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Ideas by Category: Ayahuasca (Perfume) Date: 2004-04-29 Category: Consumable / Personal Product Price: 40 Target Audience: Perfume, fashion, and luxury goods manufacturers. Description: cK One? Weak. Today's young adults crave a scent with authenticity, identity, cultural gravitas. Inspired by the ancient but newly-popular hallucinogen of the same name, Ayahuasca perfume recalls visions, high plateaus, the rainforest, shamanic magic, great lost civilizations, spiritual cleansing, and cosmic truth. It shares some of the same forbidden-drug associations as YSL's Opium, but it's young, experiential, and New World-- not old, dusty, withered, and confined. The bottle refers to the starkly geometrical stone pyramids and gold work of the Incas, while the scent itself has an amber base, with herbals/botanicals and a touch of wood smoke. Hearts and Minds Board Game Date: 2004-04-20 Category: Culture / Games Price: Free Target Audience: Parker Brothers (Hasbro), Maxis, other board- and simulation-game producers Description: First published in 1959, Parker Brothers' Risk: The Game of Global Domination remains great fun-- but the classic board game's Cold War outlook now seems quaint. Enter Hearts and Minds, a game of global domination for today's ideological landscape. Like Risk, you play it on a map of the world, and you can deploy armies and weaponry. But there are other forces to exploit and contend with as well, including media conglomerates, bomb-making experts, political organizations, national elections, commentators and clerics, cultural values, ancient texts, and disenfranchised populations. Players play world leaders, and in each round of the game, they take turns "sending messages" to each other and to the public. These messages can be verbal (transmitted privately or publicly), or other forms of "high-level messaging" such as political maneuvers, economic actions, or lethal physical force. Players gain or lose operational strength depending on whether their messages resonate with the global public, an outcome which is determined by combining a roll of the dice with numbers generated by a social-forces simulation system that's housed in an electronic device resembling a Magic 8-Ball. The world leader who wins over most of the remaining population's "Hearts and Minds" achieves world domination, thereby winning the game and ushering in a new era of global harmony and understanding. Booth's Private Dining and Newsstand Date: 2004-04-19 Category: Business / Restaurant Price: Free Target Audience: JCDecaux and LSG Sky Chefs, in collaboration Description: You're in the city and you want to grab a quick bite to eat, but you don't want to eat alone in public? Booth's Private Dining and Newsstand lets you enjoy a meal in complete peace and solitude-- whether you're a crowd-drawing celebrity, you're simply feeling antisocial, or both. Step into Booth's elevator-like conveyer car, press the "Private Dining Room" button, and you'll soon be taken to your own freshly-sanitized dining booth. Food and beverage choices appear on a touchscreen menu-- which you can watch television or play games on, after you've ordered. Your meal soon arrives via dumbwaiter, not some dumb waiter, and you can relax and eat for up to thirty minutes before the room's automatic cleaning and disinfectant-spray cycle begins. Take the conveyor car to the Newsstand, and you'll find a wide, browsable selection of periodicals. The public Newsstand also serves as a convenient alibi, in case you want anyone who's watching your every move to believe that you may have been looking at magazines rather than having your dinner. Chateau Chien Taureau Date: 2004-04-02 Category: Consumable / Beverage Price: Two cases Target Audience: California State University, Fresno Description: Many people don't realize that Fresno State University produces some really good wines out of its Viticulture and Enology department. But unfortunately, the "Fresno State Winery" appellation is a turn-off for more closed-minded varietal consumers. Enter Chateau Chien Taureau, Fresno State's new, upscale wine label. They're some of the exact same award-winning wines that are bottled under the Fresno State label-- specifically, their Cabernet, Syrah, Barbera, Muscat, and Orange Muscat (and not their Tailgate Red). But they cost a few dollars more and have a fancier-sounding name, in order to appeal to the insecure wine buyer. It's that simple, and everyone wins: Certain consumers get a whole new set of wines that they can accept and enjoy, and Fresno State University gets another source of income-- which they desperately need these days, just like all public educational institutions in California. Astral Challenge Date: 2004-04-02 Category: Culture / Television Price: 200 Target Audience: Game show producers Description: Astral