Cindy Dike, Rhoda Faust, and
the film crew |
|
Those
of you who don't like TV or who don't watch it very much may not
yet have caught our act. Maybe you could grab a good book from Maple
Street Book Shop or the library, plop down in front of the TV with
the sound turned down low, and read until you hear the drawling
and geographically fantastical (untrue) words: "Far from Bourbon
Street, in its own little corner of the Garden District . . . "
Immediately turn up the sound and you will see a Visa commercial
starring Maple Street Children's Book Shop. It has been showing
on all three big networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) as well as on cable,
usually during prime time. The word "immediately" is important
because the commercial is only thirty seconds long. Since MILLIONS
(it's still hard to believe) of people have already seen it, you
might not want to be the only one to miss it. The entire text of
the commercial is in the form of a voiceover (a man, in this case,
talking while there's action on the screen) that says in a Southern
accent (maybe from Southern Mars): "Far (faaa) from Bourbon Street,
in its own little corner (cawna) of the Garden District (Welllllll
. . . the University Section does have gardens in it) is the most
fabled house in New Orleans – the Maple Street Children's Book
Shop – where the folks who write the books also read them.
So if you go, bring your wildest imagination and your Visa card
because at Maple Street they'll take you on a truly magical journey,
but they won't take American Express. Visa – it's everywhere
you want to be."
The screen shows a three-second, whole
screen, zooming Visa bleed (in other words, a picture of part of
the Visa logo), then a cheerful carriage driver in a straw boater
driving a horse-drawn carriage, then a shot of the balcony of a
gorgeous Garden District mansion, then a very zippy family (mother,
father, child) going into Maple Street Children's Book Shop. The
father carries a shoulder bag rather daintily out in front of him.
(The director told them that they had |
