Quick and dirty brand analysis. Neal's Yard Remedies.

Neal's Yard Remedies, founded in 1981, is a British beauty classic.  I'm surprised it isn't more widespread than it is outside of the UK. But then again, conscientious growth just goes with their ethical, earth-aware ethos. Still, NYR is a bit solemn - they have established their authority as a leader in the organic field, earned our trust, won awards and I think they need to have a little fun. NYR is now on Snapchat (just during the writing of this post!) and I'm curious to see how that goes. How would it work? They are clearly not playing to the Snapchat audience. I think they can move in that direction though by unleashing their inner cool, and I have ideas for how that could happen.

With the increasing interest in both personalized medicine and nutrition, as well as the ever-expanding holistic approaches to health and wellness, Neal's Yard will have a a lot of foment to tap into in the coming years. It is alternative healing - beauty and body homeopathy to the allopathic, aseptic pharmaceutical beauty brand La Roche-Posay. A Boiron to Pfizer. Both the ethics and the local nature of their products are core to the brand and to the "go local" phenomenon which remains dominant. While taking environmental and even social sustainability head-on (Argan oil is sourced from Moroccan women's work cooperatives), they speak to people looking for natural solutions to stress, sun protection, aging and chemical sensitivities. Without being too technical, NYR inform you on the maladies of modern life and how their products deal so harmonically with them. They're empowering their consumers with information and education, to take their healing into their own hands - all so good.

Their iconic blue - regal, tranquil, staid, a bit traditional, somewhat austere- is offset by a soft, modern looking serif font. The glass packaging and label is also a key symbol - a calming watery vehicle connecting us back to the earth - the colors of beach glass. Part of their color palate even includes the beige-y sand. It is an interesting contrast to the tree logo - the mirrored reflection suggests NYR works on building up, rather than depleting the earth. They embody the solid earth. That the power of what we see is fueled by what we don't - the roots underground. This extends to their products - simple yet powerful, the oomph of the earth within them. The glass packaging? Another visionary move way before the effects of BPA became part of the public discussion. Together, there is honesty, calm, authority, trust, elegance, longevity and simplicity, sustainability: moral satisfaction for the post-Aquarian eco activist, or the traveler who needs to be enveloped in the soothing, grounded, earthy goodness. It is a place where Rachel Carson would undoubtedly shop. But you can still imagine its hippie chic origins in the colorful Covent Garden store.

Rachel Carson, the marine biologist and visionary author of Silent Spring

I see a fitting comparison in Kiehl's Since 1851, even if it is a more luxury brand - it has something to suggest to NYR. With its own fun take on natural beauty medicine, it's signal is more quirky than NYR - in a good way. I don't love some of their brighter colored packaging, but as old as the company is, Kiehl's comes out more strongly on the cool factor: more badass rockabilly with its motorcycle and skeleton - Mr. Bones displayed in store.  The original location in the West Village (where I bought a product a few weeks ago)  is on the apothecary tip of beauty and wellness - where you might have found the old naturalists bringing ingredients to the ol' alchemists one-hundred-ish years back. At the same time, their products gain some legitimacy as a "treatment" through the association with the pharmacy structure, the in-store consultants donning white coats to demonstrate the scientific transformation of nature into its purified, medicinal state - a bit too pharmaceutical for NYR.

But NYR promote actual health much more than Kiehl's, and I had a truly wonderful in-store experience at Neal's Yard, Victoria Station when passing through London recently. The service was so knowledgeable, it would have been comical, crunchy madness, if I didn't feel so comforted by the fact that I felt I'd leave with what I needed. The product selection wasn't overwhelming - it felt like everything I might have wanted was there. I ended up creating my own delicious body oil blend. And then I got it home and kind of forgot what exactly was in the bottle. It wasn't written down anywhere for me. NYR probably captured this info as they charged it out but it suggested something missing in the experience. Though I have some bigger suggestions, I'll start here:

Suggestion 1: Community building. They are spot-on - clear leaders- with so many options for personalization, but NYR should offer a way for me to refer back to what I'd actually purchased. The in-store experience is a chance to really play and I had no way to follow up that process with an online engagement. They've laid the foundation but need to follow through by allowing people to solidify an individual experience rather than a generalized one - have a two-way conversation for customers excited about the great product they'd developed: Me "Mmm, an argan body oil with neroli and frankincense" do you love it as much as I do?" Neal's Yard rep: "great blend...For those of you who don't know about those gems, the benefits of that should be x, y and z" and so on. Link retail and digital more thoroughly.

