Pixelfighter and illustrator bitch
Tonight’s episode of Mad Men made me realise that this is the show that crystallises all my childhood interests. As a teenager I was really interested in advertising, and thought I might want to be a copywriter. Even did projects on the history of TV advertising. But I was even more obsessed with the 60s in the US. I read every novel and book from that time period as I could find the time for; I looked up maps of America to make sense of everything, from Montgomery to Kent State.
So to suddenly see the Speck murders feature so prominently, and of course the greater intrusion of Vietnam into the characters’ lives - man, it was like an epiphany.
On why Mad Men’s depiction of race and Madison Ave is accurate:
Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” came on my iTunes today. I remember first hearing that song on my dad’s silver TEAC cassette tape deck, back when you couldn’t just google lyrics. Getting stuck on ‘Saginaw’ in trying to decipher the words. Looking for America by listening through its pop songs, rewound tape by rewound tape.