Atlas and Alice, Issue 18
Denise Tolan
Sell You, Sell Me The Commercial: The commercial ran in the early eighties, in the evenings when sitcoms came on. So many sitcoms came on. The shot began with a black screen, then quickly opened to a wide shot of fireworks over a lake; the concept seemingly a meta-firework itself. As if the audience themselves narrowed the lens of a telescope, a group of people came into focus. They were sitting around a picnic table while children ran about stabbing sparklers furiously at the night. The camera zoomed in closer until it rested on a young woman. Her eyes were luminous, bright, alive. She lit a sparkler of her own, waved the fiery stick in the air, eventually drew a gauzy heart around a young man’s handsome face. When the camera caught his unguarded eyes, they were wet with love for the young woman. She was lovely, people said. Not thin enough to be a movie star, but certainly cute enough to carry a commercial. He became an instant star. Puppy dog eyes, the magazines cried. Lela, the young woman, knew even then they were drinking it in too quickly. At her young age it was still difficult to believe in commercial nights and mid-summer breezes that sweetly blew firework smoke away from lakeside tables. People often stopped her in the street, but never asked about what the commercial was selling. Those eyes, they always said. His eyes. Are they all that? How did it feel to have all that? The Commercial Aftermath:
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