Tuesday Evening in Chelsea: William Vázquez at The School of VIsual Arts

(Video courtesy School of Visual Arts)

Adding It Up: We review the April 19, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

For the second week in a row, the New York Times Book Review for April 19, 2009 is 28 pages rather than just 24 like most of this year's issues.

And for the second week in a row, we're sure that the increased length of the review has to do with the section's most important feature: the advertising.

This week we count 7.6 pages of advertising, including 6 full-page ads. (Actually, one ad - for books by Alexander McCall Smith - spans two facing pages). That's just 4/10 of a page less than last week's Easter paper, and the second week in a row, advertising (not for the New York Times itself or its products) makes up more than a quarter of the section.

We've turned a corner! Kudos to the display advertising department. To show our admiration and gratitude, this week we are sending you a Brooklyn blackout cake from Ladybird Bakery.

Adding It Up: We review the April 12, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for April 12, 2009 is 28 pages, 4 pages more than all but one issue this year, and no wonder (spoiler alert): a full 8 pages of the 28 are devoted to ads! On this Easter Sunday, we shout Hallelujah! The New York Times Book Review has risen!

Is the Great Ad Drought over? Why is tonight's book review different from all other recent book reviews?

Easter and Passover congratulations to the Times display advertising department on this great leap forward. We are sending you a dozen currant rolls from Lords Bakery by the Junction in Brooklyn!

Adding It Up: We review the April 5, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for April 5, 2009 is 24 pages, and the publication is much, much better than last week's in what's most important for a book review - namely, the number of ads it contains. Last week had a paltry 1.25 pages of ads. But Palm Sunday has brought a miracle comeback, praise the Lord and the Times display advertising department. Thanks also to the advertisers, who are fighting the Thrift Paradox at least for this issue.

The cover, of course, has no ads.

Page 2: The Editors' "Up Front" is flanked on the left by a decent-sized ad from Hachette imprint, for Sarah Dunn's Secrets to Happiness. Lots of ads, we think. The New York Times Store ad on the right flank doesn't count, so we'll call this 40% of a page. We're behind last week already, but that will change soon.

Page 3: Table of contents page has side ad for, um, something or other, titled "What Do Best Selling Authors Read?" with ads for four spiritual-themed books, two from Rowman & Littlefield, two from Simon & Schuster, with a bottom logo of Barnes & Noble. Counts as another 40% of a page.

Page 4: Another 40% of a page ad to the left of the letters for The Jewish Body, a new book by our oldest friend from P.S. 203 Linda Konner's cousin Melvin.

Page 5: Next to the review of a new terrific collection of stories by Kevin Wilson is a little review of Mary Roach's Bonk. Counts as 20# of a page. We're only on page 5, but already we beat last week!

Page 6: A left-hand ad for the New York Times Store. Counts as no ads.

Page 7: The great Beckett, continued, but no ads.

Page 8: No ads.

Page 9: Surprisingly, an ad. In recent weeks, there have been no page 9 ads. Hurray for Hunting Eichmann! Another 40% of a page.

Page 10: No ads.

Page 11: No ads.

Page 12: No ads, but photos from one of our favorite recent photography books, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York by our friends James T. Murray and Karla L. Murray.

Page 13: Nada.

Page 14: Zilch.

Page 15: Nothing in the way of ads.

Page 16: Nope.

Page 17: No ads.

Page 18: No ads.

Page 19: After a week's hiatus, page 19 is back in top form, with a full-page ad from Bose. for its Acoustic Wave Music System II

Page 20: No ads.

Page 21: The right-hand ad is not for a New York Times product for a change but an advertisement by Grand Central Publishing for the great Christopher Hitchens and the not-so-great God. (Those who think Christopher Hitchens is God would undoubtedly say the author isn't so great.) Counts as 40% of a page.

Page 22: Um, on the left 20% of the page is one classified ad, one New York Times ad, and another ad half that size for an Edgar Allan Poe event, Nevermore 2009, in Baltimore. On the right, another New York Times ad. Let's count this as 10% of a page.

Page 23: The essay page has got poetry but no ads.

Page 24: Bauman Rare Books is back with a back-page full-page ad.

Adding it up: We count 4.3 pages of ads, more than three times as many as last week.

