Dramatically Speaking.......... of Mad Men, MLK, 1968. & Another Anniversary, A Niner!

Mad Men is the only TV drama we currently follow "live" (as against on DVD). We caught up on the first four seasons via DVD, then went "live" last year, with attendant frustration caused by plentiful commercial breaks. Mad Men, though we're mildly hooked on it, really is no more than a polished time-warp of a soap opera. It does try, and sometimes succeeds, in being a bit of an arty-farty soap opera, using barely hidden metaphor and crafty insider references, which simple-minded dum-dums like me have to discover later from reviews.

Action of classic soap operas, at least those with which I was familiar in the UK (Coronation Street, everyday story of working class folk in the north of England; Eastenders, everyday story of working class folk in London's East End; Emmerdale Farm an everyday story of country folk in Yorkshire for example) took place in the present day. Real world disasters and dramatic events had to be factored in in retrospect, if at all. Mad Men, an everyday story of advertising folk in New York is set in the 1960s. In Season 6, now showing, the year is 1968.....yes THAT dark and dreadful year for the USA! Matthew Wiener and his writers have the luxury of hindsight - long distance hindsight at that. They now are aware of how those dramas and tragedies of 1968 fit in to the pattern of action in ensuing years and decades. That fact is a good thing in some ways because, after all we're watching fiction, not fact; in other ways though, treatment of such events as the murder of Martin Luther King is necessarily going to be affected by "what we know now". It's something akin to revisionist history, I guess. Revisionist historians know how the story ended, those playing their parts during events in question didn't. Key factor!

Sunday's episode of Mad Men had MLK's murder as its set piece. I cannot say how true to life or how skewed the depiction of reactions of the Mad Men gang were. I was living in the UK at the time, in a small apartment, no TV, only a portable radio whose batteries blacked out regularly, and I seldom bought newspapers. My only source of news from the USA was from chat at the office with my boss or visitors from other departments. I have no memory at all of the reporting of MLK's murder, whereas I do still recall where I was when JFK was shot around five years earlier. I asked my husband if he could recall where he was when MLK was shot - he couldn't, but like me he had clear memories of where he was when JFK died.

Now, and for many years, Dr King's death has become such a key event in our consciousness, everyone, not only African Americans have seen and appreciated the full weight and worth of his teachings and speeches. So, if Mad Men did portray its characters' reactions differently from how they would truly have been, or if the writers felt uncertain, then it's easily understandable. In this episode there was hushed shock at a radio announcement during an advertising executives' gala dinner. There were people wondering next day whether offices should be closed as a mark of respect. The couple of fairly newly added African American cast members were shown, accurately I'm sure, in states of numb shock and despair. One secretary responded warmly to her female boss's hug, while another seemed coldly unable to respond to a similar show of condolence. In another scene lead character, Don Draper, took his son to the cinema to see Planet of the Apes as a distraction from the sadness of events that day. The now almost iconic final scene of that movie (y'all know it) added even more pathos for we viewers in 2013 than it would have in 1968: All the time it was... we finally really did it. [screaming] YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! (camera pans to reveal the half-destroyed Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand).

What I craved immediately the episode drew to a close was to see Across the Universe again. I remembered the very same day in 1968 being a part of that movie too, but in a different context, and using songs written by those (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison) with personal knowledge of the dramatic 1960s years. So, as husband never refuses a chance to hear Beatles music, we watched our DVD once more. This is one scene from the film and aftermath of that fateful day in 1968:




Actors: Martin Luther (singing) and Jim Sturgess




POSTSCRIPT

Today, 30 April = 9th anniversary of the day Himself and I married in 2004, back in the UK. The civil ceremony was held in a room at the Town Hall of the coastal town where I then lived, and was streamed over the internet. My husband's family members, in the USA, were able to watch the proceedings over breakfast at 8am, in the UK it was 2pm. Just him, me, car driver and photographer who acted as our witnesses, that was the cast. No grand wedding, none of the usual fal-de-ral (never did go for any of that, even in my youth). The music I chose made up for other lack of grandeur:

Thanks for 9 lovely years....and counting, Anyjazz!

Music Monday ~ LIVING TWICE

As the finale of Mad Men's current season drew to a close a week ago we heard this:



A nice version of the music alone:



Matthew Weiner likes to close Mad Men episodes with songs of the period his series depicts, and a theme relevant to the episode. This song, from 1967, fitted the season's timeline exactly. I guess it was meant to leave fans mulling over how each character had lived their lives and their dreams throughout the season just gone - and how that had worked for them.

