It's All About...

Mad Men.

Mad Men.

I know I said I was sick of television, and I am, but there is something I think you should be watching after all the Law & Order reruns and tacky VH-1 reality shows.

It's Mad Men, the new original series from AMC. It follows a high-powered advertising executive in the golden age of the industry that would sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. As a career. Just imagine, 1960: cigarette advertising, women oh-so-slowly rising in the workplace, Americans willing to believe anything packaged in a way that made them feel better about their lives.

My storylines are interesting and the characters pretty well-developed and all that jazz, but what this show really has is style. The fashion, the surroundings, the events, the lingo -- they're museum quality. It's not a glamorized version of the decade, or a portrayal of A Simpler Time. (As if they were ever simple. Please.) It just is what it is, nostalgia be damned.

Mad women.

Check out new episodes at 10 p.m. Thursday on AMC, and watch for repeats throughout the week.

Also, here's the Fresh Air interview with Matt Weiner, the show's creator.

And a New York Times story about the fashion and detail.

And another about the ad industry and how it changed.

Once, Teen Board and comics.

Today, we clean a few messes, tend a few errands. I've been away for a while, and distracted by television in ways I can't begin to excuse.

Here's what I should have been telling you...

• Once is back in the Bluegrass. You can catch this magical little film at Lexington Green movie theater. I laughed! I wept! I bought the soundtrack! The DVD is due out in September, but it's so worth seeing it in a dark theater, preferably with someone who is equally prone to, um,  getting dust in their eyes.

• The Herald-Leader Teen Board is accepting applications. If you're in high school in Central or Eastern Kentucky, you're eligible. Here's a link to the PDF of the application. The deadline is Aug. 31. You must fill out the application, send us a photo and write out a few story ideas.



• The comics poll rolls on, but only until Sept. 8. If you dearly love Get Fuzzy or really hope Ziggy dies in a tragic accident, now is the time to let us know. Vote at the online ballot, or leaf through your print copy for a mail-in ballot.

Now, I'm off to Kentucky's friendly little getaway, Paris, for an interview and maybe a lunch downtown. Get busy!

The best and worst of Fall TV.

I know each and every one of you was busy reading your Herald-Leader yesterday, but on the off chance that you missed our fine print product, here's the scoop from our special edition of Arts & Life: OMGTVWoOt!!1!brb!BACK!YAYTVnFall!!1!

As I mentioned last week, I recently surfaced from many days of drowning in television and even more days of writing about it. Great heaps of new shows will be debuting in the coming weeks, and we like to help you decide in advance what's worth watching. For this, I recommend the day-to-day breakdown of new shows, complete with snarky commentary and humbled praise.

If you're just not willing to spend that much time on television as, say, your fantasy football draft or organizing your bathroom -- two activities I recently learned can kill an entire weekend -- maybe you should read on for my list of the Five to See and the Five to Miss.

I'll go into more details about new shows as they premier, and offer reviews of shows that weren't available at press time, like Kid Nation, Nashville and Moonlight. Check back throughout the next month for more of that info.

And by all means, if you've got something to say, leave a comment. I am open to discussion. (Hey, Kelly: I don't know much about American Gladiators returning to NBC except that they're currently looking for contestants. Ummm...enjoy?)

And now, on to my top and bottom five.

Wearing the TV critic hat.

If you've read the Twitter at all in the past week, you've probably noticed that it's not updated very often, and it's mostly moaning about television. Yes kids, it's Fall TV Preview week! Our big ol' section with updates on every show we could get our mitts on will appear in Sunday's paper. And in fact, I'll dish more on the actual shows in the blog later on.

For now, though I'd like you to consider the role of the TV critic. I'm reluctant to give myself such a title. I do this once a year, and the rest of the time, I keep my opinions to myself outside this blog. The truth is, I really like reading. I like knitting. I like actually earning the degree I'm paying for. I like my friends, my cats, my family and half-off martinis at Anna Belle's. Very few of these things are conducive to watching television.

