What do I know about math? The more I considered the question, the more I understood that we all know more about math than we may realize.
Big thanks to my friend Kate Ertmann—a lover of math—for encouraging me to write an essay about math and its role in our lives. She also provided editorial guidance throughout and helped to get my piece published by the Mathematical Association of America.
One of the playful aspects of this essay is the liberal use of math-based idioms. I managed to fit a bunch of them into the piece, including “go figure,” “divide and conquer,” and “back to square one.”
I wrapped up the short essay with these thoughts:
Maybe it’s time to remind ourselves that our best writing, art, and music are all reliant on math. When we recognize a distinct but familiar shape, or hear a pleasing rhythm and rhyme, the art is speaking to us in our language, and more often than not, that language—our structure for conveying meaning—is mathematical.
“Austin has become the epicenter of exponential growth.” -Douglass Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is one of America’s most important intellectuals, authors, and teachers. In March, Rushkoff spoke at South By Southwest about the changes he has witnessed at the conference, in Austin, and the culture at large, thanks to technology’s imprint.
It’s a ball-buster of a talk. He’s a funny, playful man who isn’t afraid to name names. He calls out Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly, SXSW, and the city of Austin, among others, for advancing the corporate web and amplifying the bland autonomous culture that results.
Rushkoff recalls a time not too long ago when the internet, and those who were fascinated by it, were experimental misfits and psychedelic adventurers. There was no money in it then. Then, there was.
This Renaissance that we were experiencing became contextualized as a revolution, particularly a revolution in business. And the reason they contextualized it as a revolution is because it was not a ‘revolution’ they were after, but a reactionary force.
Rushkoff suggests that South By and Austin shifted their focus from fostering “human possibilities” to promoting technology for “surveillance and control.”
That hurts!
We started this trip in Austin with a set and setting of weird humans collectively creating new possibilities. And we reformed or revised that set and setting to using technology on people in order to ensure specific outcomes…And no wonder we are having a bad trip.
He discusses how the capitalists do it. He says algorithmic curation is a form of autotuning, where technology homogenizes human behavior by reinforcing statistical predictability. Which, of course, can be monetized, as we’ve seen. He deftly points to the danger.
The more that we allow our technologies to autotune us — and I would argue AI does that too because everything AI gives you is the most probable response— what happens is it will revert our civilization to the mean.
Rushkoff is a sharp critic, but he also has hope, and hope spreads. Optimistically, he believes that we can pivot from a digital culture of utilitarian exploitation to one that values “sacred expression” and connection between people. He sees our collective weirdness as a form of resistance against dehumanizing systems.
In this context, the desire to “Keep Austin Weird” is a mandate to keep this vibrant, creative city alive and hospitable to humans. To accomplish this kind of work, Rushkoff challenges us to tell new, life-affirming stories that help us create a new reality.
That’s a call to action I can get behind!
We are magicians. We can change the future. And magic is a spectrum. Believe as much as you want. At the very least, we can use language to disable the mind virus of capitalism. That counts as magic, right? Using your words to create a spell that changes the way we think.
…Changing the story changes the way everybody does what they do, you know?
I love that Rushkoff wants us to “use language to disable the mind virus of capitalism.” For many writers, it may become the most important work that we ever do. Whatever form our writing takes, we who use words to make meaning have an obligation to document what’s happening, and to do so in a brutally honest way that is also elegant and artful.
Rushkoff reminds me that it’s not enough to complain about the criminal cabal in charge today, because it fails to inspire and motivate people to act. It’s better and weirder to sift through their garbage and make something meaningful from it.
It’s nice to be liked. As a writer, it’s even better to be read and promoted. In the past year plus, Communication Arts (@CommArts) has shared my writing about developments in media, marketing, and advertising a total of six different times on Twitter.
Starting in 2018, CA has promoted my writing a total of 21 times.
