108 Fascinating Pages!

Recently Bill Streeter posted a link on the forum at The Circuit to these vintage ads for new products created for a photoshop context on Worth 1000. Great stuff, both beautiful and funny.

(If you haven’t yet checked out Bill’s St. Louis-centric social networking site The Circuit, do. All the cool kids are doing it, peer pressure, peer pressure!)

In a typical serendipitous moment, I was given the book Yes You Can: Timeless Advice from Self-Help Experts the very next day. A thoughtful gift indeed. Wait… are you trying to say I need help? Hang on a second…

Actually, inquiries to the giver reveal that he purchased it with the intent I might use it as resource material for my work, which is thoughtful, but it’s too, too funny in it’s own right, earning a prime spot on the coffee table. Not that it gets any attention, as the entire room is currently overrun with books and magazines, due in part to our storage crisis, and in part to my… shall we say collectorial (is so a word!) tendencies.

Yes You Can is a clever and beautifully designed collection of vintage twentieth-century self-improvement guides in the tradition of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People… reminding one how far we’ve theoretically come, and how very little things have changed. Amazing vintage graphics, cutting irony… as I was told, “it’s so you.” (Er, me.)

And the somewhat disturbing, somewhat funny reality is that it IS me. I died laughing. How did I end up being a 20-something walking, talking, live demonstration of vintage behavioral guides? I wasn’t even there, for heaven’s sake!

Although I did learn some new things. For example, did you know that it’s improper to say “Pleased to meet you?” Instead, one should always say, “How do you do!” or “I’m very glad to meet you.” (I think I say, “Hello” or “Nice to meet you” because when I do say “How do you do” people look at me like I should be in a museum. I wonder if “‘Sup, yo?” is considered proper?) For our further edification, we’re told that there is no proper equivalent for the incorrect social phrases of “Keeping company with” or “walking out with,” which I guess would be today’s “seeing” or “dating.” The reason for this is that “according to etiquette no such situation exists. No man is given the exclusive right to be devoted to any girl unless he is engaged to her.” Ha! Trying pulling that one off in today’s world, good bloody luck. (I bet bloody is considered terribly improper. But it’s better than he alternative…)

I very much enjoyed the section on conversational taboos though.

“Always, personal questions are bad taste. A personal question might deal with some financial equation - how much someone paid for her shoes or what the remodeling of her kitchen cost. It could ask a shoe size, weight, age, whether or not someone wore dentures or dyed her hair. It could also pry into personal relationships. Discussions of illnesses and descriptions of operations are most unfortunate. They have to be stopped somehow.”

Although I think people probably enjoy conversing with me because I am so very open when it comes to discussing personal questions, which I nearly always answer without a blink, I actually do find some in bad taste. I hate it when someone absolutely insists on knowing where I bought something I’m wearing and how much I paid for it. One can only use the “Oh, it was a gift” fib so many times, so I tend to tell people it came from Goodwill for $3 whether it did or not. It very likely did anyway.

The “How to Tell If You’re Charming” quiz didn’t go so well. Questions one and two respectively were “Do you wake up cheerfully?” and “Are you pleasant at breakfast?” I moved on promptly before reaching question number three… I much prefer my friend’s magnet which reads “Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”

Gentleman can benefit from the tips on “When to Bare Your Chest.” (!)

“Most women like men in open shirts, but they expect this display of masculine chest to be confined to appropriate locations: at a bar, one the beach, at a sporting event, at his apartment or hers, but not on Fifth Avenue in New York. There, women find it tasteless and not very sexy.”

Also for the boys, “If Marry You Must: How to Pick a Suitable Wife,” which instructs “Never marry until you have known at least a score of women intimately.” Yes, I suppose a dozen is a nice round number…ahem.

And for the liberated woman, we have several references. From Sex and the Single Girl:

“Theoretically, a ‘nice’ single woman has no sex life. ‘What nonsense!’, says Helen Brown, author of this entertaining and refreshing study. Based on her own experiences and those of her friends, it includes:
-A five-minute lesson on the art of flirting
-A chapter on ‘The Affair: From Beginning to End’
-17 different ways to meet men
-The pros and cons of getting involved with a married man
-An eye-opening discussion of virginity
-And personal advice-packed sections on MEN- how to catch, keep and (if you’re inclined) get married to one of them.”

Look, it’s an episode of Sex in the City! Apparently I’m more prudish than I thought. There are pros to getting involved with a married man? Puh-lease!

Apparently, office politics have changed somewhat too. By the same author of the above desk reference, we also get Sex and the Office. Get this:

-How to love a boss. (“Imperative for any girl who wants a rich, full office life.”)
-How to be a fulfilled secretary.
-How to move onward and upward “where the money, the men and the spoils are even greater.”
-How to de-fang your office enemies.
-How to dress up to here and down to there to enchant every male co-worker.
-Combat instruction for Jungle Warfare (office politics).

Oy vey. Ok, girls, don’t try this at home, er, at work.

Interesting, the much of the advice on conducting a successful marriage or relationship, for both men and women, doesn’t seem to have changed much. Care, consideration, thoughtfulness, interest, etc don’t seem to go out of style.

My very favorite take-away from the book though is at the end: advice on what to do if a man gets fresh.

“The inexperienced girl may wonder, ‘If he tries something, shall I slap him and run, or just run?” The more mature girl knows that she doesn’t need to resort to either slapping or running in order to deal with the too amorous man. She wards off unwelcome behavior with a firm refusal to co-operate, accompanied by a knowing smile and a suggestion of some alternate activity. She may say, ‘Not now, Ambrose — let’s go get a hamburger; I’m hungry.”

Ah… so now I know. Slapping and running is considered immature. A refusal to co-operate, the old knowing smile, and an alternative suggestion of fun!

How do you like THOSE hamburgers? Ambrose…