Alas, Poor Auric

Who men choose for boyhood heroes is mostly a matter of what's culturally available. Boys are exemplary sponges and the advertising industry knows it. In 1964, there were mostly cowboys and soldiers, both hip as much for their firepower as for their steely-eyed strength. The spy, however – in a world overwrought with Cold War nuclear fear – had much more than ammo and tough, he had charm – and most important to me – tech. Undoubtedly he was sexist - some say misogynist - and ruthlessly cold-blooded when it came to indiscriminately taking life. Americans probably felt some relief that his teflon heart was British. Cowboys and soldiers under the Stars and Stripes would be unwavering in mowing down the enemy - cattle rustlers, Nazis, the Viet Cong - but throw a mother with a baby carriage in the way and they would most certainly swerve out of the way. Not so sure about James Bond.

1962's Dr. No wasn't much of a Bond flick (no cool theme, no cool gadgets, Bond singing, for god's sake), 1963's From Russia with Love was a decent although generic cold war flick, but 1964's Goldfinger set the bar for what will become decades of homage for other films to mine. In the now prerequisite pre-title scene, for instance, Bond surfaces from dark waters in a wetsuit, aiming to blow up a drug lab, eventually revealing the soon-much-used cliché of having his tux on underneath.

There's also the spectacle of seeing Bond strapped to a table with a laser beam crackling towards his privates. The censors of the day probably would've cut any decent kinky quips Bond could've come up with. What was allowed to pass, however, was the name of the Bond girl of the year: Pussy Galore. Were there howls in the audience when she introduced herself to James? Was America already that dirty-minded? Or did it go over most people's heads? Did moviegoers realize Ms. Galore in Ian Fleming's story was a lesbian?

The cultural touchstones in this film are numerous, merging with world consciousness as well as future parody: There is a somewhat megalomaniac villain, Auric Goldfinger, and he does have an evil (albeit brilliant) plan: explode a dirty bomb inside Fort Knox, contaminate the gold reserve for 58 years, economic chaos will reign. After defeat, the well-fed Auric is sucked out of a depressurized airplane's window. Bond dispatches his henchman, Oddjob – brandishing a decapitating bowler - with a big electric cable.

The future Bond template is quickly established within the first moments of Goldfinger. (Check out the opening seconds of the John Barry's theme during the gun barrel sequence to catch Bond sporting a Mad Men approved hat.) The amazing Binder titles are there, except they're not Binder this time around (He titled Dr. No, but sat the next two out). Instead of naked female silhouettes, Goldfinger's opening credits feature a gold-painted girl as a screen, projected scenes from the film on her body. Shirley Bassey gave us theme #1 of 3 (Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker will be her others).

Bond films are, at some level, thrilling travelogues for those of us stuck in smalltown movie theaters. His business cover, Universal Exports, allowed him staggering air miles. Goldfinger's great locale: Miami Beach in all of its ratpack-era grandeur – specifically, the Fontainebleau.

Death & the Maiden: Sex with Bond usually ends up fatal for the girl (unless she's able to make it to the closing credits). Appropriated as a cliché for teen slasher flicks, by the 1980s this equation became all too real. (1987's Bond became practically celibate.) In Goldfinger's day, the buxom body count was high:

Shirley Eaton's after room-service sex with Bond gets her gold plated, literally, instantly creating an icon out of a 5 minute film role. (Her avenging sister, refusing Bond's charms to focus on her assassin duties, gets mowed down in a gun fight regardless.) The jury's out on Bonita; she's the chick making out with Bond in her bathroom to distract him so he can be thwacked by a hitman. This is the scene where Bond sees the hitman's reflection in Bonita's eyes, swings her around so she gets thwacked instead (but perhaps not fatally).

It's hard to take Bond masculinity seriously in this film. Although he's ass-slapping and talking down to his latest eyeful, he's doing it while wearing a baby blue terry cloth mini jumper. He also proves himself a man of taste and breeding, knowing a '53 Dom Perignon needs to be chilled below 38°F and tags what's wrong with the brandy by smell alone. Is there anything he can't do? Golf is second nature, apparently, but bomb diffusing leaves him befuddled and clumsy.

