Tag Archive: excerpts

Mad Men’s Queen Bee: Celebrating The Power of Joan

The following is an excerpt from Celebrating Mad Men, available in paperback and for Kindle. When Mad Men debuted in 2007, no one other than Jon Hamm got more press than Christina Hendricks, the buxom redhead who plays the always-in-control office manager Joan Holloway (later Joan Harris). It wasn’t just her good looks and voluptuous figure that drew attention (though neither hurt), it was the strength of her character. Her self-assurance and confidence gave viewers the sense that Joan was always in control. In an office full of women withering under the demands of their often lecherous bosses, Joan was a remarkable breath of fresh air, the very embodiment of an intelligent woman who had embraced the power of her own sexuality. Surprisingly, Hendricks, who…
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Why without George Romero, there is no The Walking Dead

The following is an excerpt from Dissecting The Walking Dead: Slicing Into The Guts of Television’s Hottest Show, available in paperback and for Kindle. Without George Romero, there is no The Walking Dead. His 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead, invented the modern zombie genre. Robert Kirkman himself has said on many occasions that his comic series and television show is essentially an extended take on Romero’s legendary film, borrowing all its core elements and reimagining them as an ongoing story rather than a single night of terror. In other words, if you want to understand where The Walking Dead comes from, you must understand Night of the Living Dead and the Romero mythos. As I examined in a previous post, Romero didn’t create the…
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MAD MEN: Seeing the show as a Period Piece

The following is taken from Celebrating Mad Men, available in paperback and for Kindle. MAD MEN AS A PERIOD PIECE “I’m interested in how people respond to change. Are they excited by the change, or are they terrified that they’ll lose everything that they know? Do people recognize that change is going on? That’s what the show’s about.” – Matthew Weiner  . One of the great joys of Mad Men comes from being immersed in a time and place that is not our own. We delight not only in the look and feel of the show, but also in the way in which it’s instructive when it comes to how people lived and behaved just a few short decades ago. It not only allows us a glimpse into that world, it also puts…
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Breaking Bad’s 10 Greatest Moments

The following is taken from Breaking Down Breaking Bad, available in paperback and for Kindle. The idea of selecting the greatest moments of a show filled with memorable moments is, admittedly, like asking to be slapped around for how absent-minded you are. Such a list can only ever spark a flurry of “how could you forget Moment X?” comments from readers. Still, it’s worth revisiting these scenes not only because it’s fun to roll a mental highlight reel, but because many of them distill the essence of Breaking Bad down to a few memorable minutes. Yes, there are some that were painful to leave off the list – Gale’s murder and Hank’s shootout with the Cousins spring immediately to mind – but you have to cut things off somewhere. Taken as a whole,…
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The Ghosts of Lakehurst Hangar No. 1: A real life ghost story

Halloween is almost here, so I figured I’d pull this out of the archives. The following is a real life ghost story plucked from my book, Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons. It was initially written for Weird Tales magazine and was penned alongside an essay on sleep paralysis called “Whispers of the Old Hag,” which one reviewer said was about “a real life condition that can be as terrifying as any horror story.” (For some reason, “Whispers” is no longer online at Weird Tales, so I’ve posted it in full right here.) “Ghosts” didn’t make the cut, but that was okay. I repurposed it for my book on the history of Lakehurst, a small Pine Barrens town in New Jersey. It was fun to research and write,…
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