you ask and the universe (and amc) provides

so.

i've taken to twittering. and then gareth kay pointed out that don draper, the lead character of the AMC show "Mad Men" is also twittering. so i followed his tweets, and now he's following mine, and so is peggy olsen, and so is betty and so is salvatore and it's just so much to follow! i'm not even sure if it's linked to the show, and there seems to be office intrigue that's going on in the twitterverse but not on the screen and it's just really so much big geek fun. i heart it the heartiest.

and then i put up a simple tweet about trying to combine don draper and robots. a simple dream, from a simple girl.

the other day, on the plane to dallas, i caught up on mad men - a show i find so resplendent, so detestable, so delicious in its period accuracy that i can't turn away. i noticed two important things.

1. i'm a better tv viewer on a plane with my iPhone then i am at home. i actually watch the show instead of also checking email or also reading my googlereader feeds or also playing mah-jongg.
2. don draper destroyed a robot. little bobby was playing with the robot at the dinner table and he knocked over sally's glass with the robot and betty went apeshit and don, fed up with the day and probably most of his life, picked up the robot and dashed it against the kitchen wall. i have one word for this: hot.

i did some searching for the robot. i didn't get a good look at it before it met its unfortunate end, but i think this might be it... you see, robots are for everyone. i bet i could work some serious symbolism out of that robot - robot as symbol of labor, lack of free will, oppression, slavery. a mere plaything to a child, but a tyrant to a man. who keeps don draper down? only himself. when his wife tries to submit him to her will, force upon him decisiveness and authority to overwhelm her own parental defects (and what's with her total resentment of the kid?), he rebels, grasps the idol of his own slavery and demolishes it like some golden calf. i think this means that don draper is moses.

Robots March on Brooklyn

I live in Brooklyn. Carroll Gardens. Previously known simply as South Brooklyn. A neighborhood known for longshoremen, Italians, bakeries, soppresatta, lawn chairs and funeral homes. Or at least, known to me for these qualities. Actually, the neighborhood is known for having both front and back gardens for each brownstone. The Los Angeles Times (via Gothamist) did a nice little video ... here it is:



Brooklyn used to be a place to get more square footage for less money. Manhattanites moved out to the 718 and brought their Maclaren strollers, enrolled in prenatal yoga at Area, overwhelmed the farmers market in Grand Army Plaza and generally overpopulated the place to the extent that the F train is always crowded and usually painfully late. I'm one of them, sans stroller or prenatal anything. I've been to the farmer's market once. It was nice.

The emblem of all that is yuppie reprehensible in Brooklyn is Park Slope. There's a whole 'thing' brewing over the rising cost of real estate pushing out even the nice folks making a meager six figures. Blog comments are racist and rude, obscenities fly, even those who got off the boat from the East Village three months ago are rallying to the cry of 'there goes the neighborhood.' I like to think that these neighborhoods can be reclaimed by nature (or economics) - grass, trees, weeds all grow up through the cracks in the cement, ivy overtakes mortar and slowly destroys a brick building, and a few well-timed stabbings and shootings on the hipster circuit can reclaim Williamsburg, Fort Greene, Park Slope, and South Brooklyn, rendering it safe only for those brave enough to get off the subway at night. Frankly, it's a bunch of shite. Neighborhoods change - the people who owned those lots and buildings since converted to condos and co-ops made a pretty penny in the process and should take some responsibility for the changes in that neighborhood. They could have kept their Italian longshoremen's families in the nabe, but they wanted to sell out and move out just as much as the yuppies and hipsters were willing to buy in and move in. If they don't stay forever - well, blame the permalancer economy.

I digress. It's also possible that my jet lag is getting the better of my reasoning and sentence construction. So I'll cut to the robot chase - or rather, the robot parade. Some Park Slopians held a robot parade awhile back...



They weren't selling anything. There was no particular purpose to it. It was fun - I'm sorry I missed it. To check out the flickr feed, go here.