Suggestion 2: Bring it to the Men - We are well into the age where men are accustomed to taking more attentive care of themselves. NYR aren't just pampering products. They are the very basics that we all need for ongoing good maintenance. The revolution in men's face hair in the past few years has allowed them exposure to new products that can become a gateway to more careful attention. Men's grooming is actually a thing. NYR boasts a small masculine line, but I think the majority of NYR, as well as the packaging, is gender neutral which is great. Start hitting #mensgrooming #mensproducts #fathersday #menwithstyle #forthemen. There should be a Men's kit along with the other skincare kits. Plus, the basis of every masculine fragrance is here - black pepper, cedarwood, bergamot, coriander . There is so much to mine at NYR for the men. However, there is little to no signaling to the men that these are products for them too - beside the shaving cream. Masculinity is turning inside out right now - NYR should be on the cutting edge of gender developments.

While more targeted research is needed, here are two quick options for cool/interesting masculine venues:
AnOtherman (a division of AnOthermag)
The Art of Manliness

Suggestion 3: Strategic collaborations that brings NYR into tribes and territories that would share the organic and sustainable vibe with some well-selected products, or limited-release products for each extension, to ADD SOME FUN by just extending a bit. This approach may be off their radar because they just seem to be speaking to an older audience - too serious. Their low-key, life affirming path is wonderful but frankincense and neroli, ylang ylang - these are sensual - NYR has to bring out that there are MANY tribes that fit within their range - the lavender and a quiet cup of tea feels entirely too contained. Young people are increasingly conscious of the sustainability of organic products and they're also concerned about sun protection and aging. But NYR has to update not only the technology but brand-feel accordingly and young people are more likely to take notice if they see NYR enjoying the ride, and see people enjoying their NYR products.

CATCH THE WAVE. Semiotics informed directions that can extend the brand: build an aquatic element into the NYR line. It is already contained in the dark blue glass and the lighter blue labeling - the beach glass. Aquatics would represent a striking, yet intuitive, organic complement to their earth base, held so beautifully in their logo with tree and roots. Earth provides the solid base, water flows - allows different, new energy, even as they work together. In the same way, the water element makes sense from a national perspective, as a British brand, the water all around the isles. The seashore taps into all the calm and tranquility NYR aims for yet it could bring a bit of edginess, lighten the mood up a bit - "fresh" and "oceanic" "marine" and "sea". Without veering sensorially into the coconut, vanilla and pineapple when going for a youthful audience, it can always be made to cut across segments with florals and citrus, bay leaf.  The aquatic element adds in beautiful products around seaweeds, kelps and sea salts both for body and as remedies or supplements - there are currently one or two products but it could become a more integrated, intentional strategy.

Seaweed, Salty AND Earthy

There is salt: Maldon of course, which is a mainstay in my home, but I can also imagine some hand-harvested fair-trade/ethical sourcing, highlighting the UK such as the Hebridean or Cornish Sea Salt but also supporting salt harvesters in other parts of the world. As much, it easily brings NYR beauty and wellness activism to oceanic and climate change routes. Sun care could add-in "beach/sea" care and beyond that, there are already so many water associated products to incorporate, though I'd love to see NYR adopt something like a Seaweed Absolute (bladderwrack) or Oakmoss in their essential oils to align with the theme. It feels right and it keeps the elegance and the sustainability core.

H&M Collab with Swedish Surfer Collective Nordsurf

Surf Styling - this is the part I love about adding an aquatic element to NYR. The potential for brand partnerships and NYR champions in the surfing community is very cool. Surfers are environmentalists - the sport requires being in accord with nature.  They are serious about their sport and about the environment but have a reputation for being lighthearted about life - groundedness of earth, "flow" of water. Partnering with sustainable and earth-conscious brands, surfer foundations and surfers as influencers and champions unleashes the hidden cool I am seeking here. Here are a few partners, just to get started: The first one is an obvious choice: The Green Wave, based in the UK is about sustainable surfing, gear and lifestyle products. Another is TwoThirds—a striking brand, relatively new from Spain that combines surfing and environmentalism in order to follow their philosophy, "Protect what you love." The Surfrider Foundation is a decades old non-profit that has a separate European arm whose mission is to protect beaches and shorelines. They work with corporate sponsors - how much fun would it be for NYR to help start a UK chapter of Surfrider?

Have a few beach parties to launch in select UK surf locations and highlight the new strategy, environmental concerns and some new products. Aquatics allow many new possibilities for keeping to the core feel of NYR but bring new products and new segments without being too forceful or even going too far afield.

