Neon Memes • The woman has a smile in her voice, as if she knows a secret joke―and in all likelihood she does. "You'll...be able to read up to 1,000 percent faster," she purrs in a local radio advertisement, "allowing you to read 10 books in the time it takes others to read one." The product she's shilling on classic-rock station KHITS 96 promises to make users' brains "smarter, stronger and faster"―Col. Steve Austin, phone home!―in only seven minutes. Unfortunately, a Google search for the toll-free phone number mentioned in the ad leads nowhere fast. A bit more digital digging unearths a bona fide website, but by then mere doubt has degenerated to out-and-out skepticism coupled with an impulse to ridicule. In the final analysis the ad recalls a scene from the deliciously wicked 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda―more specifically, an exchange between Kevin Kline as the doltish Otto West and Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda Gershwitz. "Apes don't read philosophy!" Otto barks, triumphantly making a point―or so he thinks. "Yes, they do, Otto," Wanda snaps. "They just don't understand it." ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor
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