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April 30, 2012

"Pussy is Alice B. Toklas,

Gertrude%20Stein%20Alice%20B%20Toklas.jpg

whom Hemingway and this then-wife Hadley were not alone in finding "€œfrightening," and for good reason:
with a little green make-up, she could easily have stood in for the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She had a big, hooked nose; wore her black hair combed down to the bridge of it (to hide the chancre between her eyebrows, a deformity so striking Picasso said it made her look like a unicorn); and was graced with luxurious hair on her upper lip. (A three-year-old, on meeting the two ladies, was heard to observe that she liked the man, but why did the lady have a moustache?) --The Importance Of Being Ernest: Hemingway Meets The Gay Gothic « Thought Catalog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at April 30, 2012 10:03 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Ah, but her hashish brownies were divine!

Posted by: PA Cat at April 30, 2012 12:09 PM

Lot of good those brownies did. Stoned fools are deaders.

Posted by: Peccable at April 30, 2012 4:31 PM

From this distance it's obvious, these people were predatory wasps who sold themselves as honeybees. The less I know about them and their works, the better. I suppose there's some worth in studying their works, but only to know how to recognize the con next time around.

Posted by: John A. Fleming at April 30, 2012 5:38 PM

Maybe I should have said parasitic wasps instead. Wasps is the important word.

Posted by: John A. Fleming at April 30, 2012 6:36 PM

They were freaking Nazis, for heaven's sake. Consign them to the outer darkness and leave them there.

Posted by: Fat Man at April 30, 2012 7:59 PM

You guys exemplify the ending from Old Man And The Sea:

"By midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They came in a pack and he could only see the lines in the water their fins made...

Modern day sharks destroying another's life work and achievement. Yeah, right, Ernest Hemingway was just a big old queer. Nothing but psycho-babble from nobodies.

Posted by: Frank at April 30, 2012 9:57 PM

At some point each person has to take responsibility for their work. They can't proclaim that they are a product of their times. Why is only high Art if its purpose is to destroy that from which it sprang?

Hemingway and Fitzgerald, in my boobosie opinion, are the most admirable of the bunch.

If you don't want to be like everyone else, if you want to be different, and reject the life that nurtured you, and strike on your own path, that doesn't give you call to say everyone else is wrong and evil. Have the courage to accept that when you cast off society, to forge your own personal destiny, society casts off you.

And what's with this always searching for the gay subtext in everything? It's just a cigar. Sheesh.

Posted by: John A. Fleming at April 30, 2012 11:06 PM

SHE looks to be an excellent reason to take to drink.

Posted by: Peccable at May 1, 2012 7:03 AM

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