India's "Make in India" brand: The third wave of futurism...

The branding of India's new national innovation program "Make in India" is truly eye candy. Launched in late 2014, the initiative was developed by the Modi government to (re) build a national economy that not only suffered in the recent global economic crisis but also failed to live up to the almost boundless growth that China had experienced. This brand initiative wants to put India back in the game - to ensure that being the fast growing global economy is a lead they hold onto. It wants to point the world toward India. The imagery (re)evokes the kind of mass industrial prowess of which the US in particular seems no longer capable. The world economy is just set up differently now and the Taylorist style factory cities (to the left) which brought the US wealth and empire status are now more common to national economies that are thought of as "catching up". According to the Nation Brands Report (2015), India's brand value increased by 32% from USD 1.62 trillion in 2014 to USD 2.14 trillion in 2015. If you believe that indicator is meaningful, something might be coming from this initiative. But I find the meanings behind these images very curious. It makes me think the strategy is to downplay the cultural gulf that might exist when trying to do business in parts of the world not one's own. But it's more than that. 

The more inward looking campaign "Be Indian Buy Indian" aimed within India's boundary, hoping to connect an Indian consumer's decision-making to national sentiment. In contrast, these brand materials, not the first attempt to brand Indian industry, clearly point outward - the primary logo gives us a wild animal, an exotic, yet elegant view of India as a place where you can still find wild animals roaming, a place whose open space for investment is as wide as an open plain.  The lion - wise, regal and ferocious-  the king of the forest, is tamed and modernized by removing it from a natural landscape and imbued with bright primary colors or sleek patterned overlays depending upon need. Almost prowling forward, it declares "We are the future".

There is deep design touch that owes so much to a modernist faith in technology as a central feature. It is all about industrialization. While the Make in India brand covers 30 different sectors, it seems to be aiming for tech and heavy industry/capital goods and infrastructure - semi-conductors, space, shipping, military, although global pharma knows all too well that India also has major competency in drug development.

Yet the accompanying images connote a deep understanding of the economic past; the heavy machinery evokes (for me, as an American) what was once the American lifeblood. This is what technology once meant, depicted by Charles Sheeler in his Ford factory in Detroit. Sheeler's work defined a brave, new, modern world led by American ingenuity in the 20th century.

Charles Sheeler, American, 1883-1965; Ford Plant, River Rouge, Criss-Crossed Conveyors,
1927; gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Lane Collection

While the Make in India designs certainly borrow this energy, they are even more laden with associations of the mass industrial planning characteristic of the 1920's and 30's in Russia and in Germany. The, heavy, block-y font is pure Russian Futurism. The designs are so flat, abstract and retro, with bright, rich contrasting colors and laser cut angles - the precisionism of Sheeler, the monumentality of Soviet Constructivism or national socialism. The representations produced during that era were part of very rationalized social and economic systems in a complex package that grew wealth of nations, but were also foundational to the nationalist sentiments caught up in WWII and then the Cold War. In a nutshell: techno-fascism.

If you look quickly, the PPP could be mistaken for a CCCP...

Much as I appreciate the aesthetic itself  - I went through a Stenberg Brothers and a Rodchenko phase- what dominates this story is not people but machinery. These intend to make you feel awe in the face of the grand capacity for building. Wheels and moving parts, shiny, larger than life. Technology as the driver of human progress. Yet people disappear in and are dominated by such machinery and its relentless movement. As a social theory and a theory of management, Taylorism wanted people to bend to the will of the machine, to become part of it ("a cog in the machine") but even this idea quickly gave way to more anthropocentric understanding of the human-machine interface. Check out Chaplin's important critique of factory life in his film Modern Times (1936). Chaplin masterfully depicted how difficult were human's insertion into a steel clad environment.

No matter. Investors want to see the goods. But where are the people in this #MakeinIndia campaign? Was leaving them out intentional, a way to nullify the pesky issues concerning cultural differences, in work habits, institutional understanding, business practices? I suppose that is the point. The people that do exist in the story aren't the workers - the movers and shakers in the Indian economy- they are the global investors, those invited to participate in what is depicted as a new Industrial Revolution, happening in India. A call to arms, um - I mean to action.

