January 13, 2013

"That's how you laughed in the middle of the night."

Said Meade, and I said: "Then Chip Ahoy must have been in my dream."

Because I was just reading his comment: "Melody and Rose broke up the Sweedish contractors and threw change in the tip jar and put on her warm magic apron."

And I laughed not because that is nonsense, but because it's a quite brilliant contribution to a conversation that was pretty far along at that point, including betamax3000's extended interpretation of "The White Album." Beta had said:
Like the White Album perhaps Althouse is telling us there are secret messages to be found, backwards.

"Sweetly up broke voice, her rose melody."

"Upon magic human warm her of little."

"Out tipped change."
It all began with a sentence from "The Great Gatsby," which was about — not a woman laughing — a woman singing. But women laugh all the time in "The Great Gatsby." For example: "She looked at me and laughed pointlessly."

"These 'Gatsby' posts are becoming the new café around here" — "café" posts are open threads  — I say as I drink my coffee and contemplate today's Gatsby sentence, which I'd said will be "I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee."

I picked that sentence after searching my Kindle copy of "Gatsby" for "potato" after betamax3000 said:
Yesterday was "gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder," today is "tipped out a little of her warm human magic." Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?
And that was funny, because — before getting out of bed this morning — I'd been toying with the idea of saying: In that "Melody rose" sentence, Fitzgerald intended us to think of semen when we read about "warm human magic" that tipped out of the vessel that is the woman.
 

And betamax added:
My God: if we get to the sentence involving Daisy, the potato and the gardener I just don't know what is going to happen.
Which is what had me looking for "potato" in "Gatsby," not finding it, and suspecting that betamax was making a canny reference to "Lady Chatterly's Lover." I buy "Lady Chatterly's Lover" in Kindle just so I can search for "potato"! My literary pursuits are a tad — a tot — bizarre. I find:
"No; my heart's as numb as a potato, my penis droops and never lifts its head up, I dare rather cut him clean off than say 'shit!' in front of my mother or my aunt... they are real ladies, mind you; and I'm not really intelligent, I'm only a 'mental-lifer.'"
And:
"I don't want to fuck you at all. My heart's as cold as cold potatoes just now."

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chip said "I thought contralto was where you go

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah"


No, that's Bel Canto.

I'm sure of it.

edutcher said...

Well, if she put on her warm magic apron, it must have been for Peter.

IYKWIM

PS Any reason for bolding Gatsby analysis?

Elliott A said...

Unfortunately, some of the commenters and our hostess sometimes operate on a level lost to my 30 plus years of focusing on teeth. When pointed out to me, I laughed out loud, though not in the middle of the night.

ricpic said...

Didn't James Joyce do the nonsense/deeper sense like eighty or ninety years ago?

Ann Althouse said...

@Elliot A

There is one occurrence of "dentist" in "Gatsby":

“Who is he, anyhow, an actor?”

“No.”

“A dentist?”

“Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”

madAsHell said...

Suddenly, all I can think of is Grace Slick and White Rabbit....

pm317 said...

Good job, beta.. may be Althouse should chase Lady Chatterley's lover instead of Gatsby..

Ann Althouse said...

"may be Althouse should chase Lady Chatterley's lover instead of Gatsby.."

Here, in person, at Meadhouse, what I've been saying is maybe I should do a Lady Chatterly as well as a Gatsby sentence every day. It was quite refreshing to get such amusing sentences without looking for anything other than "potato."

Ann Althouse said...

I'm amused that right after "potato, my penis droops" up pops Quayle.

kentuckyliz said...

You call attention to a great feature of the Kindle (or other e reading apps and PDF)--the ability to search for a word or phrase.

Done manually, takes forever.

Anonymous said...

up pops Quayle

I carry the blood of polygamists in my veins.

So one should expect that sort of thing, I guess.

Meade said...

Shouldn't that be spelled q-u-a-i-l? No "e"?

Anonymous said...

Nope. Quayle is right.

Anonymous said...

I took the name from my great grandfather, pictured here surrounded by some new friends.

Meade said...

Is that your gramps - center left? The one with his hat covering his... potato?

Paddy O said...

On a Sunday!?

Elliott A said...

@Ann-I didn't remember that, since I read Gatsby in my pre-dental life. I'll have to get it on my kindle and reread!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

quayle... penis...

Up pops the other Bush pic shooting his lawyer... by accident.

Ann Althouse said...

"@Ann-I didn't remember that, since I read Gatsby in my pre-dental life. I'll have to get it on my kindle and reread!"

Who would? I just like to fool with the search function.