Challenge is a game show with a twist: All contestants were born within two hours of one another and share the exact same natal chart. Each show begins with the Expert Astrologer's quick overview of the chart, in which she explains what it means for the contestants' personalities and how they'll interact: "With all the Leo and Aries in here, we're gonna have a fiery struggle!" The competition's actual format must be worked out by the experts, leaving room to tailor each installment so that it tests the contestants' specific astrologically-predicted strengths and weaknesses -- for example, athletic ability where Mars is prominent. Stagers In Black Date: 2004-03-22 Category: Business / Real Estate Price: 50 Target Audience: Description: Are you a realtor? Garden-variety home stagers, with their characteristically middlebrow aesthetics, might help you in the suburbs-- but what about those gentrifying urban areas where cultural sophisticates are buying their homes? The truth is that each weekend, countless properties are laughed at by househunting hipster couples because of conventionalist, stuck-in-the-70's staging. Don't let this happen to you! With-it realtors who operate in "Urban Uptown" PRIZM-cluster areas rely on stagers certified by Stagers In Black. These stagers speak the same visual language as "creative professional" homebuyers because they all majored in Liberal Arts or Fine Arts at the same schools. Not to be elitist, but this can make a difference! S.I.B.-certified stagers are equally comfortable discussing Martha Stewart, Julia Morgan, and the pre-Target Michael Graves, and with their broad design interests and keen eyes, they'll dress up your real estate to look more like the home of a cool and admired friend, not some Stepford wife-- the kind of place that intellectual homebuyers will bid on, not ridicule. Karaoke: From Uncool to Cool Date: 2004-03-17 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: Free Target Audience: Documentary filmmakers, underwritten by the karaoke industry Description: Not long ago, karaoke in the U.S. was for dorks, mocked on Saturday Night Live and never considered seriously as an entertainment option by culturally-elitist urbanites. But since then, karaoke has shed its lamer reputation, and it now stands as a perfectly respectable activity for all but the most orthodox cool-police opponents. Karaoke nights have sprouted up in trend-setting hipster bars several cities, and karaoke was embraced naturally and fully by the American characters in the with-it film Lost In Translation. The one-hour documentary Karaoke: From Uncool to Cool charts this remarkable shift, recounting the history of karaoke with special emphasis on the social factors that have defined and modified its coolness over time. Included are recent underground variants of karaoke, such as Porneoke, Movieoke, and Costume Karaoke, which provide sufficient ironic distance to serve as "gateway" activities, luring uninitiated hipsters over to the hard stuff. Mosquito Deathmonitor MD-1 Date: 2004-03-16 Category: Durable / Electronic Price: 50 Target Audience: BioSensory Inc., other leading bug-zapper manufacturers Description: A bug zapper is great when you're outside drinking beers out on a buggy evening, but wouldn't it be more satisfying if you could actually see as well as hear each little mosquito get fried? The Mosquito Deathmonitor MD-1 biting-insect trap answers this desire by combining proven backyard pest-control tech with a macro-lens deathcam that shows each insect execution as it happens, in graphic, near-microscopic detail, on a built-in LCD screen. Watch the bugs explode, then take a chug to honor their memory! And in case you just missed a good one, a keychain remote lets you replay the last zap-- at regular speed, in slow motion, or even infrared. Die, suckers! Warhol's Empire on DVD (Flat-panel TV Decor) Date: 2004-03-11 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 25 Target Audience: DVD producers, art museum gift shops. Description: You've wall-mounted one of those nice, big, flat LCD or plasma television screens. But what does it do when you're not watching? You can just let it sit blank, play a cheesy fireplace or aquarium video, show some distracting eyecandy. . . or you can display a true landmark of modern art: Andy Warhol's Empire. This 8-plus hour experimental film consists of a motionless shot of the Empire State Building, filmed in 16mm from the 44th floor of the Time-Life building back in 1964 -- perfect for adding that quietly artsy touch to your living room, or even making it look like you have a window that faces midtown Manhattan in a time warp. Despite the film's epic length, Empire compresses easily onto a single DVD because it's black-and-white, it has no sound, and most significantly, it has no movement other than slow changes in lighting and the occasional bird