And who are these anticipated investors?  To what region of the world are these images directed? Their feel might be too Socialist, too "red" for an American audience. Perhaps the underlying strategy is, "...to revive not only the Silk Road, but all the ancient trade routes crisscrossing the huge Eurasian land mass of the former Soviet Union in all directions."* In that context, the campaign makes much sense. After all, Narendra Modi and Putin just had their 16th bilateral summit where their love-fest was sanctified in sixteen different agreements that should reinforce partnership across security, trade, commerce, science and technology, defense, and energy - key "Make in India" sectors. They also aim to strengthen their defense partnership and encourage joint manufacturing of defense products in India. This will eventually pave the way for India becoming a central player in the global defense market. An important lesson from the Cold War: Centralized industrial planning is, as a political endeavor, as much an effort toward military build-up as it is an economic strategy. The "Make in India" imagery, in all its historical and artistic associations, is paying homage to a key partner and investor in Russia as much as it hopes to inspire as to the inevitability of India as the global center of production. But it will also have the capacity to defend this position with a new military strength, allied with Russia. Who only knows what that would eventually mean, in particular with talk of a new Cold War between the US and Russia*?

This montage-y image  could be mistaken for one produced 70 years ago, were it not for the
wind turbines. I love the hope provided by the color contrasts of sustainable technology against a bleak hospital seagreen background, smokestacks notably lack the smoke characteristic of dirty industrial development very common in China.

Charles Sheeler: he glorified, and beautified technology, making it a subject of awe, highlighting
its power. This, an elevator shaft gives us a true impression of height - and feels
like it must have inspired a Hitchcock film

Alexander Rodchenko, Suchov-Sendeturm (Shuchov transmission tower), 1929.
Gelatin silver print, 5 13/16 x 8 7/8 in. © Rodchenko & Stepanova Archive, DACS 2010

*Vinay Shukla for Russia Insider. "Here's Why India is Vitally Interested in Good Russia Relations Sep 18, 2015. http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/64262/sovietnazieconom00temi.pdf

Sumit Kumar for The Diplomat. New Momentum for India-Russia Relations?: In a state visit, Indian PM Narendra Modi gives the relationship a boost. January 03, 2016. http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/new-momentum-for-india-russia-relations/

Andrej Krickovic and Yuval Weber. Why a new Cold War with Russia is inevitable. Brookings Institute blog: September 30, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/09/30-new-cold-war-with-russia-krickovic-weber

Gendered stories on film: the wax and wane of tradition

Gender and sexuality are in a great state of flux. As our understanding of these concepts expand, we also develop new language (which in turn, will affect other people's experience of themselves and the world around them): how many learned the word cisgender only around the recent transformation of Bruce to Caitlyn Jenner and were, for a moment, brought to feel grateful for the fortune of feeling comfortable in their own skin? Still, social change is slow and traditional representations remain very prevalent in the media. We can decode the underlying stories as another means to understand how society may be changing - and often how people in power feel about those changes. 

Take, for instance, Judd Apatow's films. I loved the 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Yet these and even Trainwreck, written by Amy Schumer tend to reinforce notions of traditional courtship and marriage as our ultimate life goal. In Apatow's hands, Schumer's normally raucous, sex positive brand becomes a comedic morality tale which finds her character getting on the wagon and committing to monogamy. In the film poster pictured, her index finger in the foreground means to say "Wait, wait while I take a swig to deal with this monogamy thing!!" but it is as much a finger wag taking women to task: Don't find yourself in the position of being a successful 30-something woman without a ring on your finger - complete with shocked, judgmental guy overlooking the hot mess. (Third meaning: "Watch as I put my true destiny on hold, drinking and shagging myself silly"). Clearly this was not Schumer's ending but Apatow's. Schumer's brand is as shameless and unapologetic as is Lena Dunham's. But Apatow's stories support the goodness of traditionality, precisely because they make us laugh.

But when we think about children's movies, it is not a stretch to say that representations of social life become a more important topic. Movies and media more generally socialize children - they create the cognitive models that kids use to interpret the world throughout their lives. They have a more hungry and intense connection to stories and images. One interesting children's film, How to Train Your Dragon 2, brings up the changing scope of masculinity and legitimates new kinds of masculine challenge and talent for a new generation of kids. 

The protagonist Hiccup is a smallish, uncertain and soul-searching young hero who doesn’t understand his trajectory in the world. He has talent but needs to establish himself independently from his father, Stoick the Vast (boisterous, courageous freewheeling, strong, certain, larger than life). In short, a “lad”. Rather than braun, it is Hiccup's tenderness and technical prowess with dragons, an unusual but highly important skill, that lie at his core. Yet, his talented, sporting and much more confident girlfriend Astrid is unimpressed by his boyish inability to see the obvious path to chiefdom clearly ahead of him. Unsatisfied with the ease of success by birthright, he required a cathartic experience, like all heroes going back to Odysseus, to feel worthy of the honor. He had to look for trouble and earn his way out of it to feel he could lay claim to being chief. He identifies more with his mother when he finds her. She is strong, agile and intelligent, driven by a similar passion for dragons, but she is also tender and rather than particularly “caring” - she did abandon him as a child after all- she could be called “protective”in her relationship to the dragons.

