Finishing off Dorothy Parker week with roijoyeux’ guest blog post about Alan Campbell, Parker’s husband twice over. In 1955 they wrote the screenplay for “A Star is Born,” starring Judy Garland. During that hysterical knee-jerk McCarthy ridden era (a time we should all look to for lessons in for today), they were black-listed as anti-American for their… Continue reading Alan Campbell with Dorothy Parker by roijoyeux→
Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) week here at Happiness Between Tails continues! Ever the master of using a brilliant bow of wit to snare darkness with light, here’s three more of her famed quotations …
“I hate writing. I love having written.”
“Living well is the best revenge.”
“I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money.”
a poem …
Razors pain you.
Rivers are damp.
Acids stain you and
drugs cause cramps.
Guns aren’t lawful.
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.
Have you read or watched anything by Dorothy Parker?
Born on this day in 1893 Dorothy Parker, writer & poet is possibly best known for her famous wit. Her one liners are sharp as a knife. Lines like “A girls best friend is her mutter” or “The cure for boredom is curiosity, there is no cure for curiosity”. Her wit developed at an early age when she lost her mother and her father remarried. She refused to call her stepmother anything civil and referred to her as the housekeeper.
She joked that she married to cover up her Jewish background and avoid anti-Semitism. She was an avid anti-fascist and became aligned with left leaning politics in the 1930s. She was blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s McCarthy era as a communist.
“Excuse my dust” was her suggestion for her epitaph. When she died in 1967 she bequeathed her estate to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After his death her estate…
Honoring amazing writer Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967), beloved as much for her honest and imaginative pen as for her witty and unique personality.
What’s something witty that especially touched you?
Here Summer Pierre has composed a lovely drawing …
It was sometime in 1954 in Berlin, that I met this person in a shop. I do not remember his name, but one look at each other was enough to convince us that we both belonged to the Indian subcontinent.
We started chatting, surprisingly not in our common Urdu or Hindi, but in German, a foreign language which we were fluent in! He was holding a small book in his hand – Omar Khayyam’s Rubayyat – in German. I had heard about Omar Khayyam, but had never read the English translation as I disliked that language then. He praised Omar Khayyam no end and out of curiosity I just skimmed through the book. I was certainly impressed and made it a point to buy it the very next day. After exchanging pleasantries we bade each other goodbye, never to meet again. I read and reread that tiny booklet and even…
