Lots of the Things I Loved Most About Living on Martha's Vineyard Last Month

BY LIZ

Last month I spent two weeks at a writers residency on Martha's Vineyard. It was life-changingly great and one of the best things I've ever done for myself and I hugely recommend it to all other writers, especially if you like the ocean and wonderful people and amazing food and ghosts and New England. I'm already plotting to go back again, but in the meantime, here's a big list of lots of the things I loved about when I lived on the island:

i. THE FERRY

I didn't want to have to do any work while I was on the island, which meant that in the weeks leading up my residency all I ever did was work. I literally finished my last work thing as my bus was pulling into the ferry parking lot; I was so blown away to be done that I couldn't even experience the relief. But then I got my ticket and a copy of the island newspaper and boarded the ferry and it all started to feel real. Once on board, I headed to the most important part of the boat:

and got myself a beer and I think maybe some Cape Cod Chips? I can't remember. I drank my beer and ate whatever I ate and read the paper, then went out to the deck to gaze upon the blue-green sea.

Thing of the Week: Gram Parsons's Ghost & Cher

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Going to a Bar in the Desert Where Gram Parsons & Keith Richards Used to Drink Together

This is actually "Thing of Five Weeks Ago." In the beginning of April my friend Sarah and I went out to the desert to see the Afghan Whigs at Pappy & Harriet's. The show was on a Thursday night and we stayed at a house way deep into Pioneertown and the next day hung around Joshua Tree. We had breakfast at Crossroads and I got the "Parsons Polenta" - not because I love polenta, but because I love Gram Parsons. I can't remember what Sarah got, but I do know that when given her choice of bread product she picked banana bread, which is one of the smartest breakfast-ordering decisions I've ever witnessed. Sarah shared her banana bread with me and it was so warm and I put lots of butter on it. Here is my Gram Parsons breakfast:

After breakfast we went to some vintage store and then to the Joshua Tree Inn aka "the Home of Gram Parsons Spirit." While we were there, just sort peeking through windows and checking out the courtyard through cracks in the door, it started to rain a little. In the desert! But, like, a total of maybe 10 drops of rain, on the exact spot where we were standing. Sarah said that maybe we were being smote (smited? smitten? smit?) but I think it was more like Gram saying hi or "Oh hey, good to know ya" or whatever. I'm sure Gram is the sweetest and chillest ghost.

So the big show of the day was Sarah brought me to this bar where Gram and Keith Richards used to drink - it's called Wine & Roses, though I keep thinking it's War & Roses, and it's literally on an airport runway. See the strip of pavement just outside the window of this pic? That's the runway. No joke.

This is the drink I drank at Wine & Roses, it's a super-stiff whiskey and soda and it cost $3. After we ordered our drinks Sarah went to use the restroom and while she was gone "Under My Thumb" came on and I was in heaven. I love my whiskey glass so much.

We sat at the bar, but there was this whole other room in the back with vinyl booths and little tables with folding chairs.

And here's the view out one of the windows in the big room. It's a romantic view, Joshua Tree looks so dreamy. Joshua Tree bugs me out but through this window, I can totally deal.

See? More folding chairs. And if you look into the mirror, at the left you can see the crazy stage-thing in the main room, whose backdrop is made of all these silver streamers covered in stars. I wore my Rolling Stones shirt that day because I generally find the desert evil and terrifying, but thinking about Mick Jagger makes me feel protected. Also I just really love the Rolling Stones. Lately my favorite Rolling Stones song is weirdly "I Just Want to See His Face."

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: a Ticket to Cher

I was planning on writing something about Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto, destruction and humor for this. At 9:08am this morning everything changed. Greg got us tickets to see Cher in September and I am not capable about thinking of anything else. I'M GOING TO SEE CHER...IN LONG ISLAND!!!!!

