LEWIS CARROL WAS TALKING ABOUT TODAY'S "MAD MEN" YEARS AGO

You have to wonder what Alice would have thought about today's flashy dress-up parties re-living the 1960s America of "Mad Men." The hit TV show has made it fun and fashionable. Especially around Halloween. But there may be more here than meets the jaded eye.

When Alice fell through her rabbit hole, she was falling through time. In her case, a topsy-turvy time concocted by the imagination of Lewis Carroll. In 21st C America, when we fall through time, there are usually specific conventions. Voice-of-God documentaries...sepia-toned movies...Broadway revivals....and now these costume parties where everyone dresses up to look like what we think we once looked like.

This is not to ruin the parties; but as both Alice and Lewis could tell you, the "Mad Men" years were more than narrow ties, beehive hairdos, chain-smoking offices, and three-martini lunches. In true Carrollian fashion, there are serious lessons to be harvested. Take for instance the ad game itself. In contrast to today's brashy headlines and quick-cut soundbites, back then Madison Avenue actually took time to talk about the product. As a product you could use, not a feeling you could become. Check out the records, because the American attention-span (flighty as it may be) was actually three times what it is today.

Putting aside the wows and widgets being pitched back then, its citizenry therefore was actually a tad less susceptible to what goes on here a tumultuous half-century later.The American genus circa 2010 is essentially a complex composite of genes, brain lobes and DNA which has been so thoroughly tested and timed, it's become an exotic pinball machine. The smart players with the big bucks have mastered this machine. They know our every whim, wish, and worry. So they can put the ball into play -- be it for purchases or votes -- in such a way that they, more than we, are in control of the game!

Not to become too Star Trekking about this, but "we the people" are no longer quite what we think we are. True, we still scream orders from the stadium stands...re-play every mistake on Monday morning...pronounce mighty judgments on our despised political leaders....and grumble voraciously about how we could do it all better. But stirring Fourth-of July rhetoric aside, "we the people" have been so well decoded, even we don't always know what we know and what we intend to do about it.

But "they" do.

Not the Oliver Stone "they" conspiring terrible evils somewhere. Actually most of the "theys" are nice folks in ad offices, boardrooms, government departments, and think-tanks with fine-sounding money missions. But the thing Lewis Carroll noticed so brilliantly, is how often "they" know just how to make "us" their missions' messengers....!