C.R.E.A.M. The more Wu Tang related stuff I can convince Chris to make the better.

Pets are Superheroes is a new project Chris Piascik and I put together (check out our sweet domain, petsaresuperhero.es). Pet owners love their pets, and now they can give them the superhero treatment in an original drawing. We're really excited about getting this off the ground, thanks for helping us spread the word!

Lucero + Chris Piascik = obviously.

Each week, Chris Piascik draws something from the episode to go with this recap.

I think it's the middle of July and I say that as a way of introduction to this recap because I don't have anything else.
-Wow, what an opening. Don and Faye knocking boots, loudly. And just a month ago, Don couldn't go any further. "Lock the door behind you, as a courtesy." Is it discourteous to leave doors unlocked in this situation? "I'm taking everything interesting with me." It's just an apartment, Faye, my journal is in my briefcase.
-I guess we're through worrying about Don, huh? I had thought he was going to be a bad guy for longer, but he's turned it around.
-Joan's husband got called up to serve in Vietnam, which almost all of you have been looking forward to since before he even joined the army.
-"It's a business of sadists and masochists, and you know which one you are." This was truly Mrs. Blankenship's finest episode. From the "Not a chance" in the crossword puzzle scene with Bert, to this line, to dying.
-"One more drink and it will come out." The scene with Peggy and Abe was interesting. He's so earnest and sincere. Unfortunately, Peggy isn't a political person. Yet.
-"Most of the things that Negroes can't do, I can't do either and no one seems to care." I usually don't know the episode titles when watching or writing these, but I wanted to look it up today because I thought it'd be Glass Ceilings or something. Not far off, it's "The Beautiful Girls." This week was all about the ladies. The elevator shot at the end of Joan, Peggy, and Fay going down the elevator should have had the ghost of Blankenship in it. It was 3 working women at very different places in life and in the work force. Faye Miller got where she was because she made a choice to not have kids, and because as Ms. Blankenship pointed out, she opens doors without waiting to ask if it's OK. Peggy is just not starting to pay attention to human rights, but she's coming at it from a selfish perspective. Even little Sally Draper. She can't stand the way things are and ran away to make a change. It's not hard to imagine that foreshadowing future issues, but also seeing it as something all women during that time would want to do. "She died like she lived, surrounded by the people she answered phones for." From Ms. Blankenship to Sally, girls have it tough.
-Via Jessie, Faye Miller is the name Marilyn Monroe often used to check in to hotels the mental hospital.
-"Why do we have to convince him?" Don is still playing hard to get with the clients.
-"I offered you money and I said thank you." I just put this here because it reminded me of the scene 2 weeks ago when Don told Peggy "I give you money, you give me ideas." "That's what the money is for."
-"I would have my secretary do it, but she's dead." If you want to get someone to do something for you, try this line. If it's not true, everyone will get a good laugh. If it is true, it's amazingly effective.
-Normally, they're very good about this sort of thing, and this is admittedly nitpicking, but when Roger and Joan were in the diner, the ash on Joan's cigarette kept changing length...
-During the mugging, Roger kept his eyes down and didn't look the mugger in the face. And then Joan kissed Roger first. I wonder where this will go. Probably nowhere. Was this a Sal at the park moment?
-The french toast with rum was funny, but the punchline was telegraphed when Don kept eating. I chuckled.
-When Bert Cooper said he'd call Ms. Blankenship's niece, did that remind any of you of Don having to call Stephanie? Is Ms. Blankenship the only one who really knew Bert Cooper?
-I didn't realize this until Bert said something about it, but he doesn't have an office. That's why he always seems to be sitting around. I wonder where his art is.
-"Our job is to make men like Fillmore Auto, not make Fillmore Auto like Negroes." Being from Boston, I sometimes have a hard time picking up on accents that are supposed to be Boston accents. I didn't realize this until just now. I didn't know the Fillmore Auto dudes were from Boston, but I suppose it makes sense.
-"It feels like it was a test and I failed it." Nah, Faye, you did fine. Is everything a test to you? It obviously concerned you, if you were up all night. She seemed to do OK with the babysitting, though.
-"Jesus, what a mess." I believe this will be the subtitle for the comprehensive 25 DVD box set when it comes out after the series ends. Mad Men: Jesus, What a Mess.