Our Weekly Mad Men Column: Liz & LJ on "The Runaways"

BY LAURA JANE & LIZ

LJ: The most exciting thing that happened on this episode of Mad Men is... I fell in love with Stan! Every single character on the entire show was jam-packed into this episode (except for Pete & Ted, who hopefully spent the duration of "The Runaways" chilling on a beach eating bagels while Jan & Dean's cover of "Norwegian Wood" played cosmically in the background in reference to Peggy Olson, and Joan & Roger, who were hopefully having sex and eating oysters somewhere fancy) to a point where I couldn't really concentrate on loving any of them with as much fervor as I'm usually capable of, so I just sort of skipped over cultivating any real opinions about Don or Betty or Sally or Stephanie or Henry Francis (who, FYI, I think is hot) and channeled the whole shebang into loving STAN. Stanley Rizzo. Whoever thought of the last name Rizzo for him gets a raise. 

The episode got off to a really cool start with a picture of Lou Avery's cartoon monkey Scout left in the Xerox and my new boyfriend Stan wheezily chuckling to himself about it. A really creepy thing I semi-recommend doing is Googling the actor who plays Lou. He is apparently some sort of "comedian" from "New York" who was born in 1954, and there are some really ugly and grainy pictures of him with long flowing hair on Google Image Search. They were probably all taken at comedy clubs during 1993-1995. He also has an extremely depressing website. 

To state the obvious, Stan has an extremely cool scarf tied around his neck. He also wears a denim shirt, and has gained a ton of weight since Season 4. He's so hot and I want to marry him. The other day my boyfriend was telling me that when he was in elementary school he always wanted to hang out in the library with the smart kids, but would get kicked out of the library for being too loud. That was one of the number one times I've ever loved my boyfriend. Stan Rizzo has a really obvious "loud in the library" vibe about him. I love how he spearheaded the whole "making fun of Scout's Honor" movement at Sterling Coop. If almost any other character on Mad Men had found those photocopies they would have either said nothing or quietly shown them to whichever character they are closest to. But not our Stan! 

Also- s/o to the cute guy with glasses, AKA the #2 character on Mad Men I've ever wanted Peggy Olson to fall in love with, who called Scout a "saucy little retard"!! It was chill of Mad Men to just be like "Oh, whatever, in the sixties it was normal to say retard," and then put "retard" on Mad Men. That character's named Ed, by the way, and the actor who plays him is named "Kit"! Great news all around. In conclusion, I feel like going out to dinner with Stan Rizzo would be a dream come true. He would probably drink four or five drinks and I've no doubt in my mind that he's one of those rare and spectacular dudes who deeply and truly loves dessert.

I really loved this shot of Peggy. It was soothing to see such an honest depiction of how easy it is for a person to have a double chin. Like think of that cover of New York magazine where Peggy Olson is naked in a pair of overalls and looks like the glintiest and most glimmering little sprite there ever was! And all she has to do to have a double chin is lay her head back. Don't forget about that, next time you see a double chin picture of yourself and get worried that you might actually have a double chin. You don't. 

My initially very pedestrian reaction to Peggy's big scene in "The Runaways," the one where she's wearing the horrifyingly schlumpy outfit of either sleeveless turtleneck over white longsleeve or faux-sleeveless turtleneck with faux-white longsleeves attached, and burgundy trousers that her bum actually looked quite cute in, gearing up to eat pretzels with her neighbour Julio, who is a child, on a Saturday night, was "That's so sad." I wrote a quickie little paragraph in my head about how I wish she would transport herself back to her buddy-buddy with Susan Sontag-y Zosia Mamet days of kissing Abe in a closet at a Bob Dylan-y loft party, but then I thought harder about it, and now I'm like, "Fuck it- Peggy Olson is my girl and I have her back always." She's just in a weird place right now! Like, what? Have you never been in a weird place? Have you never been single? Did you never wear an ugly outfit and watch a TV show on a Saturday night? All I ever did was wear an ugly outfit and watch a TV show on a Saturday night! Literally the only reason why I don't wear an ugly outfit and watch a TV show on a Saturday night 9 out of every 10 Saturday nights is because I work in the restaurant industry and Saturday night is when I make the bulk of my $$$. So that's settled. Peggy is perfect and normal, and more than made up for her Saturday night frumpiness in this saucy navy number Monday morning. 

