fromatozelda

[fromatozelda]

Triva

In 1917 the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB) was founded by Crystal Eastman and Roger Nash Baldwin, its focus was on freedom of speech particularly anti-war speech and supporting conscientious objectors to the war. It was primarily focused on litigation. But in 1920, partly because of anti-communist efforts of the Palmer Raids, which included rounding up suspects and jailing them for months at a time in appalling conditions, the CLB was reformed as the American Civil Liberties Union and shifted its focuses to activism. 

NASA got its start in 1915. The government created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics on March 3, 1915. Its creation was intended so that America could lead the world in aviation. In 1958 it was dissolved and NASA was created. 

The term molotov cocktail was coined by the Finns during the Winter War (1939-1940). The Soviets were bombing Finland but telling everyone that the airplanes were bringing aid supplies and the Finns called them Molotov bread baskets after the foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. When the molotov cocktail was invented they called it that as a drink to go with the bread.

[fromatozelda]

(I’m not coming back I just thought this was interesting enough to share)

In 2021 (I typed 2012 three times, it’s so hard to think it’s nearly the 2020s) The Great Gatsby’s copyright will run out which would usher in a lot more copies of the book, maybe plays or movies made from it, and of course retellings and prequels or sequels. Blake Hazard (Scott and Zelda’s great granddaughter) has an interesting quote in the article “I hope people maybe will be energized to do something original with the work, but of course the fear is that there will be some degradation of the text,”

This is my fear too. I’m probably being too overprotective of one of my favorite novels but I don’t want to see people write a novel from Daisy’s perspective and get it wrong. I don’t want to see Gatsby and Zombies or whatever new book will come out. But on the other hand the article points out that when books lose their copyright more editions come out and new readers are introduced to books. The legacy of Pride and Prejudice hasn’t been tarnished with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies wo I guess we’ll see.

What are your thoughts on this?

[fromatozelda]

Perfect gif is perfect

[fromatozelda]

In my next incarnation, I may not choose again to be the daughter of a Famous Author. The pay is good, and there are fringe benefits, but the working conditions are too hazardous. People who live entirely by the fertility of their imaginations are fascinating, brilliant,and often charming, but they should be sat next to at dinner parties, not lived with. Imagine depending for your happiness upon a Bernard Shaw or a Somerset Maugham, not to mention such contemporary stars as Norman Mailer! I have the impression that the only people quite as insufferable as writers are painters. I have much puzzled over the why of this, and have complied a few tentative answers. First, I suppose it is impossible to form the habit of inventing people, building them up, tearing them down, and moving them around like paper dolls, without doing somewhat the same thing with live ones. Good writers are essentially nutcrackers, exposing the scandalous condition of the human soul. It is their job to strip veneers from situations and personalities. The rest of us accept our fellow beings at face value, and swallow what we can’t accept. Writers can’t; they have to prod, poke, question, test, doubt, and challenge, which requires a constant flow of fresh victims and fresh experience. Second, there is nothing anybody else can do to help a writer. A company president can take on an executive assistant; a lawyer can hire a clerk; even a housewife can unload up to seventy or eighty percent of her duties. The poor writer can turn to no one but himself until his work is finished, when he can take it to an editor who will show him how to start all over, by himself. He can never say, “Here, Mary-you know this subject as as I do- be a dear and finish this paragraph for me, will you?” Third, successful writers, like all successful people, are spoiled and indulged by everybody with whom the come in contact. They are, at the same time, spared the rod of discipline imposed by other occupations. A senator must face the press, greet thousands of constituents, sit through vistaless Saharas of banquets without the oasis of an entertaining word or a glass of wine. An actress must turn up at the theater or the movie set, take care of her looks, memorize her lines. The poor writer is free to do whatever he chooses; if he chooses to get drunk, who can fire him? Between himself and doom stands no one but his creditor. Revered and pampered, he must sit down at his desk each day alone, without rules or guidelines, exactly as if he had preciously accomplished nothing, Small wonder he is not all sweetness and light when he emerges, often unvictoriously, from the battle.

The closest Scottie ever came to being critical of Scott. She wrote this in the introduction to a collection of letters that Scott sent her that was edited by Andrew Turnbull in 1965.

Scottie the Daughter of by Eleanor Lanahan, pg 64-65.

(via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

Pola Negri silent film star and sex symbol (picture found here excellent article too). This picture was taken in the very early 1920s I believe. 

In the 1920s sleeveless dresses and ones with sheer sleeves were being introduced to women, previously women had to be completely covered up but now they had shorter hemlines and were able to show off more of their body. With this came ads beginning in 1915 with an ad in Harper’s Bazar for women to shave their underarms. Before this the only people who shaved were sex workers to show they didn’t have lice.

With the advent of sleeveless clothes companies decided to market razors, shaving creams, and depilatories to women. They did this by making underarm hair seem unsanitary and that it wasn’t ladylike. There are a lot of theories as to why women still are supposed to shave including that it makes women seem younger and innocent.

In 1922 Sears and Roebuck catalogue included women’s razors and sleeveless dresses. At that point it seemed that women shaving their armpits was here to stay and ads instead concentrated on what company that women should go with.

