Sunday, April 22, 2007

Very Short List

In all the five (well, technically three) years that I've had this blog, I've never been moved to plug any of my clients in it.

This might have something to do with the fact that my clients tend to sell large personnel management systems and things that look like big American fridges but which are actually filled with racks of magnetic tape. And unless you're running an evil global empire with an army of expendable henchmen and a load of data you want to hide, I'm pretty sure you don't need these things.

(If you are running an evil global empire with an army of expendable henchmen and a load of data you want to hide, see me round the back in five; I may have some products for you.)

But at the moment we're talking to* a New York-based client whose product is something that the culturally literate and discerning people who read this blog might actually like. If not like quite a lot.

It's a website called Very Short List. It sends you one email a day with a review of a reassuringly obscure book, film, album or other fashionable cultural product.


You sign up on the website; they send you one review a day. That's it. It's basically an extreme cultural filter for the informationally fatigued.

I've had a subscription for a couple of months now, and it's already alerted me to some very decent music, not least of which this fragile, countrified Bowie cover:


The Last Town Chorus - Modern Love (mp3) [Buy from Amazon]


In short, well worth a look and genuinely recommended for bookish/film buff/indie types. Go to it!


* Which means they're not technically a client yet, so I can feel less guilty about plugging them.


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16 comments:

Tim F said...

Done.

Great, more elective spam.

Dave said...

Thank you. Hints and tips always welcome.

Unknown said...

Well plugged. Another one duly signed up!

patroclus said...

Thanks all! Hope you enjoy it, and please do feel free to tell me if you love/hate it, and why.

violet said...

How lovely. Since I'm generally at least a decade out on cultural phenomenon that don't involve the Manic Street Preachers or new flavours of Absolut this should be very instructive. Cheers.

Sylvia said...

I'm already signed up to a daily email from Daily Candy, a weekly one from Lidl, I'll give this a go - thanks for the tip

Tinsie said...

I must say, I do like the title :-)

Annie said...

I signed up for this the other day but haven't had any lists yet. LC says he contacted them about it and they said it was because they don't allow gingers.

Is this true?

miss-cellany said...

Thank you. I signed up - did they send everyone the coke ad?

Made I laugh as they say in the West Country.

patroclus said...

Annie: Yes. Our colleague D. has had to have a blue rinse especially so he can receive it.

Failing that, it's probably been filtered out by an over-zealous spam filter. Best to add vsl at veryshortlist dot com to the 'safe senders' list (or equivalent) in your email client - or try subscribing from a more lenient email account. Gmail seems to let it through OK.

miss-cellany said...

Thank you also, for spotting the Claudio Pinhanez link glitch. It now works, and I left you the wiki reference to him over there too...

patroclus said...

Oo, cool, thanks Miss C! Will make my way over there forthwith...

llewtrah said...

Similarly I get the weekly updates from Sister Ray music shop. Aaagh! Lots of things I want to try!

realdoc said...

Up until now you were my source of obscure musical recommendations. I may give it a go.

Anonymous said...

I like the Venn diagrams - a better, and more representative, method of description than "a cross between..." or "X on acid"

patroclus said...

Thanks again to everyone who's subscribed - hope it doesn't disappoint, but let me know if it does.

Marsha: Absolutely - 'like x on acid' is one of my top most hated lazy media clichés.