And what a fifty years! The opening chapter is packed with enough jaw-dropping anecdotes about the restricted lives women lead that it’s hard to believe so much change could occur in one lifetime, though thanks in part to the recent success (obsession for some) of Mad Men, the first hundred pages of the book function as a sort of companion piece to the show. You can read more on the book here. In the meantime, Collins was nice enough to take time out to answer Mediaite’s 5QQ (five quick questions). Enjoy.

1. How do you get your first news of the day?

I download a digest version of the Times and listen to it on the way to work.

2. The “either, or” question (you gotta pick one!):

Stewart or Colbert?
Colbert

Twilight or Buffy?
Buffy

Albany or D.C.?
D.C.

Palin or Bachmann?
Palin has certainly given me more columns although Michele is coming up there.

Eleanor Roosevelt or Gloria Steinem?
Gloria would want me to say Eleanor Roosevelt.

Peggy Olson or Joan Halloway?
Peggy.

3. What’s the biggest story the media has missed this year (or last week)?

I’m part of the media. If I thought there was a big thing we missed, I should write a column about it, not complain about it.

4. Obligatory Twitter question: Describe yourself in 140 characters or less (hash tag optional).

Columnist and writer of women’s history books currently in mental meltdown over twitter assignment.

5. Are you nervous or excited about the future of Journalism? Why?

Excited. The next generation is going to get to make a whole new thing. I’ve got total confidence reporting will continue to go on, and actually get better on the state and local level. And there will be entirely new ways of writing that will be appropriate to the internet. It’s going to be amazing for young journalists. But in the near term, try to find a spouse who has good health insurance.

In today’s NYT column, Frank Rich speculates that the reason we are all obsessed with the show is that in many ways it mirrors the tone of our lives today:

What makes the show powerful is not nostalgia for an America that few want to bring back — where women were most valued as sex objects or subservient housewives, where blacks were, at best, second-class citizens, and where the hedonistic guzzling of gas and gin went unquestioned. Rather, it’s our identification with an America that, for all its serious differences with our own, shares our growing anxiety about the prospect of cataclysmic change. Mad Men is about the dawn of a new era, and we, too, are at such a dawn. And we are uncertain and worried about what comes next.

It is certainly true that less than seven months after January’s triumphant inauguration this country suddenly finds itself currently mired in anxiety, anger, and near-violence. That said, will the same be true for the characters in the series? Season two ended during the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Don Draper, having supposedly faced his demons out whilst m.i.a. on the west coast, is reunited with a newly-pregnant Betty, and Peggy, having triumphed over workplace sexism, has landed her own corner office. The season three opener (widely revealed to take place in 1963) certainly appears to suggest, however, that the more things change the more they stay the same (with one major exception, which I obviously won’t be telling you about).

So: What to tell you about the premiere? No details, that’s for sure! (I hate spoilers.) But here are two things to perhaps keep in mind, especially if you are new to the Mad Men fan club and have crammed all the previous episodes into a few weeks of viewing (and therefore haven’t had to suffer any sort of wait to find out, say, the repercussions of Peggy’s pregnancy, or who the woman is that Draper calls while on the fly in Palm Springs). My main takeaway is that Matthew Weiner does not like resolution. Or the sort of immediate resolution TV viewers have come to expect from regular September season premieres. Be prepared to be patient (and cope with a sort of viewer anxiety, I suppose). This, of course, is nothing new – devoted viewers may recall that we were a few episodes into Season two before all the story lines left dangling at the end of season one had a chance to work themselves out. It appears that trend will continue this season as viewers are dropped into the lives of these characters already in progress.

As for the rising water we’ve seen in all those advertisements? The opener only hints at its meaning. One of my favorite scenes from last season comes at the end of the second-to-last episode “Moutain King,’ which closes with Don Draper walking into the Pacific ocean in a sort of metaphoric baptism, only to emerge in the finale a changed and repentant man. Or is he? After two seasons of Mad Men even the casual fan probably knows better than to think plotlines or people are that simple (whether or not Betty has come to a similar conclusion remains to be seen). Draper hints at this lack of reinvention, himself, in a line partway through this first episode episode, which struck me as thematic (I will add it to the post later; I am serious about spoilers). Needless to say, for a show filled with such flawed and complicated characters, it’s safe to assume nothing will be tied up so easily. Or at all. It is this very refusal to resolve things neatly that, despite all its glamor and decadence, is the aspect of the show which most accurately mirrors real life.