Fergus caricatures tradition masculinity

Many of these traits expand the profile of a “new” or alternative masculinity - an archetype that gives more voice to what was once thought of as a weak man. Rather than brute strength (think Brave's King Fergus - a caricature himself), new men can be talkative, sensitive, quietly intelligent, tender and choose love over war or be indecisive at times. Of course, it isn't that such guys didn't exist before - it is that they are portrayed as legitimate, valid ways of being masculine compared to the past where a "real man" meant not too much more than physical strength - pure corporeality.

Another recent film, Son of a Gun (2015) narrates this shift perfectly as it pits these two pure archetypes against one another: JR, the young protagonist of the film and Brendan (played by Ewan McGregor) who likened the difference between these two models to that between Chimps (forceful, independent) and Bonobos (who just "want to stand in a huddle and fuck"). Guess who triumphs?

He-man and the alternative in Son of a Gun

Well, unsurprisingly, the less aggressive guys do - bonobos can win. The narrative structure is a classic "overcoming the monster", but the cultural content is different. The overall message we're seeing is that Brendan's analogy of two types of guys doesn't hold. Two of the traditionally masculine archetypes , Snotlout and Eret, in the How to Train Your Dragon 2 film, ultimately follow Hiccup's lead, won over by the intelligence of his plan. Most importantly, the underdog who triumphs isn't a grotesque sort of caricature like he once was - as are the nerds in "The Revenge of…” series from the 1980s. This newer model is more complex reflecting different, important competencies in a less war-ridden and less manufacturing based reality. It connects more with young men who will also experience their own questions of identity in a world where economic uncertainty is high, with the soul crushing challenge of no chance for an adventure to prove themselves. These boys might have other forms of intelligence -emotional or technical intelligence- that give them alternative pathways to success. A world where many paths, at least in the West, have been cut off as a result of de-industrialization. Part of what legitimates these new forms of masculinity is not only making the characters more likable, but also handsome, or at least "cute" or physically attractive in any way at all.

The nerds are complete misfits; While you were rooting for them, you could never identify with them. 

One needs to look back only as far as 1999 to observe how these types were contrasted more forcefully (and more brilliantly), as in The Fight Club, for instance where Ed Norton’s character is a drab, exhausted, overly feminized, half-a-man, who is considered a sort of distortion of historical circumstances. Instead, 15 years later, we celebrate Hiccup, who wouldn’t be so rude as to manspread on the subway, yet can recruit an army of dragons.

There are other fascinating undercurrents in the film, for instance the way the differences between self-assured, talented and sporty Astrid is contrasted to Hiccup, reflecting how boys and girls are differently performing in school today; or how the confrontation between Hiccup and Drago seems to presage the revival of Cold War divisions as manifested between Obama and Putin...but enough of that. 

The wax and wane, moving forward while pulling back on the reins of cultural change isn't so surprising. As some people push for change, others resist, sometimes forcefully. Social change tends to be more evolution than revolution.  The results we see little by little. 

Riley - the little ice hockey badass from Inside Out. 

Girls rawk math, drums and skateboards, Thanks ED...

Multi-functionality and technology: Case in point...The playground slide

Here, you'll find nothing too complex beyond a bunch of cute kids playing. Right? We know kids can be more innovative than the rest of us. I caught it on tape.

There are certain fundamental principles of the process of technological innovation to be gleaned in this video I made at the behest of some pride-filled children They were elated to have discovered something new. Neither a fossil nor a piece of shrapnel from WWI, items that until recently are more easily found in this slice of the planet, what these children discovered was that instead of going down the slide, which had likely become boring beyond compare after five years of THAT, they found a new use for it, doing some crazy Parkour, super-hero jumps right off the top. It was nearly six feet off the ground. They weren't analytic about it - these daily revelations are part of playtime. They watched each other and goaded one another on. Some of them took the jump fearlessly; one took the initial risk and the others followed along, eager to experience the mix of fear and triumph, not to be left out. They landed differently. Others didn't even conceive of taking the leap. Maybe they followed along on another day. They wanted others to take notice - they wanted to share their discovery.

