with this line, I'll mark the past...

[greygirlbeast]

Okay. So. Like I said. Bad idea not writing yesterday. I shall not make that mistake again today. Today I will get back on that zeppelin with Dorry, or get her off of it, and move her like a Queen's rook towards THE END of "Bradbury Weather." She's almost there. She only needs a little push.

Yesterday, desperate for the company of someone as sour as myself, I pulled Dorothy Parker down of the shelf. I read through her poetry and part of "A Telephone Call." I was looking for something which I failed to find. But that really didn't matter. I found a few other things I needed to find. Dorothy Parker's wit and disgust can lift me at times and make me feel less alone. She is as kindred a spirit for me as Lovecraft. She'd probably disagree. I expect she'd hate me entirely. But that seems right, too.

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 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.

In 1973, Brendan Gill wrote of Dorothy Parker:

There are writers who die to the world long before they are dead, and if this is sometimes by choice, more often it is a fate imposed on them by others and not easily dealt with. A writer enjoys a vogue, and, the vogue having passed, either he consents to endure the obscurity into which he has been thrust or he struggles against it in vain, with a bitterness that tends to increase as his powers diminish. No matter how well or badly he behaves, the result is the same. If the work is of a certain quality, it survives the passing of the vogue, but the maker of the work no longer effectually exists. Even though he goes on writing, he dwells in a limbo of the half-forgotten, and his obituary notices are read with a flippant, unthinking incredulity: who would have guessed that the tattered old teller of tales had had it in him to hang on so fiercely? What on earth had he been waiting for? Hoping for? Dreading?

In 1997, Poppy and I spent a few days at the Algonquin Hotel, just before it was remodled and the prices jacked up so high that no decent writer would ever again be able to afford a room there. We drank sidecars and imagined ourselves members of some latter-day Round Table. It was wholly pretentious, of course, but then so were the members of the Algonquin Round Table. Or, rather, they exist now so utterly in another time and place, so lost and removed from us in every sense, that we can only perceive pretension.

That was the year before Silk was published, thirty years after Dorothy Parker's possibly belated death.

Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen--
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said.
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?

Gill writes that Dorothy Parker "was given to making reckless remarks..." I can't help but find that admirable.

The nightmares were bad again last night. I thought the rain would help me sleep, but I suspect the wind conspired against it; I just hope we don't lose power today.

Okay. That's enough for now.

Comments

[tagplazen.livejournal.com]

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

That has always made me laugh, some days it's the perfect sentiment. ;-)

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

That has always made me laugh, some days it's the perfect sentiment. ;-)

Yes. I think this poem has saved my life several times. I would have used it today in the post, only "Theory" was stuck in my head.

[tagplazen.livejournal.com]

Frustration is another one that I pull up frequently.

I was jealous as hell a few months ago when I saw there was a book entitled Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin, that would have been such a great song/album title.

[muruch.livejournal.com]

I think this poem has saved my life several times.

Mine, too. Especially during my teen years, when I had the words scrawled on my closet door. The involuntary laugh it always provoked was surprisingly enough to keep me from offing myself.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I remember listing the methods that I could use in 9th grade and by the time I got to TWA to Beirut I realized that I was having too much fun being morbid to ever really kill myself. If I had that poem I would have saved myself some time but the end result was the same.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

you have, of course, seen mrs. parker and the vicious circle.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

you have, of course, seen mrs. parker and the vicious circle.

Many times.

[wishlish.livejournal.com]

Ever heard Prince's song The Ballad of Dorothy Parker? It's not really about her, and it's a bit optimistic for her, but it's a lovely song nonetheless.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Ever heard Prince's song The Ballad of Dorothy Parker? It's not really about her, and it's a bit optimistic for her, but it's a lovely song nonetheless.

Sorry. I've never really been able to listen to Prince.

[wishlish.livejournal.com]

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<reminds himself never to send Caitlin Prince music...>

I am an avid Prince fan, especially when I can find boots of live shows. I have to remember at times that evangelizing his music is a crime in 28 states and Puerto Rico. I'll only state that a great place to start with Prince is Sign O' The Times, as it's a gentler record that some of his others, more deep than fervent, just as weird but charmingly so.

OK, I'll shut up now.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I just moved from Minneapolis. I used to pass by First Avenue all the time. It's much dirtier than it is in the movie, but it's got all the power. It's also where the Replacements played many of their best gigs (although many of those stories about them had Bob and Paul beating each other to a bloody pulp) but I remember getting hooked on Purple Rain and listening to it over and over again. And there's also the fact that he wrote music for Miles Davis and Miles Davis found more talent in him than he did in most other contemporary jazz musicians (although I thought that Miles was a bit gratuitous in his Marselis baiting)

I FINALLY saw him in concert for the musicology tour. I only wish that I could have gotten out to the after concert party at Paisley Park - I never made it out to Paisley Park when I lived in Minnesota. It's too far away from Minneapolis. He's really does the Howard Hughes recluse routine well (didn't even know that he moved away) but yeah it was an amazing concert.

