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Published: 04 March 2012

Created: 04 March 2012

Last Updated: 04 March 2012

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Oil paintings by Nancy Abbe will be shown throughout March at Scarsdale Art & Frame at 46 Christie Place in Scarsdale Village. Exhibited will be portraits of both people and animals, landscapes, sky and seascapes. All are painted in a loosely handled realistic style.

Trained by George Peter at the Westchester County Workshop, as well as Cesare Borgia at the Reilly League of Artists, much of her work is done on commission.

The shop is open Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

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Published: 27 February 2012

Created: 27 February 2012

Last Updated: 07 October 2020

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For those of you who are eagerly waiting for the next season of Madmen, here’s something to tide you over and give you some insight at the same time. Clinical psychologist and Edgemont resident Dr. Stephanie Newman has just published a new book, Madmen on the Couch, in which she analyzes the minds of the men and women in the hit TV show. If you’ve ever wondered why Don Draper constantly sabotages himself or why Betty Draper is such an unhappy mother Newman offers a psychologist’s perspective on these complex and highly entertaining characters.

To learn more about Dr. Newman and the book, we posed some questions and here is what we learned:

What inspired you to write a book about the characters in Mad Men?

I decided to write the Mad Men book while I was teaching candidates at the psychoanalytic institute. I was in class explaining the various ways in which different disorders manifest, and was struggling with how to effectively clarify my explanations and improve my clinical vignettes, when I spotted an article in the Wall Street Journal that described how—in a growing trend--clinical instructors were using fictional characters to illustrate myriad aspects of psychopathology. At this same time I was also intrigued by the very psychologically opaque characters in the AMC show Mad Men; by how well drawn their personalities were and how their complex actions could be elaborated. And then it all clicked: I thought it would be interesting and challenging to write about the show in such a way as to examine Don Draper and company through a psychological lens.

How did you get it published?

I pitched the book to an agent and wrote it fast, so as to coincide with the premier of the upcoming season. The entire writing, editing, and publishing process took about a year—including watching each episode numerous times (which did not feel like work at all!). This is a short time in the world of publishing, but as I said, I had to plough through really fast in order to publish in time for Season 5. I was lucky to work with a fabulous editor at St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne, Margaret Smith, who was willing to burn the candle at both ends and shepherd the book through in rapid-fire fashion.

Did you enjoy writing it and what did you learn through the process?

I absolutely loved the writing and editing process. I enjoyed receiving input about my writing and about what those who buy books might want to read. I have always enjoyed writing, but had never before had the experience of collaborating with a professional editor. Moving a paragraph here and there and shifting the emphasis, even slightly, was eye-opening for me. Starting with nothing more than an idea and building an entire book, word for word from blank page (or screen!) to competed volume, was a new experience. The huge amount of time and work it entailed was what surprised me most—I don’t think I slept for an entire year!

Is this your first book?

Before writing Mad Men on the Couch I had co-edited another work, Money Talks, a collection of papers written by therapists and analysts about the incursion of money, fees, and the recent recession into the clinical situation. While I had contributed a paper in that volume, Mad Men on the Couch is the first book I have written.

Writing about Mad Men proved to be an enriching and all-consuming project; I began to think about the characters in the oddest places and at the strangest times. Many of them started to bleed into my consciousness and to pop up at the most unexpected moments. I could be in a social situation and would find myself wondering what Don Draper would think about something, a joke, maybe. And I would frequently notice how 2012 differs from 1962, with respect to women's rights and the female position in society; same with the different ways in which people of color were treated back then versus now. I was most of all fascinated by the different family sensibility that existed during the Mad Men era. Today we tend to focus intensely on and revolve weekends around children's activities. Don and Betty would not spend even a minute standing on a soccer field—that’s just not how people lived. While child rearing takes up a lot of space in our millennial brains, it did not seem to be a preoccupation fifty years ago.

Do you think we struggle with similar issues to those faced by the characters depicted on the show?

I do think our contemporaries struggle with many of the same dilemmas as those wrestled with by the show’s characters. They all want to spin their personal images, get ahead at work, and maintain interpersonal relationships. And these struggles and frailties are what make the characters on Mad Men are human; they are vulnerable and they trip themselves up in many of the same ways viewers do. People seem to relate to these characters and to wonder what makes them tick. I think that’s what is largely responsible for the show’s appeal and its success.

What other television shows do you watch?

There are other shows that are psychological in nature. I also like to watch Modern Family; these characters also struggle with everyday problems like image, relationships, difficulties at work and at home, and the writers find humorous ways to confront stereotypes, which makes the show interesting to watch.

What similarities and differences do you see between the Westchester that is shown on the show and the Westchester we live in today?

Given that people have always seemed to be preoccupied with relationships and career concerns, it appears that Westchester hasn’t changed that much since the fictional Drapers tooled around Ossining in the shiny red Cadillac, some 50 years ago. If I had to point to one major change it would probably by the central focus today around child-rearing and children’s activities. Back then there was not a Gymboree or toddler music class in every small town. Now families devote afternoons, evenings, and weekends to child-focused extra-curricular activities. Don, Betty, Peggy, Pete, Roger, and Joan would probably not recognize this aspect of life in contemporary Westchester.