flying. Finally, a way to put this notorious film to good use! Cirque de Bleu Date: 2004-03-07 Category: Culture / Performing Arts Price: 100 Target Audience: Las Vegas show producers and culturally-daring ex-Cirque de Soleil performers, along with their aspiring pals who also tried out but didn't quite make the cut Description: Have you ever watched professional acrobats perform and wondered about the sexual gymnastics they might be capable of? Well, wonder no longer, because you can see it all at Cirque de Bleu, Las Vegas's hottest new adults-only spectacular. Marvel at the all-lovely, all-talented cast as they demonstrate obscure and near-impossible Kama Sutra positions with balletic grace! Thrill to daring young men on the flying trapeze-- and even-more-daring young women!! Gasp at the sheer breadth of sexual athleticism that our glorious human species is capable of!!! Note that this is a strictly high-class show, sumptuously staged, with a live orchestra playing music that sounds sorta like classical, but has a good beat. All orgasms are completely faked as part of the overall, precisely-timed choreography (and of course, you will see no "money shots," which, despite the name, are not classy). Screenplay Press (Book Publishing Division) Date: 2004-02-29 Category: Culture / Books Price: Free Target Audience: Book publishers Description: You've seen the movie-- now read the screenplay! Back in the 1970's, before VCR's became popular, mass-market "novelization" paperbacks sold millions. But as home video raised the public's sophistication regarding film, these low-aiming adaptations seemed increasingly stupid, and sales dropped. Now, decades later and well into the era of home DVD film study, book publishers still haven't realized that the general public is sophisticated enough to read screenplays in their original format. (Publishers such as Faber and Faber do print select screenplays for academic audiences, usually after the movies have already left theaters.) Screenplay Press publishes screenplays of current films for the general book-buying public, with or without photographs or other costly "extras." It's a triple-win for the parent publisher, studios, and booksellers: Low-hanging fruit for the publisher, who expends no editorial time or effort on the titles because they're already completely written; gravy for studios, who get free publicity and income for selling print rights that they're currently just sitting on, and a good bet for booksellers, who can fill more of their shelf and table space with publicity-fueled known quantities, rather than obscure books that no one has ever heard of or cares about. IceWriter Date: 2004-02-19 Category: Technology / Heavy Equipment Price: 100 Target Audience: Zamboni Description: New from the Zamboni Company, IceWriter is an ice-resurfacing vehicle that "prints" semi-permanent color images of any size as it traverses the ice. The robotic vehicle sweeps over the image area line-by-line, while a hot metal print-head underneath melts holes in the ice, one for each pixel. The vehicle then sucks up the water, mixes it with vivid, biodegradable dyes, and re-deposits it into the hole, where it soon re-freezes. The resulting long-lasting color pictures turn rinks or frozen lakes into colorful billboards visible from far away-- even from airplanes! FreewayWriter Date: 2004-02-19 Category: Technology / Heavy Equipment Price: 100 Target Audience: Road-building equipment mfr's. Description: A highway's wet-weather traction is improved by grooves in the concrete, now standard in road construction. These channels produce a hum that's audible in any vehicle that travels over them, and varying the grooves' direction, spacing, and depth changes the resulting sound's volume and frequency (see S. Meiarashi et al.). FreewayWriter takes advantage of this effect to make highways sing-- literally. The computer-controlled tining machine etches complex patterns into the pavement that not only improve highway safety, but also play music to motorists-- even in stereo, when the left and right sides of the lane are etched differently. It's a great way to reduce deadly "highway hypnosis" on long, remote stretches of road, or even to deliver commercial messages. You're exhausted, you're still hours from your destination, and suddenly the road sounds like Rhapsody in Blue; that's when you think, "next time, I'm taking United Airlines." Astrological Wall Orrery (and Wrist Orrery) Date: 2004-02-13 Category: Durable / Electronic Price: 50 Target Audience: Decorative electric clock and watch manufacturers Description: AstroWin, Delphi, and other astrology apps are great for drawing up and analyzing charts for past and future events, but what if you just want to check where the planets are now, without having to consult a computer or handheld? The Astrological Wall Orrery is an attractive and