Word: hingham
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...ranking U.S. type designer, who produced the clean, legible Metro newspaper type and the Caledonia and Electra book faces, fulminated at U.S. banknote design: "It is worth its face in gold, but my God, what a face!", wrote the authoritative book, Layout in Advertising; after a stroke; in Hingham, Mass...
...secret to Hingham's sudden rise are Dr. Modesto's Revelations, mailed for $7 from Nebraska. The whole solution is abandonment of individualism, becoming the Average Fellow, the person who reflects all and so is loved by all. Dr. Modesto recounts, "I fell into an ectasy of mediocrity. Whatever the others did, I did... To survive we must become happy nothings." Hingham has to work and behave centrally, for this is the life of Centralism: "Everytime you wash your car it always rains, if that's the general story. Throw salt over your shoulder. Knock on wood...
...city of Bradford Hingham tested his new power, and here Harrington's bizzare satire is at its best. Hingham changes his personality to fit each prospect, and meets with no failure. Soon "It was a frenzy, a perfect orgy of setting in which, finally, he did not speak at all but had only to make a convulsive gesture and the people accepted the contracts he thrust at them...
...Using Hingham as the central actor, Harrington sets up a series of charades that deftly mock the American scene. Yet there is little to tie the various charades together save their incisive cleverness. Each character type is presented and then lost in the rush of the following actor. Even Merko the Human Fly, an individualist, is left suspended, in this case on the Eiffel Tower...
Perhaps the connecting link is the dilemma of becoming a perfect Centralist: everyone likes him, and thus he is successful--but success makes the Centralist different, and, therefore, not a Centralist. Harrington slowly uncovers this trap for Hingham, battering down athletes, public relations men, and psychiatrists in the process. It is a disturbing, but often amusing game...