birth of Venus

Have you seen the ad for the new Facebook phone?  I guess it's a phone.  Maybe it's an operating system for a phone.  Actually I don't know what it is, but the commercial still makes my blood boil.  I don't want to embed it, but here's the link.​

The implication is this:  art museums are a stoopid waste of time and thank god you have your Facebook phone to keep you up-to-date on important stuff like photos of your friends eating cheese puffs and what time you'll all meet up at the dance club later.  Don't get me wrong--I like eating cheese puffs and when I was in my 20s I didn't mind going to dance clubs, although these days even standing around at a reception for an hour makes my lower back ache.  But I really have a hard time with an ad campaign that feeds the modern attitude that one shouldn't be here now, that there are more important or interesting things to be doing than whatever it is you're doing at that moment.​

I've been to the Uffizi.  Ellen and I stood in front of The Birth of Venus​ awestruck at its beauty.  The reproductions you see in books cannot even come close to the depth and subtlety of the colors that Botticelli employed.​  This was back in the late 90s, so cell phones were pretty rare and they certainly didn't have internet capabilities or even cameras (que horror!).  Imagine the torture everyone suffered by actually having to look at exquisite works of art.   

Boy, are we lucky today not to have to live our actual lives.  Thanks to Facebook and AT&T we can do it vicariously and virtually.  I, for one, welcome our new technological overlords.​

I guess I should be happy that at least they weren't picking on math this time...​