Spontaneous Musings

1. Lethargic most of today...possibly result of lack of sleep most of this week. It does catch up with you eventually, doesn't it? Pretty day though, quite warm. Did venture out long enough to get groceries.

2. This past week's Mad Men was impressive. Various interloping stories - all circling around actual events at the time, Vietnam and the Richard Speck murders. I know about Richard Speck because my mother told me about it - she was living in Chicago at the time of the murders. The nine nurses that he raped and killed.

I'm tempted to write meta on this episode, but I have no energy for much of it. None. There are highlights...though, bits and pieces I'd like to reference..so a mini-meta as it were.



First off, I've read elsewhere online, how a lot of viewers find Mad Men more difficult to watch than violent "male" centric series such as Breaking Bad or Walking Dead. They almost prefer the gore, torture and violence...to the slow mundane insidious sexism and racism that lurks like a monster under the bed and in the cracks. One feels less real somehow, less disturbing, and they don't have to think too much. I'm the opposite, I prefer Mad Men, the graphic torture and violence and in your face assholery of Breaking Bad and at times Walking Dead, makes me flinch and turn away. I'm tired of murder being a plot twist or plot opening, of rape or torture being what sets things in motion. Perhaps I've watched too many violent tv shows in my life-time or read too many books? I don't know. But Mad Men's intricate examination of both time period and the inherent flaws pulling its characters downwards enthralls me. I, for some reason or other, prefer to watch the psychological torture of the mind and spirit than the physical torture of the body. Perhaps it is just a weak stomach for blood and guts - I made a poor biology student, psychology on the other hand..

But all that aside...I rather adored my gals...Joan and Peggy.

Peggy who negotiates lazy Roger into paying her 400 dollars to write his script for him, because he waited too late to bring in the other, new guy. And then later, in the office alone, late at night, scared to drift homewards...she hears a noise and finds Don Draper's latest secretary, Dawn, a black woman, the sole black in the office, sleeping on his couch.
She's been staying there, because the cabs won't take her past a certain street late at night. (They still won't by the way - there's a huge issue in NYC regarding taxis and outter borough travel. I remember one guy I was with threatening the cabbie - the guy was on the city licensing board for taxis and livery driver's and he told the cabbie - if you don't take us to Brooklyn, I'll call it in and get you fined. Getting a cab to take you into North Harlem after 10pm or midnight? Good luck. And you really don't want to take the subway up there at that time of night. Trust me.) So Peggy takes her home with her.
And the ensuing conversation while drunk..is interesting. Dawn likes being a secretary,
she has no aspirations for Peggy's job of copywriter. And Peggy agrees it is hard.
It is, Peggy is ignored, gets little respect, and pushed to the side. She wonders allowed if she acts like a man, if that is the perception. And Dawn counters - "I suppose you'd have to." But Peggy, states, somewhat wistfully, "I don't want to. I'm not sure its worth it." To be aggressive, hard, tough, stoic, not sure emotion...typical male traits or so we're told.

Flipping over to Joan, Joan discovers her husband is going to back to the War, what's more he volunteered to do another tour of duty. For another year. She realizes finally that their marriage can't work and tells him that it is over. He leaves. After she spent so much time and effort to get him to stay, to please him, she shrugs it off - and lets him know that she's through trying to make him feel like a man. Enduring his assaults. Go, back to the war, where you actually feel like one. You coward. Fighting, violence, warfare, so much easier than the fighting imaginary monsters, or the mundane drag of days and diapers and work. It's more exciting to avoid gunfire, more manly.

Then there's Sally and her Grandmother...Sally watching Mystery Date, while he Grandmother discusses the Speck murders over the phone. The two coincide. Mystery Date - a reality/fantasy tv series, where a girl opens a door and gets a handsome stranger as her "mystery date", while Speck...as the Grandmother later explains to Sally, knocked on the door of the 9 nurses and they let him in, because he was pretty - he was the mystery date, the handsome man to sweep them off their feet. And Sally asks how am I to sleep. We'll be safe says Grandmother, I've got a knife, and here take a sleeping pill. Betty and Henry return to see Grandmother asleep on the couch and Sally hidden underneath the couch asleep - the same position that the 9th nurse took, hiding from Speck beneath the bed. Sally wants to know why he would do such a thing, what prompted him? And her grandmother states...for the same reason many men do, they hate their mothers.