Despite the age of the film, there are few wincingly dated aspects to Goldfinger. Bond is heard stating something is "as bad as listening to the Beatles without ear muffs", the square. In addition, setting women back 100 years: Pussy's co-pilot sits in the cockpit with her face glued in an issue of Vogue.

This was my first glimpse of the sleek steel grey Aston Martin DB5 replete with revolving int'l license plates; smoke screen/oil slick/machine guns/radar and the beloved ejector seat. However, the best gadget of the film wasn't Bond's, but Auric Goldfinger's - watch his Kentucky rec room reassemble like a Transformer into a war room and finally into a gas chamber. Push-button versatility at its best.

The third Bond adventure was a certified transcontinental phenomenon crowning one of the first franchise superstars with statistics that can only happen in Hollywood (or Pinewood Studios). Ian Fleming wrote Bond stories for only 14 years; the film series has survived for nearly 50. In 1964, Fleming was writing "You Only Live Twice" (and, oddly, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" - a decidedly different high tech auto) and died two months before Goldfinger premiered. Fun fact: 007 was the bus line that passed Fleming's house.

a melting watch at every bus stop

As an artist, I've been told to be concerned about employing a copyright on all of my work; of being vigilant to protect both my art and my artist reputation. However, I'm a digital artist; the ends don't merely justify the means, they pay for it repeatedly. There is no original artwork in digital art: if someone is willing to pay for a copy, they must realize they're getting the result of a file being sent to a printer. A year later, another copy can be produced with no loss of integrity.

This type of tech - tho' not yet digital - was hitting its stride by 1964 when Salvador Dalí, already blinded by the glare of his zenith, was entering an era when his extravagant genius lifestyle and that of his bride, Gala, needed to be assured. An aging couple living in a wonderfully funky house on the coast of Spain, in the midst of having the first Dalí museum built, they were all but semi-retired (but who can really elect to stop being Dalí?) Apparently, it never became an ethical concern whether Dalí would sell an original or a reproduction sporting with his fresh signature. In a time before rampant product placement and sponsored name brands, Dalí envisioned his artwork would appear everywhere: he creates it once, it magically duplicates and replicates until it becomes as ubiquitous as his name. Viral Dalí.

There are also tales about Dalí lending his signature to stacks of blank sheets of paper (10,000!). This wasn't as much a picture of an artist in his decline ("The Hallucinogenic Toreador" will appear in 1969), as it was a portrait of a celebrity who ignored the quality of his output as long as he was able to make money off it. He cannily knew how to expand his art beyond the realm of the canvas: By ‘64, he was designing liquor bottles, jewelry and golden chalices. One of his truly inspired commissioned projects was a chess set where the pieces were sculptures of his own thumbs and fingers. (The queens were Gala's fingers tipped with a tooth and the rooks were saltshakers from a ritzy hotel.)

Also paramount to the nurturing of the Dalí brand was his writing: 1964 saw the publishing of Dalí's "memoirs", Diary of a Genius, in which decades of carefully crafted suitable backstory - a lot of it contrived - got the stamp of legitimacy. Here’s an artist who is in complete control of not only birthing but also maintaining his own extensive self-aggrandizing mythology. Dali turned 60 in 1964 - he was as world famous for his personality as he was for his artwork. He publicly worshipped money, as far from the art-for-art's sake school he had decades ago become a poster boy for, taking on all manner of work. If a backer paid him to produce illustrations for the Bible, Dalí did so (but not as enthusiastically as he produced illustrations for The Arabian Knights).

1964 witnessed the unveiling of Apotheosis of the Dollar, where Dalí literally gilded the monetary sign, raising it to the sanctified holy relic most of Western civilization presumed it to be. Surrealist André Breton had already nastily anagrammed Salvador Dali into "Avida Dollars" as a suitable pseudonym for just this type of art. Fittingly, both "Apotheosis" and Dalí-designed jewelry were seen at the France and Spain pavilions of the World's Fair in New York City. Photographed alongside both Dalí and "Apotheosis" was Andy Warhol, I would assume, busily taking notes on the balance of art, commerce and public persona.

