1) I wish Beethoven could know they were using his music to sell Coca-Cola during the Super Bowl. (“Coca-Cola? Super Bowl?”) (The music was from his Fifth Symphony.)
2) There was a hint of Wagner in a Lexus commercial. (A motif from The Ring.)
3) There was Verdi in a Doritos commercial. (“La donna è mobile,” from Rigoletto.)
4) There was Bach in a Time-Warner Cable commercial. (C-major prelude from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier.)
5) You might think the Obama presidency is the ultimate in the triumph of hype. But I ask you to consider Madonna’s career. This is what America — nay, the world — pants for? And we think our problems are economic!
6) At the end of the halftime show, they displayed the words “World Peace.” They never, ever say “World Freedom,” do they? Never. (A point I make in a book to be published next month. Sometimes — not always, but sometimes — you could cut the tension between freedom and peace with a knife.)
7) Outside my window, here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, they’re whooping it up for the Giants. Last time I heard such whooping, I believe, was in November 2008, when Obama won.