In the meantime, while you wait for the 10pm hour, here is a video mashup set to Don Draper reciting parts of Frank O’Hara’s poem Mayakovsky from the collection Meditations in an Emergency (a copy of which pops up at the beginning and end of season two). It’s also a title that could aptly describe this show, which follows closely the smaller personal emergencies of its characters against the backdrop a country on the brink of larger catastrophe.

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that Mad Men is debuting its third season this Sunday. For the past month fans have been inundated with Mad Men Twitter avatars, Mad Men window-dressings, and Mad Men-themed websites. All this smoke-filled, sexed-up, whiskey-splashed glamour is enough to make one long for the heady days of the early Sixties — who knew advertising could be so compelling? We know who — the folks at Morning Joe, currently representing the most harmonious blend of advertising and editorial on the airwaves. Don Draper himself couldn’t have topped it (and he might even have switched out his whiskey for a Venti Frappucino). From there, the comparisons suddenly seemed obvious. So, in the tradition of merging the media beat with whatever pop culture sensation we’re currently obsessed with (Harry Potter and the Media Muggles, anyone?) we thought it would be fun to cast the Mad Morning Men (and Women) of Morning Joe. Hey, what else are you gonna do until Sunday at 10?

Don Draper – Joe Scarborough

Just as Don Draper’s voice can dominate a hushed conference room filled with clients, so too does Joe’s voice dominate the show that bears his name, though it’s decidedly not hushed. Scarborough, a former Congressman, is certainly no stranger to selling, nor does he lack for Draper-esque confidence. We’ve noticed he’s traded in his zipper sweatshirts for dark suits of late, but that’s not all it is — of any character on Morning Joe, he’s the one we can most easily see sitting in a darkened bar with a glass of something amber at his side. Besides, couldn’t his book on the GOP just as easily been called “Meditations on an Emergency?”

Joan Holloway – Mika Brzezinski

And what is Don Draper without a beautiful woman nearby? Mika puts the “Joe” in “Joanie,” who keeps things moving at Sterling Cooper with brisk (and bodacious) efficiency. Similarly Mika keeps the trains running on Morning Joe, as well as being the resident sex symbol (and she’s got the Peggy Noonan-shocking shoes to prove it). No word on what Mika’s college roommate might think.

Pete Campbell – Willie Geist

Oh, we’re on to you, Willie Geist. You with your affable smile and quickness to joke — we’ve watched your rise through the ranks at MSNBC, always with an eye on the top spot. Like a junior ad executive doing what’s necessary to bring in that Clearasil account, you scored that plum 5:30 anchor spot — just another feather in your cap while you bide your time. Somewhere under your bed, we know there’s a box of photographs that will finish Joe Scarborough once and for all. You don’t fool us.

Peggy Olsen – Erin Burnett

There she is, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chipper but professional, girlish but savvy with an eye on the prize. Peggy Olsen? Erin Burnett? Exactly. Both have risen meteorically in their respective workplaces, making the heads of more seasoned types whip around, but they don’t mind the gawking (or whispering), they’ll just work a little harder like they always do. How else can you get ahead in a man’s world?

Duck Phillips – Dylan Ratigan

Is he in or is he out? That’s what we’re all wondering about Duck Philips, who secretly switched sides last season as he tried to wheel-deal himself a better place in the larger framework of Sterling Cooper and its parent corporation. Hmm, sounds like Dylan Ratigan, who just a few months ago was out (at CNBC) then in (at MSNBC), wheel-dealing himself a primo slice of the morning pie. Is Morning Meeting a challenger to Morning Joe just as Duck is a challenger to Don? Yeah, Don — and Joe — look pretty worried.

Roger Sterling – Rick Stengel

These two silver foxes have more in common than just their initials: Roger is the dashing, debonair partner at Sterling Cooper, running the show when he’s not running off to hotel rooms for midday trysts; Rick is the dashing, debonair managing editor at Time, running the show when he’s not running off to host glittering parties with celebrities. Rumor had it that he sometimes goes on the prowl as “The Ricker”; we are totally not sure who started that rumor.

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