A friend and reader in Chicago was reading about Dorothy Parker and sent me her riff on the phrase "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."
Parker: "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think." The official line is "you can lead a horticulture but you can't ..." but that's because back when she wrote it, the word "whore" was oft-used but a no-no in"finer" print. Everyone got the picture, of course.
There are a lot of us out there who have Dorothy Parker's rhyming phrases of dull despair in our heads somewhere. I first read her when I was in high school, then grown-up enough to have understood (or think I understood) what she was saying.
I love this one. An adolescent dirge if there ever was one:
Razors Pain You, Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; nooses give.
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.
I had a friend in my school years whose mother and father were teachers. The father was a professor of history. He was a jolly if somewhat enigmatic fellow (who used to go down to the cellar all of a sudden, and return a few minutes later even jollier). Whenever I visited my friend, her parents would often be home and joining in conversations.
They were good company and grown up – which was where we all wanted to be. We'd sit around the kitchen and drink tea and talk about our worlds (the teenagers). They'd listen and join in, apparently enjoying it. The professor knew all kinds of stories about literary and historical figures. Hearing that I'd been reading some Dorothy Parker short stories, he told me this fable about her. It's probably apocryphal, and no doubt there are other versions, but nevertheless, here it is.
At one point in her career she was writing a column for the Hearst papers. It wasn't going well, so William Randolph Hearst decided to invite her to San Simeon for a (fun) weekend after which he would tell her she was fired. And so it happened (allegedly).
On hearing why she was called there, she packed her bags, and furiously wrote a note which she taped to the bedroom door of Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. Which said:
"Upon my honor,
I've seen the Madonner
set high in a golden niche,
But beyond this door
lies the beautiful whore
of the world's worst son of a bitch."
When I got home yesterday afternoon, there was a copy of a new book waiting for me: "CZ Guest American Style Icon." It was brand new and I'd forgotten that I'd contributed something to this book about CZ, composed by Susannah Salk. Yesterday was its official pub date.
The official title is: "CZ Guest American Style Icon Celebrating her Timeless World At Home In Her Garden & Around Town." The author accompanied the photographs with recollections of CZ by a variety of people who knew her and friends who were part of her life.
I knew her although not well but well enough to have lunched, dined, been to her house. She had an easy snappy personality with that sterling silver crust that you'd imagine a High Society Woman Who Rode would have. But she was game girl too. The variety of her friendships said it all. She was probably a snob in some ways because she lived on a different strata her entire life, but people always amused her. And she loved her animals -- all of which were rescued. And loved. She had a good time in much of her life. She also knew when to stop. And smell the roses. |
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