Arts & Culture
Mad Men: Week 1 In Review
SONIA BRAND-FISHER: The first image we see of Mad Men Season 4 Episode 1 is an unsettling close-up of the contorted, yet deliberately handsome face of Don Draper we know and love (or hate). I don’t know about you, but at the end of Season 3 I could not get the image of his now ex-wife, Betty, sitting confidently on a plane with her baby in her arms like a doe caught in the small overhead-lights on the airplane. I thought of her when Don’s prominent jawline popped onto my screen with the faceless voice of the ad agent asking “Who is Don Draper?” This question is clearly plaguing the mind of not only this walk-on agent, but also Draper himself, as Season 4 kicks off with some noticeable changes in the Draper’s fractured household and the infant corporation of Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce.
HOWARD MEGDAL: I want to focus on a motif that appears to be new to the show in Season 4: Don Draper adapting.
Makeup!
JILLIAN LOVEJOY LOWERY I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m not a naturally pretty girl.
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Makeup has long been a mystery to me. How can some women end up wearing it every day, and others don’t know what most of it is? Falling into the latter category, I am both jealous and suspicious of women who wear make up all the time and who are good at applying it. How did they learn? Why do they do it? Should I be doing it? Should they stop?
ZOË RICE: For a while, back in 2004-2007, I was one of the internet’s go-to people for cosmetics and skin care reviews. I called myself “Real Girl,” because like you (perhaps) I was no expert, just a gal who happened to research product ingredients, experiment with application processes, and report back on every single product and article of makeup I tested.
In Briefs: Ohs in Pop Songs
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: If you took the “Oooh Oooh” from California Gurls and played it right after the “Ooh Ooh Ooh” from Tik Tok, and the “Ooh OOh OOh ooh” from Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA….I think it’s almost the same noise. I would love it if someone put them all together, for the sake of furthering my cynicism and bitterness.
JESSICA BADER: I believe all three songs are from the same producer.
Double Portrait: Bill Charlap, Renee Rosnes
AKIE BERMISS: As an ardent jazz fan, I have but one dirty secret: I hate piano duos. I know piano is like the mayonnaise on the sandwich of jazz… and being a piano player, you’d think I’d be all about piano duos. The more pianos the merrier! But the truth is, I’m not usually a big fan of huge piano sounds. Its so easy to over-power all the other instruments with a piano (especially in a recording environment) and sometimes the unambiguous harmonic landscape can be musically frustrating. Sometimes you just want the piano player to lay out and let the other instruments develop a dynamic.
HOWARD MEGDAL: Unlike Akie, I have no objection to the double-piano setup. I tend to think of it as akin to the writing found on Perpetual Post-divergent viewpoints on the same theme or idea. And Double Portrait is a glorious example of the form- a true musical marriage, apparent in every track on the album.
Is Privacy Dead?
AKIE BERMISS: Privacy is not dead! Not by any means — to say so is to cry fire in a crowded theater. You see, the trouble is privacy COULD be dead at any moment. It takes only a few ideal conditions to be met and few of the wrong kinds of people to be at the helm when they do and suddenly: there’s no such thing as privacy. These days its not that privacy is dead, not even that its really become so much of a privilege either (for those who would argue that the wealthy and powerful are the only ones who can afford to maintain privacy) — but rather its become a responsibility. And for us here in America, that’s a new thing.
Disposable Pets
AKIE BERMISS: I’m a first-time pet-owner. I’ve had my two cats for just about 4 years now and I can not conceive of a situation in which I would give them up — for anything. I mean it would have to be a very grave situation one where either I can’t take care of them any longer or they need to go somewhere else for health or quality-of-life issues. I didn’t ever have pets growing up. I think my sister had a pet for a while, but otherwise there were no animals in the house. I had three siblings so we didn’t really need more bodies running around the house. In adulthood, though, I decided it was a good idea to have a pet (or two) and to make a life with them. And that’s what it is: a (pet’s) lifetime of commitment.
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: While I have loved dogs since I could focus my eyes, I grew up in an apartment, so I had goldfish. It was not until several years ago when I began dating a dog owner that I became regularly exposed to an actual dog. I realize now that I was not technically a real ‘dog person’ before that point, because while I loved dogs, I had little idea of what having a dog actually entailed.
ZOË RICE For thirteen years now, I have been a fiercely devoted pet owner. I love my current one, Dash, with absolute devotion. He knows it; I make sure of that. But life is not a set of absolutes. Contexts change, situations change, and whom one spends one’s life with changes. And in rare cases, I can imagine how even a beloved pet might have to find a new home.
3D TV
HOWARD MEGDAL: When I first heard about 3D TV, I thought it stood a good chance of appearing at the wrong time. People had just gotten used to their HD TVs, and I wasn’t certain that the technology would be good enough, or that there would be a programming impetus for it.
But I can see now- it is just a matter of time until I break down and get one. The prices are already on par with HD TVs, and the programming that is most enhanced by it- sports- is what I watch a large percentage of the time.
JASON CLINKSCALES: 3D TV may be an absolutely brilliant innovation that will hit all of our homes, bars and offices in the coming years. Yet, we’re still getting a hold on high-definition TV. To make another leap so soon is a lot to ask of the viewing public.
The Roots’ New Album
STEPHON JOHNSON: How I Got Over might be the first Roots album since Things Fall Apart where fans’ opinions aren’t divded. It’s about time.
AKIE BERMISS: I absolutely agree with Stephon — this is definitely the best and most consistent record The Roots have put out since Things Fall Apart. Its been over a decade and, at last, they’ve returned to the musical heights they were once so regularly visiting. What are the elements of a great album? What makes this better than Phrenology, The Tipping Point, Game Theory, and Rising Down? Where does this album (which is a far-cry stylistically from classic Roots records like Illadelph Halflife and Do You Want More?) bridge a connection to the great 90s heydey of the Roots? Well for one thing: they sound like a band. For another, Black Thought is rapping like he gives a damn about rapping. And finally, the music is original it is The Roots pandering to the art of the craft — and not The Roots pandering to divergent tastes of popular radio.
They are firing on all cylinders.
Food Culture and Relationships
EMILY SAIDEL: For partnerships to survive does there need to be a shared food culture? Molly and Akie have graciously shared their own experiences with food and love.
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: I definitely think that being in sync with food experiences is very helpful in a relationship. Food bonds you together. Also, in a serious relationship, you both end up spending a good deal of time preparing or ordering and eating food together.
AKIE BERMISS: I am funny eater. I don’t like the things that people say are good… and I love certain dishes that are considered pedestrian. To know me, is to know a man who loves his hamburgers and his bacon and his peanut butter (not all at once, of course). I hate cheese, seafood, and dairy products (I’ve still got friend who won’t cook for me because I don’t like butter). And when I am dating someone, I can be a real pain in the ass. Still, there is always give and take, I think. And that’s probably the healthiest ingredient to any relationship.
In Briefs: Rolling Stone Hates Molly
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: So, seriously, I don’t understand why Rolling Stone deleted my comment on their fatuous blurb about Katy Perry’s hit single ‘California Gurls’.