Basket of Kisses

Don lives by this credo, but he also recognizes it as a normal human foible. It’s why he’s such a good ad man. Advertising is effective because it grants us permission — actually encourages us — to give in to our temptations.

While most of us don’t yield to every single impulse we have, every single moment of our lives, there are times when we surrender and say consequences be damned! As a salesman, Don has learned to pick up on this. He’s incredibly astute at detecting when people are most vulnerable. He knows when to strike, and how to do it so it wields the most impact. He’s fully aware that there’s a point at which anyone will say yes, because everyone has their breaking point. (more…)

Wow. Don’s sexual habits. He’s becoming more like Roger (and the underlings as well, though smoother) — that is, he’s more indiscriminate, more public, more casual about his, um, indiscretions. (more…)

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: Midge says “They’ve invented something called Grandmother’s Day.” (Did I get that right? Is it Grandparent’s Day? I think I got it right.)

Anyway, not so much.

National Grandparent’s Day was started in 1973, although not signed into law until 1978. Hallmark created its first cards for the occasion in 1978.

As far as I am able to determine, Grandmother’s Day did not exist until 2009.

I wouldn’t call this a “goof” so much as a different reality in the fictional world of Mad Men. After all, Sterling Cooper co-exists with Doyle Dane Bernbach and McCann Erickson, and has real clients that were really held by one of these other agencies, so a certain fudging of truth is permitted.

Still.

…amidst the smoke.

Ian Bohen, who portrayed Roy Haselit (LOVE THAT NAME, Mr. Weiner!), Midge’s love interest and beatnik du jour in Season One. (Get it, now, about the smoke?)

He is way more terrifically handsome than his bearded counterpart.

As Young Hercules

Ian is the star of the film Irreversi.

Have a basket of birthday kisses!

~The Lipps

This is part 1 of a 2 part free association on Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, AKA Whose Bed Has Don’s Well-Shined Shoes Been Under? Or “The Pilot,” for those of you who are willing to sacrifice whimsy for accuracy — you know who you are.

Don’t want the world to have and hold
For fame is not my line
Just want a little band of gold
To prove that you are mine

Some sail away to Araby and other lands of mystery
But all the wonders that they see will never tempt me

Don is a lucky man, don’t you think? Horse shoe awards turning upside down aside — and life is like a horse shoe, or so I’ve heard — things tend to work out for him. Don Draper’s “birth” was a result of his good fortune as much as it was a result of someone else’s misfortune, but back in the very beginning, back in the pilot episode, we don’t know that yet. Even at the beginning there is a sense that this man will end up on top. (Or plunge out of the window of a tall ad-covered building until he lands on a tasteful sofa. What are the chances of THAT?) He will have good luck even if he has to make his own luck, and I bet you at least a nickel that this is Don’s take on things — that he’s a self-made man who took advantage of the opportunities given him; however, getting those opportunities at all would be considered having the favor of the gods to those who don’t get the chances.

In the first scene of the pilot we find out that he smokes Lucky Strikes and in the second scene, his mistress — the boho Midge — tells him, “You’re lucky I’m still up working… and I’m alone.” (In the next episode, Ladies Room, Don tells Midge that he’s lucky all women aren’t like her — what with her telling him he stinks and allegedly forgetting he’s a man. Looking at Jon Hamm, this makes her both blind and possibly in the early stages of senility.)

(more…)

Deborah had mentioned that she can’t wait to see Sal after Stonewall. Which got me to thinking… will it really break him out? Or will he stay a miserable, closeted queen for the rest of his bitter, unfulfilled days?

One of the interesting things about this show is the careful attention to individuality. No one is a caricature. Midge, the bohemian, won’t run off spontaneously to Paris. Peggy, the smart girl, carries a baby without knowing it. Harry cheats with Hildy. Betty cheats with a washing machine. Nobody is predictable.

So if the show were to go all the way to 1970, who will change?

Weiner, I think, and Hamm, I’m sure, have mentioned, (in response to the notion of 1970 Don with mutton chops) that Don could be the guy who never changes his hairstyle.

(I have an uncle like that. Still uses hair grease. Kind of totally gross. But I think he might have been hip once.)

It will be interesting to see. Certainly, we will watch each person faced with realities they’d not before encountered. And how each person reacts to these will inform their future.

Pete, I suspect, will glimpse what an asshole he is. It will smack him in the face, and it will cause him pain, to see the pain he’s caused to others. And he will have a choice, in that moment, to continue on as he has been, or take a step towards being a human being. And that moment will be something to see.

But really, the question we’ve all got to be asking ourselves is, will Harry ever stop wearing that bowtie?

Just get down here. I want you to pull my hair, ravish me, and leave me for dead.

—Midge Daniels, 5G

Yes, that’s just the kind of mood I’m in.

We received a comment from Byron (yonder in the About section) asking for our take on how it was that Don came to marry Betty.

Betty seems so simple and he is unsatisfied by her. I think it’s because he fabricated his post Korea life and she fit the stereotype of the perfect late 50s housewife.

I think he fell in love with her. Yes, she is, on paper, the perfect wife, but I don’t think it was calculated or deliberately cold. She is gorgeous, she is kind, and she would make a good mother. And she would make him feel safe and mothered, something he always craved. Of course he couldn’t understand that piece of the appeal.
From Shoot:

You’re a mother to those two little people and you are better at it than anyone else in the world… I would have given anything to have had a mother like you. Beautiful and kind, and filled with love like an angel.

Here’s the thing. Everyone talks about this couple like they have no marriage. The actors commented to that effect. (I don’t recall hearing Weiner speak on it.) I disagree. I think there is a marriage. One that was based on love and affection and sure, filling each other’s holes (like so many love stories). I don’t know if it’s one that can be saved anymore because they’re both becoming so angry and their communication skills are for shit. But it’s a marriage. (more…)