better late than never on Mad Men

This last episode of Mad Men (titled "The Color Blue") was so very lovely. It was all about memory, mystifying memory -- trying to recall, trying to forget, trying to understand. The episode allowed me to relax for once instead of be completely mired in metaphor. This universal nostalgia theme is interesting because it is so broad and common but at the same time so intimate. The "color blue" is the only metaphor in this episode of which I am aware. I do love metaphors, don't get me wrong, but sometimes there are so many in this show it becomes overwhelming. The charming teacher's tale of the color blue reminds me of an Anais Nin quote, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

The most obvious point about the idea of attempting to relive the past (and maybe the present as we wish it were) is Betty reading Mary McCarthy’s controversial 1963 novel, The Group. This novel portrays the lives, and aspirations of eight women, all upper class post war Vassar graduates. The women meet in New York to attend the wedding of one of their members and reconvene seven years later at her funeral. One Blog I found wrote this - "if The Group proves one thing, it’s that McCarthy had a piercingly sharp eye for all that goes unsaid in the great institution of marriage." Another blog stated that reading the novel in a bathtub suggests a rebirth for Betty. The motif of female school ties is suggested a number of times in this episode. Don asks Sally about school but not Bobby. Similarly, Lane Pryce laments that Americans never ask him where he went to school. Bert and Roger reminisce about the Sterling Cooper “class” of ‘33 and pointedly comment on a past female alumnus "remember her?”

But much more significantly, Betty’s reading of the novel parallels her discovery of Don’s secret life. At the close of the show, we watch Betty, as she watches Don, at the Sterling Cooper dinner. The empty chair next to her possibly suggesting that she’s contemplating a future without him. What I like about his ending is that thoughts of freedom are common for all females - but clearly a personal, intimate, problem for Betty.

More Mad Men

It was a bloody good show! The latest episode of Mad Men is full of the things that have made the series one of the most acclaimed in television history: Awkward authority, freaked out females and lawnmower carnage. It was the Fourth of July, 1963. And there was sort of a battle, which led to independence from the British for Sterling Cooper.

After Betty 's totally horrifying childbirth experience last week, I was thrilled to have some tragic silliness. I never laughed harder than when that little girl woke up screaming. There are no pics of the episode so I am am allowing myself some eye candy. Some how I missed the Emmy's on Sunday. Mad Men won Outstanding Drama Series for the second consecutive year, while30 Rock received its third straight win for Outstanding Comedy (I would marry Tina Fey if she would have me).

I was wrong

Mad men did not jump ahead to November. It is still June and we had an upsetting depiction of hospital child birth. Loved the dream sequences though. What is the meaning of that inch worm?

wild guess

I am going to take a wild guess that the Mad Men episode airing tonight is going to be based around John F. Kennedy's assassination. I have been waiting for this.

Water dripping on a stone

I used to have this quote in my old office:

Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You have to set yourself on fire (Arnold H. Glasow).

In the latest episode of Mad Men, we saw a televised image of the buddhist monk on fire in Saigon, proposing the idea that you have to be an active participant of the change you want to see in the world.

The latest episode of Mad Men was a difficult one to pin down. I watched it three times and feel like anything I write sounds so stupid. The "daddy" issues, the generational gap and the concept of change were all clearly presented. But the undertones suggested something quite different, something I can't explain.

What I really liked about this episode is that the idea of being magnanimous is complicated and not always easy, but essential to change. It is not just about being confident. I am still working out many of these ideas in my head (and that is what I really like about this show). I wanted to post the image that we saw at the end of the show, the image of Don folding up Gene's bed in the same room as the crib. I couldn't find it on the web, I may have to take a picture of it on my own TV. Also, I really want to know more about Joan. Who is her father? What was her upbringing?

John F. Kennedy said, "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
I miss the future. I wish it were here.

Mad Men

Mad Men finally aired again last night. My favorite line is when Betty says to Don that their daughter has gotten into his tools like a little lesbian and then she smiles the

most lovely,warmhearted, knowing smile ever smiled. Mostly I just want to look at Betty and Joan for an hour.

If you are a fan of the show you should read this wonderful article What Frank O’Hara Tells Us About Don Draper. The article discusses the use of Frank O'hara's collection of poems titled Meditations in an Emergency with in the context of the character development in the show. I have never read O'hara's work, but here is a taste of the article...

[O'hara was] A gay man, he was an accomplished and well-known poet and published a number of well-received volumes before his untimely death at age forty. He worked as an assistant curator in the Museum of Modern Art and was close to a number of the most important painters of that time, including Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, and Joan Mitchell. These biographical details do not much connote the life of the Madison Avenue lifestyle of Don Draper.

However, there is in O’Hara’s poetry a crisis of identity and identification that very much evokes Don’s life. “To the Harbormaster,” the first poem in Meditations in an Emergency, begins,

I wanted to be sure to reach you

though my ship was on the way it got caught

in some moorings.

I am always tying up

and then deciding to depart.

I hope this makes you realize that you should read the entire piece.

What Frank O’Hara Tells Us About Don Draper

Posted on August 17, 2009 by fisherprof