You Only Live Twice or so it seems,
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.
You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.
And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone.
This dream is for you, so pay the price.
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.
And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

Most Mad Men fans, and others, will recognise it as title song from the James Bond film of the same name. The title is a quote from Ian Fleming's book You Only Live Twice: “You only live twice: Once when you're born and once when you look death in the face.” The lyrics took a gentler turn!

You Only Live Twice is a lovely melody with sweet, simple lyrics. John Barry (Sun Scorpio/Moon Taurus) wrote the music, Leslie Bricusse (Sun Aquarius/Moon Gemini) wrote the lyrics. Two Englishmen, the first named born in York, second born in London. I looked at their charts and noted that there's a nice link in the conjunction of Bricusse's Sun and Barry's Saturn (business/work) at 8 and 10 Aquarius. Natal Venus (music) in both charts is in Sagittarius at 21 and 26 degrees - so also close enough to be considered conjoined. The pair, along with Anthony Newley also wrote the theme for another Bond movie, Goldfinger.

John Barry died in January 2011. Leslie Bricusse is still with us, aged 81.





While You Only Live Twice is considered to be within that much denigrated genre "middle-of-the-road" aka "easy listening", its quality is far beyond most other pieces of that ilk. Over the years it has been covered by artists/bands as diverse as Soft Cell, Coldplay, Björk, Dame Shirley Bassey, Cee-Lo Green, Little Anthony & the Imperials, among others.



Closing thought from Mae West; I agree with her sentiment ~

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

Weekend TV Gossip, Astro-sprinkled.

Several TV shows we've been watching through the winter and spring have been finale-ing this week. I guess we'll soon be relying on our store of used VCR tapes and old DVDs for entertainment.


The Voice has completed its second season. I struggle to remember the winner, even now. Google refreshed an overloaded memorybank: winner was Jermaine Paul, a former background vocalist with Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, Joss Stone.

What I remember most about the show is being seriously irritated by the female judge/coach, Christina Aguilera - always trying to claim the audience's attention, either by wearing ridiculously revealing or silly outfits, or by her sometimes antagonistic exchanges with one of the other judges. Christina A's astrology: born 18 December 1980 Sun and 3 planets in Sagittarius, Moon in Taurus, late-Aquarius rising.
Quadruple Sagittarius may be just too much of a good thing! Astrodatabank chart.

The show's confusing format doesn't help. Audience focus is too much on the judge/coaches, too little on the contestants. The band has been far, far too loud (aka bandzilla), drowning out voices - ironic considering the show's title.



Fringe~ The intriguing sci-fi drama series with a premise that an alternative universe exists. Its inhabitants are "doubles" of us all. Our doubles have slightly different life patterns and personalities. Fringe's current season finished on a good note after some really muddled episodes mid-stream.
John Noble deserves an award of some kind for his consistently excellent performances as Walter Bishop, the scientist responsible for much of the 2-universe mayhem, and playing two completely different versions of his character.

John Noble's astrology: born 20 August 1948 in South Australia: Sun conjunct Saturn in Leo with Pluto also in Leo. Mercury in perfectionist Virgo. If born before 10:00 AM his natal Moon would have been in Aquarius (which I suspect), otherwise in Pisces, also appropriate given his talent for roles not only in sci-fi but also fantasy (Pisces stock-in-trade). In the Lord of the Rings trilogy he was Denethor.
Astrotheme chart.



Smash finished its first season on a high note (pun intended). The underdog won, and took the lead in the fictional musical show around which the series is written, Bombshell, about Marilyn Monroe. Bombshell is supposedly heading for Broadway in its planned second season.
Soapy storylines, some good singing and dancing, with plenty of hate between opposing fan brigades for the two potential Marilyns played by Megan Hilty (right) and American Idol alumna Katharine McPhee. I thought the young women were equally good.

Interesting performance from Angelica Houston as the show's producer - shame about her hairstyle though - Cleopatra she ain't! The only vaguely fanciable male was her beau, a bar-owner with mob (ish) connections.

Note of astro interest: Megan Hilty born 29 March 1981 Katharine McPhee born 25 March 1984, two Sun in Aries in a head-to-head to play the part of a Sun Gemini.


