Sunday, January 30, 2011

Affairs

Welcome to the Roaring 30s.

You know what was chic in the 30s? Not dying was chic, although with World Wars flying all over the place, sometimes it was difficult to avoid this. It is still chic to be not dead, although while I was well known to be dead it briefly came into fashion. People would turn up at parties all the time looking like death. But what was really chic was affairs. Torrid, vapid, rampant affairs right across groups in your social strata*.

I imagine a lot of you down there exist in small towns so there really only are three or four people that you could have an affair with whose ancestry was far enough away from yours not to be considered incest.

Even then you would run into the problem of people always knowing your business, or being related to too many people. Or even worse, being forced to become a swinger - which was only coined, popularised and desecrated much later.

You say swinger to a Danish person and they'll think it's someone who dances well. I remember the scandal erupting in Copenhagen where someone walked in on passionate the love making of a man and his wife.
- HOW ODD! - People sent by silent morse code to each other, wondering what their own wives would be like in bed.
The Danes are so beautiful they can get away with this, though. Someone with my nose needs to be more careful with how they perceive the world.

No, it has always been chic to have affairs. I had one in the 30s that lasted 3 years. Just the one affair, one tryst that just never ceased. 3 years to the day I decided that red heads would not be chic again for another 70 years.

How glorious it was in those days. You would see your husband or respective partner with hislover and have a great big row - despite the fact you were on your way to see yours and your lover had just come from seeing theirs. Alcohol and torrid affairs - champagne for breakfast and lovers for lunch.

I guess what I am saying, my dearest readers, is that the imminency of life and the departing of this world has been taken from us and as a result we are forced to live dull, unexciting, quiet lives. To add insult to injury, with the abundance of education on offer, we can be acutely perceptive of this dullness to the point of articulating it perfectly.

I say "we" but I assume you understand I mean "we" excluding myself. The vaults of the museum I had purposely perfectly preserved a party from the 1930s so as I never get un-lived. Every museum has one, although the Natural History museum preserved a dinner party from the 1950s and that one is a gods-honest bore.

I say, might I ask, if one doesn't live in my perpetual party, what is it that one does these days to live up there?

D

*So long, of course, as you kept to your social strata. Scandals are so unabashedly un-chic.

8 comments:

Poulet said...

It is true that we are losing 'the flavour'of life but we don't have to cheat to savour the taste of our being. I believe it is enough that we stop being so occupied with the money and feel the nature around us. Or we just need to return to our ancestors, and start dressing like Marie Antoinette, to time when it was all about high fashion(for upper class of course, others were too poor to think about such important matters).

Oh and by the way, I really miss Karl's blogs. I like the way he mocks people just because they are. But I understand he's busy with the shows and being the coolest guy on the Earth but I really hope he comes back soon.

Lots of love

Sabina

Diana said...

Dearest Princesssabina,

"Cheating" is precisely not what I was referring to. Torrid affairs are quite a different matter. "Cheating" is what slatterns do to their hubbies and alcoholics do to their wives. Torrid affairs are to do with impossible love and the transcending of societal bourgeois.

I spoke to K just today of your missing him. He is in his blacked out apartment. He informs me he is not feeling himself. You mustn't let this past us, but he uttered the word "polyester" in his sleep the other night. The assistants he has recording him at all times were crucified and the evidence has since vanished. I will endeavour to investigate further, but as always it will come after counting the cobwebs in the vaults.

D

Poulet said...

Poor man, I hope he doesn't die out of bad taste,it would be so unchic :(

davidikus said...

Affairs. They decidedly sound more interesting that today's morbid "one night stands". If only, because you need a legitimate lover before you can claim to have an affair.

http://davidikus.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

the trouble with torrid affairs is that some of the more ambitious of the proles can cash in on them by spilling to the trashy magazines. Noