The only thing worse than seeing that commercial on TV where you can mute it, or fast-forward if you’re watching via DVR is being forced to watch that shit in a movie theater. It’s so pretentious that I deliberately avoided seeing the tag at the end of the ad, so I wouldn’t know who or what it was advertising. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Thanks! Will Geer’s reading of the entire poem is excellent and suprisingly movng.
I could do without the music though.
I’m assuming here if you like the commercials, you like Whitman?
Therefore, if I hate Whitman…
Next: Emily Dickinson for Stayfree Maxi Pads.
Slate.com article on this ad campaign. Among other things, it says that the voice in “America” is “believed to be” Walt Whitman’s.
Allen Koenigsberg, “Walt Whitman (1819–1892) Speaks?”
An actual sound recording from 1888: Thomas Edison, Around the World on the Phonograph.
I watched it kind of hoping they were going to go out and do something inspiring…I was kind of bummed when they just took their pants off together, and then later danced around a campfire half naked. I was hoping for better.
That could take a while. You’re going to need some durable clothes.
Because I could not stop for Flo
she kindly stopped for me.
The carriage held but just ourselves
and loads of bleached laundry.
E.E. Cummings for the Trojan® Her Pleasure™ Vibrating Touch® Fingertip Massager!
Why? Does that need small letters?
Then it should be:
e.e. cummings for the trojan® her pleasure™ vibrating touch® fingertip massager!
Or is it because the tagline could be:
I’m cummings!
Either’s correct, though I concede lowercase looks more poet-y.
“Cummings’ publishers and others have sometimes echoed the unconventional orthography in his poetry by writing his name in lower case and without periods. Cummings himself used both the lowercase and capitalized versions, but according to his widow did not, as reported in the preface of one book,[1] have his name legally changed to “e e cummings”. He did, however, write to his French translator that he preferred the capitalized version (“may it not be tricksy”).[2] One Cummings scholar believes that on the occasions Cummings signed his name in all-lowercase, the poet may have intended it as a gesture of humility, and not as an indication that it was the preferred orthography for others to use for his name.”
Actually, you will run into the same deal with the Odyssey and Beowulf, they need to be heard or read out loud to actually have the best impact.
I have a fondness for the homeric imagery - wine dark sea … one of my favorite evenings with friends was once spent late at night on a lake, the air was grey with fog, and the temperature was so neutral that it felt like we were wrapped in velvet and the water was intensely dark but because of the full moon and fog, it was a ghostly grey light and a black velvet rippling lake … amazing. I am always reminded of that when I hear the Odyssey.
Try Leaves of Grass also … especially I Sing the Body Electric
Never even heard of the poem until the commercial. Loved the imagery and ‘music’. I know that Levi exploited the poetry and manipulated my gullible ass, but I loved it anyways, and immediately googled it afterward.
Well, pretentious or not, it did introduce me to a neat poem (with a powerful reading), so I’ll count that in it’s poem. Quite inspiring…if perhaps not the same way that comes to mind for me as for other people.
I’m still holding out for a London Fog commercial set to “Tränen des Vaterlandes”, though.
Count me as a liker of this commerical. Who cares what they’re selling? I just love the strong reading.
And the slower members of the Donner Party.
I don’t like the commercials, especially the loud bang (gunshot?) at the end which hurts my ears. All those naked sweaty kids running around makes me think they probably smell bad and that they should get off my lawn!
Not to move this into Great Debate territory, but I’m of the belief that commercial advertising is inherently *not *art. I think if you peel back the layers a bit, the “Go Forth” campaign is more than a little deceptive and tactless. Without mentioning (though clearly I intend to, now) that Levi’s no longer manufactures in America (their only domestic operations are marketing and corporate) I would ask what, exactly, is the message of the ads? Alternately, what would a barefoot commie like Whitman have thought about his work being used to sell jeans?
I’m not sure I believe you can separate artistic and commercial intentions so neatly. But even if you can, it’s still possible to appreciate the ad on an artistic level. It did not even slightly increase the likelihood I will buy their jeans, but on the other hand, it’s more interesting and less annoying than many other spots that could have filled that 30 seconds, like a Pepto-Bismol commercial or something for ShamWow.
In other words, it’s advertising.
Like most of the other Levi’s ads I’ve seen, it presents their jeans as a rugged piece of Americana.
He probably would not appreciate it, but he’s dead, and I’m not convinced artists have an inviolable right to control the way their work is used.
It took some poking around, but it is there in the iTunes music store. Under Music -> Spoken Word -> University Players you’ll find it as track 3 on “Selections from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass” by The University Players. Will Geer’s name is not mentioned in the tags, so you can’t find it using his name.