Congratulations to the Times display advertising department. We are sending you a dozen slices of baklava from the wonderful Damascus Bread & Pastry Shop on Atlantic Avenue. Inshallah, you'll do even better next week!

Adding It Up: We review the March 29, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for March 29, 2009 is 24 pages, and sadly, the news about the book review's most crucial function - to bring in advertising revenue for the company - has reached its nadir.

We said the same thing five weeks ago, when we counted 3.95 pages of ads. But this week's issue is much, much worse.

One reason we stopped doing these "Adding It Up" looks at ad pages, in addition to our illness, was that we began feeling they smacked of snark and Schadenfreude, and we have no reason to be unkind to a publication that we've been reading since maybe 1963 - when Mrs. Sanjour, our ninth grade English teacher at Meyer Levin J.H.S. 285 in East Flatbush used to give us Monday quizzes on the Sunday Times.

The New York Times Book Review generously reviewed two of our books, and we've been lucky enough to be mentioned in NYTBR columns several times. So let's make it clear: we like NYTBR and we admire Sam Tanenhaus and the other people who work there.

None of the readers who came here via mentions in the blog of the terrific poet Ron Silliman or our own self-serving comments on Levi Asher's weekly astute content reviews at Literary Kicks took enough offense to write us, but the tone of the posts, on rereading, bothered us.

Anyway, this week we just wanted to note the critical situation in regards to advertising in the Book Review, which has been averaging about 4-5 pages of ads in recent weeks.

The cover, of course, has no ads.

Page 2: The Editors' "Up Front" is flanked on the left by a decent-sized ad from Grand Central Publishing, a Hachette imprint, for Susan Jane Gilman's Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven and on the right by a smaller ad book on prostate cancer from the Dattoli Cancer Foundation. Counts as 60% of a page.

Page 3: Table of contents page has side ad for The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by one of the Times' most stylish local-beat writers, Jennifer 8. Lee. (We loved the book, but an hour after finishing it we wanted to read it again.) Counts as 40% of a page in our estimation. And that means we've got one page of ads out of the first three. It's downhill from here.

Page 4: An ad for the New York Times Book Review on the letters page doesn't count as an ad, but maybe the subscriptions they will get can offset the lack of advertiser revenue. Counts as no ads.

Page 5: First book review of the issue, for the very funny Russell Brand's My Booky Wook, has a smaller version of the NYTBR ad on the opposite page. Counts as no ads.

Page 6: A left-hand ad for the New York Times Store. Counts as no ads.

Page 7: A graphic book review by the great Alison Bechdel, whose Fun Home we've taught at Fordham. We're glad it takes up the whole page, but that means no ads.

Page 8: Pic of a wonderful short story writer, Wells Tower, but no ads.

Page 9: No ads.

Page 10: No ads.

Page 11: No ads.

Page 12: Bupkis.

Page 13: Nada.

Page 14: Zilch.

Page 15: Nothing in the way of ads.

Page 16: Nope.

Page 17: No ads.

Page 18: No ads.

Page 19: This page has lately been where ads start to appear again after the middle-of-the-review drought, but there's nothing today.

Page 20: No ads.

Page 21: The right-hand ad is for The New York Times Almanac, which is published by Penguin, whose website address is given, but the order information is for The New York Times Store. Maybe this is a co-op arrangement, but until someone tells us otherwise, we will count this as no ads.

Page 22: Um, on the left 40% of the page is one classified ad, two New York Times ads, an ad for the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, and another ad half that size for an Edgar Allan Poe event, Nevermore 2009, in Baltimore. Let's count this as .25 of a page.

Page 23: The essay page never has ads.

Page 24: Just as on February 22, the last time we surveyed, the back page, a primo space to put ads, has an ad for a New York Times book, Obama: The Historic Journey. It's distrubuted by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) but the website and phone number for ordering info are from The New York Times Store, so we cannot count this as an ad.

Adding it up: The ads on pages 2 and 3 total one full page. The only other page with ads (.25) is page 22.

There are just 1.25 pages of ads in today's New York Times Book Review. Sad.

Due to ongoing renovations at Dumbo Books HQ, we have been spending a few days at the splendid Best Western Brooklyn Bay on Emmons Avenue and enjoying the salt air of Sheepshead Bay, easy access by the B44 Limited bus to our weekend classes at Brooklyn College, cheap and delicious dinners at the Roll-n-Roaster across the street (we were going there back in Ford administration) and the pleasures of the UA Sheepshead Bay 14 multiplex on the spot where, when it was the Deauville Beach Club, we had our bar mitzvah reception 45 years ago.

