The Clam-Plate Orgy

1980, 1981 Signet edition
Wilson Bryan Key
The Clam-Plate Orgy, and Other Subliminal Techniques for Manipulating Your Behavior
Original price $2.95, purchase price $2.00
Worn paperback
B

This is not only the best-titled of Key's books, but I think it's also the most entertaining.  First of all, he not only discusses subliminal advertising, as before, but he shows subliminal messages in classic art, such as the interrupted fellatio on the Sistine Chapel.  (Google it, Key is far from the only person to acknowledge it, although perhaps the first.)  I also enjoyed reading about the fallout of his first two books, including harassment by his university and, to his chagrin, increased usage of subliminal advertising, with some ad agencies sponsoring employees to take his classes.

I still don't entirely agree with Key's views of sexuality and pop culture, and there are still some embeds that are hard to see reduced and in black & white, but I think he makes some valid points about the unconscious and about information.  I don't own his 1989 book, The Age of Manipulation: The Con in Confidence, The Sin in Sincere, but I do have 1992's reissue of this book under the title Subliminal Ad-ventures in Erotic Art, which has Joe Camel, so I'll discuss that and any other changes when we get there.