Buying the New Yorker 1996 - Back cover

This ad gets some points for the creative asterisks. The first one is placed at the end of the sentence, so you would think that they were clarifying their definition of a perpetual motion machine to show how the Camry "is probably as close as anyone has ever come to building" one. Nope, it's clarifying the proof that there are "over two million [Camrys] on the road." I'm no advertising guy, but I would think that the asterisk should be put after the word "road."

The other one just tells us that the "Best Car Built in America" award was from three years earlier and "most Camrys are built in America." And on that definitive note, we put 1996 in our rearview mirror.

Next up, 1986.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - Interior back cover

Let's look for the subtext:


My interpretation: "Because we are technically part of the USA, we can't look down on you for being American. And we speak English, so you don't have to spend your time flipping through a cheap phrasebook like a frightened bunny."

Added bonus: you can snorkel!

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 83

Books on tape is a division of Random House. Back in the day, you could rent the full-length tape set from them, but now they've discontinued that (oddly it is because of competition from public libraries, and not from naughty old file swappers). You can still purchase tapes, CDs and download Real Audio files. The Horse Whisperer is not in stock, but there are other Nicholas Evans books available. He wrote a book about smoke jumping! I had no idea! It's a love triangle, with smoke jumping. Nothing perks up a love triangle like smoke jumping.

An octopus pot is a type of fishing trap. You lower the pot to the sea bed, and octopuses/octopi/octopodes climb in. I imagine that the folks ordering one from the back of the New Yorker were probably just going to stick it on a bookshelf and perhaps keep the spare set of house keys in it. Clayton's International Trading Co seems to have gone out of business. Sleep easy, octopuses/octopi/octopodes!

Google went nuts on me when I tried to figure out who Roger Nichols was. Turns out that in addition to his jewelry business, he's the guy who wrote the music (generally teamed with lyricist Paul Williams) to a bunch of Carpenters hits. Here is his website. Furthermore, he is different from this Roger Nichols. That Roger Nichols is the sound engineer who won a big pile of Grammys for producing Steely Dan albums (He also seems to have done a fair amount of work with John Denver, meaning that both of these Roger Nichols' are one degree of separation from the Muppets). I'd like to say that the ad shows up twice to honor both of them, but it's really because I wasn't paying close enough attention with my screen grabs.

Remember back when we saw the website for London flat rentals that took us to a site about Park City, Utah? Here's that same domain again. And this time the ad really was for Park City, Utah! It all works out.

You know, we've seen so many Canadian river raft holiday package tours that I am now completely unable to say anything new about this one. Moose! Bears! Ice Beer! Hockey! I'm just flailing randomly now.

Cuba on the other hand, we have yet to see. Near as I can tell, this bunch folded up around 2004. It is a pity, because I think the idea of a "cigar adventure" could easily be melded on to any one of the other package tours that we've looked at here. (I have visions of the bike trip from Paris to London - a bunch of cigars will make that fly! And for the adventure, you can be chased by gangsters! With cigars!) I managed to find some old articles about Wings on the World. Here's one and here's another. My favorite thing about the ad: They're open Sunday! They might be tying themselves up in legal knots to sidestep all sorts of travel embargos and tariff restrictions so they can fly rich people to some slum for smokes, but they laugh in the face of blue laws. Always good to be able to pick your battles.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 82

There's tons of Gorham Chantilly in stock at Beverly Bremer Silver Shop. There's tons of flatware, period. They say "We have gifts for the Grad and gifts for Dad, gifts to make Mom's day and that something special for Baby." Of the four, I am surprised that all but one are demographics that would be interested in antique flatware, but who am I to rain on someone else's parade?

Take courses over the internet? The deuce you say! How can you take courses over that e-mail without cheating? In 1996, this was pretty incredible stuff. Of course in the mid-nineties there was some conversation about how The New School should change its name, as it was over seventy-five years old. Nowadays distance learning is commonplace, the New School is ten years older, and there's no sign of it changing its name. In the meantime, check out the funky retro computer font.

Press has gone out of business. They are no longer accepting manuscripts. Sorry. This was their website. It's gone now. Sorry.

