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Ladies, what would you give to
get your man in a yoga class?
How about a Gift Certificate.
Sangha Yoga Studio has gift certificates available for all classes and merchandise.
(We now carry Men's Prana Wear!)
834 Prince Ave. <£
706-613-1143
wwwJieallngartscentre.net
10% OFF
Tattoo or
Body Piercing
WWW.AMERICANCLASSICTAnOO.NET
1035a Baxter St.
% 706-543-7628
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1086 Baxter St • 706.549.6360
open Mon-Sat 10am-l lpm
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706-546-8787
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Sat 12pm-2am • Sun l-6pm
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ADULT TOYS
With coupons. Some exclusions apply.
Expires 12/24/08.
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WHAT GREEN MEANS
You might ask yourself, as I often do,
whether efforts to separate us from our money
are losing steam with the conventional pitch
to our desire for things. Tough times are green
times. As our ethical sympathies are brought
to market to see what they, too, might bear,
are we buying the difference between a better
world and the one we live in?
Two recent examples present, though
numerous others exist. The new Apple ads
touting the recycled materials, low toxin
ratios and energy efficiency of this year's line
of MacBooks come with all of the requisite
greenery, both cartoon and
technical, for a reduced envi
ronmental footprint. Arsenic-
free glass, mercury-free LED
displays, highly recyclable
aluminum and glass enclo
sures and reduced packaging
all make cameos and reward
buyers of the MacBook as
stewards of people and planet
for what is already a superior
product. No quarrel with Apple
here—Eco Hustle is typed on
a MacBook. Their green trajec
tory, however, introduces a fur
ther, virtuous element to their
product. Apple is one of the
companies we might expect to
lead the way, and as they do,
the wake of feel-good expecta
tions splashes over onto the
urge to buy.
Another, similar effort is
the new 30-second spot from
Brita, the water filter maker.
This little ad sneaks right up
on us with a woman in bed
and her alarm clock going off.
Words appear on the screen,
innocently remarking on what
is portrayed as ending: 9 hours
of sleep. Then, every image
fades from the picture except
the plastic bottle on the night-
stand next to the alarm clock, unnoticed until
it is the only image remaining and punctuated
with the words forever in a landfill.
Now we might think, nice—take that you
plastic bottle makers. But have we separated
ourselves from all the bottles in our cupboards
and fridges sufficiently to acquiesce so eas
ily? The nod slips the bounds of seriousness
and ad folly without a flinch. Preservation
of the planet as amusing anecdote or snide
afterthought is being tacked onto everything
as a secondary benefit to buying, a practice
that furthers our disconnect from the reality
surrounding us and the preferred Brita/Mac
world. Suddenly confronted with our better
selves (in the form of ethical products) we
have a choice.
How this choice differs from those we've
been making up to now, I'm not so sure. For
some time it has been difficult to conceive
of the damage being done to the planet on
our behalf. Our relative distance separates
the consequences—even of the dip in oil
prices—from that of their origins. We revel in
murky leaps of faith about what might affect
us and when, or the power of technology to
ultimately save us, all the while enabling a
miraculous ability to disassociate ourselves
from our actions.
The belief in indirect effects seems to be
a subset of the green advertising formula. We
need to expel an already suspended disbelief
about where our water comes from and how
much energy is required to make our laptops
to begin to see a way out of this mess using
your product here. The profound disconnect
we have created between the way we live
and what it takes to support it forms critical,
if convenient, feedback loops. By the ways
we entertain ourselves, the ways many of us
work, we reduce the concern about climate
change to what we can manage on our terms.
Our continued ambivalence about where the
plastics go when the recycling bin comes back
empty—much less about how they got on the
shelf in the first place—is left to imaginations
long succored by zapping spacemen on frozen
tundra.
And then as with the Apple ads, there are
signs that we're coming around. It's increas
ingly common place to think about percent
ages of recyclable aluminum and arsenic-free
glass, and it should be, given what we rely on
for information and signifies. Our products
matter to us and, for better or worse, we dole
out loyalty in the language of branding.
But play it out. A marketing edge to our
coming around ends up where? Suspended
over the gap between what we know and how
we live, we are open to manipulation, even
and especially by the products we love. At
some point these two need to converge to
begin making sense long-term. Just as we
cannot absolve ourselves by the purchase of
any product, we can turn our amusement with
self-preservation into a working model. It may
feel like two parts seriousness to one part play
at first, but our knack for detachment can
be extended to reuse, repurpose and scaling
down. After all, no particular form of play is
as compelling as work.
Alan Flurry
Alan Flurry, an Athens writer and musician, is propri
etor of the website http://whatdoesgreenmean.net.
He can be reached at aflurry@gmail.com.
12 FLAGPOLE.COM • DECEMBER 10,2008