affordable quartz-movement wall clock that doesn't just show the time-- it also displays the current zodiac positions of all the planets, giving you a complete, anytime read on your current astro status. Unlike traditional mechanical orreries, it isn't this ridiculously huge and expensive thing you'd only expect to find in a museum. But it does make a strong decorative statement that's in tune with the universe. For planetary guidance anywhere, strap on the Wrist Orrery, which captures all that great solar-system action in a snazzy-looking wristwatch. Hey babe, would you like to know what's rising right now? Education Department Office of Special Projects (ED/OSP) Date: 2004-02-10 Category: Service / Government Price: Free Target Audience: People who want more government support of the arts (whether or not it's called that). Description: With state budgets down nationwide, how do we improve education? Testing is one tactic, but the Education Department's Office of Special Projects (ED/OSP) has another cost-effective weapon for this important battle: Self-Propagating Education Devices, or SPEDs, which expand peoples' knowledge by getting them to pay attention, analyze, argue, and learn. Effective SPEDs, which may be either physical objects or documents, are so powerfully interesting that they spread through the population virally via word-of-mouth and media coverage. This numerically explosive exposure path means that one single SPED can deliver its lesson-payload to students (and others) throughout the country, without requiring a single teacher or classroom. The ED/OSP can commission and deploy most SPEDs for less than $20,000 apiece-- that's a helluva lot of educational bang for the buck. Note: SPEDs are not what some people refer to as "Art" or "Artworks," and the ED/OSP has nothing but contempt for those French-looking snobs in the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities who throw taxpayer money at liberal propaganda and family-hating filth. IBM Linux for Desktops Date: 2004-02-02 Category: Technology / Software Price: Free Target Audience: IBM (duh) Description: Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake might be fine for risk-takers and weirdoes, but everyone trusts the name IBM -- which is why IBM Linux for Desktops has inspired a spate of Windows-jumping by computer users and investors alike. IBM's somewhat cryptic 2003-2004 television ad campaign, which featured Muhammad Ali, hinted that Linux might indeed be useful for more than just enterprise, government, and education markets. Then the company delivered its knockout punch: a low-priced Linux distribution for the rest of us. No one ever got fired for buying IBM, the saying goes. Now no one will ever get teased for buying Linux. Milvian Bridge Date: 2004-01-23 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 200 Target Audience: Miramax Description: As Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ will undoubtedly demonstrate, orthodoxy equals controversy equals big ticket sales. Milvian Bridge applies this profitable formula to a Protestant religious perspective. The film focuses on the Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who made Christianity the official religion, thereby spawning the Catholic Church and assuring its political dominance, via Roman-built organizational infrastructure, for centuries afterward. The triggering event for Constantine came after his military victory over Maxentius in 318 A.D., which serves as the film's opening sequence. Following the battle, while crossing the Milvian Bridge back into Rome, Constantine looks up at the sun, sees a Christian cross inside, and hears the words "By this sign, you will conquer" (In hoc signo vinces). This vision instantly converted the military-minded Constantine to Christianity, and what follows is his rise in political power and the spread of his version of Christianity, culminating in the First Council of Nicea (325 A.D.), where Constantine banished the influential and charismatic Arius, the Council's chief theological opponent. Throughout the film's many heated political and religious arguments, Milvian Bridge explores the controversial possibility that Constantine's vivid, fiery post-battle hallucination was put into his mind by Satan, not by God, as the centerpiece of a devilish plan to pervert true Christianity. As Constantine's opponents are variously outmaneuvered, banished, and silenced, they astutely cite New Testament scriptures such as Jesus' plea for strict separation between religion and politics ("Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's,") and Revelations' encoded characterization of Rome as the evil Babylon. For added impact, the producers of Milvian Bridge should be Jewish-- then the fur will really fly! Ka-ching!! Ibogaine-Fueled Dianetics Date: 2004-01-20 Category: Culture / Religion Price: 200 