"And they called it Paradise." Apparently they still do. Windjammer Landing is so secure in their status as a paradise destination that as soon as you go to their website, it resolves to an address that includes their toll-free 800 number. This shows their confidence. You can rent a hobie cat or sail boat. Paradise.

I'm pretty sure that the London Theatre News is out of business as it was based out of New York. The internet pretty much killed these little newsletters, but hell, you can go here. Look! One click and we see that The Globe is putting on something called "Under the Black Flag" and it has these reviews: "Uneven production " (Evening Standard); "Confusing play" (The Times). Heck, book me a flight. I'm up for it.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 77 & 81

I'm sure I laughed my way through 1996. So we're cool on this one.

I also have a dog and a cat. I'm sure these dinky little compilations are quite jolly. I'll bet they made excellent Christmas stocking stuffers, which is why there are enough left-overs in January for the New Yorker marketing juggernaut to be advertising them now.

I have an idea - sell the old day-by-day calendars to the nostalgia market - I already admitted that I laughed my way through 1996. Why shouldn't I want to do it again? I'm doing this, after all.

+++++++Update++++++

The other day, someone pointed out that I seemed to be getting tired of the "Buying the New Yorker." I think I'm just a little tired of 1996 - when I was making my comment above I started looking around for what happened then so I could indulge in a bit of nostalgic list-making.

1996 was an astonishingly dull year.

One of the highlights of 1996 for me was a confluence of events that allows me to say this sentence in complete truthfulness:

After I cleared customs at Heathrow, the first thing I heard was the brand new Beatles single playing on a cleaning lady's transistor radio.

So one of the best moments of the year was one where I could momentarily infer that I was in a different year altogether. It still seems a strange and wonderful little detail. I love the little details.

A few years later, also coming into Heathrow, we got into a minicab just as the radio was announcing that the next song would be the brand new single from S Club 7. My wife looked at me and almost fell out of the cab laughing.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 76

Butterfield & Robinson puts together tour packages where you start in one place and then go to another, either by foot (for example: Krakow to Budapest) or on a bike (Paris to London (they cheat! You get to fly over the channel! Cheaters!)) They offer what they call a description of "a typical day" in which we see:

• 9:34 am Take in mountain views that surely the gods themselves crafted. Remind yourself how fortunate you are.
• 1:11 pm Salvatore's salcissia, bocconcini and pane rustico next to a tiny stone hut. Doze off under lemon tree.

Sounds good? Wait. There's also this:

• Noon-ish Practice yodeling.

There's always a catch.

The first thing you see when you go to the Structure House website is a banner saying "Structure House helps [I've removed her name, sorry Google] lose half her weight. Click here to watch." No thanks. At least they don't make her yodel.

Remember when I said that the best way to search for these ten year old companies was to use their phone numbers? Here's a strange thing: The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida is just off Interstate 275. I think that's good enough. It looks like a cool museum.

J.H. Breakell is still chugging out the jewelry based on the little candy treats that are also still being chugged out. The silver ones are now $40 and the gold ones are now $250. The candy treats now come with all sorts of text message things on them. OMG!

You can still Canoe Canada's Arctic, in fact nowadays I understand that there's more water up there to canoe on. This is one of those hardcore bunches - no yodelling practice here, you have to be quiet to slip past the grizzly bears. (They say that white wolves are "their specialty." I want to know what that means.) Make sure you have a look at their photo gallery - it does look like an adventure.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 74

This is one of those deals where you get a list of all the advertisers in the magazine, or at least all of the advertisers that were willing to throw some extra bucks to be included in a special list. There was probably one of those business reply cards where you write your address and circle a bunch of numbers and then you get a ton of junk mail.

Like hell I'm going to deconstuct all of these.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 73

Check this out -- My two projects collide:

"I like to read The Times Literary Supplement over breakfast. It is an education. The TLS keeps me so busy I don't have time to read other magazines" - Nigel Planer

I'm not sure if the thinking is that Nigel Planer is going to be a draw for people who would not normally read the TLS or if the TLS is trying to reassure the sort of people who are likely to read it that they are still relevant.

