Mad Men in New York

I am so lucky that sometimes I have to travel to New York for my job.
When I recently found out that I had to be in town around mid-April, my first reaction was to check if the first episode of Mad Men's last season was in one of those dates. And it was!
My readers know how much I love this show. Now, sadly enough, we are touching the end of this great adventure: 7 episodes this spring, under the title The Beginning, and 7 in the springtime of 2015, under the title The end of an era (I think I can already start crying).
I had always dreamt of seeing an episode of Mad Men in New York, and I know there are places where people gather to see the show all together.
So I asked my friend Adriano Ercolani, a film buff like me who lives in NY and has a lovely blog, BoboBro (written by him from NY and by his friend Mauro Donzelli from Paris), and of course Adriano knew about a place. And, of course, the place was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Williamsburg, I have to admit it, even if now considered hipsterland, is one of my favourite places on planet earth. I have been there so often that it is kind of a second home to me, and every time I take the L in Manhattan to reach Bedford Avenue, I feel like the happiest woman in the world. I love everything there: the atmosphere, the restaurants, the cafés, the shops. Being a huge fan of vintage clothes, in Williambsurg there is also my favourite shop of this kind: Amarcord (the title of a movie... surprise! surprise!). Every time I am in town, I find a way to stop there, no matter what. Not only they have a great collection of clothes, but they are always super nice and friendly. Last year, when I stepped into the shop, the girl at the counter told me: "Oh, you wear such a lovely dress!" I looked at her, laughing: "Well, thanks... I actually bought it here!"
This time, I had the chance to meet one of the two owners of Amarcord, Marco Liotta, a very nice man from Rimini (the choice of that Fellini movie now completely clear!), who opened the shop in Williamsburg when the area wasn't that fashionable. 
I celebrated the event with a nice picture of us:

Marco, Zazie and Amarcord lovely girl

When Adriano and Mattia, the friend who was with him, picked me up at the shop, we had one of those great moments that sometimes happened as Italians abroad: the three of them started talking about good restaurants and nice places to go out in the neighbourhood, as if they were old friends and not people that have just met. I loved it! 
The combination of cinema and vintage is always the best, believe me...

Anyway, after having used one of that good addresses to have dinner, at 10 pm we were inside Videology. The place turned out ot be one of those incredible places that you can only find in Williamsburg: the first room is a bar, quite a common one, but then there is a small corridor and, after that, a large room similar to a school room: with desks and chairs, but instead of a teacher, there is a big screen.
When we arrived the room was already packed. Lots of Mad Men fans live in Brooklyn, apparently. Before the show I had a look around and I noticed that in the little corridor there was a small cubbyhole with the sign: DVD rentals. At Videology they still rent DVDs, and there was this woman giving away and taking back discs and chatting with people and I thought it was the coolest job in the world. Sweetest thing I saw recently, I swear.
Then, finally, the moment we were all waiting for...

People watching Mad Men at Videology

The room was so silent, even waiters bringing drinks were serving in a super quite way. Of course, we got completely hooked by the show after two seconds, and I was very surprised when the first commercial stopped that perfect vision. This is, I guess, the only bad thing of seeing the show live: every 8 minutes, an advertisement. An agony. At the same time, it was funny to see the reaction of people to a certain scene or dialogue and to hear the different comments. I found this first episode absolutely amazing, and the whole LA/NY thing very interesting. The scene where Megan, Don's wife, picks him up in LA airport in that car, with that dress, is simply breathtaking.

When the show was over, and I took the L to go back to Manhattan, I was in such a good mood. I had the feeling I was living exactly as Don Draper would have suggested: like there is no tomorrow.
Because there isn't one. And I like it.