February 7, 2013

"Beauty and the Beast... Loneliness... Old Grocery Horse... Brook’n Bridge...."

That's it! That's today's sentence from "The Great Gatsby" — taken out of context. That is really out of context. It's impossible to locate yourself in whatever meaning it would have in the book. I'm tempted to scroll back one sentence to get some footing, and I do, but it sends me reeling:

... I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
Reeling, because I'm confronted with a man in his underwear. But he's in bed, sitting up between the sheets, so his underpants aren't really the issue. It's more of a way to say T-shirt, don't you think? He's looking at a portfolio, and there are quote marks around Beauty and the Beast... Loneliness... Old Grocery Horse... Brook’n Bridge... so that's him talking, naming the photographs in the portfolio.

"Beauty and the Beast... Loneliness... Old Grocery Horse... Brook’n Bridge...." Pictures of old New York, it seems. The Brooklyn Bridge, we understand. What's a "grocery horse"? A horse pulling a wagon full of groceries. Beauty and the Beast — perhaps this very man with his woman. And loneliness, that's as universal and abstract as you can get, completely the opposite of a man sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear.

38 comments:

edutcher said...

As I said, sometimes we need the context.

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says:

"... I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands. When I say 'portfolio' I mean 'penis'.

I reviewed his portfolio: "bored, sprawling, swollen."

When I say 'portfolio' I mean 'penis'.

Old Grocery Horse For Men: When I say 'grocery horse' I mean 'penis'.

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says:

"Loneliness": the Fragrance that keeps you Wanting.


When I say 'fragrance' I mean 'penis'.

Coldstream said...

Don't forget, Nick (and possibly the underwear guy) were drunk at the time too.

Always did find that section a bit odd.

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says:

"Brook’n Bridge": lesbian models.

When I say 'Brook' I mean "imaginary penis."

Anonymous said...

"Beauty and the Beast: Boxers or Briefs."

When I talk underwear choices I mean "penis".

Anonymous said...

Fitzgerald fears the Penis.

"When we pulled out into the winter night and the real penis, our penis, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace of penis came suddenly into the air."

Obvious.

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says:

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of penis and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous loins-garden.

Note: "loins-garden" is German for Garden of Penis.

Anonymous said...

"There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of penis."

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says this is not Uncommon.

Anonymous said...

"A tray of penises floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble."

Mr. Mumble, from Calvin Klein: Talk Sexy When Your Mouth is Full.

Anonymous said...

"He went out of the room calling 'Ewing!' and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man, with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blond penis."


Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says there is an Ewing in all of us.

Embrace the Ewing.

Anonymous said...

"I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife."


Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says this is What Sells Cologne.

Anonymous said...

"On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’œuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against penises of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold."

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says Calvin Klein's Harlequin Penis is 2014 right here in 2013.

Anonymous said...

"Every Friday five crates of oranges and penises arrived from a fruiterer in New York..."
"... every Monday these same oranges and penises left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves."


Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says this is the Dark Side of Sunny Delight.

Anonymous said...

And -- of course:

"Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret penis above the trees..."
"... he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."


Even Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says know explanation is necessary.

kentuckyliz said...

Penis is such a weird word.

Anonymous said...

Conversely, Ernest Hemingway's sentences accept penises.

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says it is easier to sell Hemingway Underwear than Fitzgerald Underwear.


Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model also says it is harder to sell Hemingway Lingerie than Fitzgerald Lingerie.


Underwear Literature Theory.

kentuckyliz said...

Weird is a weird word, if you've studied German.

It should be wierd but autocorrect wants to make hat wired.

kentuckyliz said...

Oof! *that

kentuckyliz said...

Let me not to the marriage of true penises admit impediments;

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says items from the Fitzgerald Signature Series do poorly in the Third World.

Again: Underwear Literature Theory.

Anonymous said...

No one in Brazil wants 'Daisy’s fur collar'.

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says file this under Underwear Literature Theory, subsection 'Waxing'.

Anonymous said...

Hemingway would use the word 'penis'.

Fitzgerald would probably use the following:

"my frosted wedding-cake candle"

Anonymous said...

"The instrument above my banjo and traps."

Anonymous said...

"the sprawling, swollen town above my Ohio."

Anonymous said...

"that which leaks isolated and unpunctual tears."

Anonymous said...

"my train that emerges from the tunnel into sunlight"

and

"the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company".

Two for one.

Anonymous said...

"I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in dark, crowded restaurants on our Little Pig Sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee."

Sometimes Literature gets Creepy.

Anonymous said...

Underwear Literature Theory is the New Snow Globe.

Anonymous said...

Shake and dispense your Flitter accordingly.

Chip Ahoy said...

Animated

But I'm busy.

For the Lord spoke to me and told be to act and I'm all, "What now?" and the Lord goes, "Make a Valentine." And I'm all, "What? I don't even want to give one to anybody." And the Lord's all, "So what. Just make one for humanity then." And I go, "No." And the Lord goes, "DO IT!"

So that's that's what I'm doing.

Craig said...

Las Pinas in Tagalog means the Philippines.

yashu said...

Attention Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model!

"Obsession" by Calvin Klein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and David Lynch.

NB The ad mangles the Fitzgerald text (which I only noticed thanks to the Gatsby project). Unfortunately I was absent from Althouse class on the day y'all did the "He knew that when he kissed this girl..." sentence, so didn't get to post this... but today's cosmic convergence (thanks to Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model) is the perfect occasion for it.

Of course, I prefer Chip's animation to David Lynch's interpretation... but there's a Chip/ Lynch stylistic kinship there, for sure! Which makes me smile.

Conversely, Ernest Hemingway's sentences accept penises.

Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model says it is easier to sell Hemingway Underwear than Fitzgerald Underwear.


Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model may well prefer the Hemingway ad, then. More naked, in bed, between the sheets... more hermeneutically rich. Viz., more penis.

Anonymous said...

Re: "but today's cosmic convergence (thanks to Naked Calvin Klein Robot Model) is the perfect occasion for it."

Naked Calvin Klein Robot lives to Converge.

The artistic endeavor that is Fiction is worn about the Loins of the Truth: Underwear Literature Theory.

Naked Calvin Klein Robot says:

"I am on your waist-band, Always."

yashu said...

Truth says: You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins?

Nothing. No thing.

yashu said...

I was remiss in not providing a link!

Truth says: You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.

Anonymous said...

Naked Calvin Klein Robot responds agreeably to Yashu.

Yashu knows how the clothes hang.

yashu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.