The Times Literary Supplement is available to American subscribers quite independent to the Sunday Times. Every once in a while subscribers are given the opportunity to sign their friends or family up for a cheap four issue gift subscription. So every once in a while I get a few issues gratis. Which is nice as I see that the price of a subscription in America has almost doubled in ten years. Everyone wants to emulate Nigel Planer.

One of the things that I've learned while looking up these ten year old ads is that googling the 800 number is by far the most efficient at getting results. Searching for the 800 number here brings us to this site. Which then leads us here. To make a long story short, the Saint Raphael has been completed and soon the final of the luxury residences of Pelican Bay, the Cap D'Antibes, will be completed. Or perhaps it has done. The copyright on the website is 2004.

I'm not sure what sort of information about prostate cancer you would have been given for calling The Theragenics Center ten years ago, but nowadays you will get a DVD about seed therapy. If you don't know how seed therapy works on prostate cancer, well, let's just say you're in for a heck of a ride. Fire up the popcorn and get seated comfortably.

Vacanza Bella is

not a travel agency. We do not rent cars. We do not do home exchanges. We do not arrange hotels. We do not plan trips. We do not do France, Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, or any other country.

They won't meet you in person, but they also don't want to deal with you exclusively by e-mail. They want to talk to you on the phone in order "to make absolutely certain that the Italian holiday home you've selected is right for you and your needs." The dude is passionate. Perhaps a little too passionate? Well, it seems like the sort of exactitude that comes from years of being yelled at by people who went somewhere without paying attention to the description of where they were going. Have a look at the FAQ, you'll see what I mean.

When the Hamilton catalog shows up I sit down and start marking it up for things I want. Then I go through and decide which of the things that I marked I'm actually willing to pay for (it's still quite a bit). Then my wife goes through and marks it up with what she wants. Then I go through it again, so I am sure just what I am going to order. At this point a new Hamilton catalog shows up, and we toss the one we marked up and start over. Occasionally we actually make an order. When that happens, you can be sure that a new Hamilton Catalog will show up every three days for the next eighteen months or so.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 69

When I had a look at the 2006 French Country Waterways ad, I mentioned how minimal it was. Here it is a decade earlier and apart from the word "Bliss" it is exactly the same (The word for 2006 is "Irresistible.") I notice that their recent ads are a bit more ornate. I'd like to think that I had a small hand in that.

The Vermont Bird Company has gone out of business. Fortunately, the Cashmere Watchcap lives on at the Golightly Cashmere Company. "Year after year, their ad was placed in the New Yorker and year after year, their following grew." It's like they knew I was coming! The price has been bumped to $125 and the colors have been adapted to the whims of our current decade. Gone is the intriguing "Bright Booby Foot Blue" and in its place is the cunningly named "a suggestion of pink." Time marches on!

Verbatim is a blog now. The actual magazine seems not to have been published since 2004. You can still order back issues and download them as pdf files. I now present the very first sentence of the first article of the last issue: "Name giving among the Xhosa of South Africa takes on other proportions than in a Euro-Western context." Perhaps they have an article on color-naming in expensive cashmere product production.

Hey Inca Floats! You already had an ad on page 29. Remember? The Valentine's Day one? You're starting to look all desperate.

The Gordon S Converse Company doesn't just specialize in clocks, they also have quite an eye for doggerel:

Converse is the site for clocks-
to help keep track of ticks and tocks.
We have a style for every taste--
don't let a minute go to waste!

Cut through that stuff and have a look at some gorgeous old clocks.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 41

All of the ads on this page fall into the category of "Homes & Estates." I'm not sure why they need to delegate a page for this every other issue as we've seen that there is already quite a lot of ads like this.

For example, here's more from Kiawah Island. We just saw them a page ago. Bless their hearts. Here they are from the satellite. Heaven's, there's a lot of golfing to be done.

The website for the "London Flats" and "Cotswold Cottages" didn't look too promising, and sure enough, it brings up a 404 error. So I tried just the domain, ditell.com. It's now part of the Overstock.com travel network, and is a conduit for info about Park City, Utah. Time and the internet will eventually sweep all clean.

