Holiday Fiesta Round-up.

OK, Did you see that new Tresor Parfum spot with Kate Winslet? The whole piece is so quasi mocku-drama. I know they are trying to do the Chanel thing with the grainy, movie-style romantic story but it just doesn’t work with Kate and a foggy bridge. They should’ve had Marion Cotillard or one of the other cast members from Nine doing a broadway, backstage-flowers-with-a-note piece. Then they could’ve partnered with the film release. Maybe Chanel will pull through for us before the holiday. Though, on second thought, Mariah Carey’s Forever fragrance spot made it look like a Cannes Festival winner. Love you Mariah. Really.

Aside from that brief rant and in the spirit of the giving season, Ms. Memo has decided not to criticize any more commercials this week. This is partly due to the fact that she has been so busy shopping that she hasn’t clocked enough TV hours to see the annoying ones just enough times to whine about them. This is also partly due to the huge pay increase she received from her recent film gig which has transformed her into Little Miss Santa.

Admittedly, Ms. Memo is typically a bit of scrooge around the holidays with a cynical view of the whole mainstream mass-marketing, drive-your-credit-card-to the-hilt-through-guilt, extravaganza that it has become. She gets this from her father, the original scrooge. Somehow though, her mother’s influence has taken over this year and Ms. Memo is a downright shopping fool. The two big purchases so far were a Flip Video Camera for a niece and tickets to Jersey Boys at the Detroit Fisher Theater for mom. She is also making a substantial dent in the quest to keep her hometown shopping district in business. Royal Oak's Funky 7 is super rad for cool stuff for teenagers and twenty-somethings like vintage band T’s and lots of Made in Detroit wear.
But not to be put on a pedestal, Ms. Memo has made plenty of personal purchases and several wardrobe enhancements in the process. This is just part of the Universal Law of Nature: The more you give, the more you receive. Ms. Memo is living proof. Mostly what she’s received though is a warm spot in her heart for the beauty and charity all around her during this strange tradition of mass consumerism. It is more fun to join ‘em than beat ‘em.

Ms. Memo would like to give a shout out for her favorite holiday commercial for Garmin® seen here. Sure it’s funny, entertaining, attention-grabbing and memorable but the real hero from this spot is the copywriter, coming up with all of those lyrics to the song. The ones that are intelligible are very hilarious. I can just watch that one over and over.

Pur-don't.

I thought I may very well never eat again after watching the film exposé, Food, Inc. Mostly though, I’d like to flog someone, but who? The FDA? The Purdue Chicken guy? The McDonald’s brothers? One thing is for sure, I’m glad I stopped eating meat seven months ago. It started as an experiment to see how long I could go without, still eating fish, but no beef, poultry or pork. Yes, I did see Fast Food Nation a few years ago and that stuck with me – those images of the beef slaughter houses were difficult to suppress. And it wasn’t just that, I’d been hearing a lot about hormone injections in chickens, chemically altered foods and pesticides that cause cancer. Having two friends in their 40’s diagnosed with breast cancer this year, I couldn’t keep turning a deaf ear to the rumors.

I really didn’t think my meat-less stint would last this long and admittedly, I relapsed on Thanksgiving turkey and a certain Jet's pepperoni pizza that was calling my name at a party recently. But now, this film has brought my consciousness to a whole new level. It disturbingly shows not only how meat and produce get to our grocery stores and restaurants, but what's in those packaged goods. It uncovers why there is such a rise of E.Coli and Salmonella in meat and dairy foods, as well as green, leafy vegetables like spinach. The investigation also begins to shine a light on the issue of poverty and the high price of healthy food - why does a fast food value meal cost less than a head of lettuce? We begin to understand the correlation of obesity and diabetes to low-income Americans.

I’d recommend seeing the movie, even if you plan on carrying your carnivorous ways to the grave. It raises awareness and hopefully brings attention to the ways we can make small changes in our food-buying habits for healthier eating. Utilizing farmer's markets more for organic and locally-grown produce is an excellent start to improve ours and future generation’s health and possible big changes in the food and farming industries. I know, we’re all already sick of the global-warming talks which seem so ominous and powerless but this is something we can do now to make a difference for world hunger and disease. And, if nothing else, you might lose a few pounds from consuming just one less serving of high-fructose corn syrup. What red-blooded American couldn’t stand that? Watch the trailer or film and share your thoughts.


It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
-Upton Sinclair