By: Brian J. Meli
It happened one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. I was stuck indoors, perusing the day’s schedule of college basketball games and girding for the latest in a spate of nasty New England nor’easters, when I came across that now ubiquitous Verizon Wireless ad where regular people are asked to interpret brightly colored ink blots that turn out to be maps representing the nationwide network data coverage areas (or lack thereof) of Verizon’s competitors. After the interviewees take turns interpreting the expressionist-inspired shapes as depicting everything from a gaggle of geese to Whistler’s Mother, they’re shown Verizon’s network map, revealing an unambiguous rendering of the lower forty-eight, thus receiving a much needed “reality check.”