Bonnie Bachman seems to still be in the realty game, but as the industry is a slippery one, I can't quite find my way to a site that is definitely hers. Meanwhile, Google seems absolutely convinced that the person I am trying to find information on is Tal Bachman (His website is down at the moment but continue on to his message board so you can talk about "all things Tal"). So in addition to looking around all sorts of half-active realty sites for places that I don't want to live in, I have that blasted "She's So High Above Me" song wedged in my head.

When I found my way to the Vacances Provancales Vacations site, I saw that it has a tab for "barging." My first reaction was that they mean as in "barging into someone's house and taking it over as a vacation rental." No, they mean those seven day river cruises. Just picture yourself in a boat on a river. (I say that only as an attempt to get the last song out of my head. It didn't work.)

The Farnum & Christ Page has weekly flat lets starting at £700 ($1,288 by my reckoning). Not too much of an increase in ten years. Until you notice that the $1,014 price in the 1996 ad included airfare. Which would have been an astonishingly good deal. Unless the ad means that the $1.014 is the deal they can get you on airfare when you let a flat from them. If I might venture an opinion, I would have to say that the phrase "English Charm with American Standards" seems to me more of a compromise than an aspirational goal, but then I also think that "Farnum & Christ" sounds like a perfect name for a most excellent circus.

Fearrington, North Carolina was originally a farm. Now it is being done up as a "relaxed country community." In other words, retirement. Of course, they want to downplay the "we're just a bunch of old people" angle by saying that they are "full of . . .Fascinating people of all ages." Bonus!: They have recently acquired "a wonderful herd of Belted Tennessee Fainting Goats. . . . Named for their muscular condition known as 'myotonic,' the fainting goats do not truly 'faint' but stiffen when startled."

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 39

The Cartwright Hotel has left the Kimpton Group. It has been renovated again and is now owned by Magna Hotels. You know, someday I'm going to stay at one of these hotels. I will certainly impress the concierge with my insider knowledge.

There was an ad for Replacements Ltd. in my 2006 version of this. Their website says that they've been in business for 25 years. So perhaps we'll see them again when I go through the 1986 version. They will be all embarrassed about how the ad shows off their mullet haircut and parachute pants.

Ville et Village has expanded beyond France, adding Italy, Spain and Portugal. I took a look at their current newsletter, which had an article about how staying in a rented house in a foreign countryside can be interesting for kids. "The simple act of exploring a foreign culture can be a huge adventure with children along. Figuring out all the different ways to flush the toilet is great fun." They also saw a trained warthog! I want to see a trained warthog and learn about French toilets. Heck, I just need a vacation.

(My wife adds: perhaps the warthog can flush the toilet! That would be exciting and somehow quite French.)

Discoveries still makes the personalized cartouches, as well as importing all sorts of ancient Egyptish goodies. Always wanted a statue of Anubis to guard the tomato plants? Here's where you go.

When I saw the 2006 ad for Kiawah, I commented that there was nothing on the calendar of events. I looked again. Still nothing. Perhaps when I go on vacation with my traveling circus of toilet-flushing warthogs, we can go there. They're dying for entertainment - I'll rake in the big bucks.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 36

The website for Endless Pools is still up, and the photo from the print ad is one of the photos in the loop on the home page. I've never quite understood these things, because I've always figured that if you can afford to get one because you don't have the space for a regular sized pool, you can probably afford to move to a place where you can. And if you can't, why not join a gym? Of course I can't crunch the numbers - you need to log in and request the informational DVD before they will share costs and particulars with you.

"As seen in Paris" could easily be "My nephew went on a school trip to France and I forced him to walk around in one of these for an hour." Clark's Register does not seem to be offering these cardigans anymore. They do have tons of other stuff. They seem to be marketing to men in their mid-to-late thirties who like to think of themselves as fashionable yet casual slackers even though they are earning in the upper five figures and the neighborhood children think that they are dorks. In other words, once I get a promotion, me.

This ring is made of three different colored bands of gold. The picture is in black and white. Advertising genius or huge mistake? You be the judge. The jeweler (Marc Simon) seems to have gone out of business.

