Testing me

I detect a pattern...

 

I don't know what a "tradesperson" is. It sounds British.  But I ain't no tradesperson.  Totally not, señor.

Yours?

 

Hamburger Heaven

Tonight we find them again, parked under the stars
(no one ever
eats inside in Heaven),
beeping the tired carhop
with her pageboy and mascara
for a paper boat of French fries
drenched in ketchup,
a cheeseburger baptized
with pickles.
They’re sixteen and in love;
the night is hot,
sweet and tangy on their tongues.
Why do we stop?
They’re in Heaven, after all,
listening to the fry cook
in the kitchen
with his savory benedictions,
the AM radio playing
“Love Me Tender,” “The Wanderer,”
unperturbed by the future with its
franchises and malls, its
conglomerates and information
highways. Is there something
we would tell them?
Here in Hamburger Heaven where
the nights go on forever,
where desire’s resurrected
and every hunger’s filled?
Wait! Do we call out?
But now they’ve seen us
close behind them with our
fervent “Thou Shalt Nots,”
our longings glaring in
the rear-view mirror.
And they’ve turned on
the ignition
and they’ve floored it
and are gone.

~ Ronald Wallace from For a Limited Time Only

Which is the wisdom?

“I don’t think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,’ he said gravely. He hesitated. ‘It’s very difficult to put into words. The moment you try you feel embarrassed. You say to yourself: “Who am I that I should bother myself about this, that, and the other? Perhaps it’s only because I’m a conceited prig. Wouldn’t it be better to follow the beaten track and let what’s coming to you come?” And then you think of a fellow who an hour before was full of life and fun,and he’s lying dead; it’s all so cruel and meaningless. It’s hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there’s any sense to it or whether it’s all a tragic blunder of blind fate.”
~ Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

  “I suppose it was the end of the world for her when her husband and her baby were killed. I suppose she didn’t care what became of her and flung herself into the horrible degradation of drink and promiscuous copulation to get even with life that had treated her so cruelly. She’d lived in heaven and when she lost it she couldn’t put up with the common earth of common men, but in despair plunged headlong into hell. I can imagine that if she couldn’t drink the nectar of the gods any more she thought she might as well drink bathtub gin.‘”
~ Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

 

Your order, please!

First job. In tight black shorts and a white bowling shirt, red lipstick
and bouncing ponytail, I present
each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet.

I’m sixteen and college-bound;
this job’s temporary as the summer sun,
but right now it’s the boundaries of my life.
After the first few nights of mixed orders
and missing cars, the work goes easily.
I take out the silver trays and hook them to the windows,
inhale the mingled smells of seared meat patties,
salty ketchup, rich sweet malteds.
The lure of grease drifts through the thick night air.
And it’s always summer at Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In—
carloads of blonde-and-tan girls
pull up next to red convertibles,
boys in black tee shirts and slick hair.
Everyone knows what they want.
And I wait on them, hoping for tips,
loose pieces of silver
flung carelessly as the stars.
Doo-wop music streams from the jukebox, 

and each night repeats itself,
faithful as a steady date.
Towards 10 p.m., traffic dwindles.
We police the lot, pick up wrappers.
The dark pours down, sticky as Coke,
but the light from the kitchen
gleams like a beacon.
A breeze comes up, chasing papers
in the far corners of the darkened lot,
as if suddenly a cold wind had started to blow
straight at me from the future—
I read that in a Doris Lessing book—
but right now, purse fat with tips,
the moon sitting like a cheeseburger
on a flat black grill,
this is enough.
Your order please.

“Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In” by Barbara Crooker

 

 

Sex in the Big Band era

 As I've written, the big band era is one of my favorite times in recent history, and I read pretty much everything I can find about it.  

One thing I'm curious about is sex relations in those days, and from what I've read, contrary to the rightie-tighties who dream of "tradwives" and that sort of fantasy, the young folks got it on with considerable enthusiasm back in the day.

I found this sex study in a 1938 issue of Life magazine.  It summarizes the results of a survey of 1,300 college students.  One of their findings was that one in four college girls had had sex; one girl had had sex with more than 20 men.

Half of all college men had had sex.  And among the half who hadn't, three-quarters wouldn't care if the girl they married wasn't a virgin.

So, as always, guys and dolls love to fuck each others' brains out.  Don't you?

Jitterbuggers!

Incidentally, I found this ad in the same issue of Life.  I don't think Simoniz car wax would use a nude woman with boobs to the breeze to advertise its products today, but back in the 1930s, no one seemed to mind. In fact, obviously customers liked it or Simoniz wouldn't have done it.

And in the same issue was news of a jitterbug contest in which the dancers got pretty wild, humping, wiggling and gyrating crotch to crotch with grand enthusiasm.  The granny panties are a bit of a disappointment, but the boys and girls didn't know any better, so I guess they didn't miss anything.

A 1937 issue of Life had a photo essay on college co-eds, freely discussing their enthusiastic sex lives. And these were not big city girls but girls from the heartland.  They dated lots of different boys and "necked" with them all.

