I put a lotus flower in a piece of fiction I’m writing. In the scene, I started to describe the center of the lotus flower, but then I realized I didn’t have a clear idea what it looked like, so I checked it out. This is it:
I don’t know why, but the center of the lotus flower gives me the serious willies. ICK! What is that? What does it feel like? Why are those bumps there?
I know that some people will think that is beautiful, but…
Maybe I should go with another flower.
This is Evelyn Nesbit. She was beautiful, wasn’t she? Last night, while researching something else, I was reminded of her. Back between 1900-1906, she was a media sensation, the first It girl, the first time (that I know of) that America got obsessed with the face of a woman and pushed it to cult-like status. Perhaps we had done that before; perhaps we have always done that. But Evelyn Nesbit was kind of a precursor to Marilyn Monroe, a person who, because she embodied a certain look of a time and a certain specific sexual identity that met with the ideal of the time, was elevated to the emotional and cultural weight of a symbol.
In the above picture, Nesbit is 16 years old. I am not sure how old she is here, but this is one of my favorite pictures of her:
She would be considered beautiful today, but back in 1900 or so, she was the ideal. She had a perfectly oval face, a long straight nose, symmetrical features, and piles of wavy hair. You might think we like the same things today, but actually common protocols suggests that we like features more exaggerated –think Angelina Jolie’s giant lips–and feminine from all angles. From the profile, Nesbit had a rather masculine face:
And could look like Rumor Willis:
In 1902, Nesbit was a well-known model for photographers and artists alike. She was famously depicted in one of Charles Gibsons’ drawings, making her one of the most famous Gibson Girls, and cementing her status as a sex symbol for her day. Here is the drawing that made her name:
She was caught between two men, her lover Stanford White and her husband/abuser (?) Harry Kendall Thaw. She did not seem particularly passionate about either man, although they were passionate about her.
I wanted to tell you more about this, but the Internet is unreliable about details, and I am only now becoming acquainted with Evelyn Nesbit. Therefore, I will have to read a book and get back to you. But what happened in the end was, Thaw shot Stanford White dead over Nesbit. There was a long, elaborate media circus around the incident, during which Nesbit testified in Thaw’s defense (I think), but he went to jail anyway.
I like this part, from Wikipedia:
In his book The Murder of Stanford White, Gerald Langford quoted Thaw as saying “You ruined my life,” or “You ruined my wife,” and the New York Times account the following day stated “Another witness said the word was “wife” instead of “life”" in response to the arresting officer’s report otherwise.
After that, Nesbit became a morphine addict and an alcoholic and tried to kill herself several times. But she didn’t, and lived to age 82. Here she is as an old woman with Joan Collins on the right:
No one has called me a homemaker or anything. I just realized that with all the talk about sewing, and chickens, and cooking, and whatnot I put on the Internet, someone might get that impression about me. I am actually much more interested in art and books and history and philosophy and things like that than I am about home-related stuff. I guess I get more feedback on the home posts than the art/intellectual posts, so I keep going in that direction. But that is not an accurate depiction of myself, so I resolve to write more about weird artists or strange things I research on here, even if the result is the sound of crickets chirping in the comment box.
Check it out. The publishers have redesigned the cover of Kyle’s Official Ubuntu Server Book, second edition, which is coming out July 30! I think it looks spiffy.
I love old paperbacks. The older they are, the better. For example, this version of Howard’s End by EM Forster was originally published in 1921 by Knopf.
I picked it up last weekend at a thrift store for $.30. I think the green cover with the black trees is the bees knees.
I wish I still had my paperback of Days of the Locust by Nathanael West to show you. It might have been an original version of the book–anyway, it had this great modern, abstract cover. Unfortunately, the book fell apart while I was reading it, and no amount of tape could fix it up. I ended up recycling it, and it made me sad, because the book had survived for so many years, and it is such a good book, too.
There are often great things tucked inside these books as well. In a version of Coriolanus by Shakespeare that I have, someone left the top of a plastic bag that held scan-tron test sheets in it, which must have meant that a teacher owned the book. I have also found family photos, receipts, and once, a part of someone’s painting, which the artist ripped up and left inside the book for someone else (me) to find.
This is a hilarious version of Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. The novel is a classic piece of literature, but the publishers, Signet Book, decided that it would sell better if it was packaged as a steamy romance. On the front, it says, “The romantic classic about a wayward beauty and her scandalous affairs with three dazzled lovers.”
If you have read Far From the Madding Crowd, you know that’s a bit of a stretch. The book is about marriage and love in the English countryside, true, but it’s no Lady Chatterley’s Lover. And then, take a look at the back of the book:
SHE WAS A WANTON WHO NEEDED TAMING
This is my favorite thrift store book find. It’s a small paperback that has been studiously covered with prim lavender wrapping paper. Why?
It’s the scandalous book from 1956, Peyton’s Place by Grace Metalious, about sex and other bad things in a small American town. The original owner probably covered this book so that she could read it in public without anyone knowing what she was doing.
I love to imagine this woman carefully lining the book and carrying it around with her so she could read it on the bus or at her lunch break without any shame. Or maybe she just did that to all her books. Who knows?
This weekend, if all goes well, we are finally going to start remodeling our bathroom.
I hate our bathroom. It is ugly, moldy, and stupid. The sink is perfectly positioned so that when you are putting on make-up, you can easily drop things on the floor or into the toilet. I have had to throw many things out because of this. The linen closet is about eight inches deep, which means that nothing can be stored in there. The linoleum is peeling up from the floor. And the bathtub is chipped, ugly, and has mold around the edges that I can’t seem to get rid of.
But the worst part of the room is the door. It is positioned so that as you are standing at the sink putting on make-up that you are also trying to keep from dropping onto the floor or toilet, the door slooooooooooowly shuts so that you are lightly bumped from behind.
Imagine, if you would, trying to line your eyes when you are lightly bumped from behind by a door. You cannot shut the door because someone has taken a shower and there is no fan in the bathroom, so everything is fogged up. Therefore, you turn around and push the door open again. It slooowly swings over and bumps you. You push it open. It slooowly swings over and bumps you. You push it open a little firmer this time. It swings faster and bumps you. This continues until you finally get so mad, you turn around and start punching the door. Then your husband comes in and asks what the heck is the matter with you.
Anyway, this weekend, we are MOVING THE DOOR so that I can actually put on make-up in peace. The first step in a long remodel, but a significant one.