But as soon as we return home to Williamsburg, we will walk down the block to Settepani and ordering some Panettone Mandorlato for the Times display advertising department so they won't have to stand in a Great Recession breadline.

Times are hard at the Times.

Adding It Up: We review the February 22, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for February 22, 2009 is back to where it was the first two weeks in February, at 24 pages, and sadly, the news about the book review's most crucial function - to bring in advertising revenue for the company - has reached its nadir.

The cover has no ads. Since other sections of the paper, including the front page, now have ads, we still think ads would be a good idea here. There's a lot of space devoted to an old B&W pic of the pool at the Fontainbleau (pronounced "Fountain-blue"). Feh. We always preferred the pools further north at the Carillon and the Sheraton Bal Habour, places where we could see old-time celebrities in bathing suits (Ronnie Dyson, cute; George Meany, not so much).

Page 2: Full-page ad for a Maeve Binchy novel published by Knopf, that publisher again coming thru to rescue page 2.

Page 3: Table of contents page has side ad for two Ana Grey mysteries by April Smith. Or maybe it's two April Smith mysteries by Ana Grey? Whatever. Counts as 40% of a page in our estimation.

Page 4: The Editors' "Up Front" flanked on the left by a decent-sized ad for a Little, Brown scary book or two. Counts as 60% of a page, which means we've so far got two full pages of ads out of four pages. If only the whole issue could be half and half! Alas, no.

Page 5: Boring letters and some "postcript," about Susan Sontag, whose heirs should have known better than to publish her immature diaries. But also a 40% right-hand ad from Henry Holt, another detective book.

Page 6: A left-hand ad for the New York Times Store. Counts as no ads.

Page 7: A little right-hand ad for some conference on Southern literature in Chattanooga. We can't afford choo-choo fare, but it counts as 25% of a page (we're in a generous mood).

Page 8: Pic of Crockett and Tubbs from our days in South Florida but no ads. From here on in, ads are going to be as scarce as pastel unconstructed sports jackets.

Page 9: No ads.

Page 10: No ads.

Page 11: No ads.

Page 12: Bupkis.

Page 13: Nada.

Page 14: Zilch.

Page 15: Nothing in the way of ads.

Page 16: Nope.

Page 17: No ads, but a nice pic of Miller Williams, whom we last saw in September 2001 when he and the missus joined us, our pal Crescent Dragonwagon and others at a Fayetteville restaurant for a bite after a poetry reading.

Page 18: No ads.

Page 19: We'll count this as 50% of a page, ignoring the New York Times Store ad for another food book. There's two Abraham Lincoln-related ads, and as we can personally attest, Lincoln always sells books. Apparently Honest Abe is good for ads too.

Page 20: No ads.

Page 21: Two right-hand is from NYTBR ad stalwart Other Press, who've earned a link (probably sausages too). Counts as 40% of a page.

Page 22: Um, on the left 40% of the page are two classified and an ad for Traveler's Language Courses, as well as to no-count ads for the New York Times Store. Let's count this as 30% of a page. We're in a good mood.

Page 23: An essay called "Can't. Stop. Writing." But. No. Ads.

Page 24: This is the shocker, folks. The back page: a primo space to put ads. And what do we have? An ad for a book about Ted Kennedy, whom we love, but it seems to be from The Boston Globe although the book's published by Simon & Schuster. It's by a team of Boston Globe reporters. The Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times Company, just as we own The Los Angeles World-Telegram & Star.

We need a decision from the ref. Ref?

He says it doesn't count as an ad! No ad on the back page of this week's New York Times Book Review! The crowd goes wild!

Adding it up: Last week we had seven and a half pages of ads out of 28 pages. This week, out of 24 pages, only 3.95 pages of ads. (Check our arithmetic and comment if we're wrong.) Last week we had 4 full-page ads alone. Sell your stock! As of yesterday, they're not giving dividends anyway.

We are sending a red velvet cake from Brooklyn's CakeMan Raven to the Times display advertising department to tide them over until the layoff notices arrive.

Don't forget to eat the crumbs, guys! It's going to be a long recession!

