How do you say father in Mad Men? – Hilton

Conrad “Connie” Hilton (Chelcie Ross) first appears in S3E03 (My Old Kentucky Home) and Don makes him a drink. He calls later and then appears in S3E07 (Seven Twenty Three), which is when Peggy mentions his book.

“My mother gave me his book. He’s Catholic.”
– Peggy

Conrad’s character and the book (which I got through, and is okay) bring up themes of fatherhood throughout the season. He is constantly reminding Don of his duty to his family, and sliding into the absent fatherly role in Don’s life.

The following exchange rules:

“I don’t know what I’m more disturbed by: the fact that you don’t have a Bible or that there’s not a single family photo,” Connie.
“I’m easily distracted,” Don.
“You should have those things. They’ll make you feel better about what you do. Start showing up on time.”
“Maybe I’m late because I was spending time with my family reading the Bible.”
Don and Connie, S3E07

SIDE NOTE: Some times I get into conversations with people about this show, and have to defend it’s nihilism, it’s depressing characters, it’s bleakness… The complaints are valid, but, as a counter, it’s a pretty f*&(ing well-written series sometimes.

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February 8, 2021 0

Confessions of an advertising mad man, who may be a hillbilly

Don walks into the elevator and there’s Roger.

It’s S3E07 (Seven Twenty Three).

“Ogilvy wrote a book… Advertising is already up there with lawyers as the most reviled, this is not going to help,”
– Roger Sterling

Confessions of an Advertising Man is David Ogilvy’s ground-breaking book that makes up a lot of the meat in Mad Men. Creator Matthew Weiner admitted that he used it to pull plot points and motivation while crafting Mad Men.

It is the most important work of the period that shines light on the period.

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January 22, 2021 0

Quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again

It is season two. Peggy is skinny again (post baby), Harry Crane’s wife is pregnant, Trudy Campbell is not, Betty is taking horseback riding lessons and giving them in flirtation, Don’s blood pressure is up, and there is a photocopier in the office.

It is the future.

The president (JFK) is young and hot, the agency needs to match, and a hipster is reading Frank O’Hara in a bar at lunch.

“I don’t think you’d like it,”
Hipster to Don Draper

PLOTTIFY - Don Draper in an Emergency Starts a Meditation in Mad Men

It is S2E01 (For Those Who Think Young), and the collection is Meditations in an Emergency.

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November 3, 2020 0

Compson, Whitman, Draper: A name’s sound and fury

What’s in a name? What’s in a family? What is history? What is time?

I may or may not have just finished reading a certain author from the south and everything is up for grabs.

There are those books on the Mad Men reading list I’m curious to read (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The Last Picture Show) those I may not have wanted to read at all (Atlas Shrugged), and those I’m completely stoked to read.

Woman of Rome, Crying of Lot 49, and (even though I’ve read it before) the Sound and the Fury are among the latter.

Let’s set the scene and find out how one of the 20th century’s finest novels wound up in one of the 21st century’s finest shows.

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September 11, 2020 0

Hornblower the hero and broken men without honour

Peggy is visiting her sister, Anita, in S2E08 (A Night to Remember) and drops off C.S. Forester’s Hornblower in the West Indies for Anita’s husband, Gerry Respola, who’s laid up with a “bad back” and “hates his job.”

Gerry isn’t in the episode and no one’s seen reading the book, but it’s on screen, so I read it.

Basic summary: Horatio Hornblower is Commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s ships and vessels in the West Indies and trying to keep order in the post-Napoleonic War world. He fights pirates, revolutionaries, a hurricane and all the things you’d expect in a swashbuckling, sea-faring, tall ship adventure.

He is full of honour, does the right thing, and is loyal to his doting wife and son.

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July 9, 2020 0

Ayn Rand and Dick Whitman’s dropped Zippo

This one almost ended the reading list before it got out of the gates.

Bertram Cooper calls Don into his office in S01E08 (The Hobo Code), tells him to take his shoes off and then offers him a huge bonus ($2,500).

Then he says the following:

“Have you read her? Rand. Atlas Shrugged. That’s the one… When you hit 40 you realize you’ve met or seen every kind of person there is, and I know what kind you are because I believe we are alike. By that I mean you are a productive and reasonable man and completely self-interested. It’s strength. We are different; unsentimental about all the people that depend on our hard work.”
-Bertram Cooper

Well great.

I had no interest in picking up another Ayn Rand book after ploughing through The Fountainhead (because a friend insisted I “had to” read it), and I certainly didn’t have a tonne of appetite for Rand’s final novel: the “dramatization of her unique vision of existence and of man’s highest potential,” her 12-year project, her longest book (1,168 pages), the tome of tomes: Atlas Shrugged.

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May 14, 2020 0

Israel, community, utopia and the other

There are two books in this episode, and I am starting with the one that comes second in the episode: Exodus.

Am I the only one that cares enough to mention that? Probably.

Anyway…

Exodus, by Leon Uris is the book that started the Mad Men reading project for me. The book was, as I’ve written before, sitting on my bookshelf when I was watching the episode (S01E06, Babylon) for the second time, and because it played such a prominent role in the episode, and I hadn’t read the book, I stopped watching, read it and continued on.

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April 18, 2020 0