Invisible Themepark

Month: July 2009

  • POM Juice and the Vietnam War

    POM Juice, the Pentagon Papers, and the Vietnam War

    POM pomegranate juice has become popular due to research about the health benefits of pomegranates (it might help with erectile disfunction) and because of a huge marketing push in the last few years.

    Some time ago, though, I was reading a New Yorker article about how POM went from nothing–was there any kind of pomegranate juice before POM that didn’t have to be obtained in a health food store?–to this giant antioxidant powerhouse.

    But one little side note in the article pointed out some connections between POM, the Pentagon Papers, and the Vietnam War.

    Daniel EllsbergDaniel Ellsberg and RAND

    In 1969, at a time when the Vietnam War was raging in full force, Daniel Ellsberg was an Marine Corp veteran who had just returned from two years in Vietnam.  He became a military analyst at the RAND Corporation think-tank in Santa Monica, California.  As a result, he had the highest-of-the-high security clearances.  His job at the time was to help work on a top-secret study of classified documents regarding Vietnam War.  The order to work on these documents had come from the highest authority in the military:  Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

    Ellsberg’s Moment of Realization

    By 1969, Ellsberg become disillusioned with the war, particularly due to an ephiphany he experienced after attending a War Resister’s League.  He decided that he had to do something, but how?  Ellsberg was in possession of over 7,000 pages of incriminating evidence about the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War.  The way he could help was to bring these documents to light.

    Enlisting the Help of Lynda Sinay

    Through various acquaintances, Ellsberg knew a woman named Lynda Sinay.  Lynda owned an ad agency, and as such she had access to a high-volume Xerox 812 photocopier.  So, on October 1, 1969, Ellsberg, Sinay, and others undertook the massive effort of copying the entire set of 7,000 pages of top secrets.

    Pentagon Papers Exposed

    pentagon papersThese documents were published in The New York Times and became known as The Pentagon Papers, the most influential document of the Vietnam War and one of the most important documents in 20th century U.S. history.

    Ellsberg was arrested, and Lynda Sinay became implicated due to her key role.  As a Washington Post article says:

    [Sinay] was an unindicted co-conspirator and spent the next two years in and out of court: ‘a very dark time,’ she says. All charges against Ellsberg and Russo were dismissed in May 1973.

    Pentagon Papers behind her, Lynda Sinay later went on to marry an entrepreneur named Stewart Resnick.  This business-minded couple later formed many other well-known and successful businesses, such as:

    • The Franklin Mint
    • Teleflora
    • Fiji Water

  • Frank Soltesz, King of Cutaway Drawings

    Frank and Loretta Soltesz
    Frank and Loretta Soltesz

    Not just cutaway drawings, but king of practically all other areas of commercial illustration through the 1930s-1960s, it seems.

    Soltesz’ life is told in detail by his son, Ken Soltesz (Frank Soltesz:  Biography of a Commercial Illustrator).  If you can somehow define the “look” of commercial illustration during that great mid-century period in the United States, that look was defined by Frank Soltesz.  He infused “mere” commercial illustration with grace, precision, mood, and authentic artistic talent.

    Ken Soltesz tells many great anecdotes about his father, including this one that I found particularly touching.

    I remember as a boy going out through the backyard to visit daddy in his studio. He would let me sit quietly and watch him, and he would sometimes try to explain to me the types of paints and brushes he used. On a few occasions, he would sit me on his lap, load the brush with paint, and let me paint a few small strokes on the job he was working on. Then when the picture appeared in a magazine a few months later, he would show it to me and say “Look what we did”.

    Frank Soltesz: From Penna. to Mad Avenue

    As Ken Soltesz recounts, Frank Soltesz was born on June 14, 1912 in Derry, Pennsylvania, one of eight children born to Jacon and Susana Soltesz.  Even as a young child, Soltesz demonstrated the promise of artistic talent.  After clearing blackboards at school, he would draw festive pictures in colored chalk.  He won a number of Pittsburgh-area art contests as a young boy, too.

    Soltesz’ first big push into becoming a professional artist came around 1933 when he enrolled in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.  After two years at AIP, he got a job at the Pittsburgh Press and then later at advertising agency Rayart Studios.

    In 1945, Soltesz got another big push.  Jack Frye, President of TWA, saw Soltesz’ work and offered him a job doing TWA’s magazine ads.

    Later on, another valuable connection was established. William Gale, the art director at big Mad Avenue advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn, Inc. (BBD&O) gave Soltesz a job.

