TypeTown #31: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice."

😈 Dorothy Parker, Ian McEwan, criminal evidence, Madonna, and more...

Jan 27, 2023

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Welcome one and all, but please don’t dawdle. Take a seat and settle down.

And in the words of our first subject this week…

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”

Dorothy Parker was a U.S. poet, writer and satirist who originally garnered attention for her ability to pierce the pomposity of the theatrical community of the 1910s and 1920s.

Her first collection of poetry shifted 47,000 copies. Then she moved to Hollywood to focus on screenwriting, picking up an Oscar nomination for the 1947 screenplay of Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman.

Famous for signing a contract with Viking Press in 1930 that went unfulfilled for 37 years before it was finally voided on her death in 1967, she could be slow at some things.

Her ashes, for example, hung around in a lawyer’s filing cabinet for 17 years between 1973 and 1988. She was only finally rested in 2020 when her urn was moved to a family plot in the Bronx.

But there was no lack of speed in her acerbic insights and mid-century observations.

“Genius can write on the back of old envelopes but mere talent requires the finest stationary available.”

Despite her wit, she always had one thing straight.

“Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.”

But when the work was done, it was time to run free. There was always life beyond the typewriter.

“I like to have a martini, two at the very most; after three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.”

Bring on the weekend.

READ» Dorothy Parker’s Daring Wit - Humanities

READ» At typewriter: Dorothy Parker - Los Angeles Times

READ» Dorothy Parker’s Best Bon Mots on Writing - Flavorwire

Not writing — and still getting it done

Next we dash to England for this evocative image of Ian McEwan in the early days of what has so far been an almost 50-year literary career.

“I’m quite good at not writing.”

Now aged 74, he is a six-time Booker Prize nominee.

In 1998, he took the prize with Amsterdam, the third of his novels to be shortlisted.

His most recent title, Lessons, was published just a few months ago.

“It’s no longer a job; it’s a way of being.”

At times, McEwan’s views have ventured into controversial areas. But we’re reasonably sure most TypeTowners would agree with him on this.

“Solitude is one of the great privileges of civilisation.”

READ» Novelist Ian McEwan: Writing is a “way of being” - CBS News

READ» Ian McEwan - Harvard Business Review

Typing for life

From fiction to reality, now, with a look at how an Underwood typewriter helped to secure the conviction of Nathan Leopold Jr and Richard Loeb for the horrific kidnap and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924.

Convinced they were more intelligent than everyone else, they had set out to prove it by committing a ‘perfect crime’.

The details of the case are too grim for TypeTown. But let’s just say the pair were not as superior as they thought.

Despite knowing they would kill Franks, they used a stolen typewriter to produce a ransom note — presumably in a bid to either collect the money, confuse investigators, or both.

As events unfolded, their plan unravelled. They destroyed the typewriter and dumped it in Chicago’s Jackson Park Lagoon.

But it was soon found and, in this image, District Attorney Robert Crowe (left) examines the machine. It was to prove one of the key pieces of evidence in a trial that saw both Leopold and Loeb sentenced to life plus 99 years.

Leopold served 33 years before winning parole in 1958. He moved to Puerto Rico and died from a heart attack in 1971.

Loeb met a more grisly end. In January 1936, he was killed in a prison shower room. His throat was slashed with a razor and the rest of his body suffered more than 50 wounds.

READ» Why an Underwood typewriter is key to Pick Me Up’s premiere of perfect crime musical Thrill Me - York Press