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	<title>Invisible Themepark &#187; Apex USA</title>
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		<title>Somebody Made a Movie About the Almighty Helvetica&#8211;Really</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2010/06/somebody-made-a-movie-about-the-almighty-helvetica-really/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2010/06/somebody-made-a-movie-about-the-almighty-helvetica-really/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:27:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=604</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Holy cow. Previously, I have written about the Almighty Helvetica and how it was used to convey a sense of faux humility in advertisements in the 1960s. In fact, I plant the faux humility flag at about 1966. Turns out I&#8217;m not the only joker with this idea.  Gary Hustwit has directed a documentary film all about Helvetica.]]></description>
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		<title>The Almighty Helvetica</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-almighty-helvetica/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-almighty-helvetica/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:10:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=521</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We see this everywhere at some point towards the latter half of the 1960s.  Helvetica font runs rampant.  It&#8217;s everywhere:  in the LIFE copy, in the ads.  It permeates other publications, as well, but rarely as much as in LIFE. Not only that, but lower case.  It&#8217;s more of that faux humility.  Helvetica is a very fake-humble typeface, almost pretentious in its lack of artifice.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Gentlemanly Library that Never Was</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-gentlemanly-library/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-gentlemanly-library/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:17:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=534</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One feature I see again and again from the 1930s to the 1950s is the Gentlemanly Library.  In so many cases, I imagine a permanent set at MGM or Warner&#8217;s where actors would sit down for their LIFE feature about Errol Flynn the Distinguished Scholar (or something).  Or at least Errol the scholar when he wasn&#8217;t statutorily raping young ladies on his yacht, the Sirrocco.   The Gentlemanly Library was simply a meme: One thing that elevates this shot of Jean Hersholt and wife Via is that this does look like a real library.  That award on the upper-right looks real.  It looks&#8230;Danish (Hersholt was a Dane).  And then there&#8217;s that book dead-center in the picture laying horizontally.  Finally, those curtains look so weirdly arranged, they have to be real.  Hersholt was a rarity in Hollywood, an authentically humanitarian guy who helped found the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills. Apparently, Pabst Blue Ribbon wasn&#8217;t yet the darling brand of pretentious downwardly-mobile art-types, because this advertising segment tries to put some gloss on the product.  Notice the touch-up of the PBR bottles.]]></description>
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		<title>From Happy Beer to Glum Tick Spray</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/from-happy-beer-to-glum-tick-spray/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/from-happy-beer-to-glum-tick-spray/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:16:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=532</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So what happened here.  How, in the span of 19 years, did we go from this to that?  The first image is from a beer ad dated October 31, 1949.  The second image is from a tick spray ad dated August 9, 1968. Most people might actually be more familiar with the 1949 image.  It&#8217;s a common image&#8230;the sunny-smiling white-toothed guy with limitless confidence.  It&#8217;s almost so common and familiar that we don&#8217;t see it anymore.  It has become simply a meme, a symbol. Now, look at the image from 1968.  Part of what&#8217;s happening is this shift in advertising copywriting during the Sixties.  We find a lot of this closed-mouth, we&#8217;re-straight-shooters posturing from advertisers and companies.  So, we&#8217;ve got a black and white photo of a can of tick spray.  Period.  Copy says, &#8220;Sergeants.  The largest selling spray flea and tick killer in the whole world.  Because it works.&#8221; Read that copy again.  &#8220;&#8230;in the whole world.&#8221;  &#8220;Whole&#8221; gives the copy this faux-juvenile spin, something you start to see during this period.  Then that last line is  understated and flat:  &#8220;Because it works.&#8221;  Finally, see how they aren&#8217;t capitalizing the copy?  We want flat, flat, flat.  Graphically, lower-case is [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Bratty Kids and the Authoritarian Voice</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/bratty-kids-and-the-authoritarian-voice/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/bratty-kids-and-the-authoritarian-voice/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:15:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=530</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This 2008/9 commercial for Van de Kamp&#8217;s fish is another indicator of a cultural shift.  Yes, the kid is a mouthy, disrespectful brat&#8211;kids are kids, and they have always been kids*.  So that&#8217;s not the point.  Point is that in this commercial we&#8217;re saying, &#8220;The kid is right!&#8221; No longer is there an authoritarian voice, the over-riding voice of reason (i.e., the parent).  In this day of democratization, everybody is an authority.  