Wireless
One of my favourite cures for insomnia is listening to old time radio shows. Dramas and mysteries are the best of course; comedy only keeps me awake with constant waiting for the punchline.
My hat goes off to those writers of radio plays and their stunning ability to paint vast and small landscapes in your mind, steering it step by step through hot slithering jungles, dark alleys of terror or the claustrophobia of a hunt – more engrossing and intimate than anything on screen.
One of the best shows ever was the short-lived 21st Precinct. It has a weird naturalism that’s so damn enthralling even though/because the stories are often mundane, and lacks the usual booming hamminess meant to inform us of the gravity of the drama we’re listening to.
(I’m equally grateful for learning from Lux that Humphrey Bogart started out as a stand-up comic. That image alone is worth the price of a box of flakes.)
And even though they grate on the nerves by the 3rd time round, the goofy, sponsored by commercials are almost as entertaining as the shows themselves. I’m particularly fond of those peddling nauseating sauterne as a fine accompaniment to roast beef: That’s right! Roma wines! Don’t buy one; buy two! Now, Dr. Watson…
I suppose more than anything I appreciate their seeming candour: telling us exactly what they’re selling and ordering us to go out and buy the damn stuff – unlike today where the product is only a required accessory to a sunny morning lifestyle, this deodorant and those chips a guarantor that you are so going to get laid.
Overt corporate sponsorship has now shrunken to the arts (less and less since smoking became a proven evil) and athletes’ billboard jerseys – though it’s sure to return with online and mobile games offered in instalments like the old movie serials. In the meantime, advertisers’ slightly more subversive efforts are spent accessorising movie sets because nothing says Ah… after saving the world like a nice cold Coke, and a Mac is a must when hacking the Pentagon’s files in a flash (password: Jeff).
And, contemporary literature being what it is, Fay Weldon’s shame will no doubt lovingly be called trend-setting some day. (This is the sound of one wide-eyed reactionary weeping.)
Well now, that was some messy digression. While I’m at it, I may as well tell you that I can’t believe that a certain telco hasn’t yet used my idea for a jingle: “Mama don’t take my Vodafone away.”
It really is true: once you’ve worked in advertising, you’re ruined for life.
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Comment
- take heart! Salman Rushdie began by writing AmEx adverts. Now I’m wondering whether that’s encouragement or damnation.
— mara Jun 30, 8:54pm #
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