My latest @eatBoston event is today and tomorrow. Ice Cream Showdown! The best ice cream shops from the Boston area setting up in a parking lot to support deserving local organizations. This year is 2 days in 2 different parts of town. Full info including participants, T Shirts, etc at the link above.

Every week, I write a recap about that night's Mad Men episode and Chris Piascik draws one.

Whereas last week, the episode was slow taking a lot of time with what happened, this week seemed to jump around. There was less of a focus on "What I want to do" vs "What's expected of me," and more of a look at the advertising world. These are nice episodes, too.
-"Brief nudity." Well, now!
-"Why is this empty?" "Because you drank it all." There are more and more references each episode to Don's drinking. Is this building to something? Later in the episode, Alison calls him a drunk.
-Clearasil needs to be moved, putting Pete in an awkward position, which everyone seems to love doing. This is similar to Don having to fire the airline when Duck Phillips thought they had a shot at (Pan Am? US Air?).
-"Lucky Strike noticed they're being billed for all the work we do for everyone else at this agency." I'd happily trade Lee Garner for Sal at this point.
-Peggy seems to work really hard at not feeling awkward in unusual situations. Being hit on by a woman in a dingy loft party? No problem! Let's be friends. It did lead to some of the best dialogue of the night, "I have a boyfriend." "He doesn't own your vagina." "No, but he's renting it." "You're not working on something else," because everyone in advertising has a novel in their bottom drawer. "Art in advertising? Why would anyone do that after Warhol." "Sorry, for someone to sell their soul, they've got to have one."
-The moment when Peggy was trying on Faye's engagement ring, Don saw her, and she saw him notice her... It's almost like Don and Peggy still share something between them, deeper than having slept together. Peggy doesn't know about Dick Whitman, right? She'll eventually find out.
-And then Peggy and Alison. Alison assumes Peggy had slept with Don, as well, and that they could commiserate. Peggy pushes back hard on this. What they shared is deeper than a one night stand. Interesting that Alison couldn't hack it, though. This is why you have rules, Don. Don't break'em.
-Pete also had some great moments in the episode. I had the sound off and I watched the scene with his father-in-law while I was writing this. You could tell what was being said, just from the expressions. Great acting. Then Pete goes home and seems genuinely excited about having a baby. Did you catch the, "How would you know how this feels?" line?
-Pete and Ken was funny. It's nice to have Cosgrove back, he looked a little heavy. I liked how he went after Pete for stuff he may or may not have said, and some stuff he definitely didn't. Ken looks heavier and seems down on advertising. Though he's happier now than when he was at McCann. The writers don't think too highly of McCann, do they? Just for old times, Ken says something ridiculous without any sense of irony at all, "Another Campbell, that's just what the world needs."
-And at the end of the episode, Peggy and Pete had a moment. It seemed like recognition and forgiveness? They smiled. Did the cut to the old people, "Did you get the pears?" mean anything, or was it just a cut? Did you get the pears? Pairs?
-Alison and Don's confrontation was great. This time, however, Don didn't seem to be trying to be cruel. He wasn't hurting her because he was being selfish, he just didn't know what to do to fix the situation. Don thought it was nice to let Alison write her own recommendation. Alison was furious because she thought it showed Don cared even less about her. If he cared, he would have been able to write something nice.
-Cooper. Hanging out in reception eating an apple. Why not?
-"Every time you jump to conclusions, Tom, you make me respect you less." That's a burn!
-What seemed to be a relatively recurring theme this episode, new vs old advertising. Science (Faye Miller) is telling them to stick with what's work, but Don rebels against this, and to a certain extent, Peggy trying to get the artist involved, does, as well. Don's argument is that people don't know what they like. They don't say what they want and how they want to be marketed to and the good advertisers will tell them. This has come up before, though usually in regards to clients. Don and Peggy work well together because, not only do they think of new messaging, they think of new angles. This goes against what the "science" says. "A new idea is something they don't know yet, so of course it's not going to come up as an option." "You can't tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved."
-Part of Don's aversion to Faye Miller's science is his passion for privacy. He doesn't like market research and all the tricks Faye uses to get her information.
-Don was less of a bad guy in this episode. In conversations this week, I mentioned I thought it was possible Don would last the series without ever becoming redeemable. What if he was just a bad guy, a cad, who just kept getting worse? He'd certainly be interesting as a protagonist, and Matthew Weiner would have experience with that type of character from The Sopranos. In the previous 3 seasons, there was always a charm to Don. We hadn't seen that in the first 3 episodes, and, in fact, he went in reverse. I'd say Don was stayed in neutral in this episode, what with the lack of hitting on secretaries and nieces of very close friends.

