Basket of Kisses

Lane Pryce: Hello Don.
Don Draper: How was your morning?
Lane Pryce: Very productive.

I have been struggling this season. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved this season, it has been my favorite so far, and that is to be a separate post. But I have been struggling to understand what is going on with Don at work.

Genuinely confused. I just couldn’t get a handle on where he was at. He was being downright nasty to his group, he was following Conrad Hilton like a child trailing the Pied Piper, he wanted nothing to do with Roger. I kept thinking I was missing something, some over-arching blueprint of this dynamic, something obvious that everyone else saw (and not for nothing but I’m supposed to be good at this show), some big cause and a diagnosis of its effect. But I couldn’t.

I even asked Rich Sommer about it: (more…)

I interviewed Rich back on October 10th, in order that we might discuss Wee Small Hours and have it posted right after it aired. It uhh–did not work out that way. Blogger interviewer FAIL.

But? Rich is such a delight, and we enjoy speaking with each other, and speaking about this show, so I think you’ll find it a good read. Blogger interviewer win!

We do a bit of hello and how are you and I tell him a bit about visiting the set and our experience meeting Hamm and then off we go.

Roberta Lipp: Honestly what our readers want to know first? How is Beatrice?

Beatrice is Rich’s daughter. He has a blog that he has mostly abandoned for Twitter, and his blog, among other things, kept us up to date on the wondrous young Beatrice.

Rich Sommer: She is very well. We’ve stopped posting pictures of her after a weird scare we had… We felt a little intruded upon so we’ve limited the amount of information we put out there. But she’s walking and talking and dancing. She takes ballet classes. She’s having a good time.

I did whittle this portion of our talk down; we both agreed that details were unnecessary. And of course, what you also don’t get from a transcript is all my ‘aww’ type sounds that I just make around toddler and toddler talk.

Oh, and by the way? I never even mentioned in this entire conversation how cool it was that they named the Crane daughter Beatrice. But we’d emailed about it when My Old Kentucky Home first aired. He was pleased as punch, naturally.

So finally we discuss Wee Small Hours.

RL: Do you think that Harry thinks that he handled it? Watching that scene, [the phone call between Harry and Lee Garner Jr.] it seemed like, y’know you changed the subject, you did a good tap dance, and the guy is drunk.

RS: Yeah, Harry thinks he’s handled it. I think Harry says what he thought was going to happen which was that he thought it was going to go away. And can’t really understand what’s going on—he’s so uninvolved in the other side of it. So yeah I think he thinks he did the right thing by him. He made essentially an executive decision. It turns out it wasn’t the decision that they would have wanted him to make but what else was he supposed to do, really? I don’t think he would have had much of a different outcome either way. I think they still would have said, Why the hell is he calling you?

RL: Right.

RS: And he still would have been in an uncomfortable position, where I think he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

RL: He was just as victimized, just in a different way, as Sal was.

RS: Yeah, absolutely. He was just as unjustly cornered. Obviously not in a physical way but by a guy who is very powerful in this agency and expects things to be done his way whether it makes sense or not.

RL: Overall, how do you think Harry’s doing at work? Is he competent and good at this position, or is he in over his head? (more…)

screen shot by Marc Opperman, as seen on Flickr.com

As is common, this post was inspired by a previous Lipp sister post.

Just this morning I was reading an article and came across a quote about the economic crisis that said that “the needle was stuck in the groove.” And for a second I thought, Hmm, like a hypodermic needle? That’s kinda… sick. And then I remembered, Oh, yeah, record player needles! Anyone under the age of 30 would be thrown by that (okay, I’m 39.) Technological changes have an impact on the way we experience life. Just for fun, here’s a list of 60s gadgets and their modern equivalents that influenced our perceptions.

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Interviewing Matt Weiner is a rollercoaster. Let me tell you, the Lipps are a talky family; we can speed-chat with the best of them, and Matt ran circles around us. He talks a blue streak, circling around an idea, but eventually looping back to answer the question. Like Don Draper, he has driving curiosity about everything he encounters, and so everything is interesting and worth discussing.

But, y’know, it’s hard to ask a question, because he’s off and running when it’s half out of your mouth. And saying that, I’ll also say I wouldn’t trade the experience of this interview for the world.

Our talk was chatty and conversational, and we’ve chosen to preserve that tone; we want you Basketcases to get the feeling that you’re there with us, with this amazing creative mind who has thoughts about everything. We spoke the day after our season finale party. The feeling that we were continuing a conversation from the night before probably contributed to the chatty feeling. It’s a joyride, truly, so join us on it.

