dorothy parker

I picked up this very book (McCarthy's Bar) in the airport, read the first page or two and loved it. I had Steppenwolf in my suitcase to finish so I didn't buy it. Wish I had though 'cos I finished Steppenwolf on day one, lying in the sun in St. Stephen's Green. Strangely both liked and loathed it. Don't know why. Who has, indeed, Andrea. And if anyone says they have, would you believe them anyway? Anyway, if you find what you're looking for I guess you stop looking and that's a far worse fate. At least Bono has certainly found a beautiful place to live, if nothing else. But still, wherever you go, you always have to take yourself along, so I guess where you live is pretty much irrelevant. Give me names of these secret little places will ya Andrea for when I return. A bloke can't have too much information you know.

I love her phrase: 'What fresh hell is this'? I think of it every morning in work.

I love her too - she wrote the deeply cynical suicide poem didn't she? Any woman who did sarcasm before we were supposed to be allowed to is a good thing by me ;-)

One of my favorite quotes if from Dorothy Parker. She was once asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence. She replied, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Ya' gotta' love Dorothy!

Sorry, Ivy, but you've hit my weak spot here - that being an almost fatal admiration for Dotty P. Here are a few of hers for those who, unlike us, have let her pass them by. But, never fear, I have hundreds more! From Tombstones in the Starlight: 'The man she had was kind and clean And well enough for every day, But oh, dear friends, you should have seen The one that got away!' From 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.' From Reuben's Children: 'Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed - I think they would be better dead.' 'Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.'

Just don't start me on Stephen Potter, SJ Perelman or Nigel Molesworth!

a very marvellous weak spot to have MLB ... many a drunken consoling evening i have had with women friends where the old falling apart dottie p collection comes out ... one of my favourites: Social note Lady, lady, should you meet One whose ways are all discreet, One who murmurs that his wife Is the lodestar of his life, One who keeps assuring you That he never was untrue, Never loved another one... Lady, lady, better run!

and while we are in the mood to quote ... hoping i don't get arrested for this ... my favourite one ever ... 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 have to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find no peace in paint or type. My world is but a lot of tripe. I'm disillusioned,empty-breasted. 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.

have just noticed the errors in the above .... grrrrrrr

Oh, never mind, Fish, I appreciated it, anyway.

Another of my favourite Dotty Ditties: Comment Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporania; and love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Roumania.

mmmmmmmm .... and what about: Bohemia Authors and actors and artists and such Never know nothing, and never know much. Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney. Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks Start off from anywhere, end up at sex. Diarists, critics, and similar roe Never say nothing, and never say no. People Who Do Things exceed my endurance; God, for a man that solicits insurance!

and another that often gives me comfort ... Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, "Poor thing, do you remember?" "What heart was that?" it cried.

Ivy, you said DP was an unhappy person (in a private communication, not on these boards)...here's one of her rare admissions of self-doubt: 'I'll never be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not a single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.' ...Oh, if only she knew we'd be filling a whole thread with her praise thirty-four years after her death! And here's one to end with: 'How do people go to sleep?... I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things.'

A late addition to your thread and a man's point of view. Dorothy Parker, an absolute Goddess and the woman in the world who I would most like to have had dinner with. I've never even seen a picture of her but as someone wise once said 'It's no use having dinner with the most beautiful woman in the World if she can't make you laugh.' Dotty could make an depressed crocodile on Mogadom laugh. For example; 'If all the girls at the Yale prom were laid end to end no one be in the least surprised.' Where are you Dottie, when I need you?

oh well dottie is dead ... you could always have dinner with me ...

That's a date then, Ivory. I reckon you fulfil the one requirement of being able to make me laugh and I will do my best to do the same in return. We can spend the evening swapping DP quotes, if nothing else. Your place, mine or Quaglino's, Knightbridge?

mmmmmmm ...

Is that a 'mmmmmmm' as in 'YES' or a 'mmmmmmm' as in 'NO'. You just can't rely on a woman to give you a straight answer.

well john that was a six-m mmmmmm, which is possibly a sound of encouragement, with the merest whiff of enthusiasm...it's perhaps not quite as good as mmm, which would sound less hesitant, but much better than hmmmm, which would indicate that you could go boil your head...i'd stick with it, son

Cheers, Robert. Glad one of us understands these things.

hmm ...

That was Fish in sceptical mode. Us women understand these things...

*understanding nod to andrea*

'Us Blokes' understand that 'US Women' understand 'These Things.' Does this make any sense at all? I'm old enough to remember the days when clubs were just called discos, mini-skirted (yippee) girls with impossible 'Farah-Fawcett' hairdos danced round patchwork, multi-coloured (mock) leather handbags and always went to the toilet together. Then it'd be twenty minutes before they re-appeared. I've just got two questions for you, girls. i) Does this all still happen even now clubs are called stuff like 'Manumission', 'Ministry of Sound' and 'Break for the Border'? ii) Was the twenty-minute wait a deliberate tactic designed to un-nerve us? If so, it worked, But, of course, you know that already, don't you? By the way Robert, Ivory's 'mmmmmm' is now a 'hmm.' Should I read anything significant into this? Winks knowingly (?) at Robert then hurries off to bar to get two pints of lager and a couple of Babychams while the girls are in the 'restroom.' Meanwhile, twenty minutes later . . . . . . Talking of fictional dates; which character would you most like to go on a date with, have dinner with or (dare I say it) sleep with? Does this subject deserve a thread all of its own? Maybe but anyway, here's mine - its the Australian girl from John Fowles book The Magus. I think she was called Alison but its ages since I've read it. Definitely not Anna Karenina although maybe if Tolstoy could write it again in today's moral climate, who knows. Never read Madame Bovary. What's she like seeing as I'm at a loose end this Saturday night. Something tells me Dottie P. would like the way this thread has gone.