Oh cool, and she's about to barf all over herself because her co-worker just presented her with a jewelry box full of his nipple. Do you think Ginsberg went out of his way to buy that jewelry box, or do you think he just happened to have it lying around? Either way, I really wish men would stop barfing their bullshit all over poor Peggy Olson. I think she's officially hit her breaking point. 



LIZ: Yeah, Stan Rizzo! I never gave Stan much thought till the beginning of season six - I watched the season premiere with my friend Hallie, and the first time Stan came onscreen Hallie sighed and said, "He's handsome." Which he is. So handsome. I love the swoop of his bangs, and his belt buckle and denim button-down, and how he's wearing a mood ring or something. It's cool how all these other dudes ended up wearing scarves/ascots/whatever in this episode (Harry Crane, Megan's sexy-dance partner who she obviously should just get with and leave us alone), just so we could see how much more fiercely Stan Rizzo rocked it in comparison. So I'm now bumping Stan up a few spots on my Mad Men Crush List, and speaking of which WHERE IS BOB BENSON???



One not great thing about "The Runaways" is I watched it before bed on Sunday night and then couldn't sleep, thinking about Ginsberg. Then I fell asleep and woke up again, and fell asleep and woke up again, over and over all night, my Ginsberg-induced insomnia broken up by some nice chill dreams about hanging out with the Beastie Boys in a space-age art gallery with rainbows everywhere. Poor Ginsberg. When he first showed up at Peggy's and had that funny banter with Julio I thought we were having a "Look how cute Ginsberg is with kids" kind of moment. But nope! Not where that was leading at all.

Anyway, I'm happy that Peggy and Julio worked their shit out, even though he's apparently now her only friend in the world. I agree with LJ that Peggy is perfect.



God I love Sally's poncho. I love her cool deep voice. If we don't get some Don/Sally Alone Time again before the end of the first half of the season, I'll eat my hat. I'll eat the hat Don Draper's wearing when he's being a bad-ass/pathetic cowboy ad man for whom a song titled "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line" kicks in upon his macho-ly hailing a taxi. That is the hat I'll eat.

So I'm generally Team Not Megan, but I really liked watching her this episode. Her hair looked fantastic at the party and even better post-threesome, especially when she was lighting her cigarette off the stove (always a good move, in my book). I liked her pink underwear and I loved her dress here:

But one of the things I dug most about "The Runaways" was spending so much time in Megan's house. It's so pretty and perfect and artificial; it's like some Laurel Canyon dollhouse come to life. A few years ago I read Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood by Michael Walker, in which Kim Fowley (manager of The Runaways, whoa!) is shit-talking the Laurel Canyon scene and says the following:

"In those days when certain songs would come out, people would actually have listening parties, and they'd sit around the record player and smoke dope. When 'What a Day for a Daydream' came out, there was a party at somebody's house. People would dress up in their bangles and leather and buckskin and bring food and you'd sit there like it was a religious experience - like Howard Dean was coming to your living room in New Hampshire - and they'd play the damn thing for five hours. Then they'd have discussions about it."

And I thought that was so cool, and I felt really bad for myself that I couldn't be there. I love music like Neil Young and the Byrds and the Doors and Joni Mitchell, so Laurel Canyon's always infatuated me; I've had born-too-late syndrome for a long time and sometimes I go to Laurel Canyon Country Store for dumb things like kombucha and raspberry licorice just to soak up the heavy vibes, man. But watching this episode really accelerated the long-mounting decline in my Laurel Canyon fascination, and I'm thankful for that. I'm so happy I don't have to hang out with these goddamn people, who bring banjos and oboes to parties and generally just seem totally boring and insufferable. I'm aware that they're a poor representation of "what Laurel Canyon was actually like," given that Megan's crowd probably isn't very inside, and also that Matthew Weiner's always pretty lazy on character development when it comes to counterculture types. But, in the interest of moving on with life, I'm just gonna go with it and assume this was a pretty solid encapsulation of Laurel Canyon in '69. I do think it's cool, in a lame way, how they're listening to Blood, Sweat & Tears - but other than that, I so would've been out of there too, even if it meant having to hang out with Harry "I Used To Be Kind Of Endearing, What Happened To Me?" Crane in some empty bar.

So yeah, I'm over being romantic about late-'60s/early-'70s Southern California pseudo-bohemia. Late-'60s/early-'70s New England pseudo-bohemia is obviously where it's at.

Our Weekly Mad Men Column: Liz & LJ on "The Monolith"

BY LAURA JANE & LIZ

LJ: Watching this episode of Mad Men was a really intense experience for me. It was called "The Monolith," which was a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey that I didn't catch. I only saw that movie once and retained exactly none of it; I hate shit that isn't set in real life, except Harry Potter. Anyway, I am calling this Mad Men episode "The Monolith" as a reference to the T.Rex song "Monolith," since they are both heavy and haunting and make me feel more than is necessary. On the evening of the day we watched "The Monolith," my boyfriend and I got in the hugest fight of our entire relationship, and I would venture to guess that the fight was approximately 15% "The Monollith"'s fault. I think that next week I am going to save watching Mad Men for the night rather than first thing in the morning, so I don't have to carry those emotions around with me all day. (PS: I just want to let you guys know that everything is now supes-chill between my man & I, our Monolith-fight definitely helped us grow as a couple & also- this is a brag- as part of my chill apology I sent a woodsy & masculine bouquet of flowers to his work today accompanied by a note reading "Thanks for always sending me flowers," and the really great thing about me telling you all of this is how obviously it relates to Mad Men...) 

The big thing for me about this episode was definitely the Roger-Mona-Margaret-Marigold plotline. Roger was definitely at his personal Rogeriest and therefore BEST. Margaret is so ungrateful! As far as deadbeat dads go, Roger Sterling is pretty much as good as it gets. What do you think his zodiac sign is? I don't even know why I bothered typing that sentence since two letters into it I realized he's the world's most obvious Libra. I bet Harry Crane is a Sagittarius. 

Roger was cool right off the bat  with the scene where he encourages Don to get drunk with him at like 9 in the morning. When Don says "No" (because of the Rules), Roger says "Good thinking," in this really great and true way that reminded me of all the times my sneaky plans to slack at work have been squashed by someone cleverer and more rule-conscious than I. Roger is so chill about his extreme selfishness; I really admire him for that. I like how he's Don's only great champion at the office, for no other reason than that he's stoked he gets to hang out with his pal again. Sterling Cooper must have been such a dull environment for Roger while Don was gone. He probably hung out with Stan a lot. 

Here's my favorite Rodge, all cutely wrapped up in a blankie. His suit makes him look like the captain of a ship. He and Mona killed this entire episode from start to finish- I mean that as a compliment, like, "They killed it!" I'm obsessed with Mona now, by the way. Maybe this is just me projecting my pro-Mona sentiment onto Roger, but I feel like part of the reason why he turned on Margaret-Marigold after she snuck out for some sneaky sex with Cletus (Was that guy actually named Cletus, or did Roger just nickname him that as a sly Rogery dig?) was because in that moment he realized that no fleeting affair with any hot hippie (or secretary!) is as truly satisfying as the sassy-cozy partnership he has with the only woman who's ever really known him, and he doesn't want Margaret to make the same mistake that he did. There's a part where Margaret accuses Mona of locking herself in the bathroom with a- I think she says pint- of gin. A pint of gin?!? That's so cool, Mona. That's such a cool amount of gin for Mona to drink. I even love that she's named Mona; such a subtly genius move from the good old Mad Men writers, the hugest geniuses there ever were. But I think my favorite moment of the entire episode was when Caroline reads Roger Mona's message saying, "Hey Genius! Brooks is in jail" in her gravelly Caroline way. Mona and Caroline were the real breakout stars of this episode for me. Flyest bitches evs. 

