Have you ever been diagnosed with prosopopoeia?
I had never heard of it, either. In my case, it drove me batty.
Actually, it’s a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine visited Louisville, Ky., home of the factory and museum of Louisville Slugger baseball bats.
He graciously bought a personalized bat for me. With it came a great DVD: “I am Louisville Slugger.” It’s a first-person, five-minute account of Louisville Slugger’s role in the history of baseball. The video autobiography features some of the greatest highlights, names and accomplishments in baseball history.
It doesn’t rival Ken Burns’ epic 18-1/2 hour miniseries about America’s favorite pastime in terms of depth, but it’s a great marketing piece couched as a documentary. Another example of that is Ram Trucks’ two-minute, “God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl commercial/documentary.
But back to “I am…”
What other prosopopeias stick in your mind?
I like the cream filled ones from Frank & Lupe’s…..or are those sopaipillas? In that case – “I am a delicious, cream filled sopaipilla from Frank & Lupes” would really stick out in my mind…..
Really tho, in keeping with this week’s theme, here is Charles Barkley’s “I am” commercial – only it’s “I am not…” Not sure if it qualifies as a prosopopoeia, but couldn’t pass it up after yesterday’s post. (Also really agree with the message but that’s another tangent.) http://youtu.be/R8vh2MwXZ6o
Also, this reminds me of this post from November: http://hmapr.com/taking-the-person-out-of-personalities
And a couple of trivial tid bits: Honus Wagner was the first person to have his name on a bat, and the worls largest bat is located outside the Louisville Slugger Museum. It is 120-feet high, weighs 34 tons and is modeled after Babe Ruth’s bat.