Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend from Emmylou Harris on Myspace.
Does anyone still read Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? I mean the novel, not the variously fluffy musical/movie productions. It’s presented as the diary of a thunderously unintelligent young woman. Lorelei Lee — not her original name — beats an attempted murder rap in Little Rock, gets sent to Hollywood ‘because such a beautiful young lady as I deserves to be in the motion pictures’, is discovered (by implication, doing ‘naughty flicks for gentlemen’) by the rich-but-socially-substandard Chicago Button [manufacturing] King, and moves to Manhattan (on his dime) to enjoy all the best of the Jazz Age. Despite her plaints that people ‘seem to want to misunderstand’ why so many increasingly rich and powerful older men would take such pains to assist a silly rabbit like her, she has the carnivorous efficiency of a Chlamydia trachomatis bacterium… which is why I think Emmylou Harris’ flat-affect heartland tones best capture the spirit of Lorelei Lee.
(There’s even a section where a besotted Greenwich Village poet bestows an expensive bound set of Joseph Conrad’s novels on Lorelei, who quickly passes them on to her part-time African-American maid… except for the one with the unfortunate title, because ‘that would have been a terrible false pause’.)
Almost a hundred years later, and the only significant difference seems to be that the modern negotiable-affection gift is luxury vehicles instead of jewelry…
SiubhanDuinne
I never read GPB, but I remember reading, and thoroughly enjoying, Anita Loos’ autobiography, A Girl Like I.
Ruckus
Politics may change but life rarely does that much.
NotMax
A somewhat, um, spicier version.
And a multiplicity version (the Dietrich is delightfully spot on).
Just because.
Tommy
Well I had not listen to any Emmylou Harris in ages. So I went to Google and found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA3RKUHhN5A
Dave Matthews and Emmylou Harris doing a Johnny Cash tribute. Long Black Veil.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: You should try it — it’s short, and it’s a real hoot!
Anita Loos understood, rather ruefully, how in an imperfect (sexist) society, single-minded determination and a complete lack of humor could be worth more than a high IQ and a literary education to a young woman. She writes herself into GPB as Lorelei’s much smarter, but ultimately far less successful, best friend; Dorothy gets the best lines, but Lorelei gets the Main Line estate.
Omnes Omnibus
Macky Messer?
jl
I saw a clip of the interview with the self proclaimed ‘silly rabbit’. Whatever it is, I think it will be weird, and probably uncomfortable.
Sterling seems to be involved with an interesting cast. He is suing an ex-mployee (and mistress?) for embezzlement and fraud, and another(?) is involved in some court case and he claims she totally took over his mind by giving him blow jobs in the back of a limo while going home from games. Are those the same person?
And Stiviano is yet another person? From the interview, sounds like she is still talking with him.
Until I have basic facts strait, I got nothing further to say.
Edit: Except, seems clear Sterling is and has been a total mess.
Tommy
@jl: Somebody that loves him needs to throw him a life line. I’ve done a few dumb things in my life and I always had a family member willing to step up and say you are being a dick. Stop it. It is embarrassing. Everybody else can see it if you can’t. Clearly nobody is telling him this.
Anne Laurie
@jl: If I have it right, Stiviano (not her original name) is the self-proclaimed ‘silly rabbit’, who is being sued by Sterling’s wife because the $1.8million condo she’s living in was supposed to be [legal term] community property within the marriage, not a gift to the young-enough-to-be-his-granddaughter lady who also calls herself Sterling’s ‘archivist’.
The blow-jobs-in-the-limo lady was an earlier arm-candy-and-or-mistress, and the vulgar descriptions were made in a court case some years ago. Which you’d think might’ve taught Sterling a lesson, except there’s no fool like an old fool and the heart (or some other organ) wants what it wants…
Jordan Rules
@jl: Sterling was actually at the Barbara Walters interview along with Stiviano. He determined he wasn’t prepared for interviews and bailed on Walters and Anderson Cooper. Obviously much can be speculated from this not the least of which concerns Stivianos strange appearance with Walters and what his presence means. This saga is messy and won’t end any time soon.
At least we get brilliant columns from Coates on race and black athletes have to think about their role in the mega industry of sports-entertainment and that industry’s role in society and history.
Mnemosyne
The Monroe/Russell musical still holds up extremely well as the story of two best friends who also have a couple of romances on the side … but in their triumphal walk down the aisle of their double wedding, the camera focuses on Lorelei and Dorothy and pretty much ignores the bridegrooms. Because the movie is all about them and their friendship, not some piddly men.
Plus the “Ain’t Anyone Here For Love?” number is hilarious and astounding.
ETA: It’s on instant streaming for both Netflix and Amazon.
Tommy
@Anne Laurie: The age thing I will never understand. A number of years ago my brother got married. Married into this huge family. Married in FL, cause well they wanted to get married on a beach. My brother’s wife’s niece comes by in a tong bikini. I think 20. A very attractive young lady (notice I said young). I caught myself looking then I threw up in my mouth a little. I could have a child her age.
