maddened.

September 16, 2008 at 11:20 am

© AMC

I’ve been trying to catch up to the Mad Men bandwagon lately.  I’m almost finished with the first season, and just two episodes in I could see why this show is so wildly successful.  It’s so smart and so earnest in how it portrays gender and societal roles in the early 60’s, and in doing so, the show almost hits the mark of satire.  The set and costume design are to-die-for, the dialogue is spot-on, and the development of each character goes incredibly deep, seemingly without even trying.

So imagine my delight when Betty Draper and Ken Cosgrove both started following me on Twitter!  I did a little digging and realized that a majority of the characters from the show, no matter how minor, have Twitter accounts that follow the plotlines to a tee.  The hub of all the imposter action is wearesterlingcooper.com, a portal that tracks the Twitter activity and also the press attributed to the movement.  Apparently an independent campaign started by people who are just huge fans of the show, and some new hybrid of fan fiction and Web 2.0, the Twitter/Mad Men phenomena is almost as captivating as the show itself:

Though the charade may appear well choreographed from the outside, in reality the effort is more haphazard, with independent fans creating characters that need to be integrated into the whole… Being a Mad Men Twitterer is akin to being in the Mafia; characters are told the identity of other characters on a need-to-know basis.

Keeping in mind that the show is focused on an advertising agency, the whole thing is so meta I just can’t even stand it.

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gynecological twin.

September 3, 2008 at 9:36 am

In reference to this heeelarious bit from The Daily Show, my chatbox status lately has been “vagina dentata american,” with the attendant avatar being a rather convincing image of the same (NSFW).

As expected, the only reaction I’ve gotten so far has been “Eesh” and “Oof” from chat buddies of the male gender.  “I don’t like that very much,” said one, and “Vagina dentata is NEVER funny if you have a penis. Trust me on this,” from another. This is so interesting to me. OBVIOUSLY it’s a myth, folklore, legend, what have you. So what is it about the concept that frightens men so much? Are they that attached (wokka) to their penises that any mention of harm sends them running? Is it honestly a fear of castration (read: threat to their masculinity)? I can’t think of an analogous situation for women, but if you can, please share. I just don’t understand why it’s such a sore (again, wokka) subject.

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i prefer the word "hung."

January 4, 2007 at 10:15 am

This roundup may be even sadder than the actual public execution. Yeah, it totally is.

I had serious issues in the days leading up to Saddam’s hanging, and when it actually happened I felt hollow. I’m not feeling inspired to launch into a diatribe about the death penalty, but Americablog has myriad posts about the entire ordeal that I’m inclined to agree with.

On another note, all the talk about hanging made me think of this story by Anaïs Nin. Little Birds was my first foray into erotic fiction (save one or two romance novels when I was a wee lass) and that story is the only one I remember from the collection. In researching the link, I read the entire thing again, and I actually didn’t remember the first part of it. The ravishment in the public square is the only imprint left on my brain.

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