Adding It Up: We review the February 15, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for February 15, 2009 is 28 pages, four pages more than recent issues, and it's also doing better where it's most crucial: in ad copy.

The cover has no ads. Since other sections of the paper, including the front page, now have ads, we still think ads would be a good idea here. There's too much wasted space around the first three paragraphs to Joe Nocera's great review of a book about the last Great Depression. This would be a great place for New York Review of Books-style personals.

Page 2: Full-page ad for a novel by a doctor published by Knopf. Much better than the recent ads for New York Times products, which didn't count.

Page 3: Table of contents page has side ad for a First Lady roman a clef from Random House not as good as Gore Vidal's Washington, D.C., which has a cameo by a thinly disguised version of the author's half-sister's half-sister's half-sister, in which a young faux-Jackie shakes hands with Harry Truman and is breathless at how sexy he is. Counts as 40% of a page, we'd say.

Page 4: The Editors' "Up Front" flanked by, on the left, a Bantam ad for a memoir copy describes as "hilarious and heart-tugging," and, on the right, a New York Times Store product about food, which doesn't count. Another 40% of a page.

Page 5: Wow, a full-page ad for the reprints of a "classic novel" made into film with attractive celebrities and other books by the dead author. There's 23 pages left and already this week's NYTBR has beat out the entire Feb. 1 issue's entire ad space. Way to go, Display Advertising! Those cannolis we sent must have helped!

Page 6: Another 40% ad on the left next to the boring letters to the editor. It's for some Irishy book with the obligatory Frank McCourt blurb.

Page 7: OMG. Yet another full-pager, for Bose. Wasn't that Oscar Wilde's pet name for his bf?

Page 8: No ads except for the NYTBR itself. Nice pic of the Barry Sisters, though.

Page 9: Little right-hand column ad for a book with "Boca" in the title. What a coincidence: we just ate a Boca burger (seriously!) and used to write a little right-hand column for the Boca Raton News.

Page 10: No ads.

Page 11: No ads.

Page 12: Bupkis.

Page 13: Bottom half-page ad for a book that's changed the way people think about changing the world. (No, it's not Skinny Bitch.)

Page 14: Zilch.

Page 15: Nothing in the way of ads.

Page 16: To the left of the children's best sellers list (do any actual children look at this?) is a 40% ad for non-book products related to "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," a series we can't resist since our grandfather's company Art Pants and our father's Pants Set stores kept us in mass-market paperback money for the first thirty years of our life.

Page 17: No ads.

Page 18: No ads.

Page 19: Nothing.

Page 20: No ads.

Page 21: Two right-hand ads for a writers conference at a once-good Southern college and a book about something serious involving Sinhalese and Tamils. Counts as 40% of a page.

Page 22: No ads.

Page 23: Another 40% of a page ad on the right, for a novel written with compassion and hilarity, a sequel to a beloved bestseller, published by Forge.

Page 24: No ads.

Page 25: Yet another 40% of a page ad on the right, for a book from Other Press, which is a mainstay of NYTBR's ads.

Page 26: Down to two little classifieds and two ads for New York Times products. Counts as no ads.

Page 27: Since Jim Holt's controversial Essay (its thesis: death ain't so good for you) is oh so cleverly shaped like a tombstone, there is white space on the left and right but no ad copy there. A bigger waste than death, if you ask us. We'd at least squeeze in some plugs for the New York Times Store there.

Page 28: Full-page ad in the back. Bauman Rare Books comes through again! Where were you guys last week when we needed you?

Adding it up: Four full page ads. One half-page ad. Seven ads we'll count as 40% each equals 2.8 pages. We'll give another one-fifth of a page for the Boca Knights ad. That makes seven and a half (7 and 1/2) pages out of 28 pages. That's more than a quarter (25%) of this week's New York Times Book Review given over to the important stuff.

We are impressed, since two weeks ago only a little more than a tenth (10%) of the Feb. 1 issue was devoted to ads.

We are sending two dozen rugelach to the Times display advertising department as a reward and an inducement to keep up the good work.

If you guys are the types that need negative reinforcement, keep your copies of today's last Washington Post Book World handy!

Adding It Up: We review the February 1, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for February 1, 2009 is 24 pages.

The cover has no ads. Since other sections of the paper, including the front page, now have ads, we think ads would be a good idea here.

