Otherwise Engaged by Suzanne Finnamore

Author:Suzanne Finnamore [Finnamore, Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77285-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

Came home to a hallway full of feathers. The Cow had had his way with a small sparrow who had the misfortune to fly into the apartment. There were feathers everywhere, and a tiny bird head in the center of the hallway. The Cow felt great about it, you could tell. He was sitting there like Muammar Qaddafi, preening himself.

Even though he was working late, I left it for Michael. He came in at eleven, picked the bird’s head up with a paper towel, and then announced that feminism had a ways to go.

Clark, my newly assigned partner, is very excited to be working with me. He will be my art director for the new television spot next month, and possibly beyond. We’ve awarded the job to a French production company in order to fulfill our specific conceptual vision for this creative project. It’s called Work with a French Director, Get a Free Trip to France. Clark has spent time with Graham and me, so he understands the prime objectives.

Clark says France is fantastic. To Clark, everything is either fantastic or else it’s crap. Clark has green hair and graduated from the Parsons School of Design, after growing up on a hog farm.

“… ’s crap,” he’ll say, dismissing Herb Ritts or Mathew Ralston, or sometimes even an entire state. He once said Pennsylvania was crap.

Or else, “Fantastic,” as when he’s gazing at a photocopy of a fried chicken menu that he has run through an old fax machine backward, and then overexposed and blown up to poster size, having billed all this to General Agency, the job number he refers to as the Black Hole.

When he wandered into my office today, Clark and I consulted the Eight Ball about the Creative Director from L.A., who just had a whole spread in a large trade magazine in which his picture is shown next to a lot of work other people did.

We ask the Eight Ball,

Will the Creative Director from L.A. go back to L.A.?

You may rely on it

Will the next guy be an even worse bastard who fires everyone and brings in his own people?

It is certain

“Fantastic,” Clark says.

The Eight Ball is frighteningly accurate. But we can’t use it too much, or it will lose its potency.

I begin to think, for approximately the millionth time in my life, that even though things haven’t gone the way I planned, it’s possible that I will be fine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.