I’m humbled and astounded by this. I also feel like sometimes I’m writing for an audience of one on Adpulp.com. Nevertheless, I can’t complain. If you only have one reader but the reader is influential and supportive of your work, it might inspire you to carry on.
And you might need to be inspired on a long journey. Adpulp.com is a project that turns 20 years old in October. I’ve tried to give it up many times, including recently when I took the site offline for the first time. I could share with you the ins and outs of why I did that, and why I chose to restore it, but it’s not all that interesting.
What remains interesting to me is the use of media, marketing, and advertising to move people. Brilliant campaigns can change people’s minds and behaviors. Persuasion is powerful. I’m inclined to continue my study of it and to share some of the writing that results.
Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being is a how-to guide and religious-like affirmation for people living the artist’s life.
The author provides tips learned from decades of producing hit records, but the book is bigger than a self-help manual for those living the artist’s life. While it’s 400-plus pages in length, the prose is breezy and pleasing to take in, while driving home a central message about the individual and societal value of of making art.
“Remote Cabin,” charcoal and acrylic on paper by David Burn.
For a practicing artist, there are moments of recognition in the book, places to pause and realize how the struggle to make art — to successfully craft ideas into something powerful and uniquely expressive — is universal, and however you’re doing it, you’re doing it right, provided you’re making work that pleases you and helps you connect with others.
Rubin writes:
One of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to share it. Even if there is no audience to receive it, we build the muscle of making something and putting it out into the world. Finishing our work is a good habit to develop. It boosts confidence. Despite our insecurities, the more times we can bring ourselves to release our work, the less weight insecurity has.
Finishing a work so you can share it is a focus of his instruction to artists. I find it encouraging that perfection is not the goal, because the need for perfection is unrealistic and beside the point. The goal is to express important ideas in an artistic way, which helps make a bridge to other people who want to connect with what you’re putting into the world.
The goal is also to play and remain childlike and “see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes.” This is a transferable business skill, by the way, because it’s critically important for business owners and operators to ask ‘why?’ over and over like a child would. The goal is to remove built-in assumptions, to more clearly see the path forward.
Rubin writes:
We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.
I love the idea that we are ultimately freed by our reliance on process. The work of making art isn’t conventional, but it is work, and something to get better at doing.
You Look Good In Rick Rubin’s Mirror
I came to Rubin’s book after three-plus decades as a paid, professional writer. I also came to his pages as a beginning painter. In each case, I find the book instructive and important. It’s helpful to read a book that validates the way you see the world and behave.
Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, ‘I’m not good at being a monk.’ You are either living as a monk or you’re not. We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.
Via unwavering dedication and regular practice, an artist becomes a stronger, more self-realized version of themselves. The practice is the point, not any one piece that’s been created. You let go of the pieces you make and move on to the next while continuing to refine and master your practice, forever.
Creative People Will Help You Make Better Decisions and Better Products
I write often about the art and science of marketing, and how we undervalue the art side of the equation. The artists in your midst, including the artists inside your company right now are people with big ideas and the will and talent to pursue and complete them. The company that values and rewards these artists and makes it so they can pursue innovative new solutions to the same old problems, is the more attractive and prosperous company. Be that company!
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Super short bio: I wrote my first ad campaign for a political candidate when I was 17 years old. She won her race and the hook was set. I have been in pursuit of notable wins for my employers and clients ever since.
“Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience… What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more. Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.” -Susan Sontag
In Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, “Against Interpretation,” she provides a new framework for appreciating artworks, one that explicitly denies the need for critical assessments of the works in question. Sontag wants us to experience art and be enlivened by it. She argues that to overanalyze it is to diminish it.
Oddly, I sometimes find myself interpreting my paintings after I make them (as was the case with the new painting posted here). When I am in the act of making a painting, I don’t want to think too much. Ideally, I let the brush guide me and when this occurs and things go well, the paintings somehow have the power to inform me about their meaning.