Following are highlights from this fascinating conversation, and then at the end is a full, and very long (over 8,000 words), transcript. (Or you can just jump to the transcript.)

(DL=Deborah Lipp, RL=Roberta Lipp, MW=Matt Weiner)

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About the unpredictable plot, and an exclusive reveal about Rachel:
MW: As a rule, I would not say anybody is definitely going to be back, and I’m not just playing with that, as like a creative tool. I don’t know what the story is. It is completely possible that we could come back and be at a totally different agency. I want people to know that, and I want to take advantage of things on the show about our adventurousness in storytelling and our willingness to spend intellectual and financial capital on telling stories that aren’t predictable. And I think that there was a sincere belief, and there should have been, because I toyed with it, that Don was not coming back.
RL: There was certainly a sincere question. A sincere willingness to not trust you to bring him back.
MW: And that’s what I, or that we would follow, I mean, Don will always be in the show, but that the show would be somewhere else.
DL: Structurally, you could have done it.
MW: I could. It has to be in sync there. That’s why bringing Don back, it had to be very; I always saw him as coming back home from that, but I said in the back of my mind, you gotta believe that he’s going to leave. You not only have to believe in the story, you have to believe that the show will do that.
DL: We have to trust your unpredictability.
MW: That’s why Rachel is not in the show this year. Because it’s not believable. As much as we love her, and I love Maggie Siff, and I love the chemistry between them, Don is not in that place in his life and that woman would never go back to him. Never. Not at this point in her life…Can I just tell you? Which, this is an exclusive thing… (more…)

Basketcase Brenda found this one. You can own a nice wood-mounted Rothko reproduction. Too cool!

Image from the MoMA catalogue.

Rich Sommer has an interview up over at AMC.

(on what it’s like doing a scene with Robert Morse)

As for Bobby… he’s this enigmatic, Yoda-type guy. He is an acting legend, stage and screen.

We’ve noticed for awhile.
Here and here are some examples.

This past Monday I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a special Mad Men symposium sponsored by the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. For those of you not paying attention, that’s where Matthew Weiner received his MFA, and no doubt learned to craft such enthralling stories. This event was part of a classroom lecture series geared primarily toward film and television students at USC, but as a notorious gatecrasher I felt it was my duty to at least try and wheedle my way in. Fortunately, I didn’t have to try too hard as there were spaces available for the general public. All I had to do was flash a smile, show my driver’s license, and VIOLA! Happy happy joy joy…
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Another stroke of genius by Ms. Dyna Moe.

Don: It shouldn’t have been that close.

Cooper: But it is; it always is.

Whedonesque has been talking a lot lately about the HBO film Recount (it is written by Danny Strong, who played Jonathan, a recurring character on my beloved Buffy, the Vampire Slayer). I don’t have HBO, so I was missing the buzz. It looks amazing. It premiered this weekend. If you saw it, do tell.

Television Without Pity has a wonderful interview with Danny. His approach to this topic (the 2000 presidential election and its ridiculous results) is well worth reading about. EW also has a great article about the film.

During my initial viewing of Nixon vs. Kennedy, way back when, I couldn’t help but think of the 2000 election debacle.

Now I’m not sure how much the writers, Lisa Albert, Andre & Maria Jacquemetton, (and of course, always Weiner at the helm), intended the modern day metaphor. I can’t imagine it escaped their collective gaze, but at the same time, it seemed like they didn’t much play it up. I think that what was more important in terms of serving the show was the comparison of Nixon v Kennedy and Draper v Campbell. (more…)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_29IeEeZqo&hl=en]
Sunday, May 18th, was Robert Morse’s 77th birthday.

I’d written a little piece in which Matthew Weiner talks about casting him (and other tales) here.

Quoting uh, me:

He had to audition, like everyone. He wasn’t at all insulted by that, but he “had nooo idea what was going on”. He kept saying, So much yarn, so little time, which Weiner put into the show.

From IMDb about his tony awards:

Has won two Tony Awards: in 1962, as Best Actor (Musical) for “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” a role he recreated in the film version, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967); and in 1990 as Best Actor (Play) for “Tru,” a one-man show in which he played Truman Capote and a performance he recreated on television as “American Playhouse: Tru” (1992). He was also nominated for Tony Awards three other times: once as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic), in 1959 for “Say, Darling;” and twice as Best Actor (Musical), in 1960 for “Take Me Along” (an Award won by co-star Jackie Gleason) and in 1973 for “Sugar.”

I watched Tru when it was on PBS over and over (I had taped it). It was exquisite, and he was brilliance.

Happy birthday week, Mr. Morse! We are so glad you are on Mad Men.

Birthday kisses from BoK!