#dorothy parker
there’s little in taking or giving
there’s little in water or wine
this living, this living, this living
was never a project of mine
oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
the gain of the one at the top
for art is a form of catharsis
and love is a permanent flop
and work is the province of cattle
and rest’s for a clam in a shell
so I’m thinking of throwing the battle
would you kindly direct me to hell?
- Coda, Dorothy Parker
Post link
And wayward vines go roaming,
Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god
Is pale, in scented gloaming.
And at sunset there comes a lady fair
Whose eyes are deep with yearning.
By an old, old gate does the lady wait
Her own true love’s returning.
And trembling birds seek cover;
Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands
Held out to greet her lover.
And it’s there she’ll stay till the shadowy day
A monument they grave her.
She will always wait by the same old gate, —
The gate her true love gave her.
Such an honour being called to illustrate this gorgeous book which collects essays and articles written by Dorothy Parker through a three decades span time.
Not only I was happy and proud to be considered a good fit for such a book, but also I’ve been so lucky to work along with Nora Grosse who conceive this elegant design. It may sound a little predictable to spend nice words on people you worked with, like a due thing after a work is done but this is not the case and I’m not that kind of person.
Colgando de un hilo is in bookstores these days and I’ve just put on line a much comprehensive gallery with more pictures and illustrations here on Behance for the curious ones.
Post link
“There’s little in taking or giving
There’s little in water or wine
This living, this living , this living
was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
the gain of the one at the top
for art is a form of catharsis
and love is a permanent flop
and work is the province of cattle
and rest’s for a clam in a shell
so I’m thinking of throwing the battle
would you kindly direct me to hell?”
Dorothy Parker
-via posttoxic
The Algonquin Round Table as drawn by Al Hirschfeld, 1920s.
Seated at the back left are Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. Standing are Frank Crowninshield and Algonquin owner Frank Case. Seated, clockwise from the left, are Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Sherwood.
Others usually associated with the Round Table are Margalo Gillmore, Jane Grant, Beatrice Kaufman, Ruth Hale, Margaret Leech Pulitzer, Neysa McMein, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Harpo Marx, William B. Murray, Brock Pemberton, Harold Ross, Alfred Samuels, Donald Ogden Stewart, Frank Sullivan, Deems Taylor, John Peter Toohey, David Wallace, John V.A. Weaver, and Peggy Wood.
Al Hirschfeld via the Al Hirschfeld Foundation
Post link
There was a silence with things going on in it.
‘And we won’t ever fight any more, will we?’ he said.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Not ever! I don’t know what made me do like that. It all got so sort of funny, sort of life a nightmare, the way I got thinking of all those people getting married all the time; so many of them, everything spoils on account of the fighting and everything. I got mixed up thinking about them. Oh, I don’t want to be like them. But we won’t be, will we?’
‘Sure we won’t’ he said.
‘We won’t go all to pieces,’ she said. ‘We won’t fight. It’ll all be different, now we’re married. It’ll all be lovely. Reach me down my hat, will you, sweetheart? It’s time I was putting it on. Thanks. Ah, I’m so sorry you don’t like it.’
‘I do so like it!’ he said.
‘You said you didn’t,’ she said. ‘You said you thought it was perfectly terrible.’
‘I never said any such thing,’ he said. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘All right, I may be crazy,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much. But that’s what you said. Not that it matters – it’s just a little thing. But I t makes you feel pretty funny to think you’ve gone and married somebody that says you have a perfectly terrible taste in hats. And then goes and says you’re crazy, besides.’
‘Now, listen here,’ he said. ‘Nobody said any such thing. Why, I love that hat. The more I look at it the better I like it. I think it’s great.’
‘That isn’t what you said before,’ she said.
‘Honey,’ he said. ‘Stop it, will you? What do you want to start all this for? I love the damned hat. I mean, I love your hat. I love anything you wear. What more do you want me to say?’
‘Well, I don’t want you to say it like that,’ she said.
‘I said I think it’s great,’ he said. ‘That’s all I said.’
‘Do you really?’ she said. ‘Do you honestly? Ah, I’m so glad. I’d hate you not to like me hat. I would be – I don’t know, it would be sort of such a bad start.’
‘Well, I’m crazy for it,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve got that settled, for heaven’s sake. Ah, baby. Baby lamb. We’re not going to have any bad starts. Look at us – we’re on our honeymoon. Pretty soon we’ll be regular old married people. I mean. I mean, in a few minutes we’ll be getting in to New York, and then we’ll be going to the hotel, and then everything will be all right. I mean – well, look at us! Here we are married! Here we are!’
‘Yes, here we are,’ she said. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘Here We Are’, Dorothy Parker
(1931)
“I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.”—
Dorothy Parker
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 gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint of 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 anymore.
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.
by Dorothy Parker
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman’s moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?
Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin and Kid Rock walk into the white house – this has to be the beginning of a good joke that I’m too tired to come up with. Anyone?
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to / Dorothy Parker
Post link
