Mad Men purists loved “The Strategy,” because it had all the hallmarks of a classic Mad Men episode: a fabulous New York setting, slices of home life mixed with plenty of office drama and business intrigue, and sudden gut-punching reminders…
“The Runaways” was a fun Mad Men episode, and by fun I mean we saw a creative genius being carted away to the loony bin in front of his co-workers, a knocked-up dropout in her third trimester calling from a…
♦♦♦ FROM SINATRA TO ABBEY ROAD Now that we’re in the home stretch of the series, it appears more and more that Mad Men is designed to serve as a metaphor for the entire sweep of the Sixties, with Season…
For some strange reason, I like knowing which public figures are alive and which aren’t. It’s almost a matter of pride. I also like pleasant surprises, of which there seem to be fewer and fewer as time marches on. Learning…
For the first time all decade, I went out on New Year’s Eve. To the Starry Plough, where I saw Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express ring in 2014. After the show, I introduced myself to Chuck, and also got…
Preamble The reason I love Mad Men has nothing to do with the show’s soap opera aspects, but rather because of the unique way they presented the momentous decade of the 1960s. First they seduced us with vignettes showing what…
Who is The Oldest Living Legend? Well, the pool of candidates just got a little smaller today with the passing of Shirley Temple. But think about some of the people who are still around. It’s humbling. There’s Yogi Berra, who…
It would be interesting to conduct a quick straw poll to see just what sort of name recognition Patty Hearst gets these days. I suspect that people under, say, age 42 may know the name, but have no idea who…
* * * It’s almost impossible for anyone currently living to appreciate the scope and breadth of Pete Seeger’s life and the legacy it encompasses. He is one of the last public figures whose career began before the bombing of…