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The "Mad Men" Files: It's Different Inside
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: advertising, alcohol, Brendan Gill, Geoffrey T. Hellman, Mad Men, Susan Black, television
Martin Schneider writes:
I introduced a feature last year called "The Mad Men Files" (1 2), and I recently discovered a good occasion to try to spark it again.
For those who are completely up to date, I recommend a perusal of the Talk of the Town of August 3, 1963, which happens to contain two items that seem to relate to Season 3.
First, in Susan Black and Brendan Gill's item about Radio City Music Hall, they note that "'Bye Bye Birdie,' the movie that played [the Hall] during Easter this year, holds the record for the week's biggest gross—$233,825, with an attendance of 165,255."
On the next page is a brief and rather lyrical item by Geoffrey T. Hellman, which is worth quoting in full:
Has Mr. Conrad Hilton, who is the chief of Hilton Hotels International (as well as domestic) and, in a way, a one-man Peace Corps, been bearing tall tales south of the Rio Grande? We are moved to this question by receipt of a multicolored postcard from vacationing friends in Acapulco ("The scenery from our patio is more beautiful than even Capri") which bears a photograph of an irregularly shaped swimming pool and the legend "Las Brisas Hilton. Pink cottages and cocktail-sized pools surrounded by Acapulco Blossoms." The pool, we should judge, is some eighteen feet long and about half as wide, or a good deal bigger than even a Yale Club Martini, said to be Manhattan's most ample. What must the Mexicans think of us and our gringo guzzles? Let poetic justice prevail. It remains for Mr. Cesar Balse, of Acapulco and Mexico City, the lessor of the St. Regis, to launch in the King Cole Room a pool-sized Bloody Mary, properly celebrated on a postcard bordered by Orange Blossoms as big as the Ritz.
Why the sudden interest in Conrad Hilton and his irregularly shaped swimming pools? Well, there appears to be good reason to believe that the elderly reprobate Don befriends at the abandoned country club bar is none other than Conrad Hilton. (Given the notoriety of his great-granddaughter, a delicious commentary on the present day, if so.)
Given that Season 3 is set in 1963, it's a resonant piece of prose, to say the least.
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Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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