Classic Journeys is still around and they've expanded to include "Culinary Tours" and "Family Journeys." The "Culinary Tours" look more focused on the "hands-on learning" rather than the "we're going to go from restaurant to restaurant and in between we will wheel you over to the sights so you can burp at them." By "Family Journeys," they mean bring your kids.

"We've scouted out cool stuff like a nighttime safari, mountain biking on the wide medieval walls of an Italian city, and rafting down the Flathead River. Choose our family vacation package and get your hands dirty in craft sessions with local artisans... and join kid-sensitive tours of must-see landmarks. And if you worry about picky appetites, stop. We find the local specialties kids love -- pizza, fondue, picnic fare -- as well as plenty of chances for the adventuresome to try new tastes."

The phrase "kid-sensitive tours of must-see landmarks" just gave me a headache.

Geographic Expeditions looks a lot more hardcore. And a lot more expensive. But on the plus side I'll bet that during the 25 days that you can spend semi-circumnavigating Antarctica on an icebreaker, you won't be bothered by a squadron of young schmedleys whining about how they want Chuck E Cheese or they won't eat at all. Or if you do, you can watch in quiet reverie as their hunger ratchets up to the point where they start gobbling down a bucket of chum.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 35

I was preparing a nice long riff on "things that are warm" when my wife leaned over to check up on what I was doing.

"They're in San Rafael?" She asked. "What do they know about 'warm things?'" Good question. She's lived in Wisconsin, in a house on the North Sea and in the Bay Area, where Warm Things sell their goods, so she know whereof she speaks. The goose down robe looks nice for the sort of morning when the windows were left open on a night when the temp dropped down to the upper forties and you need something to hang out in while the coffee perks, not the sort of morning where you have to dig through two feet of snow to get the paper and the air outside is so cold that the air gets sucked out of your lungs and your eyes tear up and freeze shut.

Goose Down Robe - $89 in 1996, $89 in 2006.

The Duke Diet and Fitness Center is having a craft workshop next month. If you are knitting, then your hands are busy and you can't eat that big turkey pie. Knitting is a stress reliever as well, unless you are knitting while looking at that big turkey pie you can't eat cause your hands are full.

I couldn't find a site for Locators Incorporated, but this site came up as a google hit. It's a list of repair and replacement firms that is maintained by the US Coast Guard/US Dept. of Homeland Security. As near as I can figure, if you go off to sea with a set of Hummels, and they get damaged beyond repair (as certified by experts such as Locators Incorporated) you can put in a claim for replacement through the US Coast Guard/US Dept. of Homeland Security. Isn't that great? This is exactly why I am doing this. How would I ever have found this out without a stack of ten year old New Yorker ads? I love discovering this stuff.

Club Voyages is still listed in the Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Tourist Information Page, but the site is down at the moment. I suppose after all the Coast Guard/Hummel excitement the internet decided I needed a little time out.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 31

The NordicTracks that you can get today look like you can fly them around canyons shooting laser beams at alien invaders. At the very least they all have televisions built in. Now look at how minimalistic they were in 1996:


Hey NordicTrack designers, here's an idea for you: Eventually these will all be laundry racks anyhow, why not include hangers and so on.

The Bose Wave radio has now been upgraded to the Wave II. It looks the same, and check it out -- it costs the same too.

See that business in the bottom right corner? That's how people used to order things before the internet. What you did was cut the corner out of the page of the magazine, fill in your name and address, then call the toll free number. After you tell the nice person who answers the toll free call that you want a spiffy new Bose Wave Radio, they will want to know where you live so they can send it to you. Because you have done your research ahead of time, you can tell the nice phone person your address right away instead of running out into your front yard to read the number off the front of your house.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 29

Twelve pages? Take a look. It's a town. There are homes for sale, banks for your money, clubs to join and sights to see. There is a school for your children that "seeks to foster scholarship, creativity, self-discipline, independent thinking, and the development of a strong moral character needed for living in a culturally diverse world. " If you try to leave, you will be attacked by a jewel-encrusted weather balloon. Be seeing you.