Once we understand what the slide is for, what any technology is for (yes, the slide is a technology...), it just seems inevitable that we use it the way its design seems to suggest. Especially if is designed well. There is even an onomatopoeia to the word slide (say it slowly to yourself to hear it) which let's you know how to use one. The slide is nearly perfect in its precision and yet a seemingly ancillary aspect of its design as a part of this live "play-station" led to the joyful frenzy in the video. There is a sweet spot in envisioning the possibilities for a developer and children seem to be particularly keen in finding new uses for mundane things. Thinking parents love toys - or learning technologies- that are general usage because they inspire creativity. Blocks, Legos, or Lego Mixels which have the best of both worlds, a kit with lots of prompts to mix up the guys and create crazy, new monsters.

I love the Lego Mixel Chilbo - I'm sure the creator had Groucho Marx in mind... 

We don't truly know the uses/purposes/abuses of technologies until they're released into the wild. Technologies often don't conform to the designer's intent. Slides are for children, correct? Who knew that child-safety obsessed, aka helicopter parents, would start going down slides with their kids to *increase* their safety, leading to a rash of toddler tibial fractures on slides in the US. Playgrounds - designed for children. On that note, did the creators of the television know it would become the world's cheapest and most convenient babysitter?

This one uses pots and pans for drums and also to check himself out!

Though it would serve equally well as a coaster, I don't use my iPhone as one (well, not since the screen cracked as I'm afraid water will seep in). Our smart phones are generative as technologies, like those basic toys we love for our children. Now that they're understood as life management devices, developers can conceive of infinite uses for them through apps. Not the case with more specific technologies, designed to be single-use devices, but whose ultimate utiliti/es are for the world-at-large to decide.

Our nature is really to color outside of the lines. Go up the slide. Jump off the top of it. Then we're socialized out of that kind of behavior. Where are the playgrounds for adults? Think about the excitement of creativity in this video next time you tell your kid to follow the boring rules, and then follow their lead.

Columbusing and Kendall Jenner as white people translator

There was some talk recently which I noticed on bustle.com, featuring Kendall Jenner wearing a traditional style of dress from South Asia called a salwar kameez, consisting of a pair of tapered pants with a long shirt worn over it. Except the original trendspotters (not sure who...) were excited about her look without having acknowledged the cultural origin of the outfit. It allows some thinking out loud on transmission of culture.

Kendall Jenner was being her celebrity self in the spotlight, but the initial (or otherwise) lack of acknowledgement of the origins of her attire is being discussed as cultural appropriation, with an interesting (and relatively new) word attached to it - Columbusing- that I just learned from @Soc_Imagination (Compliments to The Sociological Imagination for bringing me up to speed). 

In case you haven't heard the term, Urban Dictionary one of my favorite websites, defines it as as "When white people claim they have invented/discovered something that has been around for years, decades, even centuries". The founding example is its namesake - the idea that Columbus "discovered" America, never mind that it had been landed upon previously by other European ships or the ongoing power dynamics and the bloody colonial history attached to territorial "discovery". Laughably, the iconic example at this point is how Miley Cyrus columbused twerking.  If you would call that dance she did at the VMA awards properly twerking. Perhaps her twerk did introduce the term to the 50 or so people who hadn't heard it previously.

Columbusing works as a description because it so deftly captures the "appropriation" aspect - the borrowing, taking, or employing of something that once more "naturally" belonged to another group. The way Ricetec, a Texas based ag firm tried to columbus Basmati rice, filing a patent for it in 1997 which would have robbed India and its farmers the economic wealth derived from its national culinary staple and agricultural heritage - to say the very least. 

Good for India that Dr. Vandana Shiva lead the charge against Ricetec.

But what I think the term also highlights is how particular individuals -cultural intermediaries, sentinels, nodes in network speak, trendsetters for the fashion bloggers, disruptors for innovation and brand thinkers- become translators of other groups' culture for white people, then commodified for rabid consumption. In many places in the West, that is simply the "dominant" culture. Kendall Jenner became part of the "white people" translation process by wearing what high-end fashion brand The Row, called a "tunic" (going for a whopping $3690) over the traditional term for the dress. The designers took what tends to be a very colorful and decisively modest dress style and wiped it of the ornamentation and colors that normally define it to meet their monochrome chic style. It was lightly transformed and sold in a venue where few people making under 150K a year could afford to shop (see black leggings for 430 euros...). Then the trendspotters reached near rapture over the originality of the "anti-crop top" and the story is told. At what point did the cultural appropriation happen? As I've described it, it is a process and often no single actor can be extracted from the equation. 