PS: Has a real person ever been named Ellery? 

Meanwhile, back at Sterling Coop, I could not give less of a shit about the "there's a computer in the office" plotline. One of my favorite things about Mad Men has always been that there's no computers in it. That's all over for me now. 

Hmm, what else happened? Something called "Burger Chef" is on the show now, which sounds like the name of a restaurant from today that would serve $28 burgers with truffle oil incorporated into like all of them, except there would be one healthier option made out of sushi-grade tuna that wouldn't have truffle oil on it. Ted Chaough was in the episode for about three seconds, so that was really nice of the Mad Men writers to dangle that carrot in front of my face and then DEPRIVE me of the carrot. One thing you may not have noticed about Ted's brief appearance is that he's sitting at a desk and there's a bagel on a plate in front of him! A bagel! A baaaaagel. I love when dudes I have crushes on eat foods that I eat myself. 

Speaking of dudes I have crushes on, Don Draper did so many cool things this week! No bagels, but still. He dickishly played solitaire and said he couldn't make Peggy's meeting, he drank vodka out of a Coke can, he had a chill little revelation spurred on by the now sage-like Freddie Rumsen's words of wisdom, he said "Ball game" to Peggy Olson in a cute, shruggy way, and -most importantly- when everyone in the Universe's least-favorite Sagittarius Harry Crane said, "Sorry you lost your lunchroom; it's not symbolic," he replied, "No, it's quite literal," and then, believe it or not, I walked right into the scene and high-fived him! "That's our Don!" I said- sighing theatrically, then looking straight at the camera, giving the audience a little wink. And that's how the episode ended. 

LIZ: I really liked how Don was always drinking Coke in this episode. I loved when he was drinking a Coke and eating a candy bar at the same time. Our Don, drinking Coke and eating candy bars, playing solitaire and reading Philip Roth, bored out of his skull on purpose. A thing I read on Vulture or Grantland or wherever talked about how when Don's lying on his office couch and staring up at Lane's Mets penant, the shot's framed so it's like he's lying in his coffin. Don Draper's not going to die at the end of Mad Men, because he's already dead right now. Don knows what it's like to be dead.

        I also really enjoyed how Don and the computer guy were always lighting each other's cigarettes. I liked when Meredith asked how his weekend was and he said "Lonely!", all faux-chipper/I-don't-give-a-fuck. I screamed when he threw the typewriter at the window, and thought it was grossly cute when he sang to Freddy Rumsen about meeting the Mets.

I'm way on board with LJ's Mona thoughts. One of my all-time fave Mona moments is that scene from before Margaret and Brooks were married, when they're in the restaurant and Brooks tells Margaret "I'll get the mussels with garlic if you do," and Mona stares at them for a few dreamy seconds and then says, "That's sweet." I think about that part a lot.

And I loved being in the car with Mona and Roger. It felt like being in a car with my grandparents on the ride home from Sunday dinner at a steakhouse when I was five, only with way spicier conversation. It was cool when Roger described Margaret as "so cruel, so serene." Cruel/serene is an interesting word pairing. Roger Sterling is a poet.



