Product Placement

I read an amazing book a couple of weeks ago called OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder. It’s a rather fascinating volume about how advertising and branding are essentially ruining our society. One of the topics the book touches on is product placement. By coincidence, cracked.com has an article today about product placement in films.

Hamlet’s Facebook

A woman named Sarah Schmelling has created what Hamlet would look like if done through Facebook newsfeed. Take a look here.

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners Announced

Victorian novelist George Earl Bulwer-Lytton famously opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with the sentence “It was a dark and stormy night.” Since 1982, San Jose State University has payed ironic tribute to Bulwer-Lytton by holding a contest in which people submit the most hillariously bad entry they can think of to a nonexistant novel. This year’s runner up was Andrew Bowers who submitted the following:

“Hmm . . .” thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfish’s bow ties, “time to get my meds checked.”

The winner was Garrison Spik of Washington D. C. who wrote this amazing sentence:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”

Full results, including many more wonderful opening sentences can be found here.

Adventures in Mixology: The Vesper Martini or Why James Bond is an Idiot

President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet: Can I tell you what’s messed up about James Bond?

Charlie Young: Nothing.

President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet: Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of gin and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice.  James is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it.

-“Stirred” The West Wing.

In Casino Royale, Bond goes to the bar and orders a martini, but not just any martini. He gives the barman the following recipe: “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.” Bond soon explains the basis of his drink to American agent Felix Leiter.

“When I’m…er…concentrating,” he explained, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

By the end of the novel, Bond names the drink after his lost love, the double agent Vesper Lynd. Despite the mystique that has surrounded getting a martini “shaken, not stirred,” there are those like President Bartlet and American mixologist David Wondrich that maintain that 007 is an idiot as far as drink mixing is concerned. According to Wondrich, Bond only checks off half of the requirements he set up for the drink he desires. It is certainly large and strong, but drinks are colder stirred than shaken. It is debatable as to wheter or not it is a very well made drink, as the vodka and Lillet do little to cut the sharpness of the gin and leaves the drinker with a very dry drink. It is worth noting that Ian Fleming never wrote about Bond ordering another Vesper.

As for ingredients, since the 1960s, the recipe for Gordon’s has changed. In Bond’s day, it was about 94 proof and has since dropped to below 80 proof. It has been suggested that Tanqueray should be used in place of Gordon’s, as it is still 94 proof. Additionally, Kina Lillet is no longer produced and many now use Lillet Blanc in its place.

The Vesper

• 3 Ounce London dry gin
• 1 Ounce vodka
• 1/2 Ounce Lillet Blanc