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shadowkat1. I am being stalked on Facebook by an old high-school classmate, who...well, suffice it to say was not exactly a friend. It's very weird. She keeps sending me messages - and I can't quite figure why she's so keen on me friending her. It's not like we've talked or interacted in 25 years. (Yes, high school was 25 years ago. Which may explain why I can't remember it. According to the Bodies Exhibit in PA, You delete memory files as you get older, to make space for new stuff - well that and the fact that the brain starts deteoriating after the age of 30...so something has to go. Yes, people get dumber as they advance in age, something to keep in mind while you're killing your savings in grad school. You're going forget 89% of it, and most likely only use 10% in your working life, but since you haven't a clue which 10% that is...) Anywho...this classmate, who I was about as close to as well Buffy was to Cordelia, or if you are a Glee fan, Tina and Mercedes are to Rachel, in short we avoided each other in high school - has decided to stalk me. She's sent me ten Facebook requests to Friend her. Why??? I'm have tempted to respond and ask, but that would be rude, right? (As an aside, I treat Facebook differently than LJ - it has my family on it, almost all my Dad's family, college friends, two ex-roommates, an ex-boyfriend, and my brother's high school mates, as well as former work colleagues. I'm very careful now - what I saw on the thing, and who I friend on it. Plus all my work history and school history.) Here...I feel a bit safer. Less exposed. Weird, but there it is. Anyhow - no clue what to do about it. So I'm doing absolutely nothing. Figure she'll either go away or I'll get sick of the spam and either confront her or give in and friend, then hit ignore.
2. Watched Mad Men tonight. The season finale. Was rather interesting. Not surprising, I found the plot twist people were talking about rather predictable - saw that coming a mile away. During it, I goggled Draper Daniels - who Don Draper is in part based on. Draper Daniels did Marlboro Man, Motorola, and Tony the Tiger - he worked for Leo Burnett - a major firm out of Chicago in 1950s and 1960s. Was a bit of a womanizer, very charming, and an excellent conceptual writer and copywriter - he developed the concept in the ad game, and literally changed it, by directing ads to the individual consumer. Addressing their individual needs and desires. Another bit of gossip about Mad Men - John Slattery's real life wife is playing his ex-wife Marge in Mad Men, and she was in real life - an ex-girlfriend of George Clooney's. (this is courtesy of Momster who read it or saw it somewhere).
The episode was a bit slow and nowhere near as entertaining as the other episodes, but it was interesting and had some nice commentary on gender issues.
Megan, Draper's newest secretary, clearly was aiming from the get-go to either get in Draper's pants and seduce him into marrying her, or at the very least get what Peggy got. This is set up early on - when he sleeps with his other secretary during a drunken binge, and she quits when she realizes he's not that into her. Megan is smarter - she learns from the prior secretary's mistake. When she sleeps with Don the first time - in his office, she makes it clear to him that it's just a one-night stand, that there won't be any strings. It happens after the gal he's dating, Archie Miller, breaks things off with him - because he wants her to approach one of her contacts and set up a meeting. Highly unethical - since it's a contact that is working for another competing client. She does it and they get back together. But this happens after he sleeps with Megan. Fast-forward, ex-Mrs. Draper, Betty Harrison, fires their kids nanny, Carla (because Carla let the neighbor boy who had flirted with and fallen for Betty to say goodbye to Sally. Betty is understandably creeped out by the boy.) As a result, Don asks Megan to come with him to California to take care of the kids (he has no other option). I was feeling sorry for Archie all the way through this. Because I knew she'd lost Don - for two reasons, 1) he'd told her who he really was and she was pressuring him to come clean about it, and 2) she was not into kids and could not handle kids. Don all the way through the season - kept putting women with his kids, asking them to take care of them, or handle them. Megan is used several times prior to their involvement, as was just about everyone but Peggy. Also Megan stated she wanted to be a copywriter like Don - so she reminded him a bit of Peggy.
Don's an ass. Not really capable of true love. It's more or less narcissitic - centered on himself.
Yet at the same time, you sort of feel sympathy for him - he's relatable because he's such a lost soul. He's running from himself. And in that respect he's a fitting metaphor for the age, for the human condition during what can best be termed as the media age. Don puts on new guises. He lies, but he doesn't lie. He tells Megan he loves her - yet it is clear he doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him. They fall in love with the image. The only women he knows and who know him - he runs from. Bethany - who has died of Cancer, hence the American Cancer Campaign. Archie who he reveals his lie to and his real self, who sees him at his weakest point. It's almost fitting that he hands "Don Draper's" engagement ring, the one Bethany wore from the real Don Draper, to Megan. Completing the picture. And you can sort of see why he picks her - or when he does, it's at the breakfast, when Sally knocks over the milkshake, spilling it across Megan's dress and then freezes, waiting to be screamed at and Don himself reacts - Megan looks at them and says calmly, it's just a milkshake, no worries. Don is pleasantly surprised. If Don cares about anything - it may be his kids. In them, he sees himself - the abused child with an nasty mother, and no real father. Betty in some respects is an echo of Don's own mother - a bitter childwoman, who will never grow up. A perpetual Wendy stuck in the nursery waiting for Peter Pan to arrive and wisk her away to Never Never Land.
The best part of the episode though, was the shortest, a small, brief, tete-a-tete between Joan, the new Director of Agency Operations, an empty title with no benefits or money added, and Peggy, who had just landed a large account to little fan-fair, both upstaged by Don's announcement of his engagement to his latest of a long line of pretty 20-something secretaries. The women commiserate over cigarettes, of their lot in life. Men marry their secretaries. "They are always between wives," says Joan. And that's how some of them climb the ladder. He'll probably give her a position like yours, she tells Peggy, who grimaces, "Christ, is that what he meant when he told me she admires me?"
It's obvious the business meetings are the four guys, in their pin-stripped suits. The women's offices smaller, and in the center of things, while the men's offices are huge. Mad Men underlines the chauvinism of the age. Yet, Peggy's account for a quarter of a million was for panty-hose - something few of us wear any longer. I stopped some time ago. Wear pants suits or pants and a shirt or pants and a sweater. We are no longer the office sex symbol. With our legs exposed beneath the short skirt, well not unless we desire it.
Mad Men shows the sink of the Don Drapers...who is slowly as each season passes, going out of fashion, much like his contemporaries Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, et al, with his false charm. While at the same time, it shows the climb, branch by branch, hill by hill, of Peggy...the smart girl, who didn't have to sleep with the boss to get the job, or worse marry him. Peggy's integrity acts as a bit of a counterpoint to Don's lies and smooth chatter. She grows while he devolves, shrinks slowly into cliche after cliche, following in his friend, Rodger Sterling's footsteps. Joan likewise rises above it all - pregnant with Rodger's child, she happily passes it off as her husband's neither man the wiser. And Joan tells Peggy, "I learned a long time ago, you can't make this place your life." Yet, Peggy counters..."That's bullshit." And Joan laughs, and laughs. The joke's on us. Work is our lives, whether we like it or not. And our actions inside it's hallways define us. The lies Don tells are all Don is...to such an extent he must live the lie he's created, he can't unravel it, he can't go back and just be Dick Whitman, and truth be told he doesn't quite want to, either. Poor Archie for not seeing that.
Meanwhile Betty shrieks at her new husband by way of explanation for firing Carla and moving to Rye - I just want a new start. To be reborn. And he states calmly - there is no such thing as rebirth and fresh starts. We just continue forward, that's all we can do. Why can't you ever take my side, she shouts. Betty, he says, world-weary, no one is ever on your side. And one wonders if he is talking of himself. Betty and Don are like children or the better yet the robotic couple, with plastic smiles, and perfect teeth playing house in some set at Disney's Tomorrowland. You sit in a car and ride through robotic enactments of what the future will be, bright and savy, and commercial.
Both Don and Betty want their fresh starts, but in a way all they are doing is repeating the same patterns. Playing house. Their tomorrowland is but a dream, a fantasy in their heads. You can't help but pity their new spouse.
Excellent Season. Not quite, but close to pitch perfect. Overall rating - A.
2. Watched Mad Men tonight. The season finale. Was rather interesting. Not surprising, I found the plot twist people were talking about rather predictable - saw that coming a mile away. During it, I goggled Draper Daniels - who Don Draper is in part based on. Draper Daniels did Marlboro Man, Motorola, and Tony the Tiger - he worked for Leo Burnett - a major firm out of Chicago in 1950s and 1960s. Was a bit of a womanizer, very charming, and an excellent conceptual writer and copywriter - he developed the concept in the ad game, and literally changed it, by directing ads to the individual consumer. Addressing their individual needs and desires. Another bit of gossip about Mad Men - John Slattery's real life wife is playing his ex-wife Marge in Mad Men, and she was in real life - an ex-girlfriend of George Clooney's. (this is courtesy of Momster who read it or saw it somewhere).
The episode was a bit slow and nowhere near as entertaining as the other episodes, but it was interesting and had some nice commentary on gender issues.
Megan, Draper's newest secretary, clearly was aiming from the get-go to either get in Draper's pants and seduce him into marrying her, or at the very least get what Peggy got. This is set up early on - when he sleeps with his other secretary during a drunken binge, and she quits when she realizes he's not that into her. Megan is smarter - she learns from the prior secretary's mistake. When she sleeps with Don the first time - in his office, she makes it clear to him that it's just a one-night stand, that there won't be any strings. It happens after the gal he's dating, Archie Miller, breaks things off with him - because he wants her to approach one of her contacts and set up a meeting. Highly unethical - since it's a contact that is working for another competing client. She does it and they get back together. But this happens after he sleeps with Megan. Fast-forward, ex-Mrs. Draper, Betty Harrison, fires their kids nanny, Carla (because Carla let the neighbor boy who had flirted with and fallen for Betty to say goodbye to Sally. Betty is understandably creeped out by the boy.) As a result, Don asks Megan to come with him to California to take care of the kids (he has no other option). I was feeling sorry for Archie all the way through this. Because I knew she'd lost Don - for two reasons, 1) he'd told her who he really was and she was pressuring him to come clean about it, and 2) she was not into kids and could not handle kids. Don all the way through the season - kept putting women with his kids, asking them to take care of them, or handle them. Megan is used several times prior to their involvement, as was just about everyone but Peggy. Also Megan stated she wanted to be a copywriter like Don - so she reminded him a bit of Peggy.
Don's an ass. Not really capable of true love. It's more or less narcissitic - centered on himself.
Yet at the same time, you sort of feel sympathy for him - he's relatable because he's such a lost soul. He's running from himself. And in that respect he's a fitting metaphor for the age, for the human condition during what can best be termed as the media age. Don puts on new guises. He lies, but he doesn't lie. He tells Megan he loves her - yet it is clear he doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him. They fall in love with the image. The only women he knows and who know him - he runs from. Bethany - who has died of Cancer, hence the American Cancer Campaign. Archie who he reveals his lie to and his real self, who sees him at his weakest point. It's almost fitting that he hands "Don Draper's" engagement ring, the one Bethany wore from the real Don Draper, to Megan. Completing the picture. And you can sort of see why he picks her - or when he does, it's at the breakfast, when Sally knocks over the milkshake, spilling it across Megan's dress and then freezes, waiting to be screamed at and Don himself reacts - Megan looks at them and says calmly, it's just a milkshake, no worries. Don is pleasantly surprised. If Don cares about anything - it may be his kids. In them, he sees himself - the abused child with an nasty mother, and no real father. Betty in some respects is an echo of Don's own mother - a bitter childwoman, who will never grow up. A perpetual Wendy stuck in the nursery waiting for Peter Pan to arrive and wisk her away to Never Never Land.
The best part of the episode though, was the shortest, a small, brief, tete-a-tete between Joan, the new Director of Agency Operations, an empty title with no benefits or money added, and Peggy, who had just landed a large account to little fan-fair, both upstaged by Don's announcement of his engagement to his latest of a long line of pretty 20-something secretaries. The women commiserate over cigarettes, of their lot in life. Men marry their secretaries. "They are always between wives," says Joan. And that's how some of them climb the ladder. He'll probably give her a position like yours, she tells Peggy, who grimaces, "Christ, is that what he meant when he told me she admires me?"
It's obvious the business meetings are the four guys, in their pin-stripped suits. The women's offices smaller, and in the center of things, while the men's offices are huge. Mad Men underlines the chauvinism of the age. Yet, Peggy's account for a quarter of a million was for panty-hose - something few of us wear any longer. I stopped some time ago. Wear pants suits or pants and a shirt or pants and a sweater. We are no longer the office sex symbol. With our legs exposed beneath the short skirt, well not unless we desire it.
Mad Men shows the sink of the Don Drapers...who is slowly as each season passes, going out of fashion, much like his contemporaries Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, et al, with his false charm. While at the same time, it shows the climb, branch by branch, hill by hill, of Peggy...the smart girl, who didn't have to sleep with the boss to get the job, or worse marry him. Peggy's integrity acts as a bit of a counterpoint to Don's lies and smooth chatter. She grows while he devolves, shrinks slowly into cliche after cliche, following in his friend, Rodger Sterling's footsteps. Joan likewise rises above it all - pregnant with Rodger's child, she happily passes it off as her husband's neither man the wiser. And Joan tells Peggy, "I learned a long time ago, you can't make this place your life." Yet, Peggy counters..."That's bullshit." And Joan laughs, and laughs. The joke's on us. Work is our lives, whether we like it or not. And our actions inside it's hallways define us. The lies Don tells are all Don is...to such an extent he must live the lie he's created, he can't unravel it, he can't go back and just be Dick Whitman, and truth be told he doesn't quite want to, either. Poor Archie for not seeing that.
Meanwhile Betty shrieks at her new husband by way of explanation for firing Carla and moving to Rye - I just want a new start. To be reborn. And he states calmly - there is no such thing as rebirth and fresh starts. We just continue forward, that's all we can do. Why can't you ever take my side, she shouts. Betty, he says, world-weary, no one is ever on your side. And one wonders if he is talking of himself. Betty and Don are like children or the better yet the robotic couple, with plastic smiles, and perfect teeth playing house in some set at Disney's Tomorrowland. You sit in a car and ride through robotic enactments of what the future will be, bright and savy, and commercial.
Both Don and Betty want their fresh starts, but in a way all they are doing is repeating the same patterns. Playing house. Their tomorrowland is but a dream, a fantasy in their heads. You can't help but pity their new spouse.
Excellent Season. Not quite, but close to pitch perfect. Overall rating - A.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 03:10 am (UTC)A lot of people think that facebook is for 'networking' for their advantage.... But can't you just block her without friending her (if you dislike her you don't really want her reading your posts to and from family, do you?)? I thought that that was possible.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 04:19 am (UTC)Regarding that person trying to get you to friend her? I wouldn't. I agree with embers_log - she seems to want something from you.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 05:53 am (UTC)I'd just ignore her, it's exactly this why I'm using a fake name on facebook have privacy turned up to facebooks meager maximum and barely ever post anything there except advertising for stage appearances.