The Mentalist reached its season finale Thursday evening. Simon Baker, the show's leading man is easiest on the eye of all current TV leading men, and seems to me to be a really nice guy too. Must be his Aquarius Moon doing it for me! Scriptwriters had him down and a wee bit dirty for the finale - nice to see another side of his abilities. I lurve his always rumpled look in those 3-piece suits. A post about Simon Baker and his natal chart from the archives at this link.




Mad Men plods on through season 5, which is proving to be nowhere near as engaging as seasons 1 to 4 which we watched on DVD. The scriptwriters seem to have misplaced their mojo. Scene is now 1966, perhaps it was a boring year in the USA. 1968, when they get there, should liven things up, but not in a good way!
Previous post on Mad Men with a bit of astrology HERE.


America's Got Talent began its new season, as other shows reached the end of their runs. AGT now takes over The Voice's slot. New judge Howard Stern made it worthwhile tuning in. My husband, who knows more about him than I do, feared Stern would be a dreadful mistake and bad addition to the show, but I suspect he'll change his mind on that score.

Stern is already proving to be preferable to Piers Morgan who sat in the same "bad-cop" seat during previous seasons. I've never heard Stern's radio shows, said to be filled with vulgarity and nastiness, but he's been reined in tight for AGT. He displayed quick wit, humour and an admirable ability to sum things up on the fly, coming up with useful insights, and even showing a rather sappy side - which I'm not sure is entirely genuine, but it's good business!

Stern astrology: Sun + 3 planets in Capricorn, Moon in Taurus, Gemini rising.
Earthy base with his talent for communication coming from a Gemini ascendant and Jupiter in Gemini. Mars and Saturn in Scorpio - source of his darker side?
Astrodatabank chart.

Two Things I Knew & One I Didn't

1) April is Poetry Month
Have you noticed how seldom we hear a poem recited properly, with exactly the right mood, expression and emphasis? Even beautiful voices of talented actors or narrators tend to be reduced to an expressionless flat drone when reciting poems, denying us the emotion of the poets' clear intention when he/she wrote the lines. Perhaps there's some kind of rule book about this, some custom which dictates that emotion, when reading someone else's poems, will not be tolerated?

In honour of this Poetry Month I did find a couple of examples of actors who know their stuff and do a very good job with two short but lovely poems:

Dame Maggie Smith with Winds of Fate by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Alan Bates with A.H. Clough's Invictus ~~~

2) Sunday 22nd April is EARTH DAY

From Save Earth Day, by Mark Hertsgaard

To give President Obama his due, his promotion of wind and solar energy and his ordering of higher vehicle fuel efficiency are laudable steps. But when he brags, as he did at a recent campaign event while posing in front of vast stacks of oil pipes, that his administration has “added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth” while also increasing oil drilling to record levels, Obama forfeits whatever credibility he once had as a politician who cares about the looming catastrophe of climate change. All of the above also violates Obama’s promise, at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions to what amounted to a scientifically paltry 5 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. But apparently the president feels he can get away with such betrayals without paying much of a political price.

.

and ....DIDN'T KNOW ~~
Jared Harris, who currently plays Lane Pryce in Mad Men, and Dr. David Robert Jones in Fringe is a son of the late Richard Harris. Richard sang the definitive version of MacArthur Park, as well as personifying Dumbledore, King Arthur, A Man Called Horse and countless other characters in film. Ah yes - I see the likeness now!













Astrologically it goes like this:
Richard had Sun @ 7 Libra Jared has Mars at 4 Libra.

Jared has Sun, Pluto and Mercury in Virgo, Richard had Mercury & Neptune in Virgo.

Richard's Moon was in late (27) Capricorn, Jared's Moon (depending on his time of birth) is somewhere between 29 Capricorn and 14 Aquarius, and quite likely to be close to his Dad's Moon!

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Music Monday ~Aries-type Crispian St. Peters & Pied Piper. And unrelated, the annoyingly catchy Zou Bisou Bisou

Crispian St Peters - now there's a blast from the past! He was an English singer, his birthday would have been this week, April 5 (1939), but he died in 2010. My husband has never heard of him, although I thought the singer did have at least one hit record in the USA. Best known for Pied Piper (a catchy but repetitive number) and the quieter You Were On My Mind. The latter written by Sylivia Tyson; Pied Piper written by Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeild.

This is another singer with natal Sun in Aries (several more in last Monday's post). St Peters had 3 planets closely clustered in the sign: Sun/Mercury/Saturn. His song "Follow me I'm the Pied Piper" is oddly fitting for a triple Aries - Aries the leader, initiative-taker, bright, implulsive and enthusiastic.

