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BANKHEAD_AHEAD

                                             May 16, 2010

There's a scene in the Lillian Hellman
memoir "Pentamento", where she
describes a house party where one of              Tellulah Bankhead
the guests was Tellulah Bankhead.                 was a famous
                                                  wild woman of
Hellman walks in on Bankhead in                   Hollywood.
bed with a man, and Bankhead
goes into this routine, showing
off the guys erection, asking
Hellman if she'd ever seen one
as big as that.
                                      STYLE_IMPAIRED
  Hellman was not amused or
  grossed out, but conveyed
  the impression that she               There are some other scenes
  was bored by these antics.            where Dashiel Hammet criticizes
                                        Bankhead's cocaine habit.
  It seemed like tired schtick,
  it reminded her of stuff the            Bankhead is portrayed as
  schoolgirls she knew in the             self-deluded: "I'm not an
  20s used to do.                         addict! I've been using it for
                                          years with out any problems!"

     An example of attitudes              (Myself I suspect that this was a
     swinging back and forth...           weak attempt at self-deprecating
                                          humor that fell flat.)
     The liberal, licentious
     Roaring Twenties seemed              Reading between the lines,
     shrill and tacky a decade            Hammet seems pompous, posing as
     or two later.                        the Great Private Detective for
                                          a bunch of Hollywood clowns.
     That reaction eventually
     veered into the post-war             "When I was with the Pinkertons,
     Return to Normalcy, which            we always hated dealing with the
     in turn gives way to the             drug addicts because you never
     beatnik/hippie Sexual                knew what they were going to do."
     Revolution, on through the
     excesses of the 70s, and                    (paraphrased
     back again (a bit)                           from memory)
     post-80s.
                             
       But the trouble with the       
       pendulum metaphor is that      
       we *do not* "return to           EXCUSES
       the same place".               
                                            NORMAL_PERVERSION
          Every revolution (and           
          counter-revolution?)                                  
          really leaves in place a         It could be, though, that     
          permanent residue.               it's important for us to      
                                           *believe* that the            
                                           pendulum is swinging.         
                                                                         
                                                  We like that simple,  
                                                  two-sided model.




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