This shifts to Don Draper, Sally's father, in his fevered state, he gets visitations from the lovely Andrea, the woman he slept with before he met Megan, when he was married to Betty. She's hot. He keeps resisting, pushing her away. Finally gives in. And wakes up to her, horrified. She says they'll do it again, no problems, and he strangles her, stuffing her under the bed. When he awakes the next morning...she's gone, and his wife Megan tells him he was delirious and had a rough night, she was with him throughout it. What he thinks happened never did. Don mentions on numerous occasions his monsterous mother, while Sally's grandmother (step=grandmother) mentions how her father disciplined her, by randomly kicking her across the hall. Getting across the lesson to always expect that unexpected, the nasty to occur.

Don hids the woman beneath the bed in his dream. The nurse who survives Speck hides under the bed. Sally sleeps beneath the couch. Dawn sleeps on top. Meanwhile we have Joan and Peggy who reside outside of it...Joan who is the provider in her home, taking on more and more than man's role, with her mother taking on the mother role, while Peggy does somewhat the same thing for other reasons - neither really fear Speck. Peggy is dating a guy in Chicago covering the Speck case and the riots, while Joan appears oblivious, yet subtly reminds her hubby that he raped her once upon a time. And that amongst other reasons is why they are finally done, because she's tired of supporting him and his manhood.

The episode is timely, often tv shows that focus on the past much like science fiction that focuses on the present, shed ironically apt lights on the present. Highlight bits and pieces we don't want to see. How women are treated as second-class citizens and physical prowess is given perhaps more credit than it deserves.

Fascinating episode. Rather loving Mad Men this season. The writing has gelled and hit its stride.


3. Was thinking about following famous writers. And got to talking with the Momster. The weird thing about art is the successful ones aren't really that good, they are just really good at marketing themselves, while the really good and talented artists...you've never really heard of. For example, raise your hand if you heard of John Green before green_maia and I went nuts over his book? He's a very good writer. Doesn't write genre. Isn't really on the best-seller list. Got a brief interview in a mag. I walk in Barnes and Noble, and the mediocre writers are displayed and right out front, while the less well known but better ones are hidden and you have to scrounge to find. (All hail the Kindle - where all books are equal and spread by word of mouth!)

At any rate, my difficulty with the prolific writers or following writers in general is..
often they are one-hit wonders. Doomed to repeat themselves and not say anything new. It's hard to surprise I think. To pull a new rabbit out of that proverbial hat. Donna Tartt and Harper Lee both come to mind as writers who only wrote one really good book. Jim Butcher has written a series, but I find I can't read the other one, just the Dresden Files. And...well, I'm tempted to say this about tv writers too, but they are different animals. Aaron Sorkin said it best, I think, when he stated that tv unlike film or even a solo novel or short story, is all about the middle. It's not enough to come out of the box great, you have to get the audience in the middle of the series. The best series are those that have lasted at least four to five years, and often it's the middle two years that are the best, the first and last seasons can feel a bit...choppy somehow and the first and last episodes unmemorable. Think about it, how many tv series can you name that had a truly satisfying pilot episode and series finale? I think I can maybe come up with one or two if that...and even those, I'm uncertain about. But those middle episodes, those middle seasons, brilliant.

Rod Serling comes to mind as a prolific writer who wrote a lot of amazing things, but burned out eventually, he's later works weren't as great. Sorkin though, much like Joss Whedon and JJ Abrahams and Jane Espenson is hit or miss, which is normal, I think.
I'm looking forward to Aaron Sorkin's HBO TV series entitled Newsroom starring Jeff Daniels, Emily Watson, Sam Waterson, Jane Fonda (yes she plays the network head), and various guest stars from Joseph Malina to Jesse Zuckerman (from The Social Network).