What did I miss?

Every week, I write a recap of Mad Men, and Chris Piascik illustrates something from the episode. Here's week 3.

I guess we need to start expecting weekly lines of dialogue like, "Is that what you want? Or is that what people expect of you" show up in the episodes. That is the theme of Mad Men, struggling to live within the expectations people have for you. Right now, Don is living it up right on the edge. Should we start 1965, everyone?
-Oh, look, there's Joan's creepy doctor. She's wrestling with the expectation that she start a family. I don't get the sense that she really wants to, but she does seem to want to fulfill expectations. 2 procedures, hmm? "Whatever will be, will be" is not usually how it goes on Mad Men. We're talking about people who need control.
-Harry Crane looks a lot better this week. Not sure what his appearance was supposed to convey in week 1. I couldn't put my finger on something about him since the middle of last year, but the character plays with a subtle confidence. He's not arrogant, but he also doesn't let Draper and the others push him around. He takes the abuse, but he doesn't seem so neurotic anymore.
-Guess Don IS going to Acapulco, but first a quick stop in LA. He's going away, running away, but stopping at the one place he feels at home, Anne Draper's house. His familiarity with Anne's sister and niece lead us to believe he's spent a lot more time out in LA than we knew before. That wasn't the 2nd time he'd met them, or even the 3rd.
-After Lane wishes Don a Happy New Year, Don says "Enjoy your family". Kind of a weird thing to say, but in retrospect, it foreshadows trouble.
-"Consider me the incorruptible exception". The Lane/Joan plot-line was fun, starting with this quotation leading to an epic florist screw up. Too bad Lane couldn't FaceTime with his wife to smooth things over.
-More on Don in LA. "Are you sitting in?" Don's conservativeness seems to be less about a personal belief structure, and more about a fear of change. Going to have to think on that one some more.
-"You're in charge. Trust me, I work in advertising." Indeed.
-Jan and Dean is who brought you Stephanie's bathroom break.
-"Have you been there?" "No, but every time I hear this song, I want to go." Don's always wants to go. Somewhere. He likes the idea of the place, any place, but can't figure out where it is.
-Oh, so it's Breyer's time in the fake Mad Men commercial world. This makes me want to buy your product less. Just know that, Breyer's.
-Don making a move on Stephanie was something of a plot device to show us he's still a cad. It was telegraphed as soon as she walked into the house in a bikini top. It's meant to contrast his not caring about anything with his caring for Anne.
-"But no one knows what's wrong with themselves and everyone else can see it right away." It's all so obvious that everyone is unhappy, but if we all ignore it, it'll be fine. Anne doesn't know she has cancer, but everyone else can see there's something wrong. Don doesn't know he's in a downward spiral, but everyone else can see it.
-Anne's sister sets Don straight. "You're just a man, in a room, with a checkbook." This is what Don has been in his family's life for a long, long time, and I think hearing it was something of a shock. He sat Anne down to tell her she had cancer and then did the right thing by not. This is another interesting contrast because Don runs away from this problem, too. In this case, however, he did what was best for Anne and her family at the expense of the thing that would have made him feel better (commiserating with Anne).
-No idea what the discussions of UFOs means, though it did bring out the conversation about how thin reality is.
-Just noticed this Helvetica poster in the break room at SCDP.
-Is Joan a cutter? She certainly seemed to purposely cut herself to get attention of the doc. It worked for the time being.
-"Although things are precarious financially, it's been a magnificent year." SCDP really has done well in the last year to go from the hotel to 2 floors at the Time Life Building. It is part of the thin reality mentioned earlier. Don and Lane are having terrible years!
-When they go to the movies, they have a courtesy seat between them. Guess that's not new. In fact, almost everything about Don and Lane on the town was funny, including Lane's outburst in the restaurant. "Is that what you want? Or is that what people expect of you."
-Did the comedian introduce Paul Simon or Rudy Jensen?
-This episode didn't seem to move time along as fast as some of the other episodes, and I think that contributed to it seeming a bit slow. What'd you think?