Back to Sontag’s famous essay… I love that an esteemed writer and intellectual is advocating for less thinking and more seeing, hearing, and feeling. I think artists and all makers can learn from her. “What’s important now is to recover our senses.” Thus, when you’re making a painting, running for public office, or launching a new product, ask how you’re helping the people in your orbit to see, hear, and feel more.
Marketing is often described as an art and science. I’m good with this description, but I’d like to emphasize that the art part of the equation requires a different sensibility. Instead of looking for “triggers” that will “lock in” the “target,” you’re looking for big ideas that will touch and move people. Moving people to care and to believe comes before moving them to buy, vote, join, or give.
Sontag also makes a salient point about the need to cut back on content. We, the inhabitants of these Internets, have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to the call to publish persistently or perish. By flooding our readers, customers, or constituents with too much matter, we’re making it harder for them to discern what matters.
“IF YOU’RE CONSIDERED USELESS, NO ONE WILL FEED YOU ANYMORE.” -JENNY HOLZER
When we were in Naples last December, we visited The Baker Museum. It was my second visit of the year and most of the artworks on display had been updated since my first visit in July. A couple of the new exhibits made a notable impression on me—“The Art of Food”and“Botanical Evolution” by Tamara Kostianovsky.
Text art by Jenny Holzer
The Art of Food exhibit at The Baker features works from Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and other famous artists. I was impressed by the entire collection and intrigued by a simple-looking piece by American artist Jenny Holzer. Since the 1970s, she has been experimenting with the use of language in public spaces.
The line displayed on the plaque above is from a poem she wrote called “Survival.” I’m struck by the line itself, as it says so much in just 10 words. When seen on the wall of an esteemed museum like The Baker, the words are magnified in importance.
Maybe to some, a plaque doesn’t seem like art at all. Maybe it reads more like literature or advertising. Maybe we don’t have a definitive answer for what art, literature, or advertising is. Maybe they all blend nicely at times.
Of this, we can be sure… Kostianovsky’s artworks are pieces that only a visionary artist with exceptional hand skills can make. Standing there gazing at her pieces is powerful. According to The Baker, her suspended cow carcass sculptures demonstrate the artist’s concerns about consumption.
Part of “Botanical Revolution” by Tamara Kostianovsky
I like artists who challenge my thinking and expand my worldview. Artists who make me think, wonder, and appreciate their gifts and exceptional minds. In different ways, Holzer and Kostianovsky both take me to a place of awe and inspiration.
I started painting again. The impulse seemed to emerge from nowhere or maybe it came from someplace deep within.
When I’m painting, I’m able to get into the zone right away and let myself go. For the most part, I find it’s an unrestrained act to make a painting. This is different from writing, which I come to with training, expectations, and thus some level of built-in stress.
I’ve relied on words for so long—to express myself and also to make a living—that I now need another non-verbal means of conveying my ideas. And when I pick up the brush and begin applying the paint, I’m not thinking about doing it right, or who I will impress with my style. I’m doing it for the joy of doing it.
“Waking Bear,” acrylic and watercolor on canvas by David Burn
Some of my efforts are better than others. As with any creative effort, only a small percentage of the raw ideas and new works are worthy of appreciation and sharing with an audience. The rest is practice.
When the practice is painful, it may be a signal that you’re playing in the wrong sandbox. Ideally, the practice is something that calls to you. This is what’s happening with me and the act of painting. I’m being called to create by a new Muse and thankfully, it’s a joy to put in the time, get in the zone, and let spontaneous things happen from moment to moment.
“West Texas Cash Machine,” acrylic and watercolor on paper by David Burn
I’m about seven weeks into this new practice. I make about two paintings a day, working with acrylic and watercolor paints on paper and canvas. Many of the ideas for the paintings come to me just before I start to paint or after a few brushstrokes.