4. Speaking of hit or miss, Shondra Rhimes new show Scandal is a bit too cheesy for its own good. Too light. One almost wants to make fun of it. And it falls into cliches.
I feel at times as if I'm watching a Nora Roberts novel made for television and that can't be good.

5. So the writers of the Buffy comics think "Buffy" wants a normal life. Apparently they skipped S6 and S7 and the first part of S9, when she tried that?

Buffy comics writers: You want a normal life.
Buffy: Explainy??
Comics writers: The Barbie Dream House, the waitress job, the boyfriend with the construction job or waiter job, the roommates, the pregnancy test, the decision about having an abortion, the wild parties, the mortgage, the pipe breaking in the basement, sleeping on your sister and her boyfriend (who used to have a crush on you) couch while you get to hear them have sex in the background...
Buffy: Didn't we do that already...
Buffy writers: Actually not quite. Spike won't be around, nor will Willow. Also you won't be slaying vampires.
Buffy: Spike won't be there? (pouts)
Buffy writers: he's getting a mini-series...
Buffy: haven't we already done this?
Buffy writers: No. IDW comics aren't part of this verse.
Buffy: So what will I be doing again?
Buffy writers (pitch normal life tale which basically sound like S6 and S7 except no Willow and no Spike and she won't be a robot, so more like the first part of S9.)
Buffy (rolls eyes): This sounds like the plot of one of this television seasons many situation comedies (not that I've had much time to watch them or anything stupid writers)... But - again, been there done that. Frankly normal life isn't what it's cracked up to be. Bloody boring if you asked me. Who is even going to be interested in reading this story???
Buffy writers: You don't get a say in this, you know that, right?
Buffy: Which is why my life sucks, in a nutshell. If I was Iron Man, I'd get a say in it. But no.. The PTB, if you ask me, appear to have way too much in common with Andrew, Warren and Jonathan. Wait, is this Andrew, Warren and Jonathan, because that would explain so much.
Buffy writers (have scurried out the back door and left the building).

OR...quick, someone mail them Jeannette Wintersen's memoir: "Why Be Happy when you can be Normal?" [As an aside, that has got to be the best title ever. Indeed, why be happy when you fit other's definition of normality.] I'm sure Willow has a copy handy.



As an aside...If you haven't read it yet? Whedon's interviews on EW and NY Times are hilarious.

Interviewer: So how did you and Robert Downy, Jr get along?
Whedon: well it took a while for us to come together. I'm tend work a certain way that he's not quite used to. I'm pretty much used to telling people - I write it, you say it.
Downy Jr is used to having a say in everything he does. So I said, how about you work on the shots and I go over here and write five different versions and you can pick which one works? He liked that approach, I could do all the work and he could pick from a menu.

(Hee, I knew there was a reason I adored Robert Downy, Jr. Keep in mind Downy, Jr has worked with A list directors, writers, and actors...he's A list. Whedon is B list. Downy Jr is the sort of person that Joss Whedon would want the autograph of. OR at the very least the people he's worked with. What that means? Unlike Buffy or Angel, Joss Whedon can't kill Iron Man or recast him. Iron Man, however, can kill Joss Whedon (metaphorically speaking at any rate) and Joss Whedon knows it. Getting along with Downy Jr is very important.)

Interviewer: So what was it like filming the Avengers?
Samuel L Jackson: a bit like a bunch of kids dressing up and playing super-heroes. The lead kid, Joss, tells the other kids how they will play it.

[Keep in mind Jackson is A list as well and has worked with a similar level of directing and writing talent, including Quentin Taratino. People that Whedon is fannish about. And the man looks at the Avengers as little more than a fun paycheck. I mean, hello, this guy was in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown...and Snakes on a Plane.]

The lovely thing about the world is there's always someone who is bigger, badder, and better than you. Always.