We received photocopies of original Dorothy Parker material, as they appeared in magazines long ago. We've been scanning in a few at a time, so fans can see how they looked with the original illustrations. They are quite beautiful to see and read. New on the Gallery page are: "Paging St. Patrick" w/ illustration by Charles Baskerville; Life, 1922;
"To Marjorie Rambeau" illustrator unknown; Life, 1921;
"Figures in Popular Literature: The Flapper" w/ illustration by Charles Baskerville; Life, 1922;
"Life's Valentines" (Flo Ziegfeld & Charles Hopgood) w/ illusrations by Ralph Barton; Life, 1922.
All of these appear in Scribner's Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker, which is on sale in the What The Hell Book Shop. A great new trade paperback edition with a retro cover design was published in July.
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Sunday, September 30, 2001 at 9:33 AM | Permalink  
If you live near Baltimore, trek on over to the Baltimore Book Festival this Sunday, September 30, at 3:30 P.M. in the Coffee Bar & Poetry Stage. Niki Lee will be performing excerpts from her new play here lies dorothy parker at the festival; there's information at www.nikilee.com and www.baltimoreevents.org. We did a short e-mail interview with the Baltimore singer-songwriter-Parker fan. Q: What's the play about? A: Well, here lies dorothy parker is words and song. I have written Mrs. Parker's diary and have constructed a story as to how it's come into my possession. The diary leans heavily on her actual words and follows her life from the time she is nine until the day before she dies. Q: When did you become a Parker fan? A: I became interested in Mrs. Parker last year after watching Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. I then put her poems to song and have spent the last year writing this play Q: How long have you been performing? A: I've been performing for about 15 years, singing, mostly...lately, it's just me and my guitar. You can go to my site if you want to hear one of the parker tunes and read more about me, www.nikilee.com. Thanks for your interest... I love your site, it's been extremely helpful. See this show if you can!
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 at 11:50 AM | Permalink
The What the Hell Book Shop has some new additions. There's a few books that might appeal to Dorothy Parker fans that have been added. These are from Round Table members Harold Ross, Harpo Marx and an audio book of Robert Benchley's best stuff. For every book or purchase you make from this site, the DPSNY makes about 80 cents. Thanks.
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Sunday, September 23, 2001 at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments
![[KRISTIN PHOTO]](http://www.dorothyparker.com/images/kristin.jpg) Kristin McMahon is going to head things up for us all in Tinseltown.The Dorothy Parker Society of New York is pleased to announce it has found a West Coast President. Kristin McMahon, a resident of Los Angeles and recently in New York for pleasure, had lunch with us at the Algonquin Hotel. Over a Caesar salad at the Round Table, we discussed Mrs. Parker's longtime residency in Los Angeles, and the need to establish a branch in Hollywood. We also played Five Questions, ala Craig Kilborn (also an LA member of the DPSNY). Q: Gin or Vodka?
A: Two great tastes that taste great together. Yes, please!
Q: Poems or Short Stories?
A: Poems to write, stories to read. Others, not my own that is. Can't write stories. Once I took someone's advice and wrote the way I talked, right? I was appalled after I read it all. No one ever told me I babbled on so much, it was terrible! Then I realized I was reading John Stuart Mill.
Q: New York or LA?
A: NY! Christ, didja need to ask?
Q: Shaken or Stirred?
A: I've never found myself stirred. Not physically, not yet at least. My emotions do not know the meaning of "stir". They do, however, know the meaning of "blind takeover of reason". They know that one quite well.
Q: Hotel or Motel?
A: All depends if he's cheap or not, poor bastard.
Thanks, Kristin!
Tentative plans call for a gathering in 2002 somewhere in Los Angeles. Keep checking the News Item page for updates. Neil Simon said, "There are two million interesting people in New York and only 78 in Los Angeles." Who are the other 77?
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Tuesday, September 18, 2001 at 9:56 PM | Permalink
When Microsoft List Bot went kaput in August, we lost the e-mail addresses for almost all of the people getting the semi-monthly newsletter. Sorry about that one. Now we're going with Topica, maybe they will be better. If you want to get the newsletter and join the DPSNY, enter your e-mail address below. We had about 250 names saved in a file from last year, so some of you will be getting an "invite" to subscribe. The first newsletter with the Topica list will go out Oct. 1 (hopefully).
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Friday, September 14, 2001 at 8:36 AM | Permalink
Today was supposed to be the day a federal court hearing was to be held in the Dorothy Parker copyright case, but due to the horrific acts in New York and D.C. yesterday, we don't know if this is going to happen.
We first reported this in April, concerning Stuart Silverstein's lawsuit against Penguin Putnam. In the Sept. 8 London Daily Telegraph "flyleaf" column on the UK publishing industry by Sam Leith, a brief was published:
PENGUIN PUTNAM is being sued in the States for copyright infringement, in a case whose result could have very interesting implications. In 1994, Stuart Silverstein offered Penguin a compilation he had made and edited of Dorothy Parker's uncollected poems. Penguin didn't want to publish it as a stand-alone, but offered him $2,000 to use it in a Complete Poems it proposed to publish. Silverstein instead went to Scribner, who published it with his introduction in 1996 as Not Much Fun: the Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker.
Then, the problem: three years later the Penguin Complete Poems appeared, whose section "Poems Uncollected by Parker", Silverstein alleges, is copied "comma by comma" from his own work, without acknowledgement. At issue isn't copyright on the poems themselves, but on Silverstein's work as a compiler, editor and rooter-out of lost poems. Penguin has since conceded that Silverstein's collection was "a source", but says its editor arranged the poems in a different order and removed one that Silverstein had included in error. It claims that Silverstein's "sweat of brow" in finding the poems isn't protected by copyright.
It's hard to escape the impression that Penguin are being less than gentlemanly, but a hearing in New York on September 12 will establish whether or not they are legally in the right. To read about the court documents that were filed, and to read some of Mrs. Parker's work as it originally appeared long ago, click here. To read an excellent Wall Street Journal article on the case, click here to read the story.
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 at 10:47 PM | Permalink
Maybe the site works now in Netscape. It's been having bugs, reportedly by users with older versions of Netscape. Thanks to Henry, this should be fixed. Something to do with "nested tables" which sounds like birds in a restaurant to me. If you still have problems with the new designs, drop me a line.
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Monday, September 10, 2001 at 10:51 PM | Permalink
Writer Dina Di Maio was kind enough to send us her Talk of the Town piece she wrote about Parkerfest 2001. It is on the site, click here. Thanks, Dina!
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on at 10:50 PM | Permalink
Eighty-Seven years ago this month, Dorothy Rothschild had her first poem published for money. "Any Porch" was accepted by Vanity Fair in 1914; the young writer was paid $12. You can read "Any Porch" in Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (Scribners), available in the What The Hell Book Shop. It's a classic.
Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Sunday, September 09, 2001 at 4:53 PM | Permalink
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