So, in movies I posted a link about Garret Brown, inventor of the Steadicam and also a voiceover artist.

Turns out he had a quintessentially Mad Men yet odd career. First he was a folksinger, and then...

In 1964 I was newly married, but with no possible way to get a job. I had no skills that anybody wanted; I had no degree. Somebody had said to me that advertising is a great "bolt hole for ne'er-do-wells." A friend of mine who had gotten a job as an account man for McCann-Erickson put it that way exactly.

At that point I had fallen in love with an 8mm Bolex [film camera] that a neighbor of mine had. I started really getting infatuated with shooting film and thinking about film. That's when I went into the library. My wife worked; I spent three months reading all the books [on film in the Philadelphia Public Library]. [See "Garrett Brown: Inventing the Future -- along with a Few Handy Personal Gadgets".] I tried to get a job in one of the 30 or so film companies in Philly then. None of them would hire me -- not even to sweep floors, as the saying goes. I mean, they would say, "Well, can you A and B roll and cut negative?" [I'd say,] "Well, I know how to do it, [although] I haven't ever done it." [And they'd say,] "Get out of here."

So I decided to try and get a job in an ad agency as a writer. I made a resume, myself -- one resume of construction paper with photos from my folk days and reviews and all this stuff that I thought would be impressive to somebody. [It was] probably one of the weirdest resumes anybody ever saw. I showed this to people in the ad biz. I had only one suit -- a horror show from George Jacobs Big and Tall. I just looked like a clown to these guys [in the advertising agencies].

One guy decided to give me a junior copywriting job because, on the way out, I said, "Look, let me try and write some ads for you, just test ads. Will you at least look at them?" He said, "Well, all right. I'll look at them." I did a couple of ads, full of puns and what I thought was good ad copy, and showed them to this guy. He showed them to his subordinate and they said, "All right, we'll give you a try as a copywriter." So I came home triumphant that I had a job for $6,000 a year writing ads.

Then the agency producer left, and that job was vacant. Since I had all this chat about film -- I could talk about the grammar of film and so on -- I was the guy there who seemed to know the most about film. So they gave me the job of agency producer.

I turned out to be good at it. We won tons of awards. The agency suddenly was known for its TV output. And the agency [I worked for] was bought by a New York agency on the strength of these awards that we had won -- me and this very funny young woman who had become my writing partner.

His writing partner was Ann Winn, with whom he had a series of hugely successful radio ads in the 80s.

At the very end I think Betty showed a tiny sign of thinking beyond herself. When she asked the Doctor if she would share what Sally said, and the Doctor answered No, that that was between her and Sally and that anything Betty said to the Doctor was Confidential as well. And Betty "That's better". So Betty liked that the doctor would not betray Sally the way the Doctor who Don found betrayed Betty. And of course still selfish, because it makes the Doctor more competent to "fix" Sally. But still a longer term selfishness that requires a certain empathy with someone else, an ability to see the similarity between her situation and Sally's in that limited case.

Christina Hendricks shows up as a model on Etsy: [link]

I loved this week's Leverage. Silly me, I didn't imagine that Nate would have a tale to tell, since he was involved in everyone else's. I thought the ultimate comeuppance would have been in Parker's hands (go Hardison for beating out Eliot and Sophie!). Totally fell for that misdirect.

When she asked the Doctor if she would share what Sally said, and the Doctor answered No, that that was between her and Sally and that anything Betty said to the Doctor was Confidential as well. And Betty "That's better". So Betty liked that the doctor would not betray Sally the way the Doctor who Don found betrayed Betty.

Oh, see, I totally read that the opposite. The "That's better," rang with a slight bit of disappointment, akin to "Oh, yes, of course," as if it's what would be expected, but underscored with disappointment because it's not what she wanted to hear. Betty comes from a background where secrets weren't allowed. And she was monumentally betrayed by secrets being kept from her. So she's torn in half on that score. She wishes she'd been able to keep secrets (and has in fact, kept secrets herself, with respect to her backroom tryst at the bar after she found out she was pregnant with Gene and of course, her burgeoning relationship with Henry), but she was never able to keep secrets from her mother at Sally's age, so why should Sally be granted a freedom she never experienced?

Or I could have it completely wrong.

Huh. Your interpretation did not even occur to me. Now I need to rewatch the end to figure out what the body language convey's. Remembering it I thought Betty showed relaxation and warmth of tone made it sincere and literal. But that could be interpretation coloring memory.

I think I saw it much the same way Barb did.

And I think the doctor has her number.

I thought she literally meant that the confidentiality would be better than her previous shrink reporting to Don, but I don't think she was particularly thinking about what would be good for Sally, except maybe insofar that Sally's sessions being confidential was a fair price for her own consultations also being confidential.

I interpreted it that Dr. Edna was ensuring confidentiality and Betty liked that.

Yay! Elizabeth in the same room as Peter!