When I was a little boy I believed every word that issued from the mouths of Big People. I even believed everything said by the voices on the radio that urged the purchase of new and amazing products that would be of immeasurable benefit to all of mankind. One insistent advertiser told me that, in order to become the owner of a hockey stick, I should add 35 cents to the price of a new colloidal dental liquid guaranteed to make my teeth shine like pearls. At that time my weekly allowance of 10 cents had not yet been reduced to a nickel. I agonized for a month in fear the hockey sticks would be gone before I could obtain one. On the day my parents gave me money for the purchase of the amazing dental cleaner, I had 35 cents in my pocket and there was one hockey stick left. I was overjoyed. The amazing colloidal dental liquid turned my teeth black and was soon withdrawn from the market. I was too little to know about suing anybody for this catastrophe, but at least, I still had an unbroken hockey stick. My faith in what Big People said was shaken.
The art of reading came to me early and easily. I could read the honest advertisements in the local weekly paper. They were simple and truthful. The merchant announced that, at the time of advertising, he had certain goods at certain prices. He invited everybody who could to buy them. There were no colourful trimmings, no Tarzan in a coconut palm, no Balinese dancers balancing pineapples on their heads. Advertising space cost money.
I soon became distrustfully aware of the blandishments advertisers published in popular magazines. The dishonesty and ignorance of the moguls of Madison Avenue became even more apparent after the arrival of television. I recall being incensed at hearing Handel’s Messiah used as mood music in promoting the sale of ballpoint pens. The Messiah has a Christian theme and is still played in Christian churches. I was not angry, however, about a perceived insult to Christianity and its teachings or any particular patriarch or prophet. I was angry at the ignorance that turned one of the greatest works of a towering musical genius into mood music for unabashed hucksterism. I wrote a sizzling letter to the makers of the pen. The ad continued but its musical accompaniment changed. For bringing this contretemps to their attention, the pen people rewarded me with a single ballpoint pen valued at 15 cents. (This seems to have established the pattern of meager returns that my writings have earned ever since.)
Later, a maker of jeans presented a television advertisement in which blue jeans occupied by undulating rear ends of various shapes and sizes paraded by to the tune of Mendelsohn’s Ode to Joy. Mendelsohn, too, was one a man of prodigious musical creativity who belongs to all of us. The mindless moguls of Madison Avenue insulted him and everyone who loves his work. I wrote about this to the jeans sellers. Their music changed, but they never sent jeans. The scurrilous rascals didn’t even write to ask my size.
Sometime I see myself as Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