Women shaving leg hair didn’t come into fashion until the 1940s with that iconic pin-up of Betty Grable. The look that was in had women wearing sheer stockings and leg hair poking out ruined that look. But ever since shaving the armpit came into style there were ads and columnists that told women to shave their legs. But during the 30s hemlines were lowered and since no one saw their legs women didn’t feel the need to shave. 

What started out as a way to sell more razors has now become a requirement for women so much so that Disney’s The Croods has a cavewoman that is completely shaven. It is unthinkable for women not to shave. In recent years though there has been a pushback from women against the idea that they should shave a huge portion of their bodies. Women have co-opted the No Shave November. It was originally for men to grow out their beards and mustaches to raise money and awareness for prostate and testicular cancer but it has grown out (pun intended) of that mindset, but even the Movember organization says it isn’t just for men. 

As you can see though Pola Negri’s beauty isn’t diminished by having armpit hair. She was extremely successful and achieved worldwide fame as an actress. So maybe we should loosen this idea that women have to shave everywhere for them to be seen as women.

[fromatozelda]

There’s a terrible shortage of women who’ve been able to break out of traditional bounds. Zelda’s attempt and failure make her a tragic figure.

Scottie Fitzgerald on why Zelda had become a feminist icon.

-Scottie the Daughter by Eleanor Lanahan pg 479

(via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

Mr. Hemingway with his piercing jabs at that prone body

Scottie Fitzgerald on Hemingway's A Moveable Feast in which he insults F Scott Fitzgerald after he died. (via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

“She felt the essence of herself pulled finer and smaller like those streams of spun glass that pull and stretch till there remains but a glimmering illusion. Neither falling nor breaking, the stream spins finer. She felt herself very small and ecstatic. Alabama was in love.”

Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald (via fyeahzeldafitzgerald)

[fromatozelda]

Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald

[X]

[fromatozelda]

In the decades since her tragic death in a sanitarium fire, American culture has continued to pigeonhole Zelda in a revolving door of myopic personas, among them the champagne-soaked socialite, the schizophrenic harpy responsible for her husband’s squandered potential, and ultimately the feminist icon of wifely martyrdom. Yet, for all these somebodies, our culture has never permitted Zelda to be the somebody as whom she so longed and deserved to be remembered: Zelda Fitzgerald, the artist.

via (via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

If I could do only one thing for you in this world as your mother, it would be to convince you not to waste one minute of your time on bores, “obligations,” people you don’t care about, church bazaars, “being nice,” or anything else which keeps you from your two great commitments in life: 1) being the best wife & mother that ever was, 2) being a first-rate artist. All the rest is just a waste of time.

A letter Scottie Fitzgerald wrote to her daughter Eleanor from Scottie the Daughter of by Eleanor Lanahan (via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

Footage of the Fitzgeralds

F Scott Fitzgerald reading John Masefield, voice only

F Scott Fitzgerald reading John Keats Ode To A Nightingale, voice only 

F Scott Fitzgerald reading Othello Act 1, Scene 3, voice only

F Scott Fitzgerald writing at a desk in Paris

Zelda Fitzgerald walking, F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald playing with baby Scottie, and F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald sitting at table in France

The Fitzgerald’s Works Online

Audio and eBooks of all of F Scott Fitzgerald’s major works

17 scholarly essays on F Scott Fitzgerald and his writing

Zelda Fitzgerald’s short story The Iceberg

Zelda Fitzgerald’s essay Eulogy On The Flapper, also a few of F Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories

Zelda Fitzgerald’s poem Over The Top With Pershing 

Short poem Zelda Fitzgerald wrote in high school

My Personal Favorite Biographies

Scottie the Daughter Of by Eleanor Lanahan

Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise by Sally Cline

Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom: Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald: A Marriage by Kendall Taylor

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: An American Woman’s Life by Linda Wagner-Martin

Websites on the Fitzgeralds

The F Scott Fitzgerald Society 

An In-depth website chronicling the Fitzgerald’s lives

Website with two videos on Scott Fitzgerald

Cornell website with several links about the Fitzgeralds (you need a Cornell ID to access the online published biographies)

[fromatozelda]

Scottie with Harold Ober and his wife Anne in 1943. Harold Ober was a longtime family friend and Scott’s literary agent.

I can see a lot of Zelda in this picture of Scottie.

[fromatozelda]

If I couldn’t be perfect, I wouldn’t be anything.

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote this in ledger in 1915 (via fromatozelda)

[fromatozelda]

Scottie and Jack Grand Central Time by Zelda Fitzgerald

Two of New York’s most celebrated meeting places meld, here: the vast hall of Grand Central; and the Biltmore clock, from the lobby of the hotel where Scott and Zelda began their honeymoon – and under whose smiling face Scottie and Jack got engaged. The hands of the clock are missing, here, for the two young people Zelda loves have all the time in the world. 

via

[fromatozelda]

Feeling some ecstatic baby love here for my grandmother : ) #tbt #fscottfitzgerald and #zelda ’s daughter, my style icon, and a fantastically clever wonderful person in her own right. #fuckcancer ❤️

via

[fromatozelda]

I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

F Scott Fitzgerald (via fromatozelda)