Works Cited
Caws, Mary Ann. "Chapter 15: Scandals and Seclusion, 1960-79." 143-151. Reaktion Books Ltd., 2008. Art & Architecture Complete. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.
Dalí, Salvador & André Parinaud. Maniac Eyeball: The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí. Creation Books. 2004.
Descharmes, Robert and Gilles Néret. Dalí. Taschen. 1998.
Gibson, Ian. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí. W.W. Norton. 1997.
Salvador Dalí: an Illustrated Life. Tate.
"SALVADOR DALI GIVES THE FINGER TO A CHESS SET." Antique Shoppe Newspaper Mar. 2008: 35. Art & Architecture Complete. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.
Schiebler, Ralf. Dalí: The Reality of Dreams. Prestel. 1996.

How I First Learned to Escape Reality (with Corporate Sponsorship)

Although born in '64, my memory doesn't kick in 'til about '66: I have a flash of being unsupervised one morning, raiding the cookie jar, then arranging about 10 coconut bar cookies along the glass-topped scan design coffee table. Sadly, no snapshots exist of either my gluttonous smile of delight, nor the inevitable drama that followed once my folks woke up. One of the few early photos that does still exist shows me sitting in a stroller in front of a huge metallic globe, embarking on what would become a lifetime habit: themepark wanderer.

Much like myself, the 1964 World's Fair is just a few pieces of relic now. What actually remains has been engrained into our imaginations as most of us have seen that massive stainless steel orb in film or on TV - especially if we watched music videos. They Might Be Giants and Cyndi Lauper filmed there and one of the B-52's latter-day greatest hits packages showcased what's known as the Unisphere on its cd cover. Just as iconic, the towers of the New York State Pavilion feature prominently in Men in Black and Iron Man 2. It's all still there - out in Queens on the way to LaGuardia Airport. Has the New York State Pavilion finally been designated a national landmark? Don't laugh at the impropriety of tax dollars: remember that the Eiffel Tower is also a leftover reminder of a World's Fair.

A World's Fair is another form of a themepark, temporarily constructed to tout a country's culture or a corporation's future tech (aka preview new gadgets to eager consumers). In 1964 it was all about monorails and videophones, jetpacks and moving sidewalks. Fair organizers were adamant about raising the bar on the experience by getting rid of the carny atmosphere that had reportedly made the 1939 expo a low-brow affair. What was needed was a class act, specifically: bring on board the mastermind who had opened that sensational wonderland out in California almost 10 years earlier. And what that gentleman wanted out of the deal was to prove he could be an equally sensational presence on the East Coast, where, according to his sources, audiences were much more intellectual and sophisticated.

There have always been parallels between Disney parks and World's Fairs - especially the concept of a corporation sponsoring an attraction: the trading of free advertising for upkeep. As a kid visiting Disney World in its first years, I quickly learned names like "Monsanto" and never connected them to anything scary like a world-dominating superpower. Walt was originally roped into the World's Fair scheme to oversee the children's area, but he envisioned something much bigger involving some of the era's most powerful acronyms: GE, IBM, AT&T, RCA. Once the corporate world found out Disney was involved, everyone wanted a piece of pavilion. Walt saw this as more than a chance at financial windfall - he wanted to beta test future Disney park attractions with corporate America's millions. Consider that none of the techniques he used at the 1964 World's Fair had ever been practically implemented before speaks volumes about Walt's trust in his imagineers.

Amid the original concepts for Disneyland was the inclusion of Edison Square, a fin-de-siécle themed section off Main Street that would, with General Electric's backing, show off their latest tech. This technology, now being built for the Fair, would feature the then-revolutionary theatrical robots called animatronics, of which 16th US President Lincoln would appear unsettlingly lifelike for a paying audience. Animatronics as a concept is very simple: robots instead of actors = efficiency (and no salary); it's an idea as old as Metropolis. So it's really not so farfetched that perfecting 3D simulation came from an animation studio where control of every movement was compulsive. Lincoln was chosen as the prototype as his speeches tended to carry goosebump-raising awe. Added bonus: the state of Illinois agreed to pony up the sponsorship.

This same tech also evolved into the Carousel of Progress, a theatrical presentation where the audience revolved around a center stage split into living rooms with families from different times of American history - showcasing GE products, of course. Today's attraction, oddly and sadly enough, does not look that different. We go from the turn of the 20th century, to the '20s, then the '40s - and jump right over to whatever tech has just passed us by. (Virtual reality goggles for gaming are currently the big thing). From the 1964 World's Fair brochure describing that last tableau: "The glories of today glitter in a living room at Christmastime, a glass-enclosed, electrically heated patio, a kitchen that all but runs itself."

It's a Small World came to life when Pepsi collaborated with UNICEF and desperately needed an attraction at the last minute; Walt loved the challenge of a tight deadline. One of the first concepts was to have the almost-300 children all sing their own national anthems - not exactly a harmonious idea - probably sounding more like a meeting at the United Nations. Instead, we got a song grown men like me are afraid to evoke out of fear it will stick in our heads all day. After the attraction was moved doll by doll to California, Pepsi handed over the backing to Bank of America, which was succeeded by Mattel. Added thrill - the attraction was designed by the incomparable Mary Blair.

Although the fair itself was a financial disaster, the success of Disney's attractions proved the eastern U.S. was ripe for the type of vacation destination Californians were enjoying and that corporations would agree to back attractions in return for a little promotion (decades before sports stadiums became synonymous with corporate identities). While all this was happening in the Northeast, Walt was also spending quality time quietly creating dummy corporations in order to buy up massive tracks of swampland near Orlando for what he called "Project Winter". By 1982, Walt Disney World would launch what was basically the World's Fair of World's Fairs when it opened EPCOT, part preview of tomorrow, part international showcase.

Work Cited

Foglesong, Richard E. Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. Yale University. 2001.

Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Random House, NY, NY. 2006.

"THE GREAT FAIR." Saturday Evening Post 237.20 (1964): 26-35. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Sept. 2010.

Koenig, David. Realityland: True-life Adventures at Walt Disney World. Bonaventure Press, Irvine, CA. 2007.

Smith, Dave. Disney A to Z: the Official Encyclopedia. 3rd Edition. Disney Editions, NY, NY. 2006.

Walt Disney Imagineering. Welcome Enterprises, NY, NY. 1996.

Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. Houghton-Mifflin, NY, NY. 1997.

"World's Fair 1964 guide book."

Camelot exists only in wedding photos

I showed up fairly late in the 1964 world arena: America was nearly a year into an accidental presidency following a televised, public execution. My parents were both what I always refer to as Camelot-era kids, wed at a time of pillbox hats and elbow-length gloves, both younger than I ever got to see them, faces full of promise and, I will assume, a certain Cold War angst. 

If you're an astrological purist, you might consider the time I was conceived to be more important than my actual birth. Was I conceived the night the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (9 Feb.)? The Beatles (or Elvis, for that matter) were never on the radar for a young couple from East Harlem living in the Bronx. I was exposed to pretty much nothing but Sinatra on the turntable 'til I was old enough to get my own vinyl (the soundtrack to The Sting, but that's another story).

By October, the Summer Olympics were going on in Tokyo. (Yeah, I guess they wouldn't call them the Autumn Olympics, but it does seem a bit strange.); MLK received the Nobel Peace Prize; Khrushchev was dumped in favor of Brezhnev. None of this would have effected my family's world. But, the Yankees were losing the World Series to the Cardinals: that would be the hospital waiting room chatter while my mother was busy in labor.

So, I will have to dig deeper, spend time reconstructing and reimagining. There are a great many influences to the person I will become, many of them living, loving, creating and destroying in 1964. I'll put on a pot of coffee and start the expedition.