Page 2: Big ad for The New York Times Almanac with The Editors' "Up Front" column. Sorry, counts as no ads.

Page 3: Table of contents page has side ad for Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (a competitor of Dumbo Books!).

Page 4: Letters page has bigger side ad for Delta Trade Paperbacks' Polly Evans.

Page 5: First inside review page has little side ad for Delacorte Press.

Page 6: Little side ad for Other Press. (Notice the caps: we are not just trying not to name a competitor!)

Page 7: No ads.

Page 8: No ads.

Page 9: Nada.

Page 10: Nope.

Page 11: No ads.

Page 12: Bupkis.

Page 13: Nice pic of Joseph P. Kennedy, but no ads.

Page 14: Zilch.

Paga 15: Nothing in the way of ads.

Page 16: No ads.

Page 17: No ads.

Page 18: No ads.

Page 19: Nothing.

Page 20: No ads.

Page 21: Finally, big side ad next to paperback best sellers list. Wait, it's for The New York Times Store. Sorry, this doesn't count. Again, no ads.

Page 22: Okay, we have on the left side two real ads for University of Virginia Press and, oh, wait, it's The New York Times store again. And on the right, going down the page, a little box for the memoirs of a psychoanalyst that is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, just like Dumbo Books books! Then the book exchange with three classified ads (two "books wanted," one "printing related services") and then a larger ad for. . . The New York Times Store. Well, it is for a book.

Page 23: Essay page has no ads. What would Sontag do?

Page 24: Full-page ad in the back. Bauman Rare Books comes through again! Thanks, fellas! You are indeed a rare find.

Adding it up: Generously, two and one-third pages of ads out of 24 pages.

We are sending a dozen cannolis to the Times display advertising department so they will have something to keep their energy up this week.

Richard Grayson's "Girl With Pearl Drops Toothpaste" at YANKEE POT ROAST

Richard Grayson's "Girl With Pearl Drops Toothpaste" appears today (January 12, 2004) at Yankee Pot Roast:

Girl with Pearl Drops Toothpaste (1978)

One of the finest of Ed Kligenstein’s commercials for Doyle Dane Bernbach, this sixty-second spot creates a mood defined by the radiant, all-American glow of the girl as she turns toward the viewer to hawk the tooth-whitening product. Her ash-blonde hair and the blue blouse that clings to her ample teenage bosom enhance her completely disarming row of glistening teeth.

In a departure from the time-honored practice of TV toothpaste ads, Klingenstein has eschewed the usual white background, instead placing the girl in front of a plain black wall that suggests the blackboard of a high school classroom. Instead of the traditional headshot (as in the classic Close-Up commercial featuring a young John Travolta), the money shot here presents a bust-length portrait of the girl, her body accentuated by the three-dimensional effect of the receding dark background.

In its immediacy and image, “Girl With Pearl Drops Toothpaste” demonstrates how different Klingenstein’s approach was from other commercial directors’ of the period. Avoiding an extreme close-up, the camera relies on the actress’s subtle gaze to suggest an altogether fresh but somewhat bratty demeanor that could indicate that we are in the presence of a girl who would not be caught dead with Marlboro-stained teeth.

Also evident is the patient manner Klingenstein must have employed doing the shoot; here, the TV does not merely delineate the forms of youthful bleached incisors but instead embodies and defines them.

Klingenstein’s lines are even more freely executed, as when the girl asks the viewer, “How do your teeth feel?” and, barely waiting for the reply, suggestively flicks her tongue over the top row of her spotless teeth and intones the timeless Pearl Drops slogan, “Mmmm... It’s a great feeling.” The composition of these five words, coming immediately after the flitting tongue movement, creates an unforgettable icon, complete with fresh breath, a sparkling smile, and an invitation to a kiss.

While the girl’s pose suggest a portrait, the features here are purified so that the viewer does not think the actress represents a specific female; instead she is presented as an idealized version of the American teenage girl. This refined figure of Klingenstein’s mature work for DDB stands as an eternal reminder of his place in 20th Century advertising.

Richard Grayson's Funhouse column in the Hollywood Sun-Tattler reports on advertisers' boycott of Florida

Richard Grayson's Funhouse column in the Hollywood Sun-Tattler today (Saturday, August 29, 1987) reports that Florida's new tax on advertising has spurred a boycott that yields an unintended benefit for Sunshine State residents.