Wikipedia indicates that his real name was Robin Peter Smith, changed on the suggestion of his manager, EMI publicist David Nicholson, who also reduced the singer's age for publicity purposes. Nicholson's influence may or may not have been advantageous:
Wiki~

Under David Nicolson's tutelage the shy star was momentarily transformed into arrogance incarnate and astonished the conservative music press of the period by his suggestion that he had written 80 songs of better quality than those of The Beatles. Other stars were also waved aside as St. Peters announced that he was better than Elvis Presley: "I'm going to make Presley look like the Statue of Liberty . . . I am sexier than Dave Berry and more exciting than Tom Jones . . . and the Beatles are past it". Outraged readers denounced him in letters columns. However, St. Peters' comments were meant to be tongue-in-cheek as he explained in an interview....

No subsequent release would ever match the success of "The Pied Piper," although its success helped boost "You Were on My Mind" into the US Top 40. Thereafter St. Peters was remembered more for his idle boasts than his music.

Shadow side of Aries?

The singer was weakened by a stroke in 1995. After several battles with pneumonia, and following a long illness, he died in 2010.

Unrelated to the above except by another song that was/is catchy and sticks in the head as Pied Piper tends to do. This one was performed by Jessica Paré during the opening episode of Mad Men's new season. It's a 1960s French ditty: Zou Bisou Bisou, originally recorded in 1961 by British actress and pop star Gillian Hills, star of Beat Girl and a Roger Vadim discovery. Sophia Loren sang it too, in the movie The Millionairess - in English - titled, oddly, Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo. It's really just a "kissy kissy" kind of song: bisou = kiss in French. Dang! It will keep going around in my head.

Sophia Loren sings it (not certain whether visuals are from The Millionairess.)

Jessica Paré's version while playing Megan Draper in Mad Men

ET CETERA......other thoughts I've thunk this week (a bit of astrology, Obama, Mad Men, L' Aguilera)

Caveat emptor

Could there be a better illustration of what I've thought and written, in this blog and elsewhere in comment form, during the last few years: that President Obama is drenched in Neptune's illusion? On the book's jacket: "Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion".

This book has not yet hit the stores, but at Amazon, a book description:

“Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank have skillfully smoked out the real Barack Obama . . . the technofascist military strategist disguised as a Nobel Peace Laureate, but owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Pentagon.”—Thomas H. Naylor, co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA

Classic Neptune, and it's there - in his natal chart! See any of several articles by professional astrologers, a good one, from 2008, is at Astrobarry:
Who is He? Obama's Sun-Neptune Square





a posteriori

Many words have been written this week about Mad Men's return to the TV screen; I even wrote a few myself, last weekend.

I've read half a dozen or so articles, written from several different slants - each writer trying to find a slant not yet tried. My conclusion: Mad Men is being seriously over-thought! Heck! It's a glorified soap opera not a documentary history of the 1960s! If there's a communal ability to over think matters, let more of the same people start overthinking the current political situation in the USA for goodness sake!

Something to keep in mind, too about Mad Men: it is written for viewers with 21st century sensibilities by someone who was not around the advertising world in the period he's writing about. A few who were, say the portrayal is reasonably accurate, while others beg to differ. I've been mentally comparing Mad Men with fiction such as The Forsyte Saga. Now that was by an author (John Galsworthy) who was alive, and in the know about the exact state of things, in the period about which he wrote so engagingly.

In spite of the over-thinking and over-analysing that sometimes happens regarding a popular show, TV series remain one of the few areas (sport may be another) where people in the USA can hold reasonably friendly conversations on a topic - "around the water-cooler" is the way they put it, I think. The USA is so vast, TV channels are so many, such widely popular topics do not come along very often in this country. In the UK, a country only the size of an American state, such as Wisconsin, with less choice of viewing material for most people, topics of common interest were easier to come by. Almost anyone could and would share views on Coronation Street, Eastenders and any number of mini-series and weekly shows. I used to find this phenomenon endearing, this easily shared interest and chat, even when the relevant topic wasn't always my favourite cup of tea.

Mad Men is one of few US TV shows with that rather sweet "communal" ingredient. Intellectuals can intellectualise and analyse it, while the average viewer, slumped on the sofa, drink in hand, will take it at face value as soap-opera-like fiction, a piece set in an era long gone with love, sex, betrayal, success and failure coming in equal measure. Everyone's happy!