Margaret's Neil Young-y suede poncho thing was pretty sick. And the thing in this episode that meant the most to me was when Mona and Roger first get to the commune and Margaret's telling them how she's over society or whatever, and she keeps her creepy/blissed-out smile on and says "I don't pray to that anymore." It's good to have a nice, punchy one-liner to throw out there when you want to be really chill about rejecting the lifestyle choices of others. I like to say "I don't really happen on that level," which I stole from Rodney Bingenheimer, but "I don't pray to that anymore" brings it into a whole other dimension of sanctimoniousness. Cool job, Marigold.



I screen-capped Roger smoking on the porch too! I had to include my pic as well, I love it so. And I'm so crazy about how he's wrapped up in what's maybe an old sleeping bag. Broken men wearing sleeping bags and smoking on porches in the morning light are my new muses.


And these guys. Love these guys. I know it's a lot to ask, but I'd really love for them to go out drinking sometime. I want them to drink margaritas, share cigarettes, talk shit, be really funny, get new dudes to go out with. Ideally some dudes who are 100% not terrible, like every dude either of these two has ever paired off with in all of Mad Men history.


Speaking of babes, what do we think of Bonnie? I dig that she's so cutthroat, and that Pete's so into her cutthroat-ness. And it was adorbs when Pete introduced her as "my girlfriend": Pete Campbell with a girlfriend! A thing like that.



And yeah oh my god TED CHAOUGH WITH HIS AMAZING BAGEL. I like how Pete's not eating a bagel, he's got a danish, he'll never shake off his bagel snobbery. I so love a man with convictions. 

Excellent, Average & Terrible Things I've Recently Eaten: A Medium-Heavy Story About A Bagel

BY LAURA JANE/ ILLO BY JEN

At the beginning of April everyone on Twitter was talking about how Susan Miller said April was going to be fucked. Some people were scared about it, and other people told them not to bother caring because Susan Miller's usually wrong about everything anyway. I haven't read my Susan Miller in forever, not for any real reason, I just stopped being able to pay attention to it. It became like reading a math textbook or everything Shakespeare wrote. My brain just sends a message to my eyes saying "Glaze over" and they obey. And then I close out of the tab. As far as I can remember, Susan Miller's usually wrong when she tells you something good is going to happen but she's usually on point when she warns you something's going to be fucked. So I was scared to find out that April was going to be fucked, since I knew April was going to be fucked anyway. And then it was. 

To be honest, only the first half of my April was fucked, but it was fucked enough that even its chill second half qualifies as being fucked just by proxy. From April 15th through the 30th, I felt shell-shocked and spacey like a person in the middle of waking up from a vivid creepy dream. April 15th was my last day as assistant manager of my restaurant; I stepped down on April 6th. On April 12th, I ate a bagel.

Our Weekly Mad Men Column: Liz & LJ on "Field Trip"

BY LAURA JANE & LIZ

LJ: Every Mad Men Monday morning I wake up feeling like my heart is going to explode with excitement. I am very hyped to watch the new episode of Mad Men. I sync up a pirated episode a nerd who is a stranger has uploaded to my favorite ugly trashy website, "Project Free TV," and let it load while I drink coffee and eat toast. After I finish my toast, it's time for me to start pestering my boyfriend, who sleeps like he's dead. Me whining "Wake up and come watch Mad Men with meeeeeee," is a hallmark of the Mad Men Monday morning ritual. He rarely bites. Last week, I even went so far as to make him a cup of coffee and waggle it under his nose, which worked. But this week he wised up. "Don't you have some exercising to do?" he asked. Sadly I admitted that I did. So then I had to suffer through forty minutes of exercise before it was time for Mad Men. That was a rough one. 

