TheBanyanTree: Fwd: Cheated

[Tobie Shapiro]

January 13, 20000006


Dear Scott and all you other golden era folks,

	The golden era.  You are talking about the period between 
1930 and 1950 or so?  What you are missing is the movies, Scott.  You 
have an image of what went on during that era, and unfortunately, it 
never existed except in the movies.  Let's take the 1930s: global 
depression, starvation, drought, a third of the work force unemployed 
in the United States (where most of the movies take place).  People 
took comfort in the fantastic films that projected an image of wealth 
and leisure, grand gestures and subtle innuendo, the big suave.  How 
about the 1940s? How about World War II and the rise of fascism in 
Europe coming to a head in the holocaust?  The world was at war, 
nothing romantic about that.  Well, except in the movies.  The real 
people died in ditches or ovens, sweated on factory assembly lines 
and collected rationing coupons.  Then of course there was the 
beginning of the cold war, the big drop on Hiroshima and Nagasake: no 
clever dinner talk there.  And then the 1950s, the era of the ugly 
American, Jim Crow, an impoverished Europe trying to recover from the 
war.  I remember some of the '50s.  It wasn't romantic.  Think about 
the House Unamerican Activities Committee, black lists, the fear over 
our heads that we would all wind up being incinerated into shadows in 
some stupid nuclear war.  This is the era that inspired the rebellion 
of the 1960s against the cultural lies and misrepresentation of 
truths.  But in the movies it was musicals, epic films with thousands 
of people and chariots, not as many clever dinner parties.  Oh, and 
smoking those cigars and cigarettes?  We know what they really do to 
you.  Not so glamourous.  In fact, "glamour" is what this is about. 
It's a Scottish word.  Originally the definition was: apparent beauty 
where no beauty actually exists.

	Oh Scott, I know your pain.  It is a longing for something 
marvellous to exist that never existed and never will.  Life is what 
you make it.  We all have to invite people over and have our own 
witty dinners (bon mots en croute), have our own harrowing 
adventures, rattle our own bravado and court our own mysterious 
lovers.  If you go to restaurants that take reservations and are on a 
smaller scale, then you don't have to put up with the theme 
restaurants with all the prepackaged food coming out of the bank of 
microwaves.  Some of what you long for could be had with enough 
money.  But the real magic and the mystery is you.

	Yours,

	Tobie





>In talking with a friend, I think I have begun to understand my own 
>fascination with all things from the "Golden Era," the period from 
>1930 - 1950 or so.
>
>Where are the dinner parties and witty, sublty flirtatious 
>conversations? Where are the get dressed up and go out evenings? The 
>boxing matches with the men all in suits and hats and puffing 
>cigars? Where are the restaurants with the red leather booths and 
>big, rustling gowns? Even the mundane, like pushing back a hat and 
>wiping a brow with a big red handkerchief over the back fence, 
>talking grownup with a neighbor. Gone.
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net