Dorothy Parker (1893-1967):
‘If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.’
Fun Facts about Dorothy Parker
For those of you for whom history begins with the appearance of Lady Gaga, allow me to explain – and please, do continue texting in the meantime, that’s so AWEsome!?? – that Dorothy Parker was a poet, short-story writer, a theatre and book reviewer for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair magazines in the 20’s and 30’s, an occasional Hollywood screenwriter, and, deliciously, a fearless great wit who spouted razor-sharp and still-quoted wisecracks as casually as you and I say “Pass the ketchup”.
(A “writer”, children, is someone who used their imagination and a pen to put onto paper a coherent work longer than a bumper sticker, usually published in one of those floppy, useless things called “books.” Ask your grandfather. If he ever stops crying.)
Also a tireless advocate for social justice, she bequeathed her entire estate – some empty gin bottles and her manuscripts, I wager; did I mention that she was tragically and hopelessly alcoholic? – to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and her grave lies in the grounds of that unfortunately named organization. (I’m so gutlessly PC that merely thinking of the words “colored people” makes me want to flagellate myself while taking a shower. Fortunately, I’ve been doing that for years.)
The NAACP, so I understand, is still slightly perplexed, yet in the end, proud, of this strange intersection of fate, incongruity and self-serving white liberalism; this touching, strange, embarrassing situation stands as Parker’s last, sly little wisecrack; and, as with all of her wisecracks, it entertains and brightens our day while casting a fearless great light on nothing but itself.
(*Photo not mine. Puuuuhlease! Like all photos in the world, taken or heretofore to be taken, or existing in the minds of the yet unborn, by means now existing or to be devised by more-evolved humans in another couple of millennia, it belongs to Getty Images. Quite the contract, boys! “Belongs”! LOL! )