First things first- I think it's really cool how Dawn and Don have the same name. When I was a kid it was used to bug me a lot how characters in books and movies never had the same name, even though that's totally something that happens in real life. It's wouldn't even be confusing for the viewer/reader, because we all know that there is a perfect solution to two people in one situation having the same name: their last initials get involved. America's Next Top Model knows this. On ANTM Cycle 20, which I am very familiar with, as I recently binge-watched the entire cycle in 4 days, there were two guys named Chris: Chris H, who was the WORST, and Chris some other last initial that I forget now, because he was voted off very early into the season. Anyway, I am very happy to see that Dawn C is holding shit down as the new Joan H, and was even happier to discover that Megan C is doing crappily in L.A. I am not a Megan fan; in fact, I hate Megan. I am sure Jessica Pare is a very nice lady but I wish she would never act in any movie or TV show ever again. Megan's chill agent is definitely my fav new character of Season 7 so far (Take that, Roger Sterling's hippie girlfriend), and my fav thing that's happened is a tie between the time he said "You're my favorite couple," to Megan and Don D after knowing Don for five seconds and the time when Ted Chaough put a slice of dry toast into his mouth and walked away.

I liked Betty a lot this episode. I'm pretty obsessed with trying to piece together the crux of Betty's obviously disordered relationship with food. I feel like there might of been bulimia implications in her willingness to share the coffee streusel cake with Francine (Always good to see what's going on with Francine, by the way. Sup Francine), and I thought there was a really interesting metaphor in how for lunch she drank fresh cow's milk out of a bucket but was deprived of the sandwich she packed herself- the sandwich was a prop in the phony illusion she was trying to create, but the cow's milk was pure. She didn't get to have the sandwich because the lie-life was never realized. It gaped in the middle and fell apart. She got to have what she got to have. She got to drink warm cow's milk out of a bucket. 

I've had a really weird work month in April. At first I was just miserable being assistant manager and working all these crazy doubles and then I had a cool Clash-related revelation and stepped down from any sort of managerial position at my restaurant. Now I'm a part-time server! The role I was born to play. Plus I took a sabbatical (not really a sabbatical) from the location of my restaurant I've been working at since Octobes to cover for the assistant manager at my OLD location (where I worked from August of 2012 until Octobes), who went to Mexico for Easter (as one does). And then I came back for my first work weekend as a part-time server and felt tiny and weird and alone. I related to Don Draper a lot throughout his bummer sitting at a table all day SC&P day. It sucks to feel like a weird loser and watch your old job you were good at be usurped by an even weirder loser who kind of sucks at it. I'm noticing that Don Draper's looking a little dumpier than usual this season. His face looks like a fatter, wider square. Is it because Don Draper's character is in a bad place and they're making him look dumpier, or is it just because Jon Hamm is aging? Anyway, stoked to see Don D back at Sterling Coops. SC&P, his only true fam. 

In conclusion: what the heck is up with Kenny Cosgrove's poor eye? Does he have no eye? Was his eyeball literally blasted out of his head? Or is it just damaged? Will he ever not wear an eyepatch again? Will he have a glass eye when he takes his eyepatch off? Please address this extremely pressing issue, Mad Men Season 7. Signed, Laura Jane. 

LIZ: This is my least favorite episode so far this season. Mostly I wanted to go back to the last episode and sit with Sally and Don in that diner for another hour, and talk more about the truth and being so many people. I also resent "Field Trip" for increasing my disappointment with Peggy Olson's lack of imagination in reacting to bullshit behavior, since disappointed-in-Peggy-Olson is an emotion with which I am intensely uncomfortable. But the use of "If 6 Was 9" in the "Field Trip" end credits was really hot, and it's Mad Men so of course it's automatically better than almost anything. Here are some moments I found to be of value:

-I liked when Don went to see Roger and asked him, "How do you sleep?" Basically the only other man who's ever asked that question of someone with whom he's engaged in a fractious yet charmed friendship is John Lennon, so I appreciated the reference.

        The other best Don moment is when he's alone in Megan's house and going through her liquor and picks up the Kahlúa bottle and makes that judgy-about-Kahlúa face: I just think it's cool that he's so over Megan and her lame lifestyle choices, he has to throw shade at a bottle of Kahlúa when there's not even anyone around to see it.

