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Re: Query: PF's pirouetting nymph?
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Steven,
I don¹t think D. Barton Johnson, a major figure in Nabokov studies and a
founder of the N-list, was asking for the name of a real life model for the
nymph. He was asking for an identification of the toiletry inside ³an altar
in a wood.²
I was born in 1954 and, using my earliest memories, I picture the ³altar² to
be a decorative sink countertop surmounted by a shell-shaped mirror, larger
and more elaborate than a mere medicine cabinet mirror. In the cabinetry
adjacent to the mirror one would find commercial beauty and health care
products from Chanel and Revlon, as well as facial creams by Pacquins (my
mother¹s favorite, and a scent that, to me, has a Proustian mnemonic power)
to ³medicine¹s² such as Miltown or Seconal, for one¹s beauty sleep, and
Benzedrine for keeping that youthful figure nice and slim.
Andrew
On 10/30/06 10:51 PM, "Steven" <mcquaryq@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
> I was born in '54 and so don't qualify as an expert on the tv of the early
> 50s.... but -- Why are you so sure that there's a real life model for the
> image? Like a lot of the names and such in his American triptych, there was a
> lot of fun had by the author, generalizing from the specifics of American
> culture.
>
>
> On Oct 25, 2006, at 1:48 PM, D. Barton Johnson wrote:
>
>>
>> Can some one in my aged age group (or older) identify the toiletry in this
>> description in a TV commercial circa the early fifties? The winner will be
>> immortalized in a footnote. Don Johnson
>>
>>
>>
>> Line 412ff The Cause of Poetry
>> on Channel 8.
>> A nymph came pirouetting,
>> under white
>> Rotating petals, in a
>> vernal rite
>> To kneel before an altar in
>> a wood
>> Where various articles of
>> toilet stood.
>
>
> Steven
>
>
>
>
>
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