September 24, 2018

Maslow's Penthouse: A Preview

The recently departed Tom Wolfe helped usher in The New Journalism of the 1960s.
GSL just loved the way his always beautifully tailored ice cream suit sneered at convention. In addition to writing the decade defining blockbuster, Bonfire of the Vanities, Mr Wolfe introduced Radical Chic.
pic by Getty Images


I've been meaning to introduce this segment for months with a false start only hours after that Las Vegas Mandalay Bay massacre that still hasn't produced a motive or convinced us skeptics that something very significant isn't kept hidden. I titled that post, that I deleted once I heard about the massacre, The Keen Zest inspired by The Den's Senior Artistic Adviser, Anthony Blanche, from Brideshead in that unforgettable scene with Charles Ryder in The Blue Grotto:

                                         Relevant subject matter occurs in first 5 minutes.





In The Blue Grotto, Anthony Blanche gave his withering assessment of Charles Ryder's pictures...and life. I was thunderstruck at how author Evelyn Waugh, no doubt speaking about, and to, his clever and talented aristocratic friends thru Blanche, touched on something that is killing far more than Art & Love in contemporary society.  This uniquely Anglo Affectation later crossed the Atlantic (The Den's Investigative Team suspects in a case of Pimms) mutating into a Puritanical Strain noticed quite famously by Tom Wolfe in his iconic essay: Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's.

The New York Magazine pic for Tom Wolfe's essay Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's. Sitting is Leonard Bernstein flanked by his wife and Black Panther Donald Cox aka Field Marshall DC. Cloaked in cute black outfit and somber earnestness, can't you just feel Lenny's  high minded rectitude oozing from his every pore?


The Radical Chic strain found eager hosts in Ivy League Faculty Lounges, UES and Georgetown Salons manifesting in a dogma infecting today's Ruling Elite not just in America but wherever The Well Bred wish to preen in a setting The Den identifies as Maslow's Penthouse. Often referred to as Political Correctness, and derided as silly and ridiculous, which it is, but if examined closely, is far more malignant.

Those stylish, shapely. and fluffy female habitues of Maslow's Penthouse GSL refers to as Bergdorf Blondes/Brunettes/Redheads or collectively as B3/R

Glamour is their False Prophet.

9 comments:

  1. If one is going to wear an "ice cream" suit, one should know how to button it correctly (bottom exterior button unfastened, always!). Welcome back GSL!

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    1. As the daughter of a 1st Ballot Hall of Famer in the annals of High Haberdashery, I will defer but I thought double breasted always buttoned them all....but I'm a single breasted guy so never gave it much thought.
      I've missed you.

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  2. I often tell my two boys that of all the disappointing things they could possibly do, and yes, since they are in their early twenties it is a long and extensive list, the most disappointing thing would be to be politically correct, absolutely horrible and corrosive, the single most damaging philosophy our country faces...

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    1. So true GF. GSL has recently said he has enough he has enough skins on the wall but we've made room for Microagressions and the #ontrend #MeToo movement.

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    2. Ha, there you go, time to do some huntin'...

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  3. haven't forgotten you - but things have been so crazy - i will get to your reading eventually but i know you know who you are LOL

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    1. I won't move a muscle til the stars show me the way.

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  4. So funny, so true! I love your prose, please post more or i might just call u lazy.

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    1. This Judge Kavanaugh Nomination Circus has me foaming at the mouth...time to bring out the heavy artillery.

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