i remember those days too ... but will leave it to our younger correspondents to confirm or deny whether the same thing happens these days in the Ministry of Sound ... the reason for the twenty minute linger in the lav... well ... in the lav you could hear yourself think ... and social events for girls (well me) were and still are opportunities for talking ... so there we'd be sitting on the sinks fiffling with lippy and whatnot and readjusting our foundation wear and talking ... mainly about the blokes i think ... and blokes couldnt TALK could they??? ... they were concerned mainly with how they were going to get their hands down your bra ... as for fictional dates ... well i wouldn't mind taking tea with withnail ... as long as dottie p came along too ...

Withnail hey. My sons all-time favourite film but I can never make out which one is 'Withnail' and which one is 'I'. Who was the one who drank the - I think - lighter fuel then meths and got admonished 'I thought I told you not to mix your drinks.' Worth watching just for that one line alone. I am stung and hurt Ivory - as if us boys would talk about such shallow stuff. See how you stereotype us. We're all sensitive creatures at heart with a thin veneer of machismo for protection against the slings and arrows etc., etc. No, while you were sitting on the basin adjusting your 'slap' us blokes were, of course, discussing the finer points of the offside rule. Now there's something we understand but will forever remain a mystery to you lot. You don't need to hear to do that. All you need to do is strategically re-arrange a few beer glasses and use a rolled-up crisp bag for a ball. Sometimes, in our more philosophical moments we'd discuss why it’s impossible for a girl to eat pickled onions without getting a bloke to open the jar first. Must admit I did have a mate (Lennie bushell by name) who once taught me how to undo a front-fastening bar in the dark using nothing but your teeth. Another lifetime skill I've never actually used in practice, a bit like differential calculus.

Must've been frightfully interesting, undoing a front-fastering bar with your teeth, John... Oooh, the picture it conjures up - worthy of a story, I think. Count me out, too, re the 20-minute-linger-in-the-loo to adjust lippy or anything else (especially and emphatically no dancing around handbags! Gawd, what a thought. Never performed either rite, I'm afraid). Er...what's a 'disco'? Maybe I left the UK too soon, eh?

Hello, Andrea Will ask Lennie Bushell about the front-fastening thingy. He won't mind. In fact, he still talks of little else. Plus, he was good at it (so he says) whilst with me it was nothing but theory. For 'theory' read 'downright lies and exaggeration.' Well, I am a bloke after all - what do you expect. A disco is like a club for people with little or no brains and with a particular liking for crap music. It also helps if you don't mind having your eardrums shattered on a basis daily. I should know, I virtually lived in 'em from age 17 to 20. And yes - I know it's sad. There and on the footie pitch, anyway. What's that you said? Sorry, can't hear you. Shattered my eardrums in The Club Lafayette (no, honestly) disco circa 1967, you know. That twenty-minute wait was like an instrument of torture believe me so I'm glad you were never guilty of this. It's true what they say you know. When a man and woman start to get to know one another, one of them knows after about half an hour whether they'll end up in bed. And it's never the bloke who knows. That's something else Lennie Bushell taight me. He knew about these things. Or at least, he said he did.

Sorry, John, it's just that you said 'bar' instead of 'bra' , and I had this silly vision of you dismantling Paddy O'Reilly's spittoons with your teeth whilst siumultaneoulsy slurping Guinness... As for having my eardrums shattered on a daily basis, I have a 12-year-old. 'Nuff said, I think...

Have checked Andrea and you're dead right. Don't know me bars from me bras - a fundamental error if ever there was one. Many apologies. Have just returned from a weekend in Dublin - have I mentioned this or was the reference to Paddy O'Reilly's bar just a happy coincidence - where admittedly I did try an odd Guinness or two. Well, you have to, don't you. I did not however attempt to dismantle any bars with me teeth - I was with self-styled better-half. If I'd been with Lenny we might just have given it a go. Maybe next time.

T'was a just a happy coincidence (do they exist?). I Love Dublin and most things Irish in fact (especially the Guiiness!). Er...about time you learned the difference, I think...

Andrea, haven't we had the 'Do coincidences exist' conversation somewhere before? We have, haven't we. 'Twas my first visit to Dublin. liked the city well enough but really loved all those little seaside towns you can visit on that DART railway thingy. It's true as well. The Guinness does taste better in it's home town, just like they say. It's more than a little sad, ain't it - a 50+ bloke who still confuses bars and bras. Especially as I've spent so much time inside the former and a roughly corresponding amount of time outside the latter, vainly pleading to be allowed in. Ah well, it's probably too late to matter much now, anyway. Am off now to attempt, for the four-hundredth time, to read Ulysses - especially now I know exactly where the Forty Foot Pool and Davie Byrne's pub really are. Saw Bono's house as well (well, at least the big black gates) but all the same I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

*sigh* Who has, John, except, possibly Bono (although I doubt it)? I especially loved all those little seaside towns that the DART railway thingy doesn't reach...

Andrea, I read McCarthy's Bar on me hols. You'd love it. It's by Pete McCarthy if you haven't already read it.