Some Clear Benefits of Painting
I’m excited to paint because it’s good old analog fun. Plus, when I’m engaged in the act of painting it helps me:
Practice being present and sharpen my focus
Learn to make the best of my mistakes (there’s no ‘delete’ button when painting)
Accept that it’s not all about the outcomes—it’s about experiencing flow during the acts of creation
Stay in touch with my true passions
Reaffirm that I can learn to do new things (and perhaps, in time, learn to do them well)
My interest in painting has also reignited my interest in art history and the works (and lives) of several of my favorite artists. I am now hungrier than ever to know more about Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinski, Amedeo Modigliani, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georgia O’Keefe, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and several others.
I feel like the works of these masters influenced me long before I picked up a paintbrush, and now that I do have a paintbrush in my hand, I’m looking again, but more intently at their brushstrokes, colors, subject matters, and the techniques that made their paintings extraordinary.
Hollywood’s writers and actors are giving new energy and a prominent voice to the struggles of workers everywhere.
When I heard Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, make the case for her union members, I was moved.
Did you know that 87% of SAG-AFTRA union members don’t qualify for health insurance? How much do they have to make to qualify? $26,000 a year. In other words, only a select few top earners make big money. Everyone else is barely getting by. This is a working person’s struggle for rights, respect, and compensation.
And the lords of the entertainment universe are not pleased…
“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline.
Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Iger (who made $45.9 million in 2021) said, “There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic.” What’s not realistic is the idea that income inequality will go unchallenged. It’s unrealistic to think that we “the people,” will continue to passively take whatever the corporations we support with our labor and our buying power dish out.
In her speech, Fran Drescher said:
It’s really important that this negotiation be covered because the eyes of the world, and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us. What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor by means when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority, and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run.
Greed is a deadly disease. The good news is there’s a cure and the labor unions in this country have an outsized role to play in providing this cure.
“An entire system incentivized to exploit workers.” There’s nothing more American than that. Not when you consider that unpaid forced labor helped create countless American fortunes.
Tragically, the exploitation of workers of every race is woven into the fabric of this nation. You don’t need a degree in American history to know that American workers in meat-packing plants, in mines, and in garment factories (to name a few) have died in this struggle.
To highlight what Fran Drescher said in her rousing speech:
We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity. Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions, because at some point the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored.
This is a moment of truth and inside of this truth, we can more clearly see how wrong things have gone in our corporations, our branches of government, our schools, and our media. We can see how broken we are and what widespread corruption and malfeasance does to society.
American freedom is a point of honor, but how free are people who work themselves to the bone, who neglect their mental and physical well-being, and who shirk their responsibilities at home? How free are people who work all day and yet they can barely afford rent, utilities, food, or medicine?
America is the richest nation on earth, and in my lifetime, this wealth has grown exponentially, particularly since the dawn of digital. What I have yet to see is an attendant growth in generosity from those who benefit most (or any legislation to make them pay their fair share of taxes, at the very least).
Income disparity today is ugly and alarming. On average, CEOs today receive about 398 times the annual average salary of production and non-supervisory workers in their firms. It’s disgusting and wrong, and it’s time to turn this tide. It’s time for workers to unite and demand fairer treatment for all.
The advertising agency business has been in one bind or another ever since the dawn of digital. Digital shook the industry to its core, and the reverberations are still being felt from top to bottom. The list of problems is long, but one problem we don’t spend enough time discussing is the problem of not knowing who or what we are, any longer. It’s a confusion that I find perplexing.
Since writing the article, another gusher of AI-positive news has flooded the system. Regarding WPP’s all-in bet on the technology, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said, “The world’s industries, including the $700 billion digital advertising industry, are racing to realize the benefits of AI.”
And what might these benefits be? More content and better personalization delivered faster and cheaper—these are the discordant bells chiming in the ad industry’s glass towers today.
AI may be a powerful new way to make money, but AI at present is solving the wrong problem for brands. The right problem to solve is creating one powerful and universal message and a singular means of communicating it.