Tell us about yourself and your education:

I grew up in the New York area and went to grad school at Columbia University Teachers College, where I received training as a Clinical Psychologist. I then completed a post-doctoral program at IPE, which is NYU Medical Center’s psychoanalytic institute.

I currently see patients in private practice and try to write as much as I can. In addition to writing Mad Men on the Couch, I have been regularly contributing articles to the on- line edition of Psychology Today at Apologies to Freud (for an example, click here:)  I am also a mother of two very energetic young children. And unlike the Drapers, I try my best to host play dates and make it to sports matches whenever I can. We have been in Edgemont for almost 5 years, and have loved living in the area. I cannot think of a better place to raise a family. The schools and sports programs are what drew us here in the first place; all have proved to be excellent.

How do you plan to promote the book?

I am very involved with different social media avenues such as Twitter (@MadMenOnCouch) and Facebook. I am scheduled to appear on several radio shows and possibly some TV shows. And the print media has shown interest in covering the book, as well. I will also be writing about it on line in Psychology Today and speaking about it locally and in New York City (one school has invited me to explain to its parent body what makes Betty Draper Frances such a cold mother. That should be fun!).

Madmen on the Couch is published by Thomas Dunne Book of St. Martin’s Griffin and will be available at Barnes and Noble ($14.99) and can also be purchased as an e-book ($12.99). Check it out on Amazon here and learn more about Dr. Newman here.

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Published: 22 February 2012

Created: 22 February 2012

Last Updated: 22 February 2012

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Last year, my husband and I created a matrix in order to determine how to win an Oscar in 14 easy steps. This year, we are handing out pretend Academy Awards. So, without further ado, from our imaginations to your computer screen, here are the top Oscars that no one in Hollywood will be receiving this year.

Best picture set in France in which all the actors speak with British accents:

Hugo

Best picture set in Sweden in which all the actors speak with slightly different, untraceable, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-where-they’re-from accents:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best period mustache. And the nominees are:

Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Sacha Baron Cohen for Hugo
Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs

Best dramatic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:

Joey the horse from War Horse
Rosie the elephant from Water for Elephants
Maximilian (Blackie the Doberman) from Hugo

Best comedic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:

Dolce (Palmer the Pomeranian) from Young Adult
The dog (Uggie the Jack Russell) in The Artist

(I’d like to make a prediction here. Uggie is the clear frontrunner, having won this year’s Palm Dog award at Cannes and having already played a dog in Water for Elephants. Palmer the Pomeranian has no prior experience in films and was hard to work with, according to co-star Charlize Theron.)

Best Acceptance Speech:

The Artist

Best Brad Pitt film. And the nominees are:

Oh, you know what they are, right? In case you don’t stalk him like I do, it’s Moneyball and The Tree of Life. The odds are, that when you take Brad Pitt and put him in a baseball film based on a book about sabermetrics, there is a .375% chance of a win, based on prior statistics in which he was nominated for 5 Golden Globes but only won 1, most recently losing to George Clooney for best actor. Now, if you also account for the 4 Oscar nods Pitt’s received over his career, plus the 4 BAFTA nominations, and if you multiply that by the number of children he has, both biological and adopted, you will discover absolutely nothing about The Tree of Life.

Best dramatic, sad-as-heck movie that was marketed as a comedy:

The Descendants

Best movie that I can’t make fun of in any way, shape or form because of the 9/11 subject matter:

Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close

Best Julia-Child-as-Margaret-Thatcher Award:

Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady

Actress you hope wins so that she doesn’t act out afterwards in anger and retribution:

Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best movie in which the director realizes he’s aged out of playing the fumbling, bumbling romantic lead:

Midnight in Paris

Best movie based on a novel that took forever to get published, thus giving hope to frustrated novelists, like myself, and the hopeful mothers of these novelists, like my mother, who brag about their offspring at dinner parties despite the fact that their creative, brilliant children haven’t sold a manuscript. Otherwise known as The But Look What Happened to Katherine Stockett Award:

The Help

Think of others? Feel free to add them below. Let’s watch the fake awards pile up, at least until the real ones do this Sunday, February 26th on ABC.

Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia. Julie is obsessed with pop culture, television shows, movies, theater, and books. She considers herself a Renaissance woman who can talk at length about highbrow BBC programming as well as the worst of American reality TV. Read more from Gerstenblatt here :

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Published: 15 February 2012

Created: 15 February 2012

Last Updated: 20 February 2012

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I admire the British for so many reasons. They have a rich history of beheading enemies of the monarchy without ever compromising afternoon tea. They colonized half the globe and yet managed to ensure that no other colony’s accent would sound exactly like theirs. In particular, I idolize the Brits for their fictional characters. If shipwrecked on a deserted island and in need of reading materials to last a lifetime, I’d much rather have aristocratic and feisty Emma Woodhouse and her charming Mr. Knightly with me than Puritanical Hester Prynne and her pastor, Arthur (yawn) Dimmsdale. Give me Heathcliff and Catherine! Bring me my Bridget Jones! Oh, heck, just give me any book that was later turned into a movie starring Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth! And, now, thanks to Downton Abbey, make sure that I always have the BBC on my telly. (Yes, even on that deserted island.)