Flights on the Concorde! At last, an ad that is completely anachronistic. I ran the itinerary for this package in expedia (presuming the start and stop to be New York) and came up with this itinerary:

Leg one - Sat 1-Jul
7:10 am Depart New York (LGA)
Connect in Salt Lake City (SLC)
Arrive Honolulu (HNL) 2:00 pm
Duration: 12hr 50mn

Leg two - Mon 3-Jul
12:35 am Depart Honolulu (HNL)
Connect in Nadi (NAN)
Arrive Auckland (AKL) 11:45 am +1 day
Duration: 13hr 10mn

Leg three - Wed 5-Jul
1:25 pm Depart Auckland (AKL)
Arrive Sydney (SYD) 2:50 pm
Duration: 3hr 25mn

Leg four - Fri 7-Jul
10:45 am Depart Sydney (SYD)
Connect in Hong Kong (HKG)
Arrive Beijing (PEK) 10:50 pm
Duration: 14hr 5mn

Leg five - Sun 9-Jul
8:00 am Depart Beijing (PEK)
Arrive Hong Kong (HKG) 11:25 am
Duration: 3hr 25mn

Leg six - Tue 11-Jul
6:05 pm Depart Hong Kong (HKG)
Arrive Delhi (DEL) 9:00 pm
Duration: 5hr 25mn

Leg seven - Thu 13-Jul
8:30 pm Depart Delhi (DEL)
Connect in Mumbai (Bombay) (BOM), Nairobi (Jomo Kenyatta Intl.)
Arrive Mombasa (MBA) 8:45 am +1 day
Duration: 14hr 45mn

Leg eight - Sat 15-Jul
9:45 am Depart Mombasa (MBA)
Arrive London (LHR) 5:10 pm
Duration: 9hr 25mn

Leg nine - Mon 17-Jul
10:30 am Depart London (LGW)
Connect in Charlotte (CLT)
Arrive New York (LGA) 5:40 pm
Duration: 12hr 10mn

Grand total for one person airfare - $8747.14

I imagine that the Concorde trip included hotels (and that there would be a few more nights in them rather than in transit) but still - over $50 grand! This must have been a fun trip.

Inca Floats won't really sell you the Galapagos to give to your Valentine. But they'll take you there. "Come swim with playful sea lion pups, try to keep up with a penguin chasing a fishy dessert, tromp among giant tortoises in tall green grass, and quietly mosey past a motley crew of marine iguanas." It's not just for Valentines either. They have a wedding registry, and they think it will make for a fun "big birthday surprise." I think after the long plane trip and boat ride, the birthday person will start to suspect.

The Traveler's Guide looks like one of those little things that someone chugged out of their guest room as a labor of love and then collapsed when this naughty old internets showed up. I can find no sign of MGP Inc. or their Guide. I hope they are all right.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 28

Just when I think I've given up on trying to compare prices, here's one smack in front of me big as life. So far as I can see, The Drake is still a Swissotel, but it is not mentioned on their website. They may have just switched hands. Or perhaps Swissotel is ashamed to admit that they own the New York Drake. In any event, the rate now starts at $225 per night.

Harvard has a graduate program in Landscape architecture! Next time you see someone reading Proust and sipping a martini while doing laps on their Husqvarna, you'll know their backstory.

"Let's Go To Vermont!" Gosh yes! Lets! The 1996 ad for The Mountain Top Inn looks quite simple and perhaps rustic. Have a look at their website now. The place is like a machine.

The Celebration Bowl pictured in this ad celebrates the virtues of John and Peggy. These include "Honor" and "Trust." Two others that I can't make out for sure could be "Peace" and perhaps "love." The Celebration Bowl website lets us know that John and Peggy are doing well. Looking at the page that offers suggestions for inscriptions, we see that they got married on June 22, 2002, the same day that they celebrated 25 years together. Peggy went on to become the Teacher of the Year for 2003, and retired from her moonlight job at Cloverdale Ice Cream after 20 years. John, meanwhile, was the PTA President from 1998 to 2003 and won the Pacific Rim Poetry Award. I'll bet their house is full to the rafters with Celebration Bowls and every time a houseguest sneezes, John and Peggy turn white from stress.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 25

El Castillo San Felipe del Morro is one of those places where you look at a map of the area, and you know exactly where the fort is going to go. Take a look on Google Maps, you'll see what I mean. No wonder the thing has been there since 1539. You can learn more from Wikipedia, the Puerto Rican Tourism Company and the National Park Service. It looks like a fascinating place.