Target Audience: The Church of Scientology Description: To improve mental health, Scientologists "audit" subjects' life experiences to find pivotal moments during which strong emotional reactions formed lasting blockages to reason-- not unlike the process of psychoanalysis. Meanwhile, many have reported that the drug ibogaine, when taken in conducive settings, elicits a hallucinatory review of the same sorts of events, allowing the adult user to understand, recontextualize, and defuse these stored experiences from a mature perspective. Ibogaine-Fueled Dianetics combines the two, turbo-charging the "audit" process by administering ibogaine orally or via enema (to prevent vomiting) before each session. You get the brain-combing power of psychedelics with the stability and guidance of a powerful, name-brand institution! And because ibogaine has also proven effective as an addiction recovery tool, it fits in with Scientology's anti-drug doctrine, making the Church's adoption path, well, clear. First, set up a Scientology-sponsored ibogaine recovery clinic in or near Tijuana, targeting wealthy, influential heroin addicts in the Los Angeles area. Meanwhile, apply political pressure to get ibogaine approved for medical treatment of addiction, a good and winnable cause which has growing support but needs big donors. Next, use the addicts in Mexico as guinea pigs to help design new ibogaine-assisted audit processes for non-addict "preclears." Finally, wherever the law permits, begin conducting ibogaine audits for good candidates in Scientology centers worldwide. Euclid's Discount Framing Date: 2004-01-19 Category: Business / Retail Price: 100 Target Audience: Fastframe, Deck The Walls, other picture-framing chains. Description: Picture framing is dead simple and the raw materials are pretty cheap-- the thing that makes it so infuriatingly expensive is the custom labor traditionally required to match varying widths and heights. Euclid's Discount Framing has a better and far cheaper alternative. Located in off-freeway "big box" districts, the framing superstore is laid out on a very simple plan: Rows on the spacious floor correspond to frame widths and aisles correspond to heights. Need a frame, matting, backing, and glass that measures 34 by 18 inches? Just go to aisle 34, row 18, sir, and you'll find a wide selection of everything you need. If you get confused and go to aisle 18, row 34 instead, you'll still find everything you need, as long as you turn it sideways. All materials in the store are assembled and sized on mass-production lines, so there's no custom work required, just restocking. (The one exception is mat cutting for truly unusual border shapes and sizes, which is available at a while-you-wait counter in the back.) Goth Idol Date: 2004-01-11 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 1% of net Target Audience: TV Producers of Pop Idol/Clones Description: The UK television series Pop Idol and its US version, American Idol, may be hugely popular, but they have little to offer the "alternative" crowd, other than yet another reason to feel alienated. Goth Idol gives these sensitive individuals a show of their own. Contestants may express themselves in any way-- sing, dance, bite the heads off of rubber vermin, or even simply pose and cry dramatically. Goths are interesting people; who knows what new forms of entertainment they'll come up with? The show's all-star panel of judges includes Ozzy Osbourne (or a less expensive alternative), any member of KISS (Gene or Paul if budget allows), and Pop Idol judge Nikki Chapman, to provide contrast. Bensfi Designs (Blog-Enabled No-Sweat Fashions from India) Date: 2004-01-11 Category: Durable / Apparel Price: 50 Target Audience: Non-exploitative apparel manufacturers/importers who sell high-end ethnic clothing to well-heeled leftie types. Description: Enlightened consumers will gladly pay more to have a personal connection to the products they buy, which is gravy for local artisans and farmers' markets, but what about importers? Bensfi Designs (Blog-Enabled No-Sweat Fashions from India) has the answer: Publish the company's org chart online, and give every employee their own blog, which they can update on company time, uncensored, every week. Next time you're out wearing one of the Mumbai-based company's stunning vegetable-dyed Kalamkari or Ikat full-sleeve tops, you can share the lives the seamstresses who made it -- their workdays, their hopes for their families and communities, and any messages they have for the people who wear their clothing in other parts of the world. These online accounts provide more than just a feeling of connection; they also guarantee that the manufacturer's employees are not being exploited, more convincingly than any "No Sweat" logo or other institutional certification. And if you ever travel to Mumbai/Bombay, you can schedule