Turns out, there’s a lot a Jewish girl from New York can learn from the fictional, Victorian-Era Crawleys and their estate in North Yorkshire. In honor of the upcoming finale of Downton Abbey’s second season, I’d like to share some of these delicious bits of knowledge.

1. Marry your cousin.

Clock ticking? Desperate for a mate? Tired of being set up by your mom’s gay hairdresser? Sick of having half of your grandmother’s mahjong group insist they have the perfect guy for a “mature” woman like yourself? Dear Jewess, don’t fret. The next time your dad worries about who will take over his condo in Boca once he passes on, ensure him that you’ve got his back. Promptly fall in love with your cousin and gain an immediate heir to the estate. Now, don’t go screwing things up by, let’s say, screwing a Turk who then dies in your bed or by pretending you don’t love your cousin when you really, really do. Don’t let the cousin go off to war on Wall Street without telling him how you feel. Worry later about the genetic complications this might prompt, including blood-clotting disorders; for now, stay focused on Boca.

2. Just shut up already.

When people ask me how I am doing, I actually tell them. Sometimes, I go on for several minutes, blabbing and spewing and confiding, analyzing and hypothesizing and then circling back to the original point with some sort of diarrhea of the mouth. What can I say? This is nearly unavoidable when the double helix of your DNA looks like Fran Drescher and Woody Allen snake dancing. An English Lady would never behave like that. She would hold her tongue and smile in mixed company, only divulging her true feelings to her maid. Even if she were bleeding internally during cocktails, I like to think she’d keep concerns about her spleen to herself. Perhaps if I wore a corset, I’d feel less like talking, and therefore, become all the more charming. I’d certainly look better. It’s worth a shot.

3. Use your father’s influence for your own gain.

Oh, wait. We Jewish American Princesses have already got this one down. Check it off the list!

Interestingly, gossip about season 3 of Downton Abbey has some suspecting that Cora Crawley, wife of the Earl of Grantham and daughter of American dry goods multimillionaire Isidore Levinson is actually…gasp…Jewish. With a name like Levinson, it’s certainly possible. And it would help to explain the overlapping behaviors between Jewesses and Countesses, at least in this instance.

(Read the full piece by Jonathan Sarna of Tablet here:

3. When and if that doesn’t work, sneak around behind Papa’s back.

This is really fun. There is no telling what can be done once dear old Papa is out of the loop. This is how most of my shopping at Bergdorf Goodman was done when I was in high school. All I had to do was hide the packages so my dad couldn’t document the trouble my mom and I got into with his Amex. But now I see that this was nothing. When done with the English flair of a Crawley, you can achieve true greatness behind your father’s back. You can fall for your politically-minded chauffer and still have time to dress wounds back at the makeshift convalescent hospital set up in your family’s dining room. You can, with help from your mother and her maid, remove the dead Turk from your bedroom and place him back in his own bedchamber. You can then work a romantic deal with a publisher, exchanging your heart for the safety of your public reputation. Shhh. As long as Papa doesn’t know, then you are not a whore, or a slut, or in fear of being disinherited, disowned, or dishonored. There shall be no dissing whatsoever without Daddy’s knowledge. (Easier by far just to go on a shopping spree, if you ask me.)

4. In a tiered society, it’s best to be at the tippy top or the briny bottom.

Honestly, the servants and the Dowager Countess seem to have the most fun in and around Downton. There is much to scheme about when you spend all day mending fancy people’s socks and cleaning their underclothes, which explains why O’Brien and Thomas are so delightfully awful. Same with Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, the most influential of the upstairs bunch. Once she properly positions an off-kilter, feathered and flowered hat atop her curls, she’s got nothing to do all day but gossip and connive and dream up the next sharp barb. And that’s the way life should be as the top 1%. It’s not as much fun being stuck somewhere in the middle, like me, and like dear Bates. He’s got some money, but he’s also got a limp and had a bitch for a wife. No one wants to be him. And then there’s Isobel Crawley, who has so little power next to Lady Grantham that she had to retreat to France for a while. She’s no fun at all.

When all is said and done, in my next life, I’d like to come back as a British Dutchess or Countess or Heiress. Any "ess" will do. I’d like to have someone dress me for dinner and I’d want to learn how to ride a horse in the countryside without having to worry about my hay fever.

Oh, and one last thing. I’d like to be able to celebrate Christmas, even if it is fictional and during wartime. Lucky for me, that’s exactly what the Crawleys will be doing this Sunday, February 19th. Now, raise your heirloom quality, cut-glass crystal goblet and follow my lead. Cheers, everyone.

Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia. Julie is obsessed with pop culture, television shows, movies, theater, and books. She considers herself a Renaissance woman who can talk at length about highbrow BBC programming as well as the worst of American reality TV. Read more from Gerstenblatt here: