35 responses so far ↓

• 1 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 7:14 am

  The key to Mad Men’s popularity and success is the EXCELLENT writing and production. It was created by Matthew Wiener, who worked on The Sopranos. Wiener also brought with him many of the folks who worked on that show and as such, I find many stylistic similarities to The Sopranos.
  I tried getting in to it last year when it premiered but just never committed to watching after the first show. Then this year I rented the DVDs from Netflix and like the writer above, I cannot get enough of the show.
  As I said before, it is unique in its excellent writing and production but also has fascinating characters who evoke the foreboding and fear bubbling under the surface of a society on the cusp of a new era.
  It is 1960 and men and women behaved differently to be sure. I found this quote above interesting:

  “But what made me even more curious was the way my wife reacted to Mad Men. It really turned her on in so many ways. She told me she appreciated the level of ruthlessness. She admired the way the men carried themselves and were confident in their convictions.
  She seemed to be able to overlook the negatives of the era and focus on the manly positives – confidence, simplicity, leadership, courage of convictions, and manliness.”

  I think that this perfectly illustrates the mixed signals that women send the men of today. We know we’re not supposed to act like the men of yesterday – I think that most of us get that and are fine with it. We understand that life was never fair to women in earlier times. But then the question is, how do we act especially in accordance with our own primitive desires and impulses? Then we read a quote like the one above and we REALLY wonder what the hell do women really want? Do they know what they really want??

  Anyway, if you get a chance catch Mad Men – it’s head and shoulders above that cop show or hospital show you might be watching!

• 2 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 7:59 am

  I watched the season opener…hadn’t seen it last year…I’ll be watching again next week.

• 3 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:11 am

  the power of tv:

  http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/publishers-get-your-b ooks-in-don-drapers-hands/

• 4 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:20 am

  Richard:

  what the hell do women really want? Do they know what they really want??

  First qustion, If you ever figure it out, please let me know.

  Second question, if they ever figure it out, we’ll be the last ones to know.

• 5 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:25 am

  Silly, silly men. As if all women want the same things! Pick one woman and trying figuring her out.

• 6 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:26 am

  Tracy (5) – How the hell do we know which one to pick…if we don’t know what she wants??!!

  Should we just pick one at random???

  

• 7 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:28 am

  Just as he who lies to himself lies to everyone, it is difficult to understand someone who does not understand herself.

• 8 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:28 am

  You should pick the one who you would like most to understand.

• 9 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:31 am

  Wise words, oh mighty Shed.

• 10 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:32 am

  As a father of 2 girls, married to a woman, I firmly believe that women never know anything about what they want from the time they are born.

• 11 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:33 am

  #10 Now you are just taunting me.

• 12 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:33 am

  Robert (10) – I don’t know if I’d go THAT far….

• 13 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:35 am

  Hmmm… perhaps I am the only man willing to admit what I see… but, women do seem to have a bit of “uncertainty” in their life… it’s like the chaos theory embodied in human form.

• 14 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:42 am

  Robert (11) – Well you kind of said two different things.

  “never know anything about what they want” – I disagree.

  “women do seem to have a bit of ‘uncertainty’ in their life” – THIS I do agree with. You softened your view a bit here.

• 15 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:46 am

  Richard: Perhaps you might consider that I softened my view. I don’t. They don’t really represent the same feelings. I said that I believe that women are the chaos theory in human form. I also said I didn’t think that women knew what they wanted from the time they are born. I don’t think they are really saying the same thing, but they are similar sentiments.

  Of course, I am just trying to get under our female audiences skin with such inflammatory statements… but they do tend to be hard to understand for us silly little men. Perhaps it’s just that they are smarter than us in the first place? So much smarter, that we just can’t understand them, but they know EXACTLY what they are doing?

• 16 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:50 am

  “I don’t think they are really saying the same thing, but they are similar sentiments.”

  Of course they aren’t the same thing, THAT was my point.

  On your second paragraph….perhaps.

• 17 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:53 am

  I don’t know if intelligence is the primary component, although I wouldn’t doubt women are smarter. In the main, we seem to approach life from different perspectives, our way of communicating is different, as is our understanding of what we mean.

• 18 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:54 am

  “Perhaps it’s just that they are smarter than us in the first place? So much smarter, that we just can’t understand them, but they know EXACTLY what they are doing?”

  DANGER! DANGER! A man is getting close to figuring us out and blowing our cover!

• 19 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:54 am

  CS (17) – Absolutely.

• 20 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:58 am

  Richard: Take the chaos theory comment for what it is. Now, look at this statement:

  “women do seem to have a bit of “uncertainty” in their life”. I would say those two statements functionally the same.

  “uncertainty” is a nicer word than, say random acts of strange, misunderstood behavior”. Hence, the comments on “chaos theory”.

