We miss her as Marge in the secretarial pool, but as Flo, the most enthusiastic salesperson in the history of all things, Stephanie is quite the rock star.
Born on February 8, 1970, this is a big one. Many blessings and a basket of birthday kisses!!!
If you haven’t noticed, I have been mostly absent lately. The reason is, I just moved last weekend. So, finding a new place, packing, etc. And over the holidays, when a lot of that was supposed to happen, I was down with bronchitis. Oh, and right in there my motherboard just… sputtered her way to eventual and ultimate demise, leaving me, for several weeks, with my iPhone as my main source of, well, of everything. And now? Okay sure I’ve moved, and I have this little netbook, but still a lot with the unpacking. AND??? I CAN’T FIND MY DVD PLAYER. Seriously. Another week and I’ll have to just suck it up and buy a new one. And of course the netbook does not have a disk drive. And I changed cable companies, so no more DVR. Connect the dots here, now–I CAN’T WATCH MAD MEN. AT ALL. ANYWHERE. I really don’t do well with all the disorientation of a move–even my computer and my cable is different. Whaaaah.
breeeathe
(There are a few S1 episodes on demand, I just discovered.)
But as I was saying, Matt says hi. Saturday he was appearing at the Rubin museum, and it promised to be a fascinating discussion. This thing had sold out weeks ago. Without getting into even more of my personal mini-drama, at the very last minute I decided to go and try to get in as a last-minute cancellation.
Yeah that didn’t work. I got there about fifteen minutes prior to the start time, and I was put on a list with easily 20 other people. I asked if they could get a message to Matt, knowing it was a longshot. Nope. I suppose had I planned this better at all, I could have contacted him in advance. Please know–we don’t exactly have him on speed-dial, but we do have some access.
So I’m not getting in. I decide to hang at the museum (Deb, you really should go–they have some amazing Hindu and Tibetan sculptures and relics; just breathtaking) and then set myself up for stalking mode. I spoke to people about where he would likely be when it was over, etc. I am poised and ready.
The transition from poised and ready to seeing him just isn’t that interesting. Pretty much, I waited, I watched, and eventually I went to where I figured out he was.
It was so delightful to see him. Read the rest of this entry →
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
It’s all there in the subtitle; When Everything Changed is a comprehensive overview of how women’s lives have changed. It opens in 1960, with a woman being kicked out of traffic court (she was there to pay her boss’s fine) because she was wearing slacks. Think the sexism we see in Mad Men is overstated? Holy cow, if anything, it’s underplayed. Journalist Gail Collins takes us on a journey, through news reports, court cases, and personal reminiscences from a great variety of women, that begins in the most deeply institutionalized sexism. From there we travel into the beginnings of the women’s movement, the publication of significant books, the forming of significant organizations, radicalization, schism, backlash, the works. And through it all, those personal stories, keeping it real.
So sometimes, you’ll shake your head and say “Wow.” Other times, you’ll have a memory sparked and say, “Oh, yeah! That’s right!” And late in the book, if you’re media savvy and pay attention to the world around you, you might get bored, because it’s all stuff you read the first time. But the overall effect is outstanding. Reading When Everything Changed from beginning to end offers something like a sense of the massive scope and impact of the women’s movement.
Collins avoids a lot of pitfalls. She doesn’t swallow conventional wisdom about the women’s movement, doesn’t denigrate feminism, but doesn’t overlook flaws in the way people have behaved. My sense, reading her, is of a remarkably smart and fair-minded writer with a deft command of prose.
For Basketcases, there is terrific material here, a wonderful learning experience about our era and what followed. We see young Bettys and Peggys and even Suzannes, and Sallys, and we see them grow up and change. There’s Sally, going off to college and becoming a lesbian separatist, and there’s Betty, understanding, or not understanding, or becoming one herself.
The book marches boldly to the present day, to the 2008 elections, with two major female candidates, but doesn’t pretend that means sexism has gone away. Collins is smart and sees the world clearly, both the progress and the world ahead.
Definitely recommended.
And you know you want to win.
By “sig,” I mean the signature line most of us use with our email. I noticed Roberta’s last night: “I’m always going to love Minnie Mouse” — Sally Draper.
I have different sigs on different mail clients. At work it’s “I don’t think anyone wants to be one of a hundred colors in a box.” I think I use that for my BoK webmail as well. On my personal webmail, it’s a quote from Firefly: When you can’t walk, you crawl, and when you can’t do that, you find someone to carry you.
What’s yours?
Julie McNiven, aka Hildy, reprises her angelic role on tonight’s episode of Supernatural.
Here she is as Anna; Photo by Sergei Bachlakov via CW Network
Here’s what she sent me:
Tonight at 9pm on CW I do a little ass kicking on “Supernatural”
I know, I know, I heart her too!
Not enough people saw Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, a really good movie with an amazing cast and extraordinary imagery. It opens with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei (I told you it was a great cast) making wild, uninhibited, practically gruesome love. Soon we learn they’re a married couple on vacation, and this is the kind of sex they only have on vacation. ‘Why can’t we do this when we’re at home?’ Hoffman asks. But they can’t, and soon things spin out of control in this modern noir.
I was reminded of the movie, particularly the opening scene, watching Souvenir. Don and Betty on opposite sides of the bed from the ones they use at home. Nice image, that. Someone said that at this point in the season (episode 8), Don had only made love after being on an airplane: In Baltimore (Out of Town) and now in Rome. The need to get away was palpable; Don was aroused by getting away.
Finally he couldn’t get away at all, and found a lover in the neighborhood. I don’t know what that means, exactly: Is it just giving up? A desperation of loneliness and emptiness? Has he discovered there is no getting away, there’s only, as he said in Out of Town, “going places and ending up somewhere I’ve already been”?
But back to the notion of vacation. What is it that takes us out of ourselves that can’t be brought back home? Why did Hoffman and Tomei make love so passionately, only to go back to hating each other once they returned to New York? Why did Betty hate her souvenir so much?
It’s not how great a vacation can be that piques my interest (man, do I ever love going away), it’s how coming back snaps everything right back into as bad as it ever was. And yeah, been there, done that, too. But it seems so counter-intuitive. Vacation time should be healing and renewing, and sometimes it is, but sometimes, the other side of the bed stays in Rome.
The Costume Designers Guild wisely nominated Janie Bryant for an award for her Mad Men work in 2009.
Basketcase SmilerG let us know that San Diego residents can now find Don Draper hats.
The Haiti fundraiser we participated in has raised over $64,000!
Michael Gladis surveys the Beards of Mad Men.
Geoffrey Arend appreciated the Internet coming to Christina’s defense after the New York Times made rude comments about her and her Golden Globes dress. It turns out that many fashion designers refuse to help her find an outfit for the red carpet.
Christina is learning to style herself from playing Joan. And sometimes she wears glasses.
Alison Brie is scorching in an upcoming photoshoot from Complex, as well as the behind-the-scenes video.
Kiernan Shipka talked to TVFodder about all things Mad Men, her new film and who she met at this years SAG awards.
Read the rest of this entry →
Our dear, lovely Rich Sommer celebrates another year of life. We’re happy to celebrate with him (and especially glad he is part of SCDP, and also, Rich, we’re really really sorry we had to cut so much of your head off up top on our header. but your chin and bowtie are secured).
^ One of my favorite Rich moments this year
And under Related News, it is also the 40th birthday of Jennifer Westfeldt, partner/girlfriend extraordinaire to Jon Hamm, and a helluva playwright and actress. Also a bit of a red carpet darling. We, Deborah especially, are big big fans of Jennifer and of her lovely film Kissing Jessica Stein.
KJS movie poster
