“That sort of binge-television viewing has become a normal, accepted part of American culture. Saturdays with a DVD box set, a couple bottles of wine, and a big carton of goldfish crackers are a pretty common new feature of American weekends. Netflix bet big on this trend with their release of House of Cards. They released all 13 episodes of the first season at once: roughly one full Saturday’s worth. It’s a show designed for the binge. The New York Times quoted the show’s producer as saying, with a laugh, ‘Our goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day.’ They don’t say what kind of laugh it was.” From Here You Can See Everything by James A. Pearson
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“That sort of binge-television viewing has become a normal, accepted part of American culture. Saturdays with a DVD box set, a couple bottles of wine, and a big carton of goldfish crackers are a pretty common new feature of American weekends. Netflix bet big on this trend with their release of House of Cards. They released all 13 episodes of the first season at once: roughly one full Saturday’s worth. It’s a show designed for the binge. The New York Times quoted the show’s producer as saying, with a laugh, ‘Our goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day.’ They don’t say what kind of laugh it was.”

From Here You Can See Everything by James A. Pearson

Mad Men is about to disappear from our lives once again, leaving us to grapple alone with our complicated nostalgia for an era when men were men, women were secretaries, and alcoholism was glamorous. These books give a closer look at the era, offering a vision of Midcentury Manhattan that goes beyond Cheever and Yates. (Although Cheever and Yates are a great place to start, if you haven’t already.) Read them to tide you over until the next season or to fine-tune your predictions for this week’s series finale
Ten Books to Read When Mad Men is Over by Hannah Gersen
Secrets are at the heart of Mad Men. All of the principle characters harbor them. Sometimes they come out, and sometimes not. In keeping with this air of obfuscation, the writers have crafted a style of dialogue that is suitably obtuse, and occasionally impenetrable. I think part of the show’s popularity has to do with the fact that it demands such scrutiny if the viewer is going to pick up on all the nuances.
Noah Deutsch, “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Men World”

Source: themillions.com

“Peggy, dancing in front of her mirror Ann-Margret style and failing to entice, breaks your heart.  Later, Peggy picks up a college kid at a bar using a joke stolen from the always sexy office manager, Joan. The kid is lame, a messy eater, and assumes she’s a secretary – but we know why Peggy goes home with him.  Though part of us is silently begging her not to bag the loser, we are also elated that she’s able to.”

-Catie Disabato, “Birdie’s the Word: Mad Men’s Pop Culture References”

Source: themillions.com

Everything Happened

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PHILLIP MACIAK on AMC’s Mad Men.
Image courtesy AMC

Toward the end of “Tomorrowland,” the final episode of the fourth season of AMC’s Mad Men, Don Draper (the girl-, booze-, and epiphany-hound played to the nines by Jon Hamm) gazes with rapt wonder into the eyes of his newest lover. Something of a cut-to-the-chase lothario until this point, Draper’s googly candor is a bit surprising as he lays his heart on the bedsheet. “Did you ever think,” he says, “of the number of things that had to happen for me to get to know you? But everything happened, and it got me here. What does that mean?” Hamm utters these lines in the kind of tremulous whisper-shout normally reserved for stoners commenting on double rainbows. But it’s not just love that has Draper so high, or at least not only love. Don Draper, in this scene, is amazed by the sheer happenstance complexity of the events leading up to this new relationship. In the context of Draper’s life, it’s a romantic speech about the magical workings of fate. In the context of Mad Men, however, it’s a romantic speech about the magical workings, and plottings, of serial television.

Mad Men, in addition to being an abundantly detailed, almost classically composed piece of historical fiction and a genuinely ambivalent critique of consumer culture, is also an intriguing meditation on narrative itself.

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