CULTURAL ICON WATCH: The Coptic "Gnostic" (?) text from Nag Hammadi with the title "Thunder, Perfect Mind" has been used as a short film/long commercial advertisment for the new Prada perfume at the Berlin Film Festival. Ed Cook has the story. (Ridley Scott, you may recall, directed the Alien movies.) As an aside, it seems that schoolboys in Ed's town are considerable more erudite than those in St. Andrews.

This is the New York Times article: "Scent of a Movie." Excerpt:

The Prada film, which strives to be simultaneously more and less commercial, casts the model Daria Werbowy as a beautifully accessorized bundle of contradictions. As she makes her way through the streets of Berlin, she sees herself coming and going at every turn in the faces of other women, some older, some quite a bit younger, some more wholesome and some actually Werbowy herself. In a particularly delicious moment, shot in the back of a taxi, an unseen driver ogles her in the rearview mirror, watching as she removes her winter coat only to put it back on inside out.

On a related note, I've always been struck by the similarity between "Thunder, Perfect Mind" (Ed points to this link) and Meredith Brooks's pop song "Bitch." Different messages, but perhaps tapping the same archetype.

UPDATE (25 February): Ed Cook explains "that the 'schoolboy' is one of the most brilliant beings in the world." And he has the links to prove it.

UPDATE (26 February): Mark Goodacre invokes "schoolboyish error." It's always very interesting to see which posts and which parts of those posts generate comments from other bloggers.

UPDATE (27 February): Tim Bulkeley at Sansblogue offers additional nuance to the schoolboy meme.

UPDATE (28 February): More from Mark Lieberman at the Language Log.