Mindless Ones

Amy and I might be posting about Mad Men over at our new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, but that’s not going stop us putting up the occasional post here. We love our Mindless.

Here’s four of the best links from around the web.

The number one spot has to go to Sean of Sean T Collins fame. His superb post on the nature of the Hawaiian “experience”, Something Terrible Has to Happen, is an absolute must read, and his episode thought dump isn’t half bad neither.

The ever insightful and spiky Molly Lambert comes in second with her post on just about everything in The Doorway. Molly’s view is often tougher than mine, especially her take on Don, but in a way that suggests she actually knows these people. She’s judgemental in all the right ways. Go read A Lighter, a Mistress, a Lot of Facial Hair

Third place goes to the Internet’s most reliable and comprehensive Mad Men fansite, Basket of Kisses. In a post that typifies their thoroughness, BoK founder Deborah Lipp looks at how how The Door Resonates Throughout the Seasons. Every self respecting Mad Men fan should have BoK bookmarked.

And last but by no means least is glam image blogger (all the best Mad Men images evar) Bohemea on Don’s absence.

Amy and I will continue to update SaA a few times every week. Here’s my latest post on the state of Megan and Don’s marriage, Break a Leg.

[Excerpt from Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut]

For once, the question this opening episode isn’t who is Don Draper?

In many respects this is a Don we know all too well: Don the womanizer, Don the drinker, Don with a past to hide. Don in search of salvation with an existential text in hand. Last season saw him shed those roles and go, to quote Burt Cooper, on love leave, only to come back to find a door in front of him. A door with a dead body on the other side.

Lane Pryce couldn’t bridge the gap between his fantasies and reality, but neither could Don. All those beautiful dreams he couldn’t own, Joan, Peggy, Megan. Especially Megan, the wife he felt compelled to give away so that she could chase her’s. And then he went through another door and found himself in bar.

“What are you, some kind of astronaut?” asks PFC Dinkins

“I’m in advertising” replies Don. A moment of naturalism or an ambiguous refusal on behalf of the script to deny the possibility that, yes, perhaps he is some kind of spaceman? Perhaps this isn’t Earth. The script certainly isn’t sure where he is, is it Hawaii? Vietnam? What’s this, a G.I.’s lighter, Don’s got one just like it… perhaps he’s in Korea. Or maybe this is Heaven, that light, that air, that blue. What about that fire, the bar dripping blood, could he be in Hell? He could ask Jonesy the door man, he’ll know.

Visit She’s an Astronaut to read more

We’ll be writing about Mad Men over on our new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut.

Part 1, Part 2

Andrew: Something I noticed while looking for a reference for something else — that anarchy/heart symbol we were wondering about is the symbol of the superhero flying out of the page in the blazing world section of The Black Dossier. Checking in with Nevins’ annotations of same (reading his annotations for this book before we’ve finished would be cheating, but the old books are fair game), we find that it’s the logo of Ace Hart (a British superhero, not the dog detective), which we all should have known as he appears in Zenith Phase III.

Adam: I like that I couldn’t link it back to a specific superhero, actually. I enjoyed having the space to meditate on how and why it might fit into the kind of space O’Neil and Moore were interested in constructing rather than just see it as a dry reference. So fanwank, yes, but not without purpose. Although the name ‘Ace Hart’ would probably just have added fuel to my reverie’s fire. I imagine Moore would have fun with the symbolic charge there.

Andrew: And one point I don’t think we made before, when discussing to what extent Moore is able to comment on the culture of 2009 as opposed to earlier decades, is just how few characters from 21st century fiction actually appear here. We’ve got the odd background character who doesn’t say or do anything, but in the whole book the only character with a speaking role to have been created in the decade in which the comic is supposedly set is Malcolm Tucker, who’s just a talking head on a TV. Even the Potter characters (none of whom except Potter have more than one line) were created in the mid-1990s — and other than them, there’s not a speaking character in the comic that originated post-1976.

This is a huge change from all the other League volumes, which mixed and matched eras, obviously, but showed a real in-depth knowledge of their time’s popular culture.

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To celebrate the end of Mad Men Season 5 we thought we might do things a little differently, so we’ve invited blogger, journalist, writer, and fellow Mad Men fan Sean T Collins to join us. We’ve linked to Sean’s thoughts about this season in just about every post. I suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.

And while you’re at it, pay a visit to Sean’s A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones tumblr, All Leather Must Be Boiled, and his Game of Thrones column for Rolling Stone, for perhaps the most even-handed discussion of the books and TV show on the web.

Sean: Thanks for having me, Mindless Ones. Do I get a nickname? Can I be Destructor? (I’ve given this some thought.)

Ad: Yes you may (and yes you have). In all seriousness, lovely to have you with us, Sean.

Take it away, Amy

Amy: What lies beyond our rotting, aging, imperfect bodies?

‘You only live twice, or so it seems.
Once for yourself and once for your dreams.’

The Phantom of the episode’s title was, in the end, the ghost of lives that could, could not and might possibly come to pass. Sometimes the way to the spirit world was clear, sometimes occluded, some characters would dally there only to be forced to return home. In other cases, for good or ill, residency was more permanent.

There were haunted, painful absences, like a tooth-cavity: Lane, Adam, Beth in all her many different iterations pre ECT. But these absences were filled by other things, other fantasies, anything to stave off the grey cloud.

Peter dreamt of being a carefree bachelor in the city, Peggy Don, Megan a movie star, SCDP an agency with a second floor, Trudy a happy homemaker sipping ice tea with her equally happy and sun drenched husband around their swimming pool, and Don…..

All of them got one significant step closer to achieving their dreams this time around. Whether or not all of them should is another thing entirely. There is a violent push and pull between the physical and dream lives. Occasionally they collide and the results are devastating. The problem is that these are all individual dreams and sometimes they clash with the dreams of those around us.

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Our Andrew Hickey reviews Before Watchmen

This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.

http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47395391411/commissions-and-fees

This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.

http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47375945899/christmas-waltz

This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.

http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47307252214/dark-shadows