One night of Americana

I don't have a TV. I don't follow sports. I haven't had a car since 2001. And I live in barely-American NYC. So watching the Superbowl - and, especially, watching the Superbowl ads - is a trip. OK, so I only watched half (touchdown touchdown yada yada), but that was plenty. (I told my friends I wanted to get home in time to catch the end.) More car commercials, more beer ads, more plugs for disaster movies, more hetero slackers getting the girl or at least the beer than I see in a year. It's kind of fun. And for each couple of lame or shockingly vulgar ones, there's a work of art (Passat/Darth Vader) - or vulgarity raised to the level of art (Doritos brings the dead back). You wouldn't guess the US is in deep crisis, except for a Bud Lite commercial about an oncoming asteroid (even scientists admit it's too late to do anything but party - and then it turns out to have been a false alarm). And, I suppose, the car ad which ends among the ancient Aztecs or Mayas, which is its own version of the Bud Lite ad: extraterrestrials may try to take our cars, but we'll get them back in the end, if only by 2012 magic.