Seven Glorious Days, Seven Fun-Filled Nights

1968, possibly first edition, from Ace Publishing
Charles Sopkin
Seven Glorious Days, Seven Fun-Filled Nights
Original price 75 cents, purchase price unknown
Poor condition paperback
B+

In April 1967, Sopkin set up six TV sets in his home and watched as many programs as he could sit through for a week.  Sometimes each set would be on a different station.  (And even in NYC, where Sopkin lived, that meant every network and all three locals.)  Sometimes he'd concentrate on a particular show, with all six sets tuned in.  The experiment took its toll on his eyesight, his sanity, and his sobriety.  The result is a very funny look at television by a man who doesn't usually watch television.  Some sections are gut-bustingly funny, especially his struggles to sort out the goings-on on his three "favorite" soap operas: As the World Turns, where Amanda might've pushed her biological mother down the stairs; Days of Our Lives, where Dr. Bill has a claw operation; and General Hospital, where Audrey may be pregnant by artificial insemination.

Sopkin is very much a man of his time and place.  Sometimes the drama of traffic outside his window is more compelling than anything on TV, and even though most of the book is set in his apartment, it's a very New-Yorky book.  He is mildly sexist, mildly homophobic, and mildly racist.  (He twice says "Japs," although I think for humorous effect.)  He's liberal on some issues, like premarital sex and the war.

For someone who grew up on the West Coast, near but not in L.A., with all their stations, a few years after this book was published, there's a sense of not quite de ja vu, but familiarity.  I know more than Sopkin does about, for instance, Hollywood Squares, because I watched a heck of a lot of television, and early '70s TV wasn't all that different than late '60s TV.  (And so many of the '60s and earlier shows were in syndication by that time.)  If anything, I wish that Sopkin had seen more of the shows that I grew up with.  (It'd be great to see him snarking about Gilligan's Island.)

I've read this book many times, and I wanted to love it this time.  When I read his thoughts on what was really going on between the lines in the Saturday shorthand lessons, I was so happy to be reading this book again.  But, like watching a week's work of television, it wears a little thin after awhile.  Still, by all means, if you have any interest in pop culture and you can find a copy of this book, get it.  You'll have a lot of fun.

Sopkin's experiment inspired Jack Lechner's Can't Take My Eyes off of You, which as the subheading puts it involved "1 man, 7 days, 12 televisions," since Lechner had to include cable.  I will discuss his book when we get up to 2000, but it, too, is a crazy ride.