Ad absurdum

If you've got 'em, flaunt 'em ? I don't have enough of 'em to flaunt, so can't possibly know what I'd do if I did. It does seem, though, that gals who have 'em are flaunting more of 'em more often these days. On the red carpet, at awards shows, I guess it's to be expected. Showing-off is part of that game; one "celeb" aims to out-boob another.

But context is everything, in some contexts less really is more. In TV's The Voice, for instance. The one female judge/mentor, Christina Aguilera, tends to let 'em have more air than is entirely necessary in the circumstances. The camera regularly moves in close and we get an uncomfortably full view, when she leans forward, of something we really don't need. The show is not about Ms Aguilera, it's about the hopeful singers competing for a chance to get where she is, professionally. It'd be courteous for the judge to cover up a wee bit, and allow all attention to go where the show purports to focus.
A look at her natal chart (Astrodatabank)revealed something I should have suspected: Sun, Mercury, Venus and Neptune all in Sagittarius - the sign known for exaggeration - "over-doing things".

MAD MEN returns

Mad Men is back! Season 5 opens this weekend on AMC channel with a 2 hour episode, Sunday. We haven't decided whether to watch it on TV or wait for the commercial-free DVD set. As mentioned in early January we caught up with Seasons 1 to 4 via a DVDs, and found ourselves well and truly hooked on this saga of the 1960s advertising world in the USA.


John Hamm plays the lead advertising executive, Don Draper, a character with something he'd rather forget in his past - something he was eventually forced to admit and to come to terms with over the course of the first four seasons of the series.

The series was created and written by Matthew Weiner who wasn't even born in 1960 - his birth data: 29 June 1965, in Baltimore Maryland. He's not writing from personal experience then, so while the series is entertaining, one has to suspect there's a fair amount of stereotyping and cliché involved. Interestingly Matthew Weiner has natal Sun in Cancer, John Hamm, his leading actor has Sun in Pisces....both Water signs, they probably get along well.

From Wikipedia

(Hamm) went through numerous auditions, and explained each time to the casting directors what he could bring to the character, if given the part. Alan Taylor and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner thought that Hamm was too handsome for the role, but decided that "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part"; Weiner also sensed that the actor had not been raised by his parents, similar to Draper's backstory.

Cancerian intuition and sensitivity in action?

The female character I've enjoyed most so far is Joan, the office manager and red-head sex-pot played superbly by Christina Hendricks, natal Sun in Venus-ruled Earthy Taurus - just the right base-line for playing a sex-pot? Moon in Aquarius - possibly the reason she has appealed to me - or to my own Aquarius Sun.



Apart from Don Draper (John Hamm), I've found the female characters of the cast more engaging than the the males, which is unusual for me I might add! Two other female characters have prominent roles to play:

Peggy Olsen (far right), the new girl secretary of season 1, whose imagination and determination set her climbing the corporate ladder rather quickly - she's played by Elisabeth Moss (Sun in Leo). And Don Draper's wife Betty a Grace Kelly look-alike, down to earth in some ways but spoiled rotten. I began by thinking she was the only sane and decent one out of the lot in season 1, but had changed my mind by season 4. Betty is well- played by January Jones (Sun in Capricorn).

We left season 4 in October 1965, whether it'll pick up at exactly the same point isn't clear. I read that the producer intends to screen 7 seasons in all, and by the end of the 7th season will have brought the story right up-to-date. (I hope they'll have first-class make-up artists in the wings for that!)

The only clues available so far, as to how the new season will unfold, stem mainly from something in a promotional photograph for season 5: an issue of Life magazine dated March 1954, Rita Moreno on its cover, is in clear view on a table. Avid fans have commented on possibilities for this seeming anachronism. Will there be a long flash-back in the opening 2-hour episode? Or, is the magazine simply a red herring for fans to pick up? It could easily have been used in a scene - for ad research or new/old ideas. Or is there an article in the mag. relating to something or someone in Mad Men's cast of characters? Best comment I've seen on this issue:

Gee, you people have never been to my Doctor's office. He still has magazines from the 1970s in his waiting room. Come to think of it, some of his patients have been waiting there that long.

MOVIE MONDAY ~ Lost in Translation; Beloved; Still Crazy; Mad Men

Thoughts on movies we watched over the festive period, the first on TV (HBO channel), others on DVD ~~~~





Lost in Translation (2003). We both thought we'd already seen this, but it turned out that we were mixing it up with another of Bill Murray's: Broken Flowers. We hadn't seen Lost in Translation after all, and it was nothing at all like Broken Flowers. Bill Murray in a movie is always a good ingredient, whatever theme, whomsoever he stars alongside.

