24/7

At the intersection of words, images and imagination is surely Advertising.  I don't know if this is profound, obvious, or if I read it somewhere before. It just strikes me as true when I consider what you might be able to do with a few words I gleaned from a book review in this past Saturday's WSJ.

The book is titled, 'Island of Vice' by Richard Zacks. The review is by David Woodrich, who is credited with a few books of his own.

I love engaging book reviews, especially ones with editorial cartoon illustrations, as this one has of Theodore Roosevelt depicted as trying to 'clean up' New York City. The review is titled 'Teddy's Tough Ride,' and basically tells the reader that while there are current people of good memory who can correctly say things are better now than they have been in their memory, New York City has historically been a place of many textures.

Certain things do seem to have disappeared, but closer analysis reveals they have really only disappeared from open view: air conditioning, electronics, and better building construction has brought certain activities more indoors, and kept them there.

So, when the review opens with a summary of the activities that fall under the definition of "vice"--gambling, prostitution, indecent exposure and selling and consumption of alcohol and drugs at self-regulated times--the nickname for New York as "The City That Never Sleeps" seems quite appropriate when you consider the "amount of things worth staying up for."

And there you have it. "The City That Never Sleeps" because there is certainly a fair amount of things worth staying up for.

Of course, you would want to advertise all the legal things there are to do, but the the message is clear: so long as you're up, enjoy yourself.

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