Caren Explains an Epiphany of Video Game Proportions

Only in Nintendo does the plumber get the princess.

Caren Explains El Bulli, Of Montreal and the Art of Selling Out

World famous chef Ferran Adria visited my marketing class at the end of the semester. The class centered on a case written about his restaurant, El Bulli, which has been recognized as the best restaurant in the world and also the hardest to get a reservation at... only 6,500 people per year have the pleasure of dining there, despite 1-2 million reservation requests.

The crux of the case is that El Bulli does not make money. In fact, it hasn't been profitable since 2000. At 250 euros per meal (30 small dishes/drinks/desserts), Adria could certainly charge more money... but doesn't.

In this way, Adria said he is free to create without having to cater to customers wants. Instead, he has attempted to "buy his freedom" by selling El Bulli cookbooks. He also tried his hand at innovating fast food and potato chips for Lay's (but abandoned those ventures, as they didn't seem to fit).

Business loses to art in this case... dramatically and daringly. Within the case, Adria also refers to a quote by Jacques Maximin: "to create is not to copy."

I had the opportunity to ask Adria about this in class, more specifically, how we (as people trying to copy his recipes out of the El Bulli cookbooks) could learn to be creative. He said the secret is not to want to be #1. If you want to be creative but want to be the best, you will drive yourself mad. If I understood correctly, he said that this is the reason there are so many depressed artist types... the people who fret because they will never be Picasso... but of course they will never be Picasso -- there was only one Picasso, and he didn't certainly didn't aspire to be "PICASSO!"

This tug-of-war between business and art made me think specifically about Of Montreal's song "Wraith Pinned to Mist and Other Games"...

... for an Outback Steakhouse commercial:



OM frontman Kevin Barnes wrote an insightful rock'n'roller essay about the decision last year. Here's a little of what he had to say...

Why commercialize yourself? In the art industry, it's extremely difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to do it myself.

Read the full interview on Stereogum's archive site.

Interesting to think of two very innovative, creative artists, each with a different view of their work and its marketing.

Caren Explains Fleet Foxes

Sorry, "Deer" bands of the world... my favorite "animal" band of the year is the freewheeling Seattle outfit known as Fleet Foxes.

Fleet Foxes made the album that My Morning Jacket should have made; instead, My Morning Jacket made the album that Prince should have made... thus it follows:

Fleet Foxes : My Morning Jacket :: My Morning Jacket : Prince

Here is a new "Take-Away Show" of Fleet Foxes by Vincent Moon/La Blogotheque... it is quite lovely, and can be downloaded for Quicktime, DivX or iPod... I love the way the music echoes throughout the Grand Palais.

Caren Explains "Mad Men"

I only watch four TV shows regularly:
- The Office
- LOST
- Gossip Girl (don't judge)
and...
- MAD MEN.

And it's been a long time since a TV show made me cry... last season during LOST, perhaps, when Desmond and Penny finally reconnect in the past-present-future?

But alas, the season finally of Mad Men was so powerful that I was tearing up. If you haven't seen it before, it's a dark, serious and phenomenal portrait of an advertising agency in the early 1960s, and the complicated lives of the employees. It rightfully won the Emmy for "Best Drama" this year.

The scene that moved me this week was when Penny makes a confession to her colleague (and one-time affair) Pete:

"One day you're there, and then all of a sudden, there's less of you. And you wonder where that part went -- if it's living somewhere outside of you? And you keep thinking maybe you'll get it back... and then you realize it's just gone."

Here's an insider video about Episode 1 of Season 2

And also, an SNL bit from when Mad Men's lead actor, Jon Hamm, hosted this week...

Caren Explains Songs to Study To

As Midterm 2 of 5 approaches, I'm finding myself increasingly reliant on my iPod and noise-canceling headphones to keep me in the zone. Turns out the iPod is good company and has even helped me with my coursework...

Take my recent review of LEAD class, for example... if I were evaluating my one-on-one working relationship with the iPod, I would observe that it is a relationship in which I am "managing down" most all of the time, telling the iPod what to play, when to play it, and for how long. I recognize this is a "power imbalance," though, and occasionally I give up my power in the relationship and let the iPod pick the songs on Shuffle. Of course, since I've pre-screened all the music on the iPod, it's a pretty stereotypical selection and there are not many "origins of difference."

I guess the conclusion of this case, though, is that I'm pretty controlling.

Here's some songs that are giving me solace. Good luck to everyone else who is studying for something this week.

(This is being imported from a blog; if the playlist doesn't show up on Facebook, go to the original note to stream the full length songs)