In the meantime, there was nothing
to do save to work with the dead for
allies, and at odds with the ignorance
of most of the living, that that edifice,
so many times begun, so discourag-
ingly reduced to ruins, might yet stand
as the headquarters of humanity …
EDMUND WILSON
Why shouldn't a man who drinks champagne, plays bingo, and speculates in property also be against the space race and fight for better public education and health services?l
*
"You know, Yeats didn't have a five-pound note until he was over forty. He told me that himself."2
*
"But, as I see it, a poet is just the man most highly qualified for dealing with words, all words. Now I am working on the Midlands Electricity and VP Wine accounts."3
*
Q. Do you know there are two kinds of perspiration?
A. It's true! One is "physical", caused by work, heat or exertion; the other is "nervous", stimulated by emotion or sexual excitement. It's the kind that comes at moments when you are tense or emotionally excited.4
*
The mother of a college sophomore said her daughter confessed that she just couldn't go back to college still a virgin.5
*
Does Mr. Morgan, or anyone else outside the schools, realise that about one-third of the population is practically illiterate and can only be reached through the medium of sound accompanied picture and not through the printed word? The TV commercial is the most powerful way of keeping these viewers up to date with new products, of developing a critical appraisal of what is offered for sale, and of setting standards of personal taste and hygiene. and in so doing the programme contractors have a recognised responsibility which on the whole they serve well.6
*
The Season will almost certainly break a girl of any craving she might formerly have had for champagne. She will become permanently bored with it and find water more exciting.7
*
"I can understand that noise may be a nuisance to some people, especially if they are trying to work. But I like it. I would rather it was noisy than quiet. I can't stand silence."8
*
After a fanfare by trumpeters of the Royal Artillery, Mrs. Parnes cut the Celebration Cake, fashioned as a chemin de fer table. Chef de pâtissier Eric Williams used 600 eggs in making the three 112-lb. identical cakes ordered for the celebrations. 80-lb. of marzipan were needed for the green "baize" covers, the Casino chips and the full pack of cards.
The court cards were a work of art in icing and the cakes took nearly three weeks to prepare.9
*
"I remember when we were playing the Yacht Club. All the publishers used to go there. They liked Fats and they'd all want his songs. I remember one night when he played 'If I Had You.' He started crying. It turned out he was thinking about his earlier days and about all the hits he had given away. Jack Robbins, the music publisher, once told me that, if Fats had completed all the songs he'd gotten advances on, Robbins would be a millionaire again. "10
*
APPIN — Retiring master William T. May was presented with a gold past masters jewel by the Appin Preceptory Royal Black Knights of Ireland. The presentation was made by the Right Wor. Past Grand Master Sir Knight James Warrell.
Sir Knight Mr. May was congratulated on not missing a July 12 celebration for the past sixty years.11
*
Harewood also has an Hanoverian impatience and temper, especially liable to be provoked by a slovenly waiter or mediocre maître d'hotel. He believes, quite rightly, that one has a duty to voice one's complaints and that unless certain standards are insisted on all of us in this country will end up conforming to canteen food foraged from a chromium-plated trough. His comments in restaurants often embarrass more timid companions.12
*
"Bobby", he said, "bread is your only friend."13
*
He died penniless, having survived on city welfare checks these past years. A few days after his death the city claimed his trombone and personal belongings.14
*
"A chap was arrested after the attempt on de Gaulle, and when he was picked up in a cafe he said: 'At seventeen I wasn't afraid of anything. Now at thirty-five I fear everything'."15
*
"When Mr. Miller was on trial for contempt of Congress, a certain corporation executive said either he named names and I got him to name names, or I was finished."16
*
Unlike Chessman, who was detested by all who understood him, Paul Crump has thousands of friends to plead for his life, among them powerful newspaper editors, hundreds of clergymen, and the warden of the jail, a former policeman.17
*
Canon R. L. Hussey (Manchester) said the Bishop of Durham's speech reminded him of a prison governor's observation: "It is in the condemned cell that the gospel comes into its own.18
*
"There is at least the possibility that the nuclear bomb may eventually be a schoolmaster leading men to Christ." The Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Morris, urged the Governing Body of the Church in Wales to ponder the possibility in his presidential address today.19
*
The real blow came in 1958 when he suffered a stroke which impaired the co-ordination of his hands so that playing became nearly impossible. Today, Pete Johnson is still a sick man with heavy medical bills. He recently tried to apply for Social Security disability benefits, but he was told that before he could collect he must establish that payments had been made to his Social Security account by his employers during the two years preceding his crippling stroke. He discovered that the club owners he had worked for had deducted the tax from his pay but had never turned it in to the government. Therefore he was ineligible for disability benefits.20
1. Peter Green, in The Listener.
2. Sean O'Casey, quoted in The Guardian.
3. Edward Lucie-Smith, quoted in The Sunday Times.
4. Text of an Arrid advertisement.
5. "The Moral Disarmament of Betty Coed", by Gloria Steinem, published in Esquire.
6. A letter in the Financial Times.
7. The Tatler.
8. A 20-year-old girl bank clerk, quoted by the Daily Herald.
9. A report in the Brighton & Hove Herald.
10. Gene Sedric, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya, edited by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff.
11. A report in the Windsor Daily Star.
12. Ronald Duncan, in The Sunday Times.
13. Charlie Parker, quoted by Robert George Reisner in Eddie Condon's Treasury of Jazz.
14. "Miff Mole", by Jack Bradley, published in Jazz Journal.
15. Francois Truffaut, quoted in Sight and Sound.
16. Marilyn Monroe, quoted by Life.
17. A caption in Life.
18. A report in The Times.
19. Ditto.
20. "Pete Johnson: Jazz Pianist", by H. A. Woodfin, published in Jazz Monthly.
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