SLPAD - 117 - “Low-Lands” - 29

[Michael Bailey]

The shack seems like a death trap, burning kerosene with questionable
ventilation.

However, Bolingbroke’s alive and breathing, and has made an effort to make
the place cozy.

The walls are “covered with photographs clipped out of every publication,
it seemed, put out since the Depression. A brightly colored pin-up of
Brigitte Bardot was flanked by newspaper photos of the Duke of Windsor
making his abdication speech and the Hindenburg going up in flames. There
were Ruby Keeler and Hoover and MacArthur. Jack Sharkey, Whirlaway, Lauren
Bacall and God knew how many others in a rogues’ gallery of faded sensation
fragile as tabloid paper, blurred as the common humanity of a nine-day
wonder.”

Precursor to Brenda’s poem in _V._ about the 20th century?

Brigitte Bardot’s pin-up leads the list. If there’s intent in the flanking
photos of the Duke of Windsor and the Hindenburg, it eludes me.

Ruby Keeler - major dancer, was married to Al Jolson, long career -
starting in 1923 as a chorus girl, through “42nd Street” (1933), up into
the ‘70s in a revival of “No, No, Nanette”


Jack Sharkey - boxer, disqualified for hitting Max Schmeling below the belt
in 1930, but beat Schmeling in a second match in 1932 for the heavyweight
title.

Also fought Jack Dempsey in 1927, losing by a knockout when he “turned his
head to complain to the referee about an alleged low punch and Dempsey
landed a classic left hook that knocked Sharkey out.”

And also got knocked out by Joe Louis in 1936. He was the only boxer to
fight both Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis.

(There were also a Jack Sharkey - playwright and science fiction writer,
and a Jack Sharkey - Australian rules footballer, but neither of those
seems a likely contender for Bolingbroke’s collage)


Whirlaway - horse popularly known as “Mr Longtail” for obvious reasons, 5th
winner of the American Triple Crown

Hoover - probably President Hoover, one almost never encounters the FBI
Hoover without his first and middle names…associated with the Great
Depression (alluded to earlier with “bank run”?)

MacArthur and Lauren Bacall - need no introduction, refreshing my memory
though, there’s an iconic picture of MacArthur with what looks like a
10-gallon corncob pipe in his mouth (may have influenced Flange’s sailor
fantasy of facing the gale with a pipe in his mouth?)

Lauren Bacall - I really liked her in “How to Marry a Millionaire” …
famously co-starred with Humphrey Bogart



“Bolingbroke bolted the door. They threw down their bedding and sat, and
drank wine. Outside a small wind had risen, which rattled the flaps of tar
paper and blundered baffled and turbulent into and around the jutting
corners and irregular angles of the shack.”

Thank goodness! I can stop worrying about asphyxiation: the jury-rigged
shack has, if anything, excessive ventilation.

There’s a little unobtrusive personification of the wind here, attributing
bafflement, blundering and turbulence (also a nice-sounding combination of
words)