Dealing with the KNOW-IT-ALL

October 22, 2013 1:26 PM

People and How to Deal With Them Magazine Was as Bizarre as it Is Forgotten
posted by not_the_water (41 comments total)

ha, that is so deeply weird. Thanks for the link.
posted by sweetkid at 1:40 PM on October 22, 2013

So you know those blogs-as-a-book-deal, where someone takes takes a text (the Bible, The Prince, etc.) and spends a year living the way it prescribes? I'd kind of like to see one based on these magazines. That is, if you don't mind me saying so, and if that wouldn't put us at risk of becoming socialistic.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:46 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

Deeply, deeply weird. Also...so John Birchy in it's approach.

Flouride in the water may keep cavities at bay, but isn't that the responsibility of each parent, and not the government? After all, pretty teeth are for those who can afford them!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:46 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]

Remember, in a socialistic economy, the lack of a profit motive to encourage innovative thinkers and inventors would mean that many of the products we enjoy would simply not exist.
posted by Naberius at 1:47 PM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]

When I stumble across things like this, I quickly turn to the inside front, to see what information is given about the people or organization the published it. I wish they would provided that in the article.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:50 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

Remember, in a socialistic economy, the lack of a profit motive to encourage innovative thinkers and inventors would mean that many of the products we enjoy would simply not exist.

That would be a tragedy.
posted by sweetkid at 1:54 PM on October 22, 2013 [17 favorites]

I have zero trouble believing that John Brich Types would need a detailed instruction manual for having a conversation with another human being
posted by The Whelk at 1:58 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]

That would be a tragedy.

Well that NFL shoe wine holder (which totally sounds like a snippet of dialogue from Schizopolis) is a GIANTS NFL shoe wine holder. What I'm getting at is at least it's not a Jets NFL shoe wine holder. In closing, uh, fragment chief butter. King surgery mind?
posted by Mister_A at 1:58 PM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]

But I want to believe; if only the mere purchase of an inexpensive ashtray could do something for my reputation as a gentleman.
posted by Abiezer at 1:59 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Digging a little on the Stevens-Davis company brings up a bunch of books and pamphlets oriented towards salesmanship and corporate motivation from the late 20's to late 50's.

The Men of America series seems to come up the most, and some of the promotional material for this series kind of clues you into the anti-Communist paranoia starting to tinge their work in the post-WW2 era.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:00 PM on October 22, 2013

I feel like this was written by a time-traveling version of Achewood's Pat.
posted by The Whelk at 2:17 PM on October 22, 2013 [9 favorites]

What this article really taught me is that "cigaret" should have never gone out of style as the preferred spelling. Also, ash on the fucking floor if your company doesn't give you an ashtray. (Ha, j/k, smokers here have to smoke across the street, pretending they don't work for a healthy company.)

But seriously, this magazine is a joy and I am crushed that "People and How to Deal With Them ebay" just returns results about dealing with trolls who will ruin your capitalist experience. The more things change...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:33 PM on October 22, 2013

I think the best one was the bit where it's all the company's fault that the letter writer is sprinkling cigarette ash all over the office. I like to imagine that the letter was sent after the office building burned to the ground and the writer is trying to dodge responsibility.
posted by ckape at 2:34 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

I particularly liked the bit where they instruct the (presumably unwashed) reader on how to correctly spell "privilege."
posted by dialetheia at 2:40 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Guys, guys, look: it's a manual about people, and how to deal with them. Not "other people, and how you, also a person, can deal with them".

People. And how to deal with them.

It's an instruction manual for socialist robot invaders, designed as counterpropoganda to trick them into not furthering their robosocialist agenda after all. The US government knew they were out there, knew they were lurking under blank, cheerful facades, knew they'd been programmed by their overlords to blend in by e.g. subscribing to periodicals. It was the perfect antidote.

