Meeting Matt Weiner
Yesterday’s Q&A session with Matt Weiner, as Roberta has already told you, was a joy.
(First, because I’ll probably forget to say this later, it was fabulous seeing a great print of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes on a huge theatrical screen, with a large, appreciative audience. The experience of theater just belongs with the experience of Mad Men, and the Jacob Burns Film Center is a fantastic venue.)
Back to Matt Weiner. He is infinitely interesting because he is infinitely interested. He’s smart and charming, and he’s just fascinated by the world. He’s fascinated by his own writing process. He doesn’t know why certain images compel him, but he’s eager to write towards those images and see where it leads. Some of the questions people asked were maybe not that good: It didn’t matter. Weiner can take any question to a place that’s meaningful and insightful and smart. I could quote him all day. (And I undoubtedly will.)
A few months ago, I saw an excellent interview with the screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz. He was amazing and fascinating and I never wanted him to stop; the word that popped into my head was raconteur. But with Matt Weiner, I wouldn’t use that word. With him, I’d say he’s a great conversationalist. The difference is, with a great raconteur you want to shush everyone else so you can just listen and listen and listen. But with a great conversationalist, you want to ask more questions and leap right in and engage. Matt Weiner is one of the best conversationalists I’ve met in a good long time.
Here’s another thing. If I met, say, Jon Hamm, I’d turn red and humnah-humnah and try not to do something humiliating like touch his pants. And then I’d go home and bang my head against a wall. Starstruck is a terrible feeling. But I didn’t feel starstruck by Matt Weiner. I felt admiring, certainly, and incredibly pleased to be able to meet him, and even more pleased that he knew some of my work. I’m a writer with some success, he’s a writer with a lot of success. So, not starstruck. A little verklempt, sure. A little thrilled and amazed to be able to meet and talk with such an amazing person. But definitely a person, not a star.
And seriously? If he wasn’t married, I’d have totally flirted. Charming intellectual bald Jewish writers totally turn my crank.
Roberta, Matt Weiner, Deborah
February 10th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Hmhh. Photographs are so helpful.
I think my bra could be a little more supportive.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Whereas mine is so supportive it’s practically holding up my legs.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:43 am
just saying.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:06 am
You Ladies are hilarious! Both of you looked great!
February 10th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Agree that some of the questions were kinda out there. I was sitting next to the guy that asked the question about David Lean (I think he just wanted to slip in that he knew Alan Taylor). I wanted to grab the mike and hit him with it.
I was about to ask a question regarding Nixon when they moved the mike to the other side of the stage and then wrapped up.
It was way cool to hear Matt talk about his process – sort of an anti-process it seems.
BTW – his best response was the reaction to Deborah’s “Birds/Trains” question. His eyes lit up. But I still don’t believe that most of the bird references are accidental.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am
DanSJ! I totally wish you’d introduced yourself to us.
Roberta asked about trains and birds. I asked about Don being suicidal in Marriage of Figaro.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I did want to hear a question about Nixon. Dammit!
February 10th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I am so envious you got to meet him.
Love the cards!
February 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I’m envious, and I’m the one who met him!
And thanks… yeah, Deb named the blog, Deb found that image. It’s perfection.
Creativity is fun like that, just like Weiner talks about. The ‘happy accidents’. I’ve experienced it a lot with my songwriting.
I mean, Deb pulled BoK as a title. Awesome.
But she hadn’t thought of the connection to us; that phrase was the pivotal moment for Peggy becoming a copywriter. And here we are, women, writers.
But it wasn’t until we were midway designing the card that we saw the lipstick next to our LAST NAME(S). I mean holy crap, talk about synchronicity. (Talk about it, but don’t try to spell it.)
February 10th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Reads like “Basket of Kisses” has passed the tipping point from appealing obscurity to cult item….next stop: FANFARE !
We going to see transcripts of this blessed event? And what about the NYTimes panel? It’s like you’re hoarding the Dead Sea Scrolls! [ok, well, not really, but hyperbole becomes advertising.....]
February 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Int, transcribing is SO HARD!!!
But I’m doing better with sections of yesterday’s event, because I did it digitally, so I can slow it down. The other was analog, and it’s such a pain.
Plus Weiner is clear is a bell live, but to transcribe him is soooo circular. He talks like people. He talks like me. His sentences are filled with filler and tangents and like I said, it works fine in person, but on paper it’s HARD.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Love it! Such a great picture
February 10th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I was there yesterday, too, but I didn’t get to ask my question of Matthew Weiner. Whatever possessed AMC to put Mad Men on the On Demand menu? As far as I know, it had never been done before, and it was just GREAT! I not only watched the shows once, I then watched them backwards and found, in doing so, that I could see the threads as they had been woven into the story even more clearly. While the use of the On Demand channel may have attracted more viewers….I certainly recommended it to enough people that I should be on the PR staff…they must have lost considerable ad revenue. If you know the answer, can you enlighten me?
F.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Fortunata, we know nothing about what makes the AMC mind tick. That’s why we spend so much time cursing them out!
February 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Fortunata … what cable service do you have??
I have Comcast and they have not had MM on On Demand in months … only Breaking Bad as of last night.
DJ
February 10th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I have Cablevision in Rockland County, and Mad Men was on for several months, perhaps until November, though I can’t be sure. You’re right, I just noticed tonight that Breaking Bad is now On Demand.
Why are you, Deborah & Roberta, cursing AMC out? I gave up on that several months after they introduced commercials. Ditto for Bravo. That was years and years ago. Now I just pray that TCM doesn’t go the same way.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Commercials I can live with (I work in media) … But not knowing how to promote one of the best television series ever created I cannot. The ratings stink, no one’s heard of the show, and they keep it under wraps like it’s the holy grail.
Someone needs to remind AMC that great shows only stay great if they’re seen by people. This isn’t a Tippi Hedren marathon, it’s original content … the kind that costs lots of dough to produce.
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