But while wearing my special occasion TV critic hat -- let's just say that it's significantly less attractive than my Derby hat -- I really go for it. I park at home with my small-but-mighty television and watch as many pilots as we've received. (Way to be tardy, NBC.) I consider the network they're on, the time slot they're in, the shows that come before and after, the shows on other networks before, after and during and the night of the week. I check out who's in it, who produced it, who directed it, who has their nubby little fingers in it. I consider it in the grand scheme of what is new this year, what was new last year and what has actually survived.

And I type.

This goes on for many hours. By no means is it simply lounging around, watching TV all day, bon bons in hand.

Sometimes I say nice things about shows that die quick, certain deaths. (Remember The Nine?)

Sometimes I'm dead wrong about where a show is headed. (I certainly saw Studio 60 topping 30 Rock. Boy. Was I wrong.)

Sometimes, I see a show that's just really fabulous, and it crushes my little heart to see it struggle. (FNL! You're back!)

Sometimes, though not often, I guess right. (The Class? Oh yes. I hated it immediately. And Smith. Ugh.)

It is all guessing. There are no guarantees about what people will love, what natural disaster will make something seem tasteless, which cast will have a meltdown that keeps it from moving forward. There's plenty of opportunity to be wrong.

Not surprisingly, TV preview week is also my grouchiest time of year.

To really learn how its done, check out the Television Without Pity interview with Maureen Ryan, the Chicago Tribune TV critic who seems to have a much better sense of balance than I. You might also enjoy  Ed Bark's blog. He's the former Dallas Morning News TV critic, and a real stand-up guy.

Now, if there is a show you're really dying to chat about, you should ask. For all my whining, I am now fairly well versed in what's happening this fall. Just leave a comment. We'll dish.

Helping the freshmen learn Lexington.

Talking with some new students here, it came clear exactly how little they know about Lexington. When they move to dorms and apartments around town, they're loaded down with campus maps and orientation activities, but nobody tells them which coffee shop is best for studying (Coffea Island, I'd say) and which is best for getting rowdy in an intellectual kind of way (Third Street Stuff, maybe.) In fact, they don't seem to mention much of what's going on off campus at all.

An issue of the Kentucky Kernel floating around UK's campus names hot spots as voted by students, faculty and staff. (A caveat: the issue is called a "PR supplement." Not sure what that means.) Looks like a good list, rattling off Rincon as the best Mexican food and Tolly Ho as the best late-night restaurant. But it also says The Olive Garden is the best Italian food and Macy's the best women's clothing store. Those are fine and all, but...really?

Almost 1,300 freshmen got together yesterday to help our community. Sharing some knowledge is the least we can do.

So what do you wish you'd known about this town when you got here? What's your favorite place, your favorite shortcut, the trick that took you too long to learn?

Here are a few from my list. It's by no means complete, but these are a few that come to mind first...

HSM2 or chamber music: What's your weekend style?

Have to be quick with what-to-do advice this morning so I can dive back into the fall TV preview. You'll thank me for this later.

Lexington's first-ever Chamber Music Festival is filling our city with beauty this weekend; next weekend, it'll be Picnic with the Pops. We took a different look at our summer mix this week and compiled our favorite classical music pieces.

Music: Walter Tunis points out the Charlie Sizemore Band and The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi are playing in the area this weekend. And yet, I suspect that High School Musical 2 and American Idols Live will be getting more attention -- the screaming, weeping, hysterical, I (heart) CHRIS-kind.

Movies: The new ones this weekend are Arctic Tale, The Invasion, The Last Legion and Superbad. I really want to love Superbad, because I really do love Judd Apatow, but I have a bad feeling in my stomach about this. Not Daddy Day Camp-bad, but you know.

Visual arts: Yea! It's Woodland Art Fair weekend! Despite the sweltering heat, this is just a cool-as-all-get-out event in town. Read Heather Castro's story to discover some changes at the fair and some of the artists that will be there.

Food: Clinton Comley reviewed Charlie Brown's, 816 E. Euclid Ave., which seems to be summed up in the phrase "none was spectacular, but all were good." Yes, we do need a quintessential hole-in-the-wall in this town, not to mention the mean Bloody Mary that he mentions...

Violet Beauregarde syndrome.

First, a scene, courtesy of the brilliant Roald Dahl:

“Blueberry pie and cream!” shouted Violet. “Here it comes! Oh my, it’s perfect! It’s beautiful! It’s…it’s exactly as though I’m swallowing it! It’s as though I’m chewing and swallowing great spoonfuls of the most marvelous blueberry pie in the world!”

“Good heavens, girl!” shrieked Mrs. Beauregarde suddenly, staring at Violet, “what’s happening to your nose!”

“Oh, be quiet, mother, and let me finish!” said Violet.

“It’s turning blue!” screamed Mrs. Beauregarde. “Your nose is turning blue as a blueberry!”

“Your mother is right!” shouted Mr. Beauregarde. “Your whole nose has gone purple!”

“What do you mean?” said Violet, still chewing away.

-----

This gluttonous pig of a girl, I'm afraid, is me. It's blueberry time. They're on sale at Good Foods Co-op. They're in stacks at the Farmers Market. They're at Cracker Barrel, at Starbucks, in the H-L's food section. I hear they're a precious commodity at the U-Pick places, which makes me want them more.

I eat them with all three meals. I find myself picking seeds and the shards of blue skin from my teeth at the least polite moments. It is so unspeakably hot outside that nothing else tastes good.

If I had a little more self-control and could manage to bake before the pint disappears, I'd probably make my favorite muffins of all time. Check behind the cut for more blueberry recipes rescued from the H-L archives, courtesy of the Wonder Woman of food, Sharon Thompson.

And if you've got better advice on how to use 'em, pass it along. Clearly, I need it.

Violet, you're turning violet, Violet! Yes, thanks, I think will.

PostSecret in video.

My favorite lazy Sunday activities: burying myself in the Sunday paper, picking up flowers at the farmers market, reading by my friend's pool while dangling my feet in the water, reading PostSecret.

There was a little variation on the PostSecret theme this week, when creator Frank Warren debuted a mini-movie instead of the usual 20 secrets culled from his batches of mail.

Here's it is -- with a link, if you can't see the embed:

I rather like it. The project has turned into a fascinating window into modern life's best and worst moments. This seems very Sundance, but I'd definitely be willing to watch an entire documentary -- just an idea -- about how the project is created, how it grew and how it impacts people. I've not sent anything to Frank's address, but I realized last week that I wonder often what artwork I'd used for certain sentiments. I'd say that adding PostSecret to the modern steps of grief or joy are a serious impact.

By the way,  a quick search on YouTube reveals that PostSecret is already fodder for plenty of moving amateur multimedia. (And a Flickr group of a similar idea.) Most famously, some secrets were used in the video for All-American Rejects song Dirty Little Secret. (Can't see it? Here's a link.)

Street Scene, Lex's new vintage shop.

::waves::

I'm home!

Let's get down to business.

Like many of my neighbors and cohorts, I mourned the loss of Jonk when it closed several months ago. The little vintage store off Third Street was the source of many an accessory and clothing item for me, and scads of gifts for others. Where else could you pick up a set of NASA glasses, a wicker purse and an X-Girl album in one stop?

So, I was thrilled -- giddy, really -- when my friend and I stopped in at Street Scene this weekend. Located at 2575 Regency Road, oh-so-conveniently next to Coffee Times. (It's open Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. Noon-5 p.m.) The shop has been open about a month, we heard, and had a steady stream of visitors while we were browsing.

And browse you must. Because aging luggage, absurdly heavy costume jewelry, melamine dishes and psychedelic afghans demand that kind of attention. It felt a bit like an Urban Outfitters, except, you know, real. And friendly. And reasonably priced. The whole place is designed in rooms, showing the design-inept how the turquoise fridge goes with the yellow saucers and the purple apron.

My choice loot for Trip #1:

Star earrings. Obviously, a necessity.

It's a nice addition to some of the smaller boutiques and resale stores we've already got in town. If you've got a favorite shop, or a tale of a good find, post it in the comments.

Don't be embarrassed. Love your star earrings.

Still away....

I'm away for another week IAA'ers, but you can see the selection of fine Kentucky.com blogs along the left rail. (Copious Notes is taking over the What To Do posts, so don't get all I'm-bored-there's-nothing-to-do on me.)

Check the Twitter for occasional updates and come visit me again next week!