a tour of the Bensfi factory and say hello to some of the team members in person. Wear your Bensfi design, and you'll get in free of charge-- just like all the leftie journalists visiting to cover the company's inspiring success. Matching Pipe and Cat-Toy Set Date: 2003-12-29 Category: Durable / Toy and Novelty Price: 50 Target Audience: Smokers' paraphernalia and cat-toy manufacturers, and glass artists who work the high-end crafts fair circuit. Description: Much of the younger generation's best glassblowing and glass-sculpture talent has gone into medicinal herb paraphernalia -- witness the beautiful work coming from Seattle's influential Glassworks Park. Meanwhile, companies like MetPet.com have been raising cat-toy aesthetic standards with handsome interactive rod toys such as SpidersFluff and Comet-on-a-String. The handcrafted Matching Pipe and Cat-Toy Set combines these synergistic tools into one piece of functional art, a colorful tabletop set that holds a variety of rod toys alongside either a conventional pipe, a water-pipe, or an herbal vaporizer. On a cold winter's night, there's no more elegant way to present the evening's entertainment! Malcolm Gladwell's Project X Date: 2003-12-29 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 150 Target Audience: Documentary TV series producers Description: Japan's hit television series Project X documents key industrial innovations, one per weekly episode, with topics ranging from the development of the VHS standard to the development of the electric rice-cooker. Featuring frequent interviews with retirees, the detail-rich and optimistic program has inspired a large, devoted following, while spawning companion books, comics, and DVD's. Malcolm Gladwell's Project X translates this successful formula to U.S. audiences, focusing on American innovations. The appealing young New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell hosts the program, further guaranteeing its embrace by the PBS-NPR complex (which seldom backs properties that don't have a highbrow name attached). Arabic-Language Dub of The Hebrew Hammer Date: 2003-12-18 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: Free Target Audience: ContentFilm International, the international sales and distribution division of ContentFilm, producers of The Hebrew Hammer Description: Culturally with-it and currently anti-Semitic young Arabs need a more complete picture of Jews than the one inspired by the aging revenge-monkeys who rule the Zionist Entity next door. This greater understanding can be easily provided by dubbing the excellent new comedy The Hebrew Hammer in Arabic and distributing DVDs and tapes throughout the Arab world. The film draws a winning portrait of an underdog Jewish action hero, even as it (half-?) jokingly raises such notions as the Zionist banking conspiracy -- a perfect combination for credibility and interest with the Arab street. And while the film's producers shouldn't underestimate modern Arab cultural sophistication, it would probably also help, if budgeting allows, to do some very minor recutting for the Arabic version. For example, to draw a more sympathetic portrait of the protagonist's mother and to reduce the plot's reliance on It's A Wonderful Life -- a film which relatively few people in that region of the world have seen, and which if they did, would (unlike The Hebrew Hammer) prove bafflingly foreign and difficult to relate to. Saddam Interview with Live-Video Commentary Date: 2003-12-15 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: Free Target Audience: TV producers -- especially ones who do live sports, interviews, or Blind Date Description: Immediately after Dan Rather (or whoever) conducts the inevitable "major television event" pre-trial interview with Saddam Hussein, commentators will give their personal analyses of the conversation. These promise with equal inevitability to be overly general, predictable, and dull. But the Saddam Interview with Live-Video Commentary mixes running expert editorial interpretations in during the interview itself, on a slight delay, rather than having you wait for them afterwards, when they can't be as precise. The comments appear via simple visual additions, like the thought balloons and marginal remarks on Blind Date, but done in a more serious manner. Sports-style "instant replays" zoom in on, highlight, and interpret telling facial expressions, while particularly interesting phrases are displayed and analyzed at the bottom of the screen. Paul Ekman could direct the "color commentary" on the significance of Saddam's facial expressions while George Lakoff works the transcription to bring out the meanings and metaphors that underlie his language. Meanwhile Thomas Friedman would be a good, if obvious, choice for anchoring the live video commentary desk.
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