Everybody has a say.  Everybody is right. * Though they may be kids, hopefully we guide them toward better behavior.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The Center Cannot Hold</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-center-cannot-hold/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/the-center-cannot-hold/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:14:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=527</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At some point in the mid-1960s, we start to see non-centeredness.  This ad for Chevrolet &#8220;OK&#8221; Used Cars from 1968 is a prime example.  The green box has been added by me. What&#8217;s at the center?  Usually, the most important information is at the center of the image.  But here we&#8217;ve got a bored kid who is leaning against one of the products that are being advertised.  The Mom is half-heartedly peeking into the window of the red car (which is halfway cut out of the picture).  Dad is fuzzified in the background doing&#8230;something.  It&#8217;s meant to be very &#8220;human,&#8221; a slice-of-life image. It&#8217;s that fake humility again cropping up that we&#8217;ll start to see so much of.  It&#8217;s that anti-hero posturing that permeates all areas of 1960s culture. More than anything, it&#8217;s saying:  Yes, there is a center, but the center is empty and rotten.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Raping My Last Memory Cell</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/raping-my-last-memory-cell/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/raping-my-last-memory-cell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:13:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Stop reading this article.  Are you titillated by the word raping?  My website analytics indicate so.  This has article has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with mysteries and neural pathways, so if that&#8217;s your thing, read on: Somewhere:  1966 My search for this elusive song began in 1981, when I was 17 years old.  The song itself was rather unremarkable.  If I had to describe it, I would say that it was a peppy cha-cha-esque instrumental song from the 1960s. I can never know when that song entered my mind.  Using my writerly imagination and bullshit, I would guess that I was in a stroller in 1966.  Or I could have been four years old and with an Orange Crush in my hand. Fresno, CA:  1980-1982 During this period, I became obsessed with the past, and like any child I had this misguided feeling that I could make something happen if I thought about it hard enough.  Specifically, I wanted to enter the year 1966. I would hear this song at the Kmart on Blackstone Avenue in Fresno, California, at the old 1967-era Grille that had been so well-preserved that it could have been placed in [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Harkening to a Valentino Past</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/harkening-to-a-valentino-past/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/harkening-to-a-valentino-past/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=519</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What about antiquity in ads from the 1960s?  There is a point in advertising when we shift from forward-thinking (or even present-thinking) to thinking backwards.  This Oldsmobile ad from April 11, 1969 is hardly the most prominent example of this, but it&#8217;s a start.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/harkening-to-a-valentino-past/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Muscularity and Humility: From 1935 to 1968</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/muscularity-and-humility-from-1935-to-1968/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/muscularity-and-humility-from-1935-to-1968/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:09:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=517</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Popular Mechanics April 1935.  It doesn&#8217;t get much better than this.  I could write a dissertation about the Popular Mechanics style circa 1930s, but I will spare you.  Suffice to say this is complete balls-out, muscular journalism.  Contrast with this mis-directed, faux-humble ad from 1968 which practically says, &#8220;We&#8217;re nobody.&#8221;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Faux Sixties Humility:  Charlie Brown vs. Gen. Montgomery</title>
		<link>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/patron-saint-of-faux-sixties-humility-charlie-brown/</link>
		<comments>http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/2009/12/patron-saint-of-faux-sixties-humility-charlie-brown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:09:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apex USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.InvisibleThemepark.com/?p=515</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Peanuts&#8217; heyday was the 1960s, and in many ways Peanuts encapsulates so many of those points that The Sixties held so dear:  Freudian psychology, juvenalia, faux humility.  We have this Naive Art style (contrast this with the draftsman-like art of cartoonist Winsor McCay in Little Nemo in Slumberland).  Everything in Peanuts is slightly askew, off-centered; it&#8217;s the let&#8217;s-not-get-to-the-point pose of the embarrassed, self-hating majority. 1967 The headline stating &#8220;Charlie Brown and Snoopy: Winners at Last&#8221; also highlights the Cult of Loserdom that was fetishized beginning in the mid-1960s. 1944 23 years before, we have a true balls-out LIFE cover featuring General Montgomery in his beret, lambs-wool coat, and cable-knit sweater. Somehow I doubt that the Cult of Loserdom got much press back in 1944.]]></description>
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