• 21 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 9:06 am

  “When shown emotional images, men used a different side of their brain compared with women.

  And while men were able to recall a general gist of the image, women were able to concentrate on the details.

  Dr Cahill said this suggested men and women processed information from emotional events in very different ways.

  Research also suggests that differences in the brain may explain why men and women have different reactions to pain.

  Women are more likely to seek help for chronic pain than men, and certain painkillers work better in men than in women, other studies have found.”

  http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Revealed-How-men-and-women.4296438 .jp

• 22 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 9:06 am

  Does this conversation remind anyone else of this scene from “White Men Can’t Jump”?

  Gloria: Honey? My mouth is dry. Honey. I’m thirsty.
  Billy: Umm… [ Water Runs ] There you go. honey.
  Gloria: When I said I was thirsty. it doesn’t mean I want a glass of water.
  Billy: It doesn’t?
  Gloria: You’re missing the whole point of me saying I’m thirsty. If I have a problem. you’re not supposed to solve it. Men always make the mistake of thinking they can solve a woman’s problem. It makes them feel omnipotent.
  Billy: Omnipotent? Did you have a bad dream?
  Gloria: It’s a way of controlling a woman.
  Billy: Bringing them a glass of water?
  Gloria: Yes. I read it in a magazine. See. if I’m thirsty. I don’t want a glass of water. I want you to sympathize. I want you to say. ”Gloria. I. too. know what it feels like to be thirsty. I. too. have had a dry mouth.” I want you to connect with me through sharing and understanding the concept of dry mouthedness
  Billy: This is all in the same magazine?

• 23 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 9:14 am

  Well, Pa, a woman can change better’n a man. A man lives sorta – well, in jerks. Baby’s born or somebody dies, and that’s a jerk. He gets a farm or loses it, and that’s a jerk. With a woman, it’s all in one flow, like a stream – little eddies and waterfalls – but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it thata way.

  - Ma Joad, The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

• 24 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:19 am

  CS (21) – What’s an “emotional image?”

• 25 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:21 am

  Shedman (23) – Please Shedman…like you’re some kind “literature” guy or something. I’ve seen the filth you read, mister.

• 26 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:23 am

  From Shedman’s link:

  “The research, published in New Scientist magazine, also points out that women are diagnosed with depression twice as often as men and their brains typically produce about half as much serotonin – a neurotransmitter linked to depression.”

  HALF as much serotonin? Wow…

• 27 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:35 am

  Does anyone else feel like men and women give or receive mixed signals as to what is they want?

  Have the changes in society over the last 40 – 50 years contributed to this?

• 28 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:53 am

  Richard, #24…I dunno…I didn’t write it. Clink on the link. #25…what filth? I have read The Grapes of Wrath (everyone should) but that specific quote is from the movie (everyone should see it too!) although the same or similar is in the book.

  Tom Joad: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin’ fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin’. And I been wonderin’ if all our folks got together and yelled…
  Ma Joad: Oh, Tommy, they’d drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casy.
  Tom Joad: They’d drag me anyways. Sooner or later they’d get me for one thing if not for another. Until then…
  Ma Joad: Tommy, you’re not aimin’ to kill nobody.
  Tom Joad: No, Ma, not that. That ain’t it. It’s just, well as long as I’m an outlaw anyways… maybe I can do somethin’… maybe I can just find out somethin’, just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that’s wrong and see if they ain’t somethin’ that can be done about it. I ain’t thought it out all clear, Ma. I can’t. I don’t know enough.
  Ma Joad: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I’d never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?
  Tom Joad: Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then…
  Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?
  Tom Joad: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.
  Ma Joad: I don’t understand it, Tom.
  Tom Joad: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.

  - from the MOVIE The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

• 29 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:54 am

  I do want to see this movie and have for a long time.

  Showing at Shedman’s!

• 30 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:00 am

  C’mon over….you know I have it!

• 31 richard // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:06 am

  Name the night slick!

  Did you go to Chick-Fil-A last night?

• 32 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:13 am

  Yep…it was packed…fund raiser for a 3 yr old girl w/leukemia…hopefully the money raised can help.

• 33 Heather // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:13 am

  Richard – Tracy 5&8 really will help you if you actually wanna be helped!

  I don’t think anybody wants a person who is wishy-washy and in-decisive. I don’t see those things as attractive in either sex. I think perhaps the “manliness” is not so much manliness as it is being self assured and confident – and confidence is *very* sexy.

• 34 Tracy // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:23 am

  #32 Will you email me with info? I know of an organization that might be able to help.

• 35 Coleman Shedman // Jul 30, 2008 at 11:27 am

  Tracy, I’ll try and get the info for you…I don’t actually know the family…I didn’t even get to meet them…the place was literally jammed…went with a friend who knows them…seemed like a good cause and I like me some chick-fil-a!

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