And the Time opened up for him that night too.

So yeah fellow Prince fan. Although I never liked The Ballad of Dorothy Parker. It was at the beginning of his slide into Warner Brothers idiotic symboldom.

[wishlish.livejournal.com]

The real slide started around Grafitti Bridge and that awful movie. Lovesexy was a little bit silly, and Batman had that awful "Arms of Orion" song, but there were still some fine songs (I still love "Vicki Waiting".) But Grafitti Bridge was a weird project- it's actually the SEQUEL to Purple Rain. It's a horrible, horrid, good-god-almight-bad movie, a damn shame since the music was really good. From there, it's downhill- Diamonds and Pearls, writing Slave on his face, the half-rushed albums needed to close out his WB contract, the excess of Emancipation, the botched Crystal Ball project, and the strange embracement of the Jehovah's Witness way of life.

And yet, he's STILL an amazing artist.

We return you now to Caitlin's blog.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Well the movie for Grafitti Bridge sucked because it was just a series of music videos that were barely held together by the same tired plot of the rivalry between Prince and Morris Day - a rivalry that they couldn't even pull off in Purple Rain and really couldn't by Graffiti Bridge when prince was the only reason why Morris Day could find work (same with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis but that was because Prince told Morris Day to fire them) but that was an amazing record and really showed a generosity that you don't usually see with Prince. I just remember coming from the Renaissance Festival and being caught in traffic and everyone in the car was aggravated. Then someone put that in and we all felt better (the RenFest was where I learned to appreciate rap and hiphop - because it was a welcome relief from those fucking hammered dulcimers and sitars and Irish folk tunes about Lassies that get drunk and fuck sheep or whatever they are about.) so it was the miracle album.

I would disagree about Emancipation. I see that as the one where he finally started crawling out of the stupor. And I really liked Crystal Ball. But I'm biased because the Musicology tour was amazing and I really like that CD (free with concert ticket)

[wishlish.livejournal.com]

Hey, I liked Crystal Ball as an album. The failure was the way he managed the online experience for fans- charging them an arm and a leg, promising them that they could only get it from him, making them wait too long, then turning around and shipping it to Best Buy and the like, where the album was MUCH cheaper. Also, the tracks selected angered a lot of hardcore fans who felt that Prince had some better tracks left in the vault.

And I loved Grafitti Bridge as an album- Joy in Repetition was an amazing song.

I can't listen to a lot of Emancipation anymore. Part of it is the tragedy that followed the album. For those unfamiliar, the second disc is pretty much a testament to his wife at the time (Mayte) and the upcoming birth of his son. But his son was born with a horrifying defect and died shortly thereafter. The marriage didn't last long after that.

And part of it is the three-disc idea. I just don't think there were three discs of great songs in here. Two discs, maybe. One disc? Would have been an amazingly tight album. Three? Nah.

One last Prince story: There's a 1987 bootleg, routinely called "Small Club", out there of an aftershow, I believe in either Denmark or Holland. It's an amazingly clear boot, one that I always wondered why P didn't release when he needed extra albums for WB. Anyway, the last track is the original version of "Rave 2 The Joy Fantastic". It's fireworks for your ears, with grinding, exploding, jangling, pulsating guitar by the man and his sidekick Mico. When he announced the album "Rave 2 The Joy Fantastic" (came out in 1999), I couldn't wait to hear the new version. But it was everything the other song wasn't- overproduced, sparse, dull. Same lyrics, but a totally different motif, and a pale, pale version of the original.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

You know I just remembered Harlan Ellison contributing all of his success to Dorothy Parker's glowing review of Gentleman Junkie in one of her columns. It was in the introduction to the ACE editing and it was a strange book for ELlison as many of the stories were semi-autobiographical and there was no science fiction. I can see why she liked it from that poem. Apparently she died soon afterwards. So you also have that connection - friend of a friend of a friend of Parker.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Apparently she died soon afterwards. So you also have that connection - friend of a friend of a friend of Parker.

That is both cool and creepy.

[wishlish.livejournal.com]

Some of Harlan's best works are his restaurant review columns, some of my the best I've ever seen. (Craig LaBan of the Philly Inquirer also writes good columns, but their brilliance lies in the unquenching thirst for perfection, whereas Harlan's work celebrates the joy of finding a good place to ear.)

[oneirophrenia.livejournal.com]

Ms. Parker is one of my idols as well...but not quite as much as Sylvia Plath. There's something about Plath's psychotic depression and abject disgust with the world that I relate to waaaaaaaaaayyy too much.

[listeningowl.livejournal.com]

"desperate for the company of someone as sour as myself"

I'm certainly as sour if not just bitter.
thanks for the Dorothy Parker turn-on

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

thanks for the Dorothy Parker turn-on

You are very welcome.