The text of the articles is banal and a bit on-the-nose, but the robots wouldn't notice, having in more than one sense a tin ear for that sort of thing. But if you examine the microprinting it's all just ones and zeroes, zeroes and ones, literally subtext that was designed to literally deprogram them.
posted by cortex at 2:56 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]

It's a cookbook.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:17 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Sorry, misspelled that. It's a kookbook.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:18 PM on October 22, 2013 [14 favorites]

When I worked as an inter-library loan processor, one of our grad students / professors was working on something about J. Edgar Hoover's PR campaign during the red scare. Hoover would author columns in everything from lady's magazines, to sports dailies, to general purpose news periodicals and each one would tie the specific content of the magazine into fighting communism (e.g. "Ladies, how you raise your son is your patriotic duty in our fight against the soviets!" or some-such). This reminds me a great deal of that - propaganda disguised as unbiased common-sense advice from a position of authority.
posted by codacorolla at 3:20 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's an instruction manual for socialist libertarian robot invaders

Seriously.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:25 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

benito.strauss, I would absolutely read your blog, buy your book, see your movie.
posted by MoxieProxy at 3:47 PM on October 22, 2013

On the topic of stunt living, furnishing your place entirely from the Skymall catalog would be a worthy thing to do.
posted by thelonius at 5:57 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

That was a remarkably long dog tongue. Disturbingly long, even.
posted by heyho at 6:01 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

On the topic of stunt living, furnishing your place entirely from the Skymall catalog would be a worthy thing to do.

Please, I have relatives who do this, there is no honor there.
posted by The Whelk at 6:06 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]

Skymall is where we buy
A thousand miles through darkened skies
When worlds collide we close our eyes
You may have my number, you can take my order
But you'll never have my price

At the Skymall (At the Skymall)
While we tumble (while we tumble)
We will buy all (we will buy all)
Mail it all together

At the Skymall (At the Skymall)
While we tumble (while we tumble)
We will buy all (we will buy all)
Mail it all together

At Skymall
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:23 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

But wait? How do I deal with people? How do I deal with know-it-all people? These questions still have not been answered!
posted by idiopath at 6:31 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Try sarcasm.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:34 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's not working.
posted by idiopath at 6:44 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

I guess you're trying SO. HARD.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 PM on October 22, 2013 [7 favorites]

There's a neat little pamphlet on success by Roderick G. Stevens of the Stevens-Davis Co. for sale on ebay right now! Looks like they were around for a while.
posted by interplanetjanet at 6:53 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

So one week the editors ran a photo of a lion in a race car going 300 miles per hour.

That seems a little zippy for an open-top Go-Kart with a fucking lion sitting in it. Or maybe the caption writer looked at the 1949 cutline mentioning the 300-pound lion and got all confused? Reading comprehension, it is a thing; common sense likewise.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:55 PM on October 22, 2013

This, by the way, was what a 300mph+ vehicle looked like in 1948. Not much room to squeeze a lion in there.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:57 PM on October 22, 2013

I would like to see a tiny lion in that thing going 300 mph.
posted by interplanetjanet at 6:59 PM on October 22, 2013

People and How to Deal with Them is a good alternate title for ask metafilter.
posted by medusa at 7:17 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

I could see "I throw cigarettes on the floor, is this wrong" as a contentious AskMe.
posted by sweetkid at 7:23 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

I would probably buy a "Dealing with People" magazine, were it the sort of thing I imagined when I read that title.

This is not that magazine.
posted by pompomtom at 7:57 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

That was a remarkably long dog tongue. Disturbingly long, even.

Exactly. He's like the Gene Simmons of dogs.
posted by scalefree at 8:38 PM on October 22, 2013

Hell is Other People magazine.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:22 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]

OTHER PEOPLE magazine, reports and photos on WHO THEY ARE, WHAT ARE THEY DOING WHY ARE THEY COLLLECTING TOGETHER, and what sinister plots they have for you and your kind.
posted by The Whelk at 11:31 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

People and how to deal with them; permanently and without arousing suspicion from the authorities.
posted by Grimgrin at 11:47 PM on October 22, 2013

First, be smart from the very beginning...
posted by desjardins at 8:13 AM on October 23, 2013

Second, follow this classic advice.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 9:16 AM on October 23, 2013