“Deride and Conquer,” far and away the best essay ever published about network advertising,

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“Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.”

In contrast to a blatant Buy This Thing, the Pepsi commercial pitches parody.

Isuzu Inc. hit pay dirt in the late ’80s with its series of “Joe Isuzu” spots, featuring an oily, Satanic-looking salesman who told whoppers about Isuzu’s genuine llama-skin upholstery and ability to run on tapwater. Though the ads never said much of anything about why Isuzus are in fact good cars, sales and awards accrued. The ads succeeded as

In response to any environment of extraordinary gratification and pampering, the Insatiable Infant part of me will simply adjust its desires upward until it once again levels out at its homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction.

There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that’s unbearably sad.

Everyone’s clutching his numbered card like the cards are identity papers at Checkpoint Charley.

How long has it been since you did Absolutely Nothing? I know exactly how long it’s been for me. I know how long it’s been since I had every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me, without my having to ask or even acknowledge that I needed. And that time I was floating, too, and the fluid was salty, and warm but not too-, and if I was