September 7, 2009
Inside Every Don Draper Is Alexander Portnoy
If you don't watch Mad Men, and haven't read or don't know about Phillip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, this doesn't mean anything to you.
If you do, and have, these two guys seem as far apart as any two white men inhabiting New York in the sixties could reasonably be.
And yet, there's something about Draper and Portnoy's shared desire to jump out of history (the history of the world, the history of their own families), their sense that this is the time to do it, and that sex and language are the mechanisms to do so, that pulls the two together. If they met, I think they'd have a lot to say to each other.
(Inspired by this 40th-anniversary article about Portnoy's Complaint in the Guardian.)
File under: Books, Writing & Such, Society/Culture, Television
August 3, 2009
Sacred Texts
Tim says,
All this gabbin' 'bout Shakespeare makes me wonder - what are the sacred, that is, foundational, texts for us? (Feel free to variously define "us.")
I mean Shakespeare's plays are one; I think the Bible is or ought to be another; The Simpsons, seasons 2-8; the original Star Wars trilogy; Sophocles; The Great Gatsby; Goodfellas...
I'm half kidding, one quarter reaching, and one quarter deadly serious; what cultural references are now, for you, and in your interactions with others, just assumed, like the way Moby Dick assumes King Lear, Paradise Lost, and the King James Bible?
July 27, 2009
Sterling Cooper Hires An English Professor
That's right. There's a new redhead for everyone in the office to swoon over.
Mad Men Yourself, via Kottke.
June 4, 2009
The Golden Age of Television
This poll of TV critics on the best television shows, performances, etc., of the past decade reveals a handful of things:
- The decade's almost over, folks. The Naughty Aughties. We hardly knew ye.
- This decade's been a golden age for scripted drama. Here are the nominees: "Friday Night Lights," "Lost," "Mad Men," "The Sopranos," "The West Wing," and "The Wire"; the just-missed list includes "24," "Battlestar Galactica," "Big Love," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Deadwood," "Grey