"Then, Mr. Seinfeld will spend the rest of the afternoon writing a new comedy bit drawn from the day's wanderings. Finally, that night, I would meet him at a downtown comedy club, where he would make a surprise appearance, perform the new material and see how the audience responds." [NYT]

My father died almost a year ago now. He loved to watch Seinfeld. Almost every show sent him into hysterics. I laughed too. But I never got to the source of the connection, to understand why Jerry's humor and my dad's were so close. New York Jews? Sure, but that's the surface. The truth in the comedy? Sure, but truth comes in many forms from many sources.

The Times gets into Seinfeld's craft. Perhaps I draw some insight here.

12:59:33 PM    

To Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College and the author of "The Overspent American," the movement away from logos goes beyond 9/11. "It's tied to a larger resistance to branding strategies and connected to individuality, to rejecting the corporate definition of who you are," she said. [New York Times]

I think that corporate accounting has done what the anti-globalization movement couldn't do. It appears we don't want to identify with brands for now. Naomi Klein in her book No Logo, did a great job of describing the culture of branding and the branding of culture. Naomi and the anti-globalization movement thought that it could be broken by helping us see what corporations were doing around the world. It's turned out that what corprorations were doing at home was more important.

Between the slow economy and the perspective that terrorism and war bring, it is reassuring to see rejection of self definition by corporate branding. I always thought that the corporate usurpation of culture was the most important message of "No Logo".

12:41:02 PM