However, from the ad copy, I am worried that it might drive me insane.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 23

One of the things that surprised me about the 2006 version of this trip was that there was only one ad for liquor.

So here's Macallan Scotch.

I like this weird tasting that they are crowing about. First off it was "conducted by the Sunday Times." Now, in a magazine that is focused on New York, that infers the New York Times. But this is a UK product, so perhaps the London Times? They don't say. It could be the Bryan (Ohio) Times. Or perhaps the Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News.

I particularly like how even though they seem to have whomped the competition with their "Excellence Quotient" they need to hike the numbers to 100% by telling us that the color of the whiskey is worth a score of 6.22%.

Let's suppose that the runner up (which scored 62.8%) was soooooo beautiful that it scored 37.3%. In your mathematically tenuous face, Macallan.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 20

I always mix up "Sylvia" with "Who is Sylvia."

One is a comedy about a man and his love for his dog. The other is a comedy about a man and his love for his goat.

The one with the dog is the one that you want to take grandma to.

In the second ad we have a drama about a man and his love for a swan.

I'm sensing some sort of theme here.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 19

This is an ad for a Lifetime movie. This article on Wikipedia gives us the character archetypes that are purported to always appear in Lifetime movies:

• Good Girl - this is the innocent girl and usually the protagonist of the story who falls victim to one of the following situations: kidnapped, murdered, corrupted by drugs and/or alcohol, gets raped, becomes a gambler, becomes a prostitute, is being stalked, gets pregnant, or a variation of these themes.
• Bad Molly - the "friend" who corrupts the Good Girl and urges her to have sex, drink, stay out late, lie, etc. The Bad Molly is sneaky, manipulative and is usually at odds with the Good Girl's Mom.
• Good Molly - the friend that tries to help the Good Girl but is ignored in the beginning and middle of the movie. (see Good Boy)
• Bad Boy - the cool older guy in high school who has sex with the good girl, rapes her, gets her pregnant, stalks her, threatens her or a variation of the above. But in the beginning he seems really nice, she really likes him and he always cons the parents. This type of character is meant to caution female viewers on the less than honorable intentions of many high school boys.
• Good Boy - the friend or lame dude who tries to help the Good Girl but is ignored until the end of the movie when the heroine realizes he is the one for her. In some extremely clever Lifetime movies the Good Boy is secretly the Mean Man (see below), only to be revealed as such after the heroine's epiphany and right before the end of the story.
• Mean Man - this character is a completely scary guy in appearance and behavior. He plays the part of the kidnapper, stalker or murderer, usually in a plaid or flannel shirt. Lifetime has some of the best shady villains.
• Weak Mom - the mother who can't control her kids because she is naive or has her own issues going on.
• Dad - Yells a lot, tries to control his daughter's antics. But sometimes he can be involved in something shady himself.
• Mistress - Has an affair with husband and causes drama at home. Aka "Home Wrecker".
• Religious Mom - Preaches religion but does not realize her daughter breaks most of the 10 commandments on a weekly basis. This role was played perfectly in She's Too Young.
• Younger Sister - she looks up to the Good Girl but is slowly becoming a Bad Molly because of the drama she is influenced by.
• The Black Friend - the protagonists of most Lifetime Movies are often Caucasian, with too few powerful black characters. However, it is typical for the white protagnist to have a black best friend who is very wise. Little is given about the black friend's life, aside from her willingness to help the protagonist. There also are few powerful characters outside the U.S.

Now, let's go to the ad.


From the IMDB we see that the synopsis is this:

A woman pits herself against her husband and his Ku Klux Klan member friends when she learns that they are planning an attack against her black maid and her husband.

Must have made for an awkward laundry day.

This film is currently unavailable on video, and was on basic cable in 1996. I've pretty much given up on totaling this up, if you haven't guessed.