it's a wonder I can think at all

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Is it me, or is referencing the "can't take it with you" aphorism* maybe not a good idea in an ad asking you not to litter?  I'm not a litterer, but this ad makes me think, "Oh, right, I forgot that when you die none of this shit matters anymore.  Who cares where my gum wrapper goes?"**  Of course the original sense of "You can't take it with you" hinges on the understanding that the pronoun it refers to material wealth, as specifically opposed to spiritual wealth, so I suppose you could say that reminding us to focus on our good deeds is worthwhile...  But, I don't know, I still think the ad's a failure.  I'm left feeling that I don't really want a used styrofoam cup with me in Heaven; I'd kind of rather leave it on the subway car.

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This ad's happy defacement has been updated.  Now he's got a mustache.

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This is a store on Broadway, near Houston.  I love the sign.  You'd like to think they're joking or at least that there's some degree of irony in it, but probably not, right?  Fantastic, meaning wonderful, extraordinary, extravagant; "from the Middle English fantastik, imagined...from Late Latin phantasticus, imaginary, from Greek phantastikos, able to create mental images, from phantazesthai, to appear"; from an Indo–European root meaning to shine, by way of "to bring to light" and "to be brought to light," i.e., to appear.

     The lower level has shower curtains and towels.  

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This is from an episode of Sealab 2021.  I love that parents are warned that the film advertised includes "situations": as a subtle jab at movie previews, it's just too true.  Two things I noticed recently in previews: (1) movies are sometimes identified as including, along with, say, "adult situations," "strong themes," which I think is a funny thing to warn people about (clearly a euphemism, but I'm not actually even sure for what),*** and (2) I swear that the MPAA warning before that ridiculous Star Wars cartoon that came out this summer dutifully warned the audience that the following preview was going to include smoking.

This picture I didn't take: it was in the Times, associated with an article about some music festival I won't name.  Anyway, it made me a little mad because I had just recently noticed that the same "Life is beautiful" graffiti had gone up in the last few days on this wall [the second of the two pictures] on Houston Street, and it's clear now that it isn't "real" graffiti but rather an advertisement—which rubs me the wrong way just as many commercials do.  What am I saying?  This means it is a commercial. 

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I hate it when corporations decide that it's really cool to reference the election in a super-super-nonpartisan way, like, "Who are you going to vote for?  It doesn't really matter, it's totally reasonable to support either candidate: this election has meaning and significance only as an expression of your personal style!"  Bullshit.  It's a bit like those fucking HSBC ads, but all the more maddening because they're about something so important.  As David Sedaris recently said (by far my favorite thing he's written that I've read), undecided voters are like airplane travelers who, when presented with the choice between the chicken and "the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it," have to think about it, and ask the stewardess "how the chicken is cooked."  (I.e., they're fucking idiots.)  Anyway, the Gap would like us to think that the blanks are meaningful.  So I like that somebody's filled them in.

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This is a more complete view of the thing I—can one say excerpted?—the other day.

* Is that the right word, aphorism?

** Roughly the same attitude held, as I understand it, by fundamentalist Christians who scoff at environmentalism.

*** It's funny that previews warn you about "language," too (oh, no, this movie has language in it?), but that at least is at this point an established synecdoche.  Or, wait...reverse synecdoche?  Calling something by the name of the whole of which it is a part.  "Language!"