  | Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) |
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Didn't women have to be tough in her day?; she was tough; tough like Lillian Hellman was tough; both heavy drinkers, too; though Hellman wasn't necessarily as pessimistic as Dorothy in spite of having been raked into the dumbass Tailgunner Joe Mc Carthy (sometimes confused with the dummy carved out of a tree-limb, Charley McCarthy, the money-making puppet of Candace Bergen's dad, Edgar Bergen) hearings because of her shacking up with Dashiel Hammett, the detective-story writer who so badly wanted to be a famed "novelist." Lillian could write better than he could, too; and he was a drunk, too.
A gang of midtown dailygrowlers used to hang at the Algonquin bar, the little bar just inside the front door on the right as you enter the hotel, and one time a gaggle of these rare birds were drinking heavy and gabbing with an old Broadway songwriter, a really old-style Broadway songwriter with the pencil-thin moustache, the yacht-club blazer, the white silk shirt and the proper, casually worn dude-looking ascot, smoking a pipe (pipe smoking was once big time in NYC), and drinking an "ohhhh-so" dry martini, that only a certain bartender at the Algonquin could make to his satisfaction. Suddenly one of the wolfpack said, "Holy Lamb of God, look at that one..." "What one?" the other males chortled in anticipation of this one's having spotted a woman of much distinction and showing some cleavage and good legs, instead they saw the biggest god-damn midtown rat ambling around the floor of the lobby dining room one could ever imagine, with all the pompous swells sitting there bullshitting about their latest Broadway discovery or the 600-page first novel they've just released and eating their chef specials and this very New-York-looking rat, one of those lean Norwegian rats, the kind that can survive a nuclear attack, was just dashing about totally unnoticed except by the pack of dailygrowlers.
- If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying ---
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Pattern
Leave me to my lonely pillow.
Go, and take your silly posies;
Who has vowed to wear the willow
Looks a fool, tricked out in roses.
Who are you, my lad, to ease me?
Leave your pretty words unspoken.
Tinkling echoes little please me,
Now my heart is freshly broken.
Over young are you to guide me,
And your blood is slow and sleeping.
If you must, then sit beside me...
Tell me, why have I been weeping?
Prophetic Soul
Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high again; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.
Symptom Recital
I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick. I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore:
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men.
I'm due to fall in love again.
Fighting Words
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad ---
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue ---
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!
thestaff
for The Daily Growler
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