-I was also happy to see Francine again! What a hot ticket. And I love Betty's blue nightgown of faux-contemplation. Scrubbed-clean-of-makeup and sad-faced is a beautiful look for Betty - like, the one where her dad dies and it's nighttime and she's sitting at the kitchen table with Don and her gross brother, and she's eating a peach from the bag of peaches that was left in the car all day, and her hands are all peach-juice-messy and she really looks like she's been crying forever? Stunning.

-But the best "Field Trip" look belongs to Joan, in her rose-covered dress and big black boots. I'm tempted to call it "business-kinderwhore," but it's so much more than that. Also I'm sad that Joan and Don's sexy bromance appears to be done like dinner, but being careless about Joanie/Jaguar is maybe the one thing I'll hold against Don Draper forever.

-This episode really drove home how much I miss the old Bobby Draper, the pointy yet soulful-eyed one in between the current Bobby Draper and the one who says "We need to get you a new daddy" after Don talks about how his father's dead and loved ham. The new kid's too perfectly round-faced, and also kind of a hack, and this is definitely the least I've ever cared about someone wearing high-top Converse and a red baseball jacket and holding a baggie full of gumdrops. (Sorry, "Mason Vale Cotton"; I know I'm being superbitchy.) 

-I love Dawn. I love how she loves Don and is sort of under his thumb, but also totally takes care of her own shit. Also really cuted out by the porcelain cat statues on her desk, especially the one to the left by the pink flowers, who looks like it's saying hey:

The other "Field Trip" thing I'm going to complain about is how we finally got to see Betty, but then there was no Sally or Ted or Pete. I mean I know that casting budgets exist or whatever, but why can't we have Betty and Sally and Pete and Ted all in the same goddamn episode? And speaking of Pete and Ted, I really need to point out how, in episode two, during the telecon that made Pete wonder if he's dead, I deeply enjoyed how Ted's calmly fiddling with some small flat object I can't identify while Pete's being his usual beautiful apoplectic self. I just thought Ted Chaough looked really cool in that moment. I like it when men are caught up in their own little worlds.

Anyway, here's the Anthology version of "How Does Roger Sterling Sleep":

I Want David Klein to Illustrate My Life

BY LIZ

About a month ago I became aware of the existence of David Klein, who was an artist and illustrator who made a lot of weird and gorgeous advertisements in the 1960s. He's maybe best known for all these TWA posters, which I'm in love with. Apparently you can buy originals of some of the posters on Etsy for hundreds of dollars, like the L.A. one on the left here:

There's a stupid lack of David Klein info on the Internet, but I did learn he was an active member of the California Watercolor Society, which charms my socks off. David's bio says the California Watercolor Society "often chose to paint watercolors depicting scenes of everyday life in the cities and suburbs of California," and that makes me wish David were still with us now so that he could illustrate everywhere I love in California, especially my neighborhood and Topanga Canyon and the weirdest parts of the Valley (Lankershim Boulevard in particular, where I took all of these groovy pictures).

But David Klein died in 2005. He came from Texas, and he was in the army and fought in World War II. And at first my whole point in posting this post was so I could do this:

#GEORGE

...but then I looked at more of David's work and saw that he also made posters for movies and foods and books and everything. I haven't found any David Klein music art, but I'd really love for him to make art for all these people/albums/songs/whatever:

-Outkast
-The Beatles, especially Help!-era Beatles
-Ex Hex
-The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
-Courtney Barnett
-the first two Shins records
-that Strokes song about Hawaii
-mid-career Sonic Youth, especially Goo
-Ram by Paul & Linda McCartney
-late-era Pavement
-The Hollies oh god I love the Hollies, I love Evolution by the Hollies so much right now

I think my basic criteria for music being David Klein-worthy are (1) a fluency in the nuance of thoughtful/subversive whimsy and (2) an undercurrent of scrappiness, melancholy, and serious feminine energy to keep said whimsy from unraveling into precious bullshit.