Jonnie and Steve asked me to dogsit this past weekend. I just hung out with the dogs, watching the Deadzone and 4400 marathons on USA, reading some Neil Gaiman short stories from Smoke and Mirrors. A really great weekend.
When you watch a lot of television, however, you end up watching a lot of ads. It seems that everything is lavender scented these days. Air freshener, fabric softener, detergent. I happen to like lavender. The handcream on my desk is lavender and bergamot. It's a relaxing scent. But why now? Why did the marketers decide 2007 is the year of lavender? There was once a glut of lemon-scented things. Then 'herbal'. They never said which herbs, just herbal. Then there were the esoteric 'morning rain' and 'mountain air' scents. Now we're into lavender.
And I'm thinking there was an accident at the Oreo cookie factory and they couldn't shut the machines off, because everybody and Adam's tomcat are offering Oreo cookie things. Oreo cookie sundaes and milkshakes and pizza (I'm not kidding about that one).
How does this relate to writing? Well, I did the watching television and playing with dogs instead of working actively on MMG. But, more directly, I think creative people can fall into the trap of looking at what's hot right now and trying to duplicate that success. The danger of too many seminars on marketing and publicity.
If I'm going to be part of a trend, I want to lead it. So no lavender and Oreos for me. Guess I need to buy new hand cream.
4 comments:
Trends are everywhere. Have you noticed the glut of penguin movies in the last year or so? Not sure why it happens or exactly how to predict these trends, but if a trend is in full swing, as a writer, I'd advise steering clear. By the time you get your incredibly fresh, never been seen before penguin script out, Hollywood will be on to rat movies (oops, already done that one). So my advice is, the stonger the trend, the dumber the idea to jump in late.
Oh, god, Oreo pizza? Urrrp. I'm suddenly not feeling so good.
I read somewhere that lavender increases estrogen production in men. That's a trend I will be ignoring for right now.
Oreo pizza can be a good thing. All that chocolatey-ness, mmm...
I seem to recall another lavender + male conversation some time ago at Red Robin one night. I wonder if there's anything to it. Deb, I have an idea of how you can get rid of that hand cream...
As far as trends go, they're often dangerous and, since they're trends, always short lived. Sometimes they're fun, sometimes not, but following any of them just for its own sake is generally a bad idea.
I must admit, though, I have lavender bath salt at home and I quite like it.
At least they are not making lavender-scented oreo pizzas...
Post a Comment