Ethos by Randy Elrod - How To Create Culture

Ethos Restaurant Review and MORE...

My dear friend Ramon and I enjoyed a shady outdoor breakfast on the deck of The Gallery Cafe in Spring Hill, TN this morning. We talked about life and friendships and many other deep things. Basically, we solved most of the problems of the world this morning.

THE BREAKFAST: Wow! Delicious "light as a feather" omelete with tomato, cheese and mushrooms. Fresh fruit and superb coffee served up in a very unique titanium cup and saucer. The cafe features local artists work throughout and features an artist as they work during the weekend evenings. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner with a french flair. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Ratings 1-5 (5 is best)
Food - 5
Service - 5
Ambience - 5+
Price - 5
Overall - 5

Ramon read a recent journal entry at our In Vino Veritas meeting (sort of my version of C.S. Lewis inklings) in May and I begged him to let me include it in this blog.

Here it is unedited, untitled as if you were peeking in his journal...

"I have these two plastic sticks which serve as fences in the grocery line. They clearly define what I've chosen and  what I will pay for. I did not choose barbecue pork rinds--they are yours. For the person behind me I put my fence down as a way of saying Don't crowd my stuff and in case anyone is looking the case of Coor's Lite is not mine. I have coralled my choices.
     But when I get to the cashier I find there are items in my collection I did not choose. Difficult and painful things I did not select. Stressors I did not, do not want. I had no Buy 1--Get 1 Free coupon for some of this crap. I don't want it. I did not pluck it from the shelf and put it in my cart. However, it is mine. It is not the life of the lady in front of me; it is not the life of the guy behind me. It's mine. God, help me pay cost of these things I did not choose. Help me carry these bags I did not want."

Struggle...

strug·gle  (strgl)

• To make a strenuous effort; strive.
• To progress with difficulty.
• To be strenuously engaged with a problem, task, or undertaking.

Sculpture by Andrew Benyei

A Road Less Traveled...

In two different but equally insightful conversations today, I was reminded of this painting I did a few months ago called "Choices".

Many of us were handed an umbrella that represents our career or life path by a well-intentioned parent, teacher or mentor-an umbrella that we have carried our entire life. That umbrella many times should not have been carried long-if at all. And yet, most of us still carry the same umbrella even though it covers the very essence of who we are and what we could become. All the while, there are a myriad of umbrellas around us that represent the potential and promise deep within.

Thomas Cahill said it this way,

“This movement is the movement of time, which, once past, becomes history. But the movement is not like the movement of a wheel…it is not cyclical, coming around again and again. Each moment, like each destiny, is unique and unrepeatable. It is a process-it is going somewhere, though no one can say where. And because its end is not yet, it is full of hope-and I am free to imagine that it will not be just process but progress.  And so there is hope, hope for the future-that it will be something truly new, something full of surprise. New ideas can develop, time becomes real; a real future is possible. And because of this, the choices I make individually are important: they make a real difference to a real future. And because all outcomes have not been predetermined in advance, the PRESENT is full of adventure and the freedom to make choices that will profoundly affect the outcome.” 

Superman Returns...

A Review (not mine-I have not been fortunate to see it--yet)

With so much public cynicism, the question is “Why would anyone want to do a movie about an old-fashioned character like Superman; a throwback character to a bygone era of traditional values that truthfully never really existed except in propaganda?” Superman Returns and X-Men actor James Marsden has one answer: “If somebody gave you $200 million to make a movie that could reach the most people you could – who would it be about? The answer is either going to be about Superman or Jesus.”

That’s why the adult in me is relieved that a movie like Superman Returns exists. On the surface it’s a story about Superman, the latest adventure in a storied franchise; underneath, it’s an allegorical story about Jesus, and beyond that, the Christian struggle to walk in purity. As Bryan Singer says, “There’s definitely an allegory, a Judeo-Christian allegory that’s happening in the mythology of Superman, right up to the fact that he descends from the heavens.” And the kid in me is thankful that at least there’s enough “dadgum” action in this film to satisfy my overactive imagination.

