Mad Men Season 3: the Rising Tide of Life

Like Botticelli's goddess, Don Draper, the male Venus from AMC's Mad Men, is quietly succumbing to a rising tide. Climate change, Hurricane Katrina, the idea of Falling Slowly ("Take this sinking boat and point it home," from the Frames song): submergence emergencies are in the air (or – the water).

Maybe we're all drowning in debt? Too Much Information? Or, in Don's case, his head is swimming, thanks to ambivalent relationships, the murky art of Mad Avenue persuasion, and all those guilty secrets.

If you follow this link, you can see a video about the creation of the Mad Men Season 3 poster, where Don/Jon Hamm is calmly getting up to his neck in water, while smoking in his office chair. I nibbled my fingernails worrying about electric shocks the whole time I watched it: do not try this at home.

Season 3 begins next Sunday, August 16th – how exciting! I'll be there.

"God Bless Mom"

My son Jack knows that I like songs in what we have come to call the "God Bless Mom" genre. The ur-text for these is Glen Hansard's "God Bless Mom", by the Irish group The Frames. Here is the official GBM youtube video, sent out to my own Mom-Joyce, who is spending her birthday at a hermitage retreat (with Wally, of course) in northern Minnesota. She's not twittering or logging on, but I can picture the two of them on snowshoes in the quiet of the woods.

There's something about a group of Irish lads making music on the love-your-mom theme that warms the very cockles of my heart. I can appreciate the screeching, head banging effects, too. The best version is on their Live in Dublin album, "Set List": this one is nice for the video view and the brief interview at the end on late night Irish telly with the late, lovely Uaneen Fitzsimons.

Here are the lyrics. hmmm...maybe I really should should buy the ringtone for this song.

God bless mom
Best of all
Spread your wings
Fly or fall

You'll see how hard it can be
To keep your side of the deal
And you'll see how hard it can be
To keep one foot in the real

God bless you
Strong and true
Stay at home
Good as gold

And you'll see how hard it can be
To keep your side of the deal
And you'll see how hard it can be
To keep one foot in the real

I Heart The Frames

I'm up early, working on a design project....enjoying the pre-dawn hours, as I often do. Most of the time I prefer to work in silence, but sometimes I click on The Frames.

Okay, the Frames: what can I say? Like so many people, I discovered them through the movie Once, which I saw 4 times in 1 week last year. (Those who know me best know that I never do this with movies.) Then I bought all of their music, and a great (signed by the lads) poster of a weathered barn, from their Euro Winter 2007 tour.

I lived in Ireland for one year in the late 80s, teaching at Trinity College Dublin. It was a fantastic experience, for which I will be forever grateful. Alas, I haven't returned for many years. I hope to connect with Irish friends through elenabella, so if you are out there, please jump in!

Now I'm a mother, so my favorite Frames song is 'God Bless Mom' from the live Set List CD. My kids find the enthusiasm I have for this song to be quite amusing. Lots of car crashes and head banging: "You know how hard it can be, to keep one foot in the real." Now back to the wheel, the grindstone.

Any other hard core Frames fans out there?