A few words about writer Dorothy Parker’s “inextricable association” with Dubuque:
. . . Imagine Parker seated at the Algonquin Round Table, surrounded by people like Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Harpo Marx, and Edna Ferber. Someone says, “Use the word horticulture in a sentence.” Parker answers, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” This combines what Parker is known for: a semigraphic pun on sexuality, and an invocation of verdure— “horticulture”—the genteel world of trimming hedges and choosing flowers. If you don’t get the joke, or if you’ve got a problem with it, you’re either Clarissa Dalloway en route to buying your flowers—and we’ll get back to that—or you’re from Dubuque.
Dubuque is key to Parker, which is to say that provincialism is key to urbanity. Pourquoi Dubuque? One of Parker’s Algonquin confederates, Harold Ross, wrote in the prospectus to the magazine he was starting that “. . . The New Yorker will be the magazine which is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque.”
From Jessica Burstein, “A Few Words About Dubuque: Modernism, Sentimentalism, and the Blasé” in American Literary History Volume 14, Number 2, Summer 2002, pages 227-254.
~
From John P. Mulgrew, “And Life Goes On” by Jazbo of Old Dubuque. Dubuque, Iowa: Witness Publishing Co., 1935, page 8.
February 26, 2009 at 4:04 am
Someone says, “Use the word horticulture in a sentence.” Parker answers,
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
This is hilarious! (No, I’m not originally from Dubuque.)
:-)
February 26, 2009 at 4:17 am
P.S. and I have an inkling though that Ms. Dalloway never served turkey and dressing sandwiches (or played euchre) at her famous dinner parties!
I can see Ms. Dalloway and Ms. Parker sharing a kiss, too!
February 28, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You know, when I think of “provincialism,” I don’t think about Dubuque. I think about Graf.