Pretty Women Out Walking with Gorillas

Last night we watched Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run.” It co-stars Janet Margolin and I thought she was really great-looking so I looked for photos of her on the intertunnel.

I got to IMDb which described her as “pretty” and “demure-looking.” So I looked up the definition of “demure.” Merriam-Webster gives two contradictory definitions: (1) “reserved, modest” and (2) “affectedly modest, reserved, or serious : coy.” Of course, in the phony baloney world of show-biz, the difference hardly matters.

In the practice of civil law, a “demurrer” is a request made to the court to toss out an adversary's claim on the basis of “So what?”

That reminded me of this tasty tidbit from “A Streetcar Named Desire,” as follows:

BLANCHE: Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration. But look at me now. Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be attractive?

STANLEY: Your looks are okay.

BLANCHE: I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley.

STANLEY: I don't go in for that stuff.

BLANCHE: What?

STANLEY: Compliments to women about their looks. I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told. And some of them give themselves credit for more than they got. I once went out with a dame who told me, “I'm the glamorous type.” She says, “I am the glamorous type.” I say, “So what?”

BLANCHE: And what did she say then?

STANLEY: She didn't say nothing. That shut her up like a clam.

BLANCHE: Did it end the romance?

STANLEY: Well, it ended the conversation. That was all.

And that, gentle blog reader, pretty much sums up your humble blog correspondent's pre-marriage love life except that, with me, it always ended everything. But that’s okay. It really never, ever started to begin with. I don't go for the glamorous type.

Which is not to say that things are not substantially more complicated than that.