My friend, Chris Piascik, and I thought we'd do something different for this season of Mad Men. We meant to start last week, but forgot. In any case, every episode this season will have a recap from me and a daily drawing from Chris. If you're looking a this and there's no daily drawing, it'll be here shortly. Hope you enjoy!

Christmas, 1964. 2 new characters (Phoebe, the nurse neighbor, and Dr. Faye Miller, the product marketing scientist) and 2 old characters (Sketchy Glenn and Ready Freddie Rumsen). Tonight's episode seemed, more than other episodes, to contrast old fashionedness with the new way of doing things. I can't remember men typing before (except for maybe Roger at one point), and tonight we had Don (who is quite adept at the typing, he's no hunt and peckerer) and Freddie tapping away. Peggy also had a typewriter at home, which seemed to be in the middle of the scene. There's also Freddie's old fashioned thoughts on how to market to women contrasting with SCDP's hiring of a market research firm, Motivational Research Group.
-It's weird the Christmas episode airs in August. Subtle how Don gets Bobby a drum set for Christmas. That'll make Betty very happy. I imagine she'll never let him play it.
-"Suffice to say, we're in a fraternity together." Freddie is back and he's in AA. Did a pretty good job staying clean this episode.
-It was pretty clear that something is going to happen between Faye Miller and Don just based on the first scene, they were eying each other pretty heavily. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a couple episodes before she pops up again. "I'm disappointed, I thought you came in to flirt, but you came in to fight." During their last scene, Faye also expressed her advertising philosophy: "It all comes down to what I want versus what's expected of me." This calls to mind Don's explanation from season 1, "Advertising is based on 1 thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? It’s the smell of a new car, it’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard, on the side of the road, that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK."
-Another contrast in this episode was Lee Garner's overt sense of entitlement compared to Don's less explicit. Lee acts like spoiled child, petulant and needy, forcing SCDP to re-plan their Christmas party. "I trust you'll make the necessary improvements." He genuinely seems pleased with his gift. "Reminds me of when I was a kid. Remember that? You ask for something and then you get it? Makes you happy." Don gets what he wants, but does it a little quieter. Having Allison bring his keys to him is one thing, making a move on her, and Phoebe to boot, show Don as a cad, taking what he wants. At least Lee Garner is paying a lot of money for SCDP to tolerate his boorish behavior. "Put it on, Roger. Put it on."
-Sally Draper really does seem happy that Sketchy Glenn trashed her house as a way of showing his love. I don't know what's going on here. "Don't turn on the lights, shithead."
-So, er, Don's going to Acapulco by himself?
-Last week, Don mentioned his floor wax commercial was supposed to make viewers feel like it was a part of the show they were watching. Dove did that on this week's episode of Mad Men, and I'm a little surprised Mad Men went for it. More gimmicky then I expect from them.
-At the Christmas party, Bert Cooper and the market research dude are railing against socialism and Obamacare. Good times! "If they pass Medicare, they won't stop until they ban personal property."
-Pete and Trudy in the front of the Conga line. They love to shake it.
-Peggy almost certainly doesn't think her boyfriend is marriage material, otherwise she wouldn't have slept with him.
-Which leaves us with Don and Allison. I suppose it was bound to happen at some point, Don sleeping with someone from work, but he'd always been so careful before. We know he likes being taken care of. After last episode's prostitution scene, I was concerned Don would give Allison her Christmas bonus after giving her a Christmas bonus (wink, wink), he did the next worst thing and gave it to her the next morning. "I just wanted to say thank you for bringing my keys."
-What else?

Chris and I were having a conversation last week and this came up, I forget about what. Waffles, I guess. This is sort of like getting my name up in lights, by the way.

Posting has been light the last couple weeks as I've been putting together the 2010 Boston Bacon & Beer Festival with SoWa Sundays. One of the other things I do besides Unlikely Words is @eatBoston, a local food and restaurant information source. I like to put on events with Boston area restaurants every couple months.

It's probably an impossible task, but I'd like to shift the direction of the bacon meme. It's tired. In order to do this, I asked some of Boston's best restaurants to offer a unique take on bacon. Along with some great local and craft breweries, there will also be butchery demonstrations showing attendees where bacon comes from. And what's a festival without music? The event sold out over 1300 tickets 3 weeks ahead of the event and there will be no tickets available at the door. Chris Piascik did the poster above along with some other designs.

For a full list of the restaurants and breweries, you can visit the info page.