Bailey Alexander

The soap opera that is MAD MEN.

I still think the period represents America's culturally zenith; when we were serious, felt curious about our future and looked forward to growing up.  The characters cover all the bases so well.  

Pete Campbell, unloved since birth and under-appreciated at work has enough venom to last a lifetime and yet he's grateful when a morsel of credit or kindness is thrown his way. He's an earlier version of James Spader without the finesse and that disconcerting brand of self-consciousness. He deserves some sympathy. When Lane initiated the fistfight it was kinda funny but unfair. For those perceiving modern day high finance guys as glorified accountants how could we possibly root for Lane.  

And nice to have Roger back, the Dorothy Parker of the group. Both witty and notorious drinkers, the difference being Parker didn't wish to be Jewish and felt a female was but a curse put on writers living at that time.   

On the contrary Roger relishes and celebrates his waspy background and role of hunter with flair. Perhaps too cavalier but he could care less. He'll wear his fate as long as fedora's are in fashion, which will end soon but then so will the series.  

Mad Men: thank god Roger's back.

Mad Men may feel universal to some but rings uniquely American to me. It's like inhaling those moments intrinsic to our past, near and dear to those growing up in the 60's and 70's on either coast. Older than I; perhaps even more.

Those phones, our mannered naivety, so ascendant at that time; our world offering more and more to the masses. You can almost feel season 5 swirling towards the point minimum wage reached its peak, right before the credit bubble slowly overtook the mid 70's, greed became the norm in the 80's and all that jazz. 

This show is pitch perfect, Don's whistling the Beatles, moving forward.

Brands from the past make us pine, characters pitching our cereal or ruffling through drawers full of familiar junk that now feels precious. So familiar and yet so far away, surround sound nostalgia reverberates and bangs about unmercifully in our brains. Pure, painful, instant placebo from our past. 

Mad Med and Sherlock; transatlantic take on Woman vs Female.

You can practically hear the English writers sharpening their literary blades at night, arming themselves to wield their wicked wordplay the next day, so cunning. Able to angle their way around any given issue in the loveliest, cutting way conceivable.

Why take their 'national treasure' Stephen Frye. I get why he's beloved and then I read the tweet he sends out to the world while waiting in line to speak at Christopher Hitchens' memorial service. I think his tweet more memorable than an essay written by the deceased. Frye taps away, seemingly giddy, "23rd in line, what a line up..." Apparently 23 literary giants before him, then his turn to wax poetic. He cannot wait. At a memorial.

That tweet, including his comments on women and sex make me think he's not quite as tweedy as he pretends to be. Well, I suppose we're all a bit delusional in our own special way.

And yet this is precisely why we love the English and continue to listen as they instruct us all on how it must be done. BTW, cannot wait for the London Olympics, a formidable management style shall be shown to the world. Of this I'm certain and eagerly await.    

Gay Pride Parades; from Paris to Amsterdam

 

Watching the gay parade in Paris from our flat was immensely fun when living off of Boulevard Sainte-Germain; the emotional environs were so feisty, intense and aggressively interesting in the city of lights. Always so many distractions to compete with one another, it was amazing the options available to its residents.

 

Mad Men....yum.

How parfait, Matthew Weiner serves us a slice of America's waspy past. Luv it, so deliciously made, makes so much sense; who else could create Hollywood and give us a world we could never have, who else to portray and adroitly convey our intellectual and cultural zenith, a time, a kind of life when one didn't need to hide their misogynistic tendencies, their selective racism, their angst, all known and spoken out loud.

Sure, if you weren't white, protestant and privileged, life wasn't necessarily gorged with opportunity and wealth, actually it was, but that's beside the point. This was the beginning, the golden age, the development of mass middle class, for the masses, even as that fact fades gently away from many, never to be offered again...gosh, we hardly knew ya, the experiment came and went so quickly...how about just one more for the road...

Dawn Powell wrote all about the real Americans of NY, circa 30's/40's, even if the 'it' crowd couldn't and wouldn't stand for satire as truth. They preferred their reality stirred and whipped with just enough hype to eliminate the threat of reality and too much talent.  Such was life back then, when the world looked to us for icons, when we were at our most deliberate and curious, still talking to one another instead of distracted by technology.  TV, yes, but there was so much time in between, these advertising keenly aware of selling happiness at a price, when Ogilvy ruled the wish list, yes, Mad Men, yes, continue to explain away....

I'm late to the party....I latch onto an American series but every few years and I'm latching onto this one, tightly, gripping it with all my might, enjoying every frame, every slow, angst ridden real moment, ears wide open to that gash of communication, blisters illustrating its selectively racist ways and class ridden kind.

Today, our id is conveniently erased, replaced by the PC movement, by Prosaic and plastic politicians, so much so we'll never ever be guilty again of whispering an honest idea or ugly truth simply based on experience. The wasp has lost its sting, yes, it certainly has....someone reviewed a chapter of my novel the other day, saying the writing is 'old fashioned'...I took that as a compliment...she meant it as one.