    TWA Airplane Cutaway - Frank Soltesz

    The Armstrong Cork Cutaways

    The famed Armstrong Cork advertisements, renowned for their attention to style as well as substance, came about from this BBD&O connection.  As Ken Soltesz recalls:

    One of the first accounts that Bill Gale gave to Frank was that of the Armstrong Cork Co. To illustrate how Armstrong products were used in everyday life, they had Frank paint factories or buildings with parts of their walls removed to show the operations inside. Between 1947 and 1951, he drew 29 of these. They appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and later were reprinted in some encyclopedias. They attracted much attention to Frank’s artistic ability, and greatly furthered his career.

    ESSO Map - Frank SolteszIt would be a mistake to think that Soltesz’ talents ended with the Armstrong Cork Saturday Evening Post series.  A partial list of accounts and publications associated with Soltesz includes:

    • Allegheny Ludlum Corporation
    • Avco Manufacturing
    • Caltex Petroleum, Ethel Corporation
    • General Electric
    • General Motors
    • Goodyear Aviation
    • Goodyear Tire and Rubber
    • Merritt-Chapman & Scott
    • Orangeburg Pipe
    • Philadelphia Electric Co.

    Not only that, but Soltesz’ work appeared in all the major periodicals of the day:  Life, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Fortune, Time, Business Week, U.S. News and World Report.

    In this age of TV, cable, satellite, and Internet, it is hard for those too young to know–and even for those old enough to remember–that incredible importance of these publications to the American public.

  • Kim Jong Il Houses and Compound

    Kim Jong Il House

    Even to me, it seems funny that you can locate the house of a feared dictator and killer and all-round Bad Boy merely by entering a few coordinates into Google Maps:

  • Ranch House Cutaway Drawing, 1956

    1956 Ranch House Cutaway

    I love this kind of house cutaway.  Unlike one of our hotel cutaways that had the front end removed, this type of building cutaway has the roof popped off.  Almost as if a giant lifted it off and left everything else intact.

    This great cutaway comes from the October 1956 Popular Mechanics–always an abundant source of cutaway drawings–and has plans, detailed interior views, and descriptions.  As they say:

    Cutaway of completely furnished PM [Popular Mechanics] Big-Family House gives an over-all view of its livability.  The front part of the house–living room, family room and kitchen, and the parents’ bedroom with bath just across the hall–is “adult territory.”  The rear section with three bedrooms and bath opening on a playroom is the children’s section.  Folding walls of two of the bedrooms can be pushed back for more play and living space during the day.  The rear patio is accessible both from ktichen and playroom.

  • Forced Perspective at Disneyland’s Main Street: How Does It Work?

    Forced Perspective at Disneyland’s Main Street: How Does It Work?

    Disneyland Main Street Forced Perspective

    Forced perspective is one of those common photographic illusions.  Let’s say you go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and position your spouse so that he/she is pretending to hold up the tower with their hand.  That is a type of forced perspective.

    But another way that forced perspective is used is to give objects and buildings the illusion of height.

    Our brains already know that as object recede in the distance, they get smaller.  So, what forced perspective does is preempt that by making those faraway objects even smaller.

    Main Street Forced Perspective

    Disneyland’s Main Street has long been regarded as the beating heart of the theme park–important, sanctified, untouchable.  Main Street’s spiritual origins are Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri.  Designer Harper Goff reportedly used his birthplace of Ft. Collins, Colorado as a design inspiration for the early 20th century storefronts found on the Disneyland Main Street.

    Long-time historian of faded and disappeared Disney attractions Werner Weiss visited Marceline in 2010 and found a few of the old buildings standing, notably the Zurcher Building and the Allen Hotel.  In a weird, ironic twist, the fake has now influenced the real, with Marceline having renamed its main street “Main Street USA,” after Disneyland’s own Main Street USA.

    On Disneyland’s Main Street, forced perspective means that each story farther up has smaller windows, smaller awnings, smaller cornices, and so on.

    It’s not a complete illusion.  It never is.  But it does trick you subconscious mind at first glance.

    Matterhorn’s Forced Perspective

    At the Matterhorn, larger trees are placed lower down.  Farther up, the trees decrease in size.  Up to the “treeline” of the Matterhorn, two foot pinion trees from Arizon were planted.  This makes the 147-foot mountain look–if not 14,000 feet tall–at least something bigger than 147 feet.