Kendall Jenner's tunic is a good, simple example of cultural translation, of which the appropriation aspect of 'columbusing' is sometimes, but not always a part. On becoming an American citizen (after about 30 years in the US) my father changed his heroic Greek name Konstantinos, after Constantine the Great, to "Costas", which seemed to him easier for the Americans. Assimilation or Americanization is a result of many cultural translation/s over time, of a similar sort. He changed the name because it was too annoying to spell Konstantinos for Americans over the phone. Many immigrants changed their names for similar reasons, making the cultural differences between them and the locals less stark, more easily digestible for the xenophobic. Each of these decisions accumulate, one by one, to create a larger effect, like Americanization - which can sometimes appear like a watered down, saltless version of something more harmonic and intense. Something is certainly concealed or lost in this process for the base culture. Do you think this example of translation is columbusing? Discuss, and let me know what you think.

Yet in many cases, the translation process creates something altogether innovative for the dominant culture - who don't receive it as a degraded copy of some platonic cultural meme, but as something new and fascinating. For a sort of trivial example, the director Ridley Scott translated Swiss surrealist HR Giger's perverse and disturbing alien imagery into a blockbuster film in the Alien series. While the movie was terrifying and disgusting (for me), it was re-packaged well enough to highlight how the translation process also enables cultural diffusion. This photo shows HR Giger's work - complete with head as giant phallus - to be consumable to a relatively limited audience.   Monet's waterlilies this is not. Throw1979 Sigourney Weaver in the mix and you have one of the biggest sci-fi hits of all times.

Cultural translation often doesn't require the translators to come from the target group or dominant culture - in music there are clear examples from the 1950s and 1960s of columbusing of innovative music by black artists by white translators for white audiences (Elvis and The Rolling Stones are the common examples). In contrast, take NWA, whose origins were recently featured in the film Straight 'Outta Compton. Through their raw stories and talent, they brought the violence of inner city ghettos and the black male experience to a young white audience eager to understand and empathize and sometimes emulate the urban styling. Cultural translation is science journalists who interpret the encoded language of published academic articles for a non-science audience of readers in the New York and LA Times. There are many other examples of cultural translation which may have this more neutral or positive character - can you think of one?  

Columbusing is then the negative side of cultural translation which, on the other hand, is one mode of creativity and more broadly of social change. It is the space where cultural innovation and diffusion often takes place.

Happy Columbus Day?

On that note, I'll leave you with this video on the absurdity of Columbus Day from the brilliant John Oliver.

The Spiffero: Making sense of why Italians mostly despise air conditioning...

Italians despise air conditioning. Or at the least most of them don't even consider it an option. I'm bitter because I'm suffering sweltering days and nights in an apartment in Italy with no AC. Maybe silly, but I long for the days in the US when I'd run my central air conditioning unit for three months straight during the summer months. No doubt this was a particular brand of American gluttony and lack of ecological sensitivity. Not to mention the cost. But have you ever lived in an apartment with full sun exposure, directly under the tarred roof of a building in an East Coast city? Even in springtime at 70° Fahrenheit outside ( 21° Celsius), the temp in our place would reach as high as 95° F/35° C. When the external temp reached 95°F, then we were officially in an oven. So judge 'ye not...

Contrast that to how I live here in Italy where you simply have to block out heat mechanically. The shutters are strategically closed to keep the sun out, with the windows open to let the air in and if I remain still most of the day with the fan on high blowing directly at me, I won't sweat. My renovated apartment, originally built likely sometime in the 16th century doesn't have a hole in the wall for the AC. Imagine that.

I'm trapped inside this place with shutters closed during the day...

For an American, this situation is unthinkable - close to comical if I weren't living through it. On the one side of the pond, find Italians during the sweltering summer by locating those who remain stubbornly committed to wearing their foulard.

Italian with giant scarf on in summer...

No, it isn't carefree insouciance - it is surely a bit of Italian style but most of all fear of the spiffero, that deadly draft that may ill-affect different parts of one's body, but in particular the throat or neck. The spiffero could cause problems digesting, various cramps and muscle aches, sinus, ear and lung infections with exposure on those respective body parts, but the fear and prevention of sore throat is really where Italian talents lie. Ferrari or Pucci may beg to differ...

