry but part of me would know I’d never get a presence that cool and dense on my gums and tongue in any other way.” I wondered if she wanted me as I wanted her. The words she chose were bright like teeth and lips on my ears.
She spoke again, “we have so many other hollows for the earth to fill. If all our concave surfaces were packed with soil and clay we’d be smooth, unshaped. The small of our backs, the gaps around collar bones, between our toes.”Yes.
“We wouldn’t have details. Our silhouettes would be as featureless as those icons that indicate public washrooms. Our sex would be concealed and uninteresting. Our clothes would be unbranded. We would all be mud people, pressing on our fingernails, discussing current events, damaging our couches, ending the two-century tyranny of the soap manufacturers.”
She checked her Blackberry.
I may have misunderstood every sign I’ve ever read.
Elephant Show people
Elephant Show people ranked according to relative awesomeness, most awesome to least awesome
- Eric Nagler
- The Nylons
- Bram
- Elephant
- Lois
- The other elephant who came out to play when requested by the first elephant
- Eric Nagler
- The kid when they show footage of their live shows who is too young to dance but his mom is holding his arms and making him dance anyway
- The tuba that supplies Elephant's voice
- Sharon (Bram has cigarette burns up and down his arms from Sharon's abusive response to missed harmonies; I think torture is not awesome)
