look a little run down.
The law office to the left had a neat privet hedge across the front and window boxes filled with geraniums. The window boxes on the
Country Daze
house were empty. Perhaps this lack of concern with exteriors indicated that real work was going on inside and there was no time for perfecting their image. If she liked them, she would mention that in her lead.
Downstairs, as she came in, was a young woman in her twenties. Her bangs looked like overcooked bacon. The rest of her hair was pulled back in a bun. She was typing on what looked like the horizontal control panel of a jet plane. The typewriter looked particularly out of place next to the telephones,both circa 1950 black, that sat beside it on the desk. The desk was a round oak table. There was a straight-back oak chair pulled up to one side, as if someone might be dropping by for tea. A two-foot-high plastic pig carrying a red suitcase stood at the front of the desk, in lieu of a bud vase. It was studded with memos. As she answered the phone, the secretary took messages and peeled pieces of paper off a pad, which she stuck to the pig. Someone had put a little toupee between the pig’s ears.
The secretary led her up the stairs to Hildon’s office. He had on white gym shorts, a black T-shirt, socks, and running shoes. His feet were on his desk. He smiled at her when she walked in, and kept talking on the phone. “Quote, He’ll be right with you, end quote,” the secretary said, and turned and left.
Myra had seen him before but she couldn’t think where. He was too handsome for her to be mistaking him for someone else. She felt herself stiffening, going on guard against someone who exuded such confidence. She found out his background: an only child from a middle-class family who went to prep school and to Yale, dodged the draft, was admitted to law school at the University of Virginia and dropped out. A year as a reporter himself, for the Detroit
Free Press
. Married, no children. Got tired of city life, moved to the country, turned a profit selling real estate and decided to start a magazine. According to Hildon, he had just been in the right place at the right time; instead of the Let’s-Open-a-Restaurant dream, he had started a magazine and put a lot of his friends to work. He saw the magazine as an extended family, a continuation of the life he and his friends had led in college. Obviously they were beating the system, and while he didn’t think he or this bunch was representative, he was sure that they all felt very lucky and grateful. The staff had been expanded—no, no one had left, except for one reporter who was going to leave, but that was because he had decided he wanted to be on the West Coast; it had nothing to do with dissatisfaction with the magazine. Social satire was perhaps too vague a description of what they did, really; some of it was satirical, but much of it he simply thought of as eclectic. The magazine, then, was really what hewas inclined to publish—something that had to do with his own concerns and the things that amused him? Yes, but he didn’t think that he was unrepresentative either, and in a way the success of the magazine proved that: he wasn’t the only one who cared about social issues and who also had a sense of humor. While he didn’t want to seem to wave the flag, he didn’t think that a lot of stereotypes about Americans pertained anymore; most Baby Boomers were well-educated, united by their opposition to the Vietnam war, people who had had their consciousness raised about nutrition and ecology … he really thought that there was a large thinking population out there, and he was pleased that they were pleased with
Country Daze
. Could he characterize his audience? Well—he did not think that many farmers wanting advice about what fertilizer to use took the magazine home after flipping through it on the stands. Something for coffee-table flipping in New York? Well, they got a lot of mail and it
The law office to the left had a neat privet hedge across the front and window boxes filled with geraniums. The window boxes on the
Country Daze
house were empty. Perhaps this lack of concern with exteriors indicated that real work was going on inside and there was no time for perfecting their image. If she liked them, she would mention that in her lead.
Downstairs, as she came in, was a young woman in her twenties. Her bangs looked like overcooked bacon. The rest of her hair was pulled back in a bun. She was typing on what looked like the horizontal control panel of a jet plane. The typewriter looked particularly out of place next to the telephones,both circa 1950 black, that sat beside it on the desk. The desk was a round oak table. There was a straight-back oak chair pulled up to one side, as if someone might be dropping by for tea. A two-foot-high plastic pig carrying a red suitcase stood at the front of the desk, in lieu of a bud vase. It was studded with memos. As she answered the phone, the secretary took messages and peeled pieces of paper off a pad, which she stuck to the pig. Someone had put a little toupee between the pig’s ears.
The secretary led her up the stairs to Hildon’s office. He had on white gym shorts, a black T-shirt, socks, and running shoes. His feet were on his desk. He smiled at her when she walked in, and kept talking on the phone. “Quote, He’ll be right with you, end quote,” the secretary said, and turned and left.
Myra had seen him before but she couldn’t think where. He was too handsome for her to be mistaking him for someone else. She felt herself stiffening, going on guard against someone who exuded such confidence. She found out his background: an only child from a middle-class family who went to prep school and to Yale, dodged the draft, was admitted to law school at the University of Virginia and dropped out. A year as a reporter himself, for the Detroit
Free Press
. Married, no children. Got tired of city life, moved to the country, turned a profit selling real estate and decided to start a magazine. According to Hildon, he had just been in the right place at the right time; instead of the Let’s-Open-a-Restaurant dream, he had started a magazine and put a lot of his friends to work. He saw the magazine as an extended family, a continuation of the life he and his friends had led in college. Obviously they were beating the system, and while he didn’t think he or this bunch was representative, he was sure that they all felt very lucky and grateful. The staff had been expanded—no, no one had left, except for one reporter who was going to leave, but that was because he had decided he wanted to be on the West Coast; it had nothing to do with dissatisfaction with the magazine. Social satire was perhaps too vague a description of what they did, really; some of it was satirical, but much of it he simply thought of as eclectic. The magazine, then, was really what hewas inclined to publish—something that had to do with his own concerns and the things that amused him? Yes, but he didn’t think that he was unrepresentative either, and in a way the success of the magazine proved that: he wasn’t the only one who cared about social issues and who also had a sense of humor. While he didn’t want to seem to wave the flag, he didn’t think that a lot of stereotypes about Americans pertained anymore; most Baby Boomers were well-educated, united by their opposition to the Vietnam war, people who had had their consciousness raised about nutrition and ecology … he really thought that there was a large thinking population out there, and he was pleased that they were pleased with
Country Daze
. Could he characterize his audience? Well—he did not think that many farmers wanting advice about what fertilizer to use took the magazine home after flipping through it on the stands. Something for coffee-table flipping in New York? Well, they got a lot of mail and it
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