Strange Disconnect, starring Jane Russell
Tonight I read a headline notifying us that, at age 89, Jane Russell is the latest of the celebrities from my very earliest days to skate out of here. For a split-second I was jolted by the news, and I wondered why that should be. Then I realized that such a thing is often happening to me these days.
When a personality of yesteryear has long ago fallen off my personal radarscope, it's as if the only existence they had ever had in the subsequent years was the one that they had held in my mind during the brief moments when they were objects of nationwide attention, and I forget that in all the time since then, they have kept right on living and kept on eating, drinking, sleeping, and doing all sorts of other things, the same as me, before their time really did run out,in everybody's minds.
Therefore in that first split-second, the news caused some shock, and it was just as if I had heard about Ms Russell leaving here sometime in the 1940's instead of now. That's a strange disconnect for the aged mind to have, but there it is.
One problem is that as far as I knew, Jane Russell was as big in the news as she was in the chest only for a very short time -- the picture that you always saw of her was the one of her wearing a low-cut dress that showed off her frontal appendages to good effect. And there was something about her being under the unlikely wing of that highly eccentric and questionable billionaire, Howard Hughes. He was usually associated much more with the wings of airplanes, including, well into the age of metal aircraft, a gigantic one made of plywood that he piloted just once, over some water at Long Beach, and that was it. And I never understood the big fuss that was made of him, and of the Spruce Goose, and even of his connection with Jane Russell, who was supposedly an actress but was mainly a pin-up rivaled only by another actress whose pictures today are rarely seen, Betty Grable.
For the problem also is that I didn't share the excitement that Ms Russell's various physical attributes stirred up in the rest of the universe. She was never my type, and instead I went for the likes of women with a quieter, deeper,and more subtle kind of bearing and beauty, like Jean Tierney and Ingrid Bergman. Now there were some women!
Nevertheless I'm glad that Ms. Russell, 10 years my senior, lived for such a gloriously long time while undoubtedly continuing to make people as happy as she did in the days of old, even it was from one brief study of that one publicity shot that for a few moments brought giddiness to so many consciousnesses all over the world.
The important thing to note about all this is how perfectly it illustrates the undying nature of womanly inspiration. An image such as that likeness of the Jane Russel of yore would have been, in all its details, as well understood and and appreciated by the ancient Romans as it was by the panting males of my time and as it will be for the many generations to come. Everything else can and does change in a jiffy, but not this, and that's a big relief.
When a personality of yesteryear has long ago fallen off my personal radarscope, it's as if the only existence they had ever had in the subsequent years was the one that they had held in my mind during the brief moments when they were objects of nationwide attention, and I forget that in all the time since then, they have kept right on living and kept on eating, drinking, sleeping, and doing all sorts of other things, the same as me, before their time really did run out,in everybody's minds.
Therefore in that first split-second, the news caused some shock, and it was just as if I had heard about Ms Russell leaving here sometime in the 1940's instead of now. That's a strange disconnect for the aged mind to have, but there it is.
One problem is that as far as I knew, Jane Russell was as big in the news as she was in the chest only for a very short time -- the picture that you always saw of her was the one of her wearing a low-cut dress that showed off her frontal appendages to good effect. And there was something about her being under the unlikely wing of that highly eccentric and questionable billionaire, Howard Hughes. He was usually associated much more with the wings of airplanes, including, well into the age of metal aircraft, a gigantic one made of plywood that he piloted just once, over some water at Long Beach, and that was it. And I never understood the big fuss that was made of him, and of the Spruce Goose, and even of his connection with Jane Russell, who was supposedly an actress but was mainly a pin-up rivaled only by another actress whose pictures today are rarely seen, Betty Grable.
For the problem also is that I didn't share the excitement that Ms Russell's various physical attributes stirred up in the rest of the universe. She was never my type, and instead I went for the likes of women with a quieter, deeper,and more subtle kind of bearing and beauty, like Jean Tierney and Ingrid Bergman. Now there were some women!
Nevertheless I'm glad that Ms. Russell, 10 years my senior, lived for such a gloriously long time while undoubtedly continuing to make people as happy as she did in the days of old, even it was from one brief study of that one publicity shot that for a few moments brought giddiness to so many consciousnesses all over the world.
The important thing to note about all this is how perfectly it illustrates the undying nature of womanly inspiration. An image such as that likeness of the Jane Russel of yore would have been, in all its details, as well understood and and appreciated by the ancient Romans as it was by the panting males of my time and as it will be for the many generations to come. Everything else can and does change in a jiffy, but not this, and that's a big relief.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 10:24 PM
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