Word: arlen
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THIRTY SECONDS by Michael J. Arlen; Farrar, Straus & Giroux...
Thirty Seconds is Michael Arlen's close-up pan and dissolve of the people who package desire and fulfillment into half-minute television commercials. As the book suggests, these subplots of our viewing lives are frequently more skillfully made and better remembered than the programs they sponsor. Moreover, the relationships between commercials and fairy tales are too strong to ignore. Princes and Princesses Charming, sturdy folk and innocent children are besieged by malicious forces. Tooth imps and underarm pixies generate embarrassing vapors; gremlins leave grimy stigmata on clothing, and devilkins foul points and plugs. Inevitably, the hapless are rescued...
...Arlen focuses mainly on the making of a single commercial, American Telephone & Telegraph's effort to encourage more long-distance calling or, as their infectious jingle suggests, "Reach out, reach out and touch someone." Says the vice president in charge of the "creative group" that devised the ad: "From the very beginning, AT&T wanted us to overcome the negative emotions associated with long-distance, the bad-news phone call in the middle of the night. For years, there has been a definitely negative, uncasual quality to a lot of long-distance calling. AT&T wanted us to emphasize...
Clearly, Michael Arlen specializes in the give-them-enough-rope-to-hang-themselves thing. As a writer for The New Yorker, he has had good models, not the least of which was the subtly lethal journalism of Lillian Ross, who once dismantled Hollywood with her classic Picture. Arlen has more benign intentions toward Madison Avenue. Throughout, he keeps a civil tongue in his cheek; Thirty Seconds derives its effects from self-revealing chatter and serendipitous comedy. A production conference deals with choosing among camels, llamas and kangaroos. Then comes the grandmother problem. "It seems to me," says one executive...
Einhorn's lawyer, Arlen Specter, gained a postponement because police charged Einhorn with homicide before the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office ascertained that Helen Maddux, found dead in Einhorn's apartment on March 28, had in fact been murdered, Vincent A. DiGirolamo, second deputy clerk of Quarter Sessions Court, said yesterday...