Monday, February 24, 2014

Difficile Est Saturam Non Scribere – Alan de Botton’s Brilliant Satire Of Maranello And The Media

2014-Ferrari-California-T1

Even though I skipped or slept through most of my senior year Classical Civilizations course (sorry, Ms. Rogow), one of the laminated quotes in the drafty class room always caught my eye – the quip that forms the pretentious title of this entry, which translates to "it's difficult to not write satire".

Alain de Botton is, to my knowledge, not a car guy. He is a self-described philosopher (and prolific author) in an epoch where titling yourself as such is almost as bad as using the term "game changer". de Botton's newest project, The Philosopher's Mail, is a hilarious send-up of the often mocked Daily Mail newspaper in the UK, which is a tabloid in the best tradition of Fleet Street and shlocky British yellow journalism (though it is uncharacteristically devoid of bare female breasts).

The Philosopher's Mail recently published a brilliant send-up of the new Ferrari California T, managing to simultaneously empathize and lampoon Ferrari owners, as well as the barely re-written press releases that often characterize the introduction of one of Maranello's newest machines. These sorts of pieces tend to appear in everything from automotive news aggregators to airline magazines to the world's leading "men's luxury lifestyle" publications, but they all have the same obsequiously sycophantic tone to them. You will never read a better parody of this genre.



from The Truth About Cars http://ift.tt/Jh8LjA

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