LPs for long attention spans
The kids of today have short attention spans. Why else would Lovely Rima list her 25 Top Songs Of All Time? I commented here that Dilligaf and I shared musical tastes and if you look at our lists, you'll see that we refer to artists who made albums which lasted about 40 minutes, 20 a side. These were made of easily scratched vinyl and their sleeves were about a foot (30cms) square, large enough to incorporate art and interesting blurb. If you invited friends round to listen to your latest purchase, the sleeve served as a talking point and a surface to skin up on.Ah, kids of today, if they can spare the time, would do well to read a review of this book.
Oh, and if you're in Jakarta, check out the street market in Jl. Surabaya. You may not find a record player with which to actually listen to the albums you buy, but you'll probably be able to download the music when you get back home to a country with an internet service which caters for the whole population, unlike here.
Lead in your pencil
Everything you didn't want to know about pencils (fr.b3ta) makes for a lengthy blog, and lots of stuff you may not need to know about Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, the eight generation of the family heading up the international pencil company, with an Indonesian division regularly visited by school groups makes for a typically flashy Indonesian website.
The pencil is not a rounded hexagonal shape, with dark green varnish and gold colored lettering. The pencil grade is highlighted with a gold band.There isn't much about how to write or draw however.
Never mind the quality, feel the brand
Simon Pitchforth's most recent column in the Sunday Post is deservedly forthright in his condemnation of Kidzania in a new (what yet another?!?) upmarket shopping mall in central Jakarta.
Parents pay Rp.150,000 (= $17 per child), shove their snack engorged offspring through the entrance and then trot off shopping, unencumbered by whining for three hours or so. At Kidzania, children apparently, "Learn the value of money and work."
Basically, the little nippers earn Kidzania dollars by working for various companies (familiar Indonesian corporate logos are splashed everywhere). The Kidzanians can then remove their ersatz junior cash from special mini BCA ATMs and spend it at the department store or at the Kidzania bakers, among other demands for the little ones’ hard earned wages.
I think being cynical about one of the most cynical marketing ploys I've ever heard of is righteous.
Write on, bro'.