Look I am not 70 or 80. 44. But I find it very strange that a person that is old enough to be your grandfather wants to date you. At least for me, something really creepy about it.
jl
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks. I’ll print it out and try to get it straight.
@Jordan Rules:
OK. Thanks for the info, I had that one right. Sterling is mess, I guess a sad mess as well as other types.
fergie
I always loved the Patrick Dennis novels, Auntie Mame and the one about Christmas and divorce, which was hilarious to me as a teenager… called The Joyous Season.
fergie
Anne Laurie
@Tommy: True confession: My father-in-law — Spousal Unit’s mother’s second husband — is younger than her oldest son (although, she always added, older than her younger son). She never did look her age, and by the time she escaped Michigan for Florida, she figured she was entitled to a little more fun. More power to her, I (and the Spousal Unit) say!
Tommy
@Anne Laurie: Although I believe what I wrote I almost wanted to hit delete. If somebody falls in love, more power to them. Spend the rest of your life with the person. I just hate old rich men dating women young enough to be their grand kids.
Maybe too much info, but I tend to put myself in situations where I run into single women close to my age.
Anne Laurie
@fergie: Oh, I love Joyous Season… and Paradise… and House Party… and Little Me (which was kind of a parody of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). They are indefensibly “of their era”, but still entertaining if you’re willing to give the sexism/racism/classism a temporary pass — given the popularity of Mad Men, it almost surprises me that none of them have been reprinted.
Now that it’s in paperback, I do have to buy a copy of Uncle Mame, though!
ruemara
I’m hoping this girl’s best friend is the hydrocodone. Then I can fall asleep. Fun fact: I now have a rugged lantern jaw on one side. I think I’ll defy the doctor a bit and have a nice walk to the Starbucks. Being indoors all day is boring.
ulee
Here Shawn comes and picks Cole in the kitchen with a scissor.
ulee
Cole cries,”Shawn, I gave you my home and my pets. Why have you done this?” Shawn says,”It’s in my nature.”
It
max
@ulee: Here Shawn comes and picks Cole in the kitchen with a scissor.
So you’re writing Shawn & John slash fiction?
max
[‘Well, that’s…. so… very.’]
ulee
@max: Yes, something like that.
ulee
Oh, then go to bed, you murder of bedsleepers.
NotMax
Struck me funny, anyway.
One of those insipid 1950s educational shorts just aired and in the credits was someone with a splendiferously memorable name: Loyal Roach.
Jose Padilla
“fluffy musical/movie productions” sells Howard Hawks’s movie version way short. It’s an acute comment on relations between the sexes in the mid-20th Century.
David in NY
@Anne Laurie:
I would have thought that impossible — the effect being so light as to vanish in thin air.
And — makes me think what good effect writers have gotten by writing books that are ostensibly the memoirs of people who can’t write, but are plunging ahead anyway. Mark Harris’s baseball books, The Southpaw and Bang the Drum Slowly, are written by a — how to say — literate character uncomfortable with the written version of his own language. And, I guess, Lorelei and other such characters owe a lot to Mrs. Malaprop, and that’s going back a long way.
rea
“the modern negotiable-affection gift seems to be luxury vehicles instead of jewelry”
Mmmm to the left
Everything you own in the box to the left
In the closet, thats my stuff
Yes, if I bought it, then please don’t touch (don’t touch)
And keep talking that mess, thats fine
Could you walk and talk, at the same time?
And its my name thats on that jag
So go move your bags, let me call you a cab
divF
Even though I am a big fan of Emmylou, I had never heard this song. The underlying riff sounds like early Lou Reed, so you get a cross between Lorelei Lee and “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”. Loved it.
Matt McIrvin
I was wondering: were diamonds ever actually a good store of wealth? I understand that if you are not De Beers it can be difficult to sell them for a decent return.
jake the antisoshul soshulist (FYWP)
If I am correct, at one time, personal jewelry was the only property of value that a woman could own and which would not
revert to her nearest male relative.
If the diamonds in question were a gift of affection, then any return would be a gain. At least it would be a financial gain.
It depends on the value that the giftee would place on their affection and self-respect.
Lorilei would have likely thought that a Ferrari was also a girl’s best friend
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I think that historically they were a good store of wealth back in the days when they had to be mined by hand and then shipped in sailing ships, but not quite as much these days.
These days, it’s not a good investment because you’ll never get back in cash what you paid for it. As a store of wealth you received as a gift that you didn’t have to pay for, it’s still pretty good.
Bob In Portland
The CIA and FBI are running things in Kiev.
Tehanu
@Anne Laurie:
A terrific book about Patrick Dennis, I recommend it highly. I still love all his books although, as you say, you do sometimes have to hold your nose a bit. Ever read Genius? That’s my favorite after the Mame books.
Pluky
@Matt McIrvin: The best thing about diamonds as a store of wealth is that they’re portable.
grumpy realist
@Mnemosyne: Diamonds have never been a Girl’s Best Friend. It was a marketing slogan invented by an American jewelry company.
Star rubies, on the other hand….