17 thoughts on “Landing Strips”

  2. I had to watch it three times, and still wouldn’t have gotten it but for Julie G’s giveaway. Funny.
    What’s this aversion to hair you American’s have, anyway? I find it creepy.

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  4. I find it creepy too, Harry. TG for Sarah Haskins, who at the very least makes us laugh about it.
    FTR, I am weirded out by the following: Brazilian or bikini waxes, veneers, eyebrow waxing/threading. And tattoos. People get rid of all the (natural) hair and then replace it with (unnatural) ink. I don’t understand.

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  5. Sorry for the spoiler. This sort of obsession is so not my thing either (I’m from KY, perhaps we’re a little more free with our hygiene there — including the whole teeth thing).
    (For the record, I have all my teeth and do not play the banjo. Although I’d like to learn.)

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  6. Without eyebrow waxing, some of us who are of part Italian decent turn into Susan Boyle. But, one can go too far. Geometric shapes is, I think, a little much.

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  7. And Harry, you have to watch that Sarah Haskins video that Wendy linked to. It shows the British version of that commercial.

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  9. Julie — not a spoiler for me, but the hint I needed. I guess what I find creepy about it is that it has nothing to do with hygiene…
    I did watch it — I’ve never heard of her, and like that laconic irritated humour — and was mortified by the British version. As with the design of the welfare state, perhaps the Brits are nearly as bad as the Americans, with the Northern Europeans the winners…
    I just read a biography in which the following is said about Fay Weldon. When she was a copywriter she coined the slogan “Vodka gets you drunk faster”. She said that “If you want to get drunk fast, this seems like something you really need to know”. It was never used, unfortunately.

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  10. Not to go into too much detail on a family blog, but I expect a lot of this focus on grooming reflects the evolution of US sexual practices in a particular direction.

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  11. On the other hand, anything that goes against the furries seems like a neutral trend at minimum.
    On the third hand, the furries seem to be connected. Last year, Pittsburgh had the furries convention and this year we get the G20. I’ve been assuming that some economic minister or administration official discovered Pittsburgh during the furry convention and that’s how we got the G20.

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  12. These things go in cycles. Anita Loos, reminiscing about 1920s Hollywood in Vogue (reprinted in Fate Keeps on Happening — one of the great book titles): “we flappers patronized a beauty parlor where a lady barber used to shave certain hirsute areas into the shape of a heart or a derby hat [in honor of] Al Smith” (parenthetically, this shows a commendable level of political engagement: would a modern aesthetician leave a double barred O? Would a client ask?).
    I came of age during the late ’60s, the heyday of the wild, untamed garden.
    But I doubt that sexual practices have changed that much.

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  14. FW also coined “Go to work on an egg” which is what she’s really famous for. Salman Rushdie apparently coined “Naughty but Nice” for cream cakes when he was a copywriter. Great literature.
    I have no idea what Amy P is talking about, and suspect that this is quite a good thing.

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  15. I had to google “Go to work on an egg”. I was amused to learn that an attempt to re-use that slogan (in 2007) was rejected (on the grounds of being bad nutrition). Which shows that, whatever other practices have kept the same, what you can show on the TV is highly malleable.

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  17. “but I expect a lot of this focus on grooming reflects the evolution of US sexual practices in a particular direction”
    I think Amy is saying that Clinton did it.

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