Shackleton's ad was a myth
The 'Job Wanted' ad was supposed to have run in The Times in the early 1900s.
The famous explorer Earnest Shackleton's ad in the classifieds section asked for a team to accompany him to the Southernmost tip of the earth - Antarctica.
It went against all conventions, making the job highly unattractive with work conditions being among the worst in the world
It asked for men to undertake a hazardous journey for months. With low wages and little hope of a return. If they succeeded, there would be fame and fortune.
The ad was supposed to have drawn a response of thousands of adventurers.
It was written about in several marketing chronicles and grew bigger with each iteration. The conditions grew more hazardous, the pay dropped and the numbers of people applying for the job grew exponentially.
The myth around the ad acquired a life of its own.
There was just one problem.
People have scoured The Times archives for decades around the time and found no trace of the ad at all.
Thankfully, ancient news archives are better preserved than the current digital news mess prevailing today, where it's hard to make out when and where an ad appeared in the first place, leave alone an article.
The nature of digital advertising is as ephemeral as a web page and trying to go back in time even a month to check brings no plausible results.
Maybe an investigation into how this ad was first written about and where it appeared will help to unravel the mystery.
The actual journey was everything the ad promised and more. People lost their lives and their minds.
They lost all sense of time.
But the ad, unfortunately, seems like a figment of someone's rich imagination.
Jeans - the Indian origin connection
Whatever goes around comes around.
Back in the 17th century, weavers in Dungri at Valsad, off the coast of Gujarat produced a rough cloth meant for workers.
This coarse and thick calico cloth dyed in a variety of hues went on to become the staple for workers in all kinds of hard labor - everything from aviation mechanics to miners, cattle ranchers, dockyard workers and farmers.
Dungri acquired a few syllables and became Dungaree. Like Kanpur became Cawnpore and Molagu Thanni became Mulligatawny!
There were unsavory connections as well - slave labour from Africa played a role in bringing the expertise of applying indigo dye to the fabric that gave it the distinctive colour.
The fashion connection came much later in the 20th century. And as cities grew, there was a need to reorient the image to a new casual ethic, which a few companies capitalized on.
Levi's made what was essentially workman clothes into a heavy dose of teenage aspiration with those metal rivets and classy figure-hugging cuts.
So from Dungri, Valsad to the fashion ramps across the world over 3 centuries was quite a journey. Even if the connecting links are lost in the mists of time and gaps in the narrative.
The grungy torn and faded look may have been the only option for workers who couldn't afford anything else. But for current fashionistas, it fades to the exact shade and strategically torn look that exposes soft, smooth and shiny young knees and shins.
Dungri's weavers would be astounded at the way the humble cloth they created on their manual looms evolved to grow into a global market worth over $125 billion.
They wouldn't even recognise what it has become.
The creative matchstick
There's no sound.
The film stars only matchsticks in full or in bits and pieces. Helped by a few props playing a supporting role.
There's lots of sleight of hand and how-did-he-do-that moments. It's hard to believe that a set of sequences without a plot or a finale can hold your attention.
The matchsticks pass through geometric squiggles, type transformations, become paper patterns, liquid paint, rope and glass as the matchstick seamlessly takes on different forms.
The designer has gone out on a limb and shown how imagination can run riot with all constraints in play. No one would have commissioned this. How would he even begin to explain it?
In one of the sequences, a piece of blank paper passes through a match standing upright on a table. The imprint of the match is transferred to the paper.
Then, the paper is turned at right angles to the previous position and passes through the match again. This time as well, the imprint is transferred at right angles to the previous one.
It's only when you watch that the brilliance of the execution comes through.
The match splits, twists like rope, gets tied up in knots and even becomes powdery and supple in turns.
It's hard to explain in words and the lack of any music is another curious decision. Why did the designer decide he didn't need anything to hold the narrative together?
Maybe there should have been a music track. Or even sound effects. But this is a stubborn piece of work and he does not bow to conventions.
There's no explanation - why he did it, how long it took, or even a reason why.
It is stop motion animation carried to a pinnacle of creative execution.