In a 1940 issue of Life I found an essay on student artists, painting and sculpting their nude classmates.  The magazine claims  Yale co-eds are the hottest.

And speaking of artists, Zoe Mozert was one of the most popular pin-up artists of the day; in fact, she is credited with inventing the term "pin-up" by adding the phrase "cut me out -- pin me up" to the side of her sexy girls.  Interestingly, she was not abashed to use herself as the model for her nudes, either using mirrors or painting from photos. Below she is in her studio posing for herself.

Zoe Mozert posing for herself.

A Mozert pin-up.

And here is one of her tamer "pin ups" and one of her more typical nude calendar girls, again, using herself as the model. 

An illustration from Spicy Stories magazine.

A Mozert calendar girl.

Then there was a lot of erotic art that was not published in general interest magazines but that was still widely available. There were, of course, the sleazy "Tijuana Bibles,"but I'm talking about art and stories that were published in news-stand magazines dedicated to sex.  They would have erotic drawings  as part of raunchy stories.

 

 Of course, those Tijuana Bibles were quite explicit -- and very popular!

I guess the lesson to be learned, if there is one, is that men and women love sex and will indulge in it every chance they get, and when they can't get the chance, they think about it and enjoy reading about it and looking at images of others being sexy or having sex.  Who knew?

A popular song from 1939, She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor.

And this one by the same band, from 1931, My Girl's Pussy.

But there's not

 

 

 “If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DecS1984 · Farewell My Lovely Theme

You play the hand you're dealt

 A poker game late one night in 1942.

  You get one deal.  Nothing's wild. You can't fold.  You have to bet everything you have.  The dealer is God.  Or maybe Satan.  Whoever it is, he watches with cold, unsmiling eyes and when -- not if -- you lose, he casts you into the outer darkness forever and ever.

I'm nostalgic for a life I never lived.

 

Love this song, lyrics by Johnny Mercer. music by Hoagy Carmichael, and especially this version performed by the Harry James orchestra with vocalist Helen Forrest, a top hit in 1941 and 1942, when it reached No. 11 on the Billboard chart.  

Well, it's No. 1 with me!

And this is the car, a 1935 LaSalle, I would drive to the Manhattan Room in the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City, to listen and dance to one of the great big bands of that era, my very favorite brief era in history, lasting maybe five years, really ending with Pearl Harbor, though it lingered through the war years, which were a kind of pause in the development of popular culture.

Here's a live broadcast with Benny Goodman's orchestra and vocalist Martha Tildon from October 21, 1937.

 1937 Manhattan Room Live Broadcast

And here's a photo of the crowd gathered around the bandstand and CBS microphones that very night (look at the handwritten sheet music!):

Wouldn't you like to invite me on a date back to 1937?  We'd have so much fun.  You would wear a suit and tie and I'd dress like this:

One more broadcast, from the 27th of October, 1937, at the Manhattan Room, featuring the song, "The Lady is a Tramp."  Its lyrics pretty much define me, though I'm not a tramp, just gossiped about as one by frumps and scolds. Phooey. 

Manhattan Room Live Broadcast from 1937

Helen Forrest recalling the Big Band era in 1982:

"We did not know that we were living through an era - the Big Band Era - that would last only 10 years or so and be remembered and revered for ever...it's hard to believe, but the best times were packed into a five-year period from the late 1930s through the early 1940s when I sang with the bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James. The most dramatic moments of my life were crammed into a couple of years from the fall of 1941 to the end of 1943. They seem to symbolize my life...that was when the music of the dance bands was the most popular music in the country, and I was the most popular female band singer in the country and Harry had the most popular band in the country. It didn't last long, but it sure was something while it lasted."

The only reality is behind your eyes

 Out of the blue, as I was dealing with another difficult issue, somebody sent me copies of emails from my dearest friend who went on ahead many years ago.  The surprise and shock of merely seeing her name in print after all these years was profound.  I had to look away.  

But then I began to read, and as I did so, an entire vanished and forgotten past came alive and became as real to me as it had ever been.  The present wavered, slipped out of focus and dissolved away.

  “Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”
~ Guy de Maupassant

 

You know how to whistle don't you?

 Why don't people whistle anymore?  They used to do it even in popular songs.  I guess you have to be  cheerful to whistle.  Here's Elmo Tanner, accompanied by the Ted Weems orchestra, whistling "You took the Words Right Out of My Heart" back in 1937, a time much happier, saner and more sensible than today.

And people ask  me why I  pine for a past I never lived....

Elmo Tanner

Come on now, whistle along with Elmo. You know you want to.  I am!

DecS1984 · Elmo Tanner Whistles You Took The Words Right Out Of My Heart

 Soon the sunny days of summer will be here, the high mountain passes will open up again, the spring run-off that makes mountain creeks impassable torrents will subside, and it will the season for backpacking into the wilderness, for leaving man and all his works behind -- well, except for map and compass, tent and sleeping bag, hatchet and knife.... 
Already my feet anticipate the feel of sturdy hiking boots and wool socks over cotton booties, and in my mind's eye I am already turning my face to the breeze, stretching my legs in long, mile-eating strides, eager to get going, to get away.
Maybe one day I'll just keep going and never come back.

