Oh! And one more bit of rambling that I forgot. What do we think happened to Kinsey in Mississippi? I don't think he got beaten up in the riot (the wrong kind of anvilly, plus he would've been very carefully standing back from the truncheons). But does he magically come back less of a dick? Or did someone on the bus finally get sick of him and smack him, and he comes back and claims he was beaten down in the riot? (I'm inclined to think the latter, but my respect for Paul is the kind that is not.)

Joy lost the last page of her book. No need to say here how insane that makes me, I think?

I forgot about this. This is when I decided that Don was evil. That's so SHITTY. I mean, I knew that he was self absorbed, but damn! (I also had a moment of John Glover love, when he played the devil in Brimstone and there was a scene with him in a bookstore, ripping out the last pages of books, and you could see that they were in the "Mystery" section. EVIL.)

And did you notice how deliberately we were shown that it was a page with real text on it?

Yes. And it was the very last page! I was hoping there would be a blank page at the end, but Weiner hates me that way.

(And he'd probably even check that the paperback edition available at the time did not, in fact, have extra pages bound into it. That is the extent to which he hates me that way.)

If you pause that frame and zoom in, the text on the page is probably something to the effect of "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! TAKE THAT, BOOK-LOVING FANS! Love, Weiner"

I told Beau that if someone did that to me, I would lose my mind and give that person a beat down.

why not the title page of the book?

Because the last page makes it less obvious the book has been mutilated and will be discovered long after he's gone. Except in my house; I read the end first.

Because the last page makes it less obvious the book has been mutilated and will be discovered long after he's gone. Except in my house; I read the end first.

You think it was that deliberate? I thought it was just Don not giving a shit.

Not really. Just looking at other possibilities in the generic. I'm totally of the opinion that Don is one of the most self-centered pricks I've ever met. Yet, you can see his unhappiness with so many things, but he can't stop being the jerk he is. I thought I saw him pause just a second before he tore that last page out, but that could be my wish fullfillment that Don would finally get a clue and quit being a total ass.

Hec would know better than me on this, but I think it's really just in the last generation or so that we got the idea that it would be dangerous fashion death to let anyone other than a pro touch it.

Haircutting technique pre-Sassoon wasn't that complicated. That's why after Vidal it was called "precision" haircutting. Think of the scene in Roman Holiday where Audrey Hepburn's character gets her hair cut. The guy just back combs it a bit and then whacks it off.

The emphasis was much more on styling than cutting back then. (There are some exceptions - razor cutting was already established by the early sixties. Layering for women's hair became common in the early fifties with the advent of the Italian Cut. But even then most women had their hair permanently waved which obviated the need for precise lines. The emphasis on cutting technique then was getting the layers even because that affected how the hair would set.)

You think it was that deliberate? I thought it was just Don not giving a shit.

I think it was deliberate. He wants to disappear again, hence waiting until no one was around to make that call.

I also thought it was a really deliberate contrast to his sending the book at the beginning and having written the inscription at the beginning.

Oh, and aside, I loved the choice of "What'll I Do?" as the song playing as Don's luggage was delivered to the apparently deserted (at least for the moment) house.

But I'm totally with Hec-- he has to return at some point. The question is, when, exactly, and what's he going to find when he does come back?