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Show 1IPHSS Bigtoun Characters: The barber who asks patrons il they want their locks clipped with or without conversation. . . . Salesmen Sales-men in hoity-toity shops always elegantly ele-gantly attired. Without spats they would feel naked. . . . The creamy-voiced creamy-voiced barker at a penny arcade a well-known Shakespearian thespian a decade ago, until he discovered that shilling provided a steadier income. in-come. . . . Sepians at electric shoe-shine shoe-shine parlors conversing in jive lingo which baffles people who can understand only English. Tretty bobby-soxers lugging lunch boxes to the Paramount so they can survive sitting through a half-dozen shows worshipping King Sinatra. . . Jitterbug, almond-eyed youngsters in Chinatown completely complete-ly Americanized. . . . An old artist copying masterpieces in the Museum Mu-seum of Art. His hands are shaky, so he steadies his brush by gripping it with both hands. .The handicap, however, doesn't seem to affect his excellent canvases. . . . Crowds fascinated fas-cinated by pigeons nibbling at bread-crumbs. Proving again that almost anything can attract a mob in the Big Burg. . . . Germans in Yorkville saloons sipping their beer. These spots used to be Bund hangouts. hang-outs. Now big signs urge customers not to discuss the war or politics. The dramatic contrast in tawdry, sidestreet joynts: Entertainers consist con-sist of a mixture of has-beens and youngsters with a bright future. . . . Celeb fanatics ogling first-nighters entering the theatre getting more of a thrill by staring at biggies than first-nighters get from the shows. The silly brawl between two friends, at a midtown bar because each insisted on paying the check. . . . The 77-year-old gent who has the same breakfast every morning at a Madison and 50th street eatery: Doughnuts covered with mustard. Ugh. He claims that combination has added years to his life. . . . Sidewalk Side-walk Napoleons who used to discuss military tactics remaining in tuns with the times. Now they also debate de-bate postwar problems. . . . Swishes who congregate for some unknown reason in foreign language movie temples. . . . The lovely SchralTts' hostesses. Most of them look as if they had to pass a screen test before be-fore they were hired. Newspaperman Stuff: Ogden Nash was once taken to task for using the word "coyful" in one of his verses. . . . 'Have you ever heard of anything being full of coy?" asked a critic. "No," nash'd Nash. "But neither did I ever hear of anyone being full of bash." The word "controversy" serves as censors' abracadabra. . . . They mutter that something is controversial controver-sial and presto they presume the truth will vanish. . . . Blue-pen-cilers have used that alibi to hinder hin-der freedom of speech and press for a long time. . . . All of which leads into an Alec Woollcott yarn that illustrates our viewpoint on the 6ubject. . . . When Alec was broadcasting broad-casting his sponsor pounced on him with the squeak that he must refrain from using controversial material. ma-terial. . . . Woollcott promptly demanded de-manded that the sponsor explain what he meant by "controversial material." The sponsor's reply was a dilly: He deplored Alec's caustic references refer-ences to Hitler and Mussolini for fear it would antagonize people in the country who supported them! From FPA's new book, "Nods and Becks": Of course, there are many who say that a daily columnist, which means a person who has six or seven full columns a week in a paper, doesn't really work, but that he would like other laborers to work six days a week for the period of the so-called properly so-called emergency. , . . We know not what course othes may take, but we never nev-er have been able to do it under a seven-day week, and some nights. Often we dream of Jeanie with the unfilled column. We dream that we have three minutes in which to write a column, have it set, read proof and make it up. It would be pleasant to work five eight-hour days a week. To quit, in the middle mid-dle of a syllable, if need be, when the whistle blew! And then some days, as if mere writing weren't enough trouble, there is a lot of clipping clip-ping and pasting to do. It sounds easy, but it takes longer to find the shears and the paste for first-class stuff than it does to write third all right, we won't argue fourth-class fourth-class stuff. The Society Set, which claims to be sophisticated, but is the easiest pushover for all types of phonies. Societyites have gushed over fake dukes, counts and other spurious nobles for years. No matter how many are exposed there are always other phonies to take their place. . . . The dowager who lost her fortune a few years ago. However, she still lives in luxury because she became a bookie! Her clients are Park Ave-nuites. Ave-nuites. . . . Music lovers who take symphony scores to Carnegie Hall and read the music while played. |