Avant-Retarde

"Cube is the new Black" says a loading message on Nissan's site for their new "mobile device." Nice start, Nissan. You've just employed the most stolen and overused slogan since "Got [blank]?" Hey, I know! Let's turn Cube into a verb! "Do you Cube?" "Let's Cube!" Another loading message says "Symmetry is so last year." And getting high school girls with a C average to write your messaging is so, I dunno, like retarded?

But enough about their failures in marketing. Let's instead look at the car and what Nissan is trying to push onto the American car buyer. I saw one of these ugly little beasts on the way to work this morning. The asymmetrical rear window made me do a double-take, then I sped up to get a look at the logo on the rear door. It had temporary tags on it and I have no doubt it was being delivered to some clinically narcissistic style princess in South Beach.

A great review of the car is here.

Aside from the rear window, there is no asymmetry, and yet note the license plate in this picture. Nissan intends to hang its Cube hat on the rear window, and on the goofy stupidity of a car that is less a car and more a "mobile device." This car is all about being extraordinarily cool, or "groovy" as the caption to this "Shag Dash Topper" says. Why one needs a Shag Dash Topper is a mystery to me, but I'm not groovy like that.


The car comes with mood lighting and other funky features that will make you the envy of all your friends at the community college.

I need a word for how this car makes me feel. But there is no word. Only sounds.

"Gah!"