While traveling in the south of France the past week, I noticed an unusual number of Franklin & Marshall College t-shirts. In Cannes I came across a store that only sold F&M branded clothes. If you don’t know, F&M is small liberal arts school in Lancaster, PA with about 2,000 students. I spent three nights there a few years back doing improv shows with UCB Tourco. Why would this small school be so heavily represented in the clothing choices of the residents of multiple cities in the French Riveria? Is there some sort of study abroad exchange?
No, it’s much more interesting than that. An Italian clothing designer saw an F&M sweatshirt in a thrift store in London in 1999 and decided to copy the design for a new clothing line.
Via Wikipedia:
In 1999, after seeing an official Franklin & Marshall sweatshirt, a company based in Verona, Italy began producing clothing in a vintage 1950’s collegiate-style with the words “Franklin and Marshall” on them. F&M alumni began to report seeing F&M merchandise for sale in Europe, which puzzled the college.
In 2001, Tim McGraw posed for publicity photos wearing a “Franklin Marshall Wrestling” t-shirt, one of which was included in the CD booklet for his album Set This Circus Down. When the college became flooded with inquires about its (nonexistent) connection to the singer, they began to investigate further and discovered that the Franklin Marshall Clothing company was using its name without permission.
In 2003, after lengthy discussions, the college decided not to sue and instead agreed to accept a licensing fee from the company so that they could continue to produce their products, which had begun to gain popularity with youth, especially in the United Kingdom.
(via rickyv)
This is great news. I submitted a statement on behalf of Improv Everywhere for YouTube’s legal brief. Viacom, chill the fuck out.
If Obama yelled at his press conferences, kicked over the lectern and generally unfurled the Bruce Banner, the various news personalities would have more to talk about besides the fact that he refuses to do exactly that. It’s not clear that such a display would, over the long term, move Obama’s poll numbers a whit. I suspect the assembled personalities are concerned with numbers of their own. This is their right. It’s also our right to wonder who this proposed tantrum would actually benefit.
The Tourist Lane « Improv Everywhere
You may have seen this project on Tumblr a few weeks ago. Today Improv Everywhere is coming forward to take responsibility! The Tourist Lane is a collaboration with our friend Jeff Greenspan. Edited by Matt Adams. Shot by Matt, Keith Haskel, and Jason Eppink. Photos by Katie Sokoler and Scott Beale. Featuring the talents of UCB stars Dan Black, Don Fanelli, and Cody Lindquist.
August. The oil may be flowing into the Gulf until August. Let’s look one, hopefully last time at that “drill, baby, drill” slogan. Not the DRILL DRILL part. The BABY part. I mentioned taunting in yesterday’s post, and here is a world class example. “Drill, baby, drill” says “we have listened to your concerns about offshore accidents, and we have concluded that not only do the benefits outweigh the risks, but we will run those risks with ENTHUSIASM, because it annoys you!”
And so the oil pours. And drilling opponents are annoyed. Happy now? That’s ONE way to make a point! Here’s another example. Several times I have heard variants of this: after listening to climate change warnings, someone asserts that he is going out and buying an even BIGGER SUV. That will annoy somebody! And when the elderly are dying in an unprecedented heat wave or farmers watch their fields blow away in a dust storm or refugees pack what they can carry and head for a camp somewhere, consider that someone will be successfully annoyed. What fun!
But isn’t that the same as when I say that Sarah Palin is a preposterous fraud? No. Because unlike oil spills and climate change, she IS a fraud, not least for her downplaying both of those risks for cheap applause and expensive speaking gigs.
