Imperial Valley press., 1935-04-29

S0I NsuuytC
NEW YORK, April 29.-In the |
manner of Arnold Benefits jour- |
nal: A Frenchman inquired at Ted |
Woodyard's why no American uses !
the phrase savoir faire correctly. |!
The meaning is a bit derogatory, |
tricky almost. To know your way |
around i. c. know how to behave |
is not savoir faire but savoir viyre. |
But then no one in France says !
demitasse either. I find the word |
l like best to write on a type /
writer is banana. 1t has rhythm. |
M. was asking at breakfast what |
had become of hypnotism. 1t pro-
missed to cure everything, alsohol-
ism, insomnia, stealing rubber
bands, etc.
A circular in the post bracket
ed some interesting autograph quo
tations. w. r. Hearst, Elinor Glyn
Richard LIE Gallienne, Ella Wheel
er Wilcox 81 each. George Ade, r.
vim Cobb, Fannie Hurst so cents.
All morning in a dither over lest
scissors. The thing hardest to find
is something you had but a min
ute ago.
There should be an essay on the
lost art of drinking. A couple came
into a cafe apparently cold sober.
They had two cocktails each. And
went out with the deliberation of
a man in a diving suit under wa
ter. Harry Leon Wilson, I hear,
could drink more and keep con-
troll than any man of his time.
Wilson has been a teetotaler
many years. All the quart-a- day
men 1 know became abstainers or
cracked up. The survivors become
even finicky over a wine sauce on
pudding. I have always wanted to
ask a Freudian what this means?
When I pass long rows of green
houses in imagination build
medieval catapults with giant
springs to hurl rocks into them.
The japes about the Gay 90's are
about tuckered out. No one-a
grand theme for Don Marquis -
has taken up the decade of the
TWenties. That was an epoch of
Weltschmerts, Wanderlust, the
Sturm and Drang and all those
German mental measles, when
man of 25 is really younger than
boy of Is. A boy thinks his own
thoughts but man 25 SO often
| thinks predigested thoughts of 9TH
ers regurgitated in books. Gelett
Burgess notes that Clement Vau-
tel, of the Paris Journal, is the
; Haywood Broun of that capital.
We found q new sphaghetti cave
off Roosevelt street. The proprie-
tor and cook seemed a burly ruff
fian smoking a cigar as he dished
and served But he had that cul-
mary touch. AT the next table we
watched an Italian eating ba-
mana without ever touching it with
his fingers. Knife and fork work
made you think him a paragon of
refinement. Then he leaned back
to execute languid bicuspid maneu-
vers with a toothpick. Very comic
strip Someone over the coffee
grew eloquent about Jack London.
But T. was a vehement dissenter.
Claimed London was an intellec-
tual bully, forcing an argument,
when you had no opinion what
ever, then devastating with blows
below the belt.
Every writer has a favorite pro-
fessional trick. The most antiquat-
ed is looking up a quotation and
writing up to it. Smacks of vast
learning. Discussing quotations, 1
am reminded of this one across
page of the New York American
recently: mo man is my friend,
no man is my enemy; every man
is my teacher One could build
his whole life on that.
For two nights I read into the
dawn. The book: Hell Hole of Gre
alton" An Englishman l.. M. Mes
bitt, goes through the soaring, say
age infested Danakil desert of
Abyssinia. All others died trying.
He lives. What ringing and pro-
found humility his closing prefac-
ing line: "I had habit of plac-
ing my trust in Providence!" Cor
nelia Otis Skinner does most of her
sketch writing, her press agent
says, on trains. She gets Tilt from
the clickety-clack of wheels. I ne
yer met the late Adolph Ochs. But
vast eulogies seem fitting. He went
out of his way to be kind with a
warming letter when I was target
for cruel aspersion.
Achmed Abdullah with a mon
ocle clapped in his eye, dining at
La Rue with a Japanese sporting a
mustache a la Menjou offered a
duo of cosmopolites. They ratified
away in French. On train out of
San Francisco one time I sat oppo-
site a Japanese for dinner. When
we said our adieus he observed:
your talk vera joylike and gay
full" 1 had been telling him of diff
ferent jobs lost. Quite unfunny. M.
asked from the other room when I
was going back to see the new
home in Ohio and told her I
didn't know. They'll soon be call
ing it McIntyre's Folly" she called |
Today I wrote a daily essay and
long promised magazine sketch in
three hours. Crossing blandly