oh internet...how life ends without you... i apparently helped my computer contract a virus and we've just this weekend lost everything on our hard drive - like a sock in the eye. i won't go into my other pains of today which could all be summed up as ONE BIG CRUEL JOKE, because, i'm in love...

with a woman.

her name is dorothy parker and she was a poet/screenwriter/member of the intellectual elite of the algonquin roundtable in New York in the 1920's mainly, and she is my soulmate. i love her. i saw this movie the other day called Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle - about her and her roundtable friends and jennifer jason leigh played her and i thought i'd hate that because i hate the way she talked at first, and then it grew on me, but matthew broderick was charlie MacArthur, her "in april" lost love that broke her in two and campbell scott (george c. scott's son) was robert benchley, her closest friend who never quite became her love, though they wanted to, and it was heartbreaking.. anyway. i love her poetry. she's so witty and yet such a sad romantic sentimentalist. i'm going to give you some samples, do with them what you will.

Theory

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,
Some one dropped me on my head?

Observation

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I obstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

The Lady's Reward

Lady, lady, never start
Conversations toward you heart,
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek -
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you -
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.

News Item

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

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.

Interior

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat
And set in decorous lines;
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.

A Well-Worn Story

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.

His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.

Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.

In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.

Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

Two-Volume Novel

The sun's gone dim, and
The moon's turned black;
For I loved him, and
He didn't love back.

Résumé

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.


She was always so unlucky in love so she was really quite depressed, though always still witty (i guess the most witty are) - she tried to kill herself several times but ultimately never succeeded. She wanted so much to die on a rainy day, she loved the rain. In the end, she died when she was 74, in 1967, on a bright, sunny day. big cruel jokes. the algonquin roundtable was this big round table they put in the restaurant of the algonquin hotel in new york because this group of friends would always meet and there would be 15 of them around a little tiny table and it became ridiculous.. among them were george s. kaufman and the folks that started The New Yorker.. they sat around and drank when it was illegal and wrote and went to the theatre and exchanged witticisms.. they called each other mr. and mrs. whomever. it looked like a lot of fun.

yknow i always feel like such a fake that i discover these well-known people because hollywood made a movie about them and not through a literature class or something.. but dammit, what am i to do? if you want someone well-known to be better-known, guess what? make a movie about them.

hello again.