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GIMMICK_PARTIES

                                             June 17, 2008

Apparently, there was a craze among the
wealthy in the 1920s for what I would
call "gimmick parties".

I know about this by it's secondary
echoes throughout the world of
fiction -- as is pretty common for          OUT_OF_THE_DUMPSTER
me.

Ayn Rand, in _Atlas Shrugged_, talks
about a decadent affair taking place
in a palace of ice, where female            According to Rand, this
guests were encouraged to strip as          sort of thing is nasty
the palace melted.                          and useless, and she is
                                            above such things in
                                            her very serious,
And in G.K. Chesterton's                    pragmatic new socialist
story "The Mistake of the                   outlook -- oh, I'm
Machine", a newspaper                       sorry, in her new
society column is quoted:                   *capitalist* outlook.

  "Society's brightest widower is once          Though the very fact
  more on the Freak Dinner stunt.  All          that she can envision
  our exclusive citizens will recall            this scenario would
  the Perambulator Parade Dinner, in            seem to undercut her
  which Last-Trick Todd, at his                 claim to purity.
  palatial home at Pilgrim's Pond,
  cased so many of our prominent                    Note: in the context of
  debutantes to look even younger than              the story, the man who
  their years.  Equally elegant and                 organized this party is
  more miscellaneous and large-hearted              one of the heroes; he has
  in social outlook was Last-Trick's                gone undercover and
  show the year previous, the popular               needs to establish a
  Cannibal Crush Lunch, at which the                reputation as a playboy
  confections handed round were                     wastrel.
  sarcastically moulded in the forms
  of human arms and legs, and during                   Having it
  which more than one of our gayest                    both ways.
  mental gymnasts was heard offering
  to eat his partner."                                  LIKE_EVIL


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