Monday, May 07, 2012

Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream (a non-academic post)

 . . . or not. It is summer, but it is academic summer, which means as much gearing up to write as the winding down of classes. Time to take stock? Okay.
  • It was a heavy service semester, but the service brought some recognition from administrators whom I didn't think knew I existed, so that was good.
  • It was a good semester for being more assertive, possibly because of all those service meetings in which I had to take a leadership role.
  • And, in Mad Men thoughts: Joan would not have said "it is what it is." She would have said "that's just how it is" or maybe "and that's the way it is" and made a joke of it because that was Walter Cronkite's signoff line for years.
  • And that song was perfect, although like Historiann and everyone else, I'm starting to worry a lot about a certain petulant character who is looking more and more fragile with every passing episode.  
  • When I saw the title of the episode, all I could think of was the last line of Plath's poem: "And I eat men like air." 

3 comments:

Stacey Lee Donohue said...

I had same thoughts about both Mad Men episode: "it is what it is" not a 1960s phrase. And Pete's "on the side" as a Plath-like character: well, she does eat Pete like air, but certainly not hubby...

Historiann said...

Yes to everything you said, Undine.

Can we banish "it is what it is" from our vocabulary now? Also: "Here's the thing: . . . "

Thank you.

One clarification: I would not be opposed to the douchey rapist Pete offing himself, or being offed. Seems like it's about time.

undine said...

Stacey--she does eat Pete like air and also gets him thinking in cosmic terms--not good.

Historiann--Absolutely banish it, along with "Here's the thing." I don't know about killing off Pete, although I think that's where they're headed. MM has to have two of them, like a set of drama masks: Comic Douche Harry, now that he has lost his season 1 sweetness, and Tragic Douche Pete. He's like the sump pump of douchery, which attracts all the excess so that everyone doesn't get swamped with it.