While New Yorkers and Americans in general revel in the frigid contrast of arctic air on skin, damp with sweat, as they walk off the NYC street to enter seemingly single digit temperatures, listen for those lamenting the icy airstream, looking for a way to protect themselves as though their clothes had been forcibly ripped from them. Those would be the I-talians.

Think about the BTUs* in terms of American military force.  Operation ICY Storm. Of course, Americans are extreme in many areas of life: the amount of space we require to store our stuff, the size of our refrigerators, the number of lanes we have on highways, our food portions, yes, American military force, the temperature of our coffee, the number of flags we fly...and the size of them. Our AC just fits into the larger culture so sweetly. One barely needs to explain it.

America's biggest flag, flying in Hoboken, New Jersey

But how to explain the extreme response of Italians to AC. The most recent data available show that only around 10% of Italian households have AC compared to 87% of Americans. This is an incredible contrast. My guess would be that even fewer than 10% use AC regularly at home while offices are most likely using them more frequently but never with the defiant love of it that Americans have.

Certainly, Italians don't like extreme weather of any sort. Rain is often an excuse to stay home, and they are invariably well-equipped with any kind of technical clothing for whimsical turns of the barometer. This weather preparedness, based in fear of the spiffero, becomes a fantastic vehicle for their inimitable sense of style in part fueling a high-earning fashion industry. It is not dissimilar to how fear of gluten is inspiring the growth of a whole new product division of gluten-free foods.

At the same time, Italians also don't like too much processing of any sort - they are more likely than Americans to want to take a natural approach to certain things - of course to their cuisine, being full of pure, primary flavors from fabulous ingredients and whose Mediterranean diet enjoys World Heritage status at the UN. As an aside, this is related to Italian rejection of GMO foods, an unthinkable interference in their food traditions. But they also seem more likely to want a softer, less extreme approach to many things: to medications and medical treatments, to exercise, to their general pace of life. Not to exaggerate the Eat, Pray, Love stereotype, but there is a shred of truth to it.

So maybe the voltage capacity here might play a role? I know few people even in quite elegant and well-equipped homes that could run more than two major appliances without blowing a fuse (I've done the permutation: [dishwasher + washing machine + espresso machine] ~ dryer; [washer + dryer + espresso machine] ~ dishwasher). But I don't think that's what's going on.

Instead, what might be at the base of it all can be summarized as the unwillingness of Italians to alter their immediate surroundings (through AC) when they can change their geography quite easily - that is, they'll eventually go on vacation. The work/leisure balance in Italy plays an important role in the annual life rhythm: Italian families have the feeling that beyond their work and home life, they are entitled to leisure time and that consists of mare e montagna - seaside and mountains- and they often take time during summer to enjoy the health benefits of both. In about mid-March you can begin to hear the din of what will happen come June, until this reaches a deafening pitch and people talk about nothing else at a certain point. With ten national paid holidays, plus four EU mandated weeks of vacation, they have the sixth highest amount of vacation time globally, so Italians just move to seaside or mountains in search of the relief they need.

Ultimately, it isn't as simple as just changing the temperature - whose variation alone would leave them vulnerable to all manner of spiffero-centric maladies. Italians forego AC as sort of an agreement that they can be relieved of the heat by being part of different landscapes on which they can lay claim as their natural heritage - there are coasts and mountains in every direction. In fact, the mare e montagna idea takes the Italian concept of wellbeing (or benessere) even further - mothers are often heard talking about how their child requires the seaside for their very health, making it part of your parental duty to offer your child the necessary curative properties of an Italian seaside or mountain holiday.

In contrast, Americans, with little vacation time, vast distances to travel to see something new and a lot of industrialization over the past 150 years have been cut off from nature in a way that Italians have not. Italians live life in and accept more readily the rhythm of the seasons while Americans make their home into a leisure landscape, take a staycation and deal with that difficult reality of life by removing some of the summer pain with a snazzy HVAC.

Certainly, the food movement is bringing more awareness of seasonality back into the American mindset. And the Chinese also have very advanced theories about the role of drafts or wind in illness which in turn confounds Americans. In the end, the issue of AC often doesn't even enter the Italians' mind or, when it does, it just seems excessive and slightly dangerous.

In the meantime, I'd like to go on vacation for my own seaside escape, or to the Dolomiti, more or less in my backyard. But when I'm home, I'll admit I'd rather be blasted by the cold air...in front of a spiffero-machine!

*BTU or British Thermal Unit is the amount of energy is takes to heat or cool one pound of water. We measure the strength of our air conditioners in terms of BTUs, where a good sized room of about 450 square feet requires an AC of about 10,000 BTUs.