Superman Returns is an entertaining, engaging, and emotional epic, a cinematic achievement, and a modern classic for a perilous time and a worthy tribute to one of America’s greatest cultural icons.

The plot is simple. Superman goes out on a lone outer space expedition to seek the truth about his home planet Krypton. After he discovers it has indeed been destroyed, Superman returns to earth to his adoptive mother (Eva Marie-Saint) after an absence of five years, only to find the world in greater turmoil.

Read the rest HERE. (HT: Phil Cooke Blog)

A Marketing Masterpiece...

Click HERE  to see a brilliant thirty seconds of art by GE. Virginia Postrel at Dynamist says:

              The NYT's Claudia Deutsch reports on how GE saved its appliance division with...the substance of style.

"We used to care only that people weren't alienated by the look of our appliances," said Paul Klein, general manager of brand and advertising for GE Consumer & Industrial. "But we've realized that affluent people think of their kitchen as décor, even if a caterer is doing the cooking."

Financial results are great, Deutsch reports--quite a contrast to the days when GE wanted to sell the division, only to find that no one wanted to buy it.

One result is that G.E.'s appliance sales were up 16 percent in the first quarter of 2006, and analysts expect them to keep growing. The unit's return on total capital was 60 percent last year, compared with 16.4 percent for the company as a whole. And the appliance business generated $700 million in cash.

As I often point out in speeches, usually by playing the "Interrogation" commercial, GE has realized the importance of aesthetics in one division after another--a striking, bottom-up strategy from a hard-nosed engineering- and finance-oriented company. That's why I used GE Plastics as the lead example in chapter one of The Substance of Style.

As the ad says, you can have beauty and brains.

Nice Fathers Day

My girls (and #1 son-in-law) gave me rockin' Dads day gifts. The toys just keep comin...

A great new Wenger Swiss Army backpack to replace my "man purse" and to hold my new MacBook (the question a guy has to ask: "How was I ever a PC guy for so many years?") and my other "office" stuff. Very cool.

Specifications

• Color: Black/Gray
• Capacity: Fits most 15"/15.4"W Widescreens

Features

• Double Padded Computer Pocket
• Breathable Padding Air Flow Channels
• Shock Absorbing Shoulder Straps
• Removable Cell Phone Case

And if that was not enough...an Init slim notebook computer case when i have the need to go fast and light!

You Dads that have little ones...it is really great when your children grow up and give you these rockin' gifts! Hang in there...We were vividly recalling when I would get "My Little Pony" hand me downs with a sweet note and story attached.

Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait...

A dazzling gold-flecked 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan by the cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the highest sum ever paid for a painting.

The portrait, of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and the hostess of a prominent Vienna salon, is considered one of the artist's masterpieces. For years, it was the focus of a restitution battle between the Austrian government and a niece of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer who argued that it was seized along with four other Klimt paintings by the Nazis during World War II. In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann, now 90, who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members.

Although confidentiality agreements surrounding the sale forbid Mr. Lauder to disclose the price, experts familiar with the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he paid $135 million for the work. In a telephone interview Mr. Lauder did not deny that he had paid a record amount for the painting, eclipsing the $104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)" in an auction at Sotheby's in 2004.

"This is our Mona Lisa," said Mr. Lauder, a founder of the five-year-old Neue Galerie, a tiny museum at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street devoted entirely to German and Austrian fine and decorative arts. "It is a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition." He said Christie's had helped him negotiate the purchase.

Read more HERE.

Are Our Creatives Fleeing America?

Is American Dance As Good As Dead?    An increasing number of young American dancers are heading to Europe to seek work. Some hope to build a career that will someday lead to professional prospects back home; others don't expect ever to return.

"While many American dance companies scramble to stay afloat, Europe is stocked with stable and respected companies buoyed by state funds. And a generation of Americans has successfully come of age there... There is a sense, at Juilliard and elsewhere, that the era of great American dance has passed. Europe, in contrast, seems a fertile ground for new work, especially in contemporary ballet."

Read more HERE.