 Let us now diss famous dames. . .These quotes are, of course, borrowed. But the person who originally used them must've borrowed them too, eh? Truth is, it's Monday and I don't feel like writing anything. So I will let famous people speak for me, saying colorfully nasty things about women of note. This was a long list and I winnowed out the clinkers, noticing that the only really good ones belonged to another time and place. The art of the gorgeous insult is apparently wearing thin. Please note: in keeping with my latest obsession, we could not avoid including several choice Levant quotes. I don't think he sat around inventing these: they just spontaneously sailed out of his bizarre and fevered intellect, and straight over everyone's head. 
She was incredibly ugly, uglier than almost anyone I had
ever met. A thin, withered creature, she sat hunched in her chair, in her heavy tweed suit and her thick lisle stockings, impregnable and indifferent. She had a huge nose, a dark mustache, and her dark-dyed hair was combed into absurd bangs over her forehead. - - - Otto Friedrich (about Alice B. Toklas) I loathe you. You revolt me, stewing in your consumption. . . you are a loathsome reptile - I hope you die. - - - D. H. Lawrence (to Katherine Mansfield)  Zsa Zsa Gabor - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) The only person who ever left the Iron Curtain wearing it. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) You can calculate Zsa Zsa Gabor's age by the rings on her fingers. - - - Bob Hope Katherine Hepburn She has a face that belongs to the sea and the wind, with large rocking-horse nostrils and teeth that you just know bite an apple every day. - - - Cecil Beaton (about Katherine Hepburn) She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B. - - - Dorothy Parker (about Katherine Hepburn) Marilyn MonroeHer body has gone to her head. - - - Barbara Stanwyck (about Marilyn Monroe) She has breasts of granite and a mind like a Gruyere cheese. - - - Billy Wilder (about Marilyn Monroe) She's a vacuum with nipples. - - - Otto Preminger (about Marilyn Monroe)  Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth Taylor looks like two small boys fighting underneath a thick blanket. - - - Mr. Blackwell Every minute this broad spends outside of bed is a waste of time. - - - Michael Todd (about Elizabeth Taylor) Other ActressesHer hair lounges on her shoulders like an anesthetized cocker spaniel. - - - Henry Allen (about Lauren Bacall, 1994)  I treasure every moment that I do not see her.- - - Oscar Levant (about Phyllis Diller)  MiscellaneousIn feathered hats that were once the rage, she resemblesa petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age. A royal wreck - - - Mr. Blackwell (about Camilla Parker-Bowles) (More) Literary LegendsA fungus of pendulous shape.- - - Alice James (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) George Eliot has the heart of Sappho; but the face, with the long proboscis, the protruding teeth of the Apocalyptic horse, betrayed animality. - - - George Meredith (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans)  Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the." - - - Mary McCarthy (about Lillian Hellman) Isn't she a poisonous thing of a woman, lying, concealing, flipping, plagiarizing, misquoting, and being as clever a crooked literary publicist as ever. - - - Dylan Thomas (about Dame Edith Sitwell)  I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts, otherwise the dove of peace will shit on me. - - - Noel Coward (about Dame Edith Sitwell) In her last days, she resembled a spoiled pear. - - - Gore Vidal (about Gertrude Stein)  She was a master at making nothing happen very slowly. - - - Clifton Fadiman (about Gertrude Stein) Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere. - - - Dame Edith Sitwell (about Virginia Woolf)  (Favorites? Am I prejudiced in favor of Oscar Levant? His jibes shouldn't have worked because they were full of unlikely words like 'barbecue' and 'Iron Curtain', but they win the prize for originality and sheer goofiness. In second place, the "nothing very slowly" about Stein, who really seems to get it in these things. Also, did you notice the similarity in pose between Dylan Thomas and Marilyn Monroe? Each of them whoring in their own special way.) |
Monday, September 24, 2012
Cheap Trick of the Day
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I see what you mean about the lack of love among the literati. Sheesh.
ReplyDeletePoison pens, indeed. (Poison penises, too.) This is why I say "writer's group" is an oxymoron. "Real" writers hate each other and, in fact, hate all of humanity, which is why they are so good at dissecting them/it/he/she/whatever!
ReplyDeleteDo we become writers because we're sociopaths, or do we become sociopaths because we're writers? It's definitely a symbiotic thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's the pearl in the oyster thing. Writing is a way to contain the damage so it doesn't kill us. We notice others don't suffer the same way, and become resentful or even paranoid. Also, in most cases huge success involves a high degree of ruthlessness. There is a real parallel to being an actor, especially in Hollywood. You can imagine the resentment there when some minor player suddenly gets a plum role and becomes a star while the rest of them, perhaps more talented, must drive cab or wait tables.
ReplyDeleteI imagine really successful writers have to become extra protective of their privacy if only to keep from being inundated by unsolicited mss. We tend to be solitary types anyway, and I imagine people figure once you make it big you don't hafta sit and stare at the screen anymore trying to squeeze out another sentence or three, day after fucking day.
ReplyDelete