A Walk
My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far beyond the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has an inner light, even from a distance --

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
But what we feel is the wind in our faces.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Contentment

I don't read Dickens for the plot or story line, but for the reveries of life as it once was, and perhaps again may be, lived and enjoyed, even in the heart of troubles and want.

"Their pleasures on these excursions were simple enough. A crust of bread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for their repast. Barnaby's enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap, till he was tired; then to lie down in the long grass, or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upward at the light clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song. 

There were wild-flowers to pluck:  the bright red poppy, the gentle harebell, the
cowslip, and the rose. There were birds to watch; fish; ants; worms; hares or rabbits, as they darted across the distant pathway in the wood and so were gone: millions of living things to have an interest in, and lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had disappeared. 

In default of these, or when they wearied, there was the merry sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and boughs of trees, and hid far down-deep, deep, in hollow places like a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and sport; sweet scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans or clover; the perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of waving trees, and shadows always changing. 

When these or any of them tired, or in excess of pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there was slumber in the midst of all these soft delights, with the gentle wind murmuring like music in his ears, and everything around melting into one delicious dream."

  ~ Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, Chapter 45 excerpt

Sigh.

 It never,  ever, ever ends.

"Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath."
~ Theodore Roethke

The best
is not to have been born.
~ Anthony Hecht

 I am the chosen no hand saves.
~ Louise Bogan  

And so I stood apart,
Hidden in my own heart.
~ Theodore Roethke

How you handle them

I don't know why women in the 1930s knew how to deal with handsy men and so many women today don't.  A 30-second lesson in handling lechers:

So much for a century or so of feminism -- whatever that is.

 

Life II

 

“She was hurt to find life made up of so many little things. At first she believed most faithfully that they had a deeper meaning and a coherent larger purpose; but after a while she saw to her dismay that the deeper and larger things were merely shadows cast by the small.
So she buried the whole great treasure of winged dreams and iridescent shades under an oak-tree in the farthest corner of her heart, and planted a bush of wild roses over it. A small grave of dreams.
Secretly and silently she buried them, a little ashamed, as a burglar might be who had long pursued some gleaming ruby necklace, and, having by infinite stealth and risk obtained it, found that it was red glass.”
― Barbara Newhall Follett, Lost Island

Life

 

 

 

“My dreams are going through their death flurries. I thought they were all safely buried, but sometimes they stir in their grave, making my heartstrings twinge. I mean no particular dream, you understand, but the whole radiant flock of them together—with their rainbow wings, iridescent, bright, soaring, glorious, sublime. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money.” 
~ Barbara Newhall Follett

Knowing what's important

 

Brunch in the breakfast nook

 What better for a Sunday brunch than homemade buttermilk biscuits and homemade strawberry preserves?  I can make both, the best you ever tasted!

Coffee, fresh-brewed and strong.

An omelet?  Whatever kind you like, but, trust me, you will fill up on biscuits and preserves. 

After brunch, my dad would always relax in a sunny corner and read the Sunday paper, tossing me the funny pages so I could read Get Fuzzy and Calvin and Hobbes.

I think I've met this guy

  Whatever you say, kimo sabe.

 

 

FU 2

 I really get tired of all those so-called right-wing men...or should I say right-wing so-called men...who dump on women in the armed forces.  

Maggots.

Happiness

Happiness is the uncle you never
knew about
who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, 
hitchhikes into town, 
and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep mid-afternoon,
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

-- Jane Kenyon

 

Snow White Joins Up

 

The desert erases regard, wind plays on.
A mirror looks back to the future which has no face.
I’m a player for the war outside.
My name has killed me, fatherland desert land, no escape.
Do not forsake me!
I’ve become the most beautiful green dress.
Maybe you would not recognize me
when the Johnnies come marching home.

– after Snow White Joins Up by Klaus Friedeberger
  From Jill Jones, Fold/Unfold

<

After we saw

Postcard from vacation past

After we saw what there was to see
we went off to buy souvenirs, and my father
waited by the car and smoked. He didn’t need
a lot of things to remind him where he’d been.
Why do you want so much stuff?
he might have asked us. “Oh, Ed,” I can hear
my mother saying, as if that took care of it.
After she died I don’t think he felt any reason
to go back through all those postcards, not to mention
the glossy booklets about the Singing Tower
and the Alligator Farm, the painted ashtrays
and lucite paperweights, everything we carried home
and found a place for, then put away
in boxes, then shoved far back in our closets.
He’d always let my mother keep track of the past,
and when she was gone—why should that change?
Why did I want him to need what he’d never needed?
I can see him leaning against our yellow Chrysler
in some parking lot in Florida or Maine.
It’s a beautiful cloudless day. He glances at his watch,
lights another cigarette, looks up at the sky.
~ Lawrence Raab from The History of Forgetting