This was a good, thoughtful movie about a relationship between Murray's character, an older man (50s) and a late teenage young woman (Scarlett Johansson) just out of university. They are "thrown" together, by force of circumstance, in a country and culture foreign to both: Japan. I'll not give away more than that. Just a word about Bill Murray's natal chart: he has Sun, Mercury, Venus and Saturn all in perfectionist's sign Virgo, and Moon in quirky Aquarius. That must be a difficult juggling act to perform! Astrodatabank has no information on his time of birth - perhaps his rising sign is helpful in that juggling act!




Beloved (1998) - a DVD I picked up on our travels, somewhere in Texas. I'd never heard or read about this film, based on a 1987 novel by Toni Morrison, produced by Oprah Winfrey's production company, starring.... Oprah Winfrey (yikes!) and Danny Glover (the reason I bought the DVD). Storyline is set in the area around Cincinnati, Ohio, in the years after the Civil War. Parts of the movie are completly predictable, other parts weirdly unexpected and requiring a definite suspension of disbelief. Good performances all round though, especially from Thandie Newton who skilfully plays a difficult part : a deranged young woman whose moods range from rabidly evil to child-like. Oprah Winfrey (Sun in Aquarius) is so good at everything she does, it's sickening - but all credit for this movie has to be due to her vision.





Still Crazy(1998) - a DVD found on e-bay after having seen a trailer on a VCR tape. This was a British movie, written by Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais, a brilliant pair of writers who've been responsible for a string of TV hits in the UK (for example:The Likely Lads, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, some movies too, including The Commitments, Goal!, Flushed Away, Across the Universe and The Bank Job.

Still Crazy is the tale of a used-to-be rock band from the 1970s trying to get together again for a come-back. Cast includes (among others) wonderful actor Bill Nighy; Jimmy Nail, a favourite of mine from way back; Billy Connolly, always good value; and Timothy Spall, who has, over the years, developed into an excellent character actor, now popping up quite unexpectedly in all maner of movies.

I'm not sure what American audiences would make of this film. British regional accents could cause problems. I loved seeing this cast working together, they seem like old friends of mine. The story was totally predictable, but it didn't matter. I've written a little, astro-wise, about Jimmy Nail and Billy Connolly in the past - see HERE and HERE.




Mad Men, we watched the first half dozen episodes of season 1 (2007) - I had splashed out and bought a used set of DVDs seasons 1 to 3 = 12 DVDs, 3 episodes on each disc. Enough to keep us occupied through the winter months.

I knew nothing about the series, other than that it had won an award or two, and that it depicts a group of characters in the advertising industry. The setting is Madison Avenue, New York, heart of the US advertising industry - if advertising does, in fact, have a heart which is doubtful. "Madison" Men - see? I had assumed the title was just a play on ad-men becoming mad men -it probably is that as well.

It's hard to say from this sampling whether the series will turn out to be in the same league as Boston Legal - I doubt it. The episodes were engaging enough, allowing us to get a handle on the characters and the setting: 1960.
Oh yes, I remember it well! The cigarette smoking, all the time, even at meals, even pregnant women smoked; smoking morning, noon and night; we also see lots of cheating on spouses. The fashions are much as I remember. The female "place" in the home and in the workplace, as depicted, is a wee bit disconcerting, not exactly as I remember from my own experience. But then I wasn't living in the USA, nor did I work in advertising. I can't be sure whether the characterisations presented are clichéd or fairly accurate.




John Hamm was the only vaguely familiar name in the cast list. He plays the lead advertising executive, Don Draper. I look forward to discovering more about this character, presented as a guy having something he'd rather forget in his past (sigh, don't they always?)

I do suspect there's chiché-ness rampant here.

We have to remember that the series was created and written by Matthew Weiner who wasn't even born in 1960 - his birth data: 29 June 1965, in Baltimore Maryland. He's not writing from personal experience then. Interestingly he has Sun in Cancer, John Hamm, his lead character has Sun in Pisces....both Water signs - they probably got along well.

From Wikipedia

(Hamm) went through numerous auditions, and explained each time to the casting directors what he could bring to the character, if given the part. Alan Taylor and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner thought that Hamm was too handsome for the role, but decided that "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part"; Weiner also sensed that the actor had not been raised by his parents, similar to Draper's backstory.

Cancerian intuition and sensitivity in action?