Mae West

Just back from the Big Rock Brewery's December "Beer for Thought" lecture, all about the objectification of women in Hollywood 1930-60. Lots of Carmen Miranda banana fetishism, some snowball-headed garter-belted beauties in a little musical number known, creepily, as "Pettin' in the Park." And Mae West, who, as it turns out, now scares the bejeezus out of me. I always thought she was a tough little number, but now with the eyes of maturity or glaucoma or spite or some sense of irony shot high into the stratosphere, now looks like a kind of mythological creature, sort of like a centaur, if centaurs had the attitude of a linebacker, the gait of a gangster with sore balls, and the face of my great aunt Florabel. When she touched Cary Grant I actually said "NOOOO!" to the consternation of my mother in law who is already pretty convinced that I am mad as pants.

And then I spooked the evening's hostess with some ill-conceived jocularity regarding midgets on film. But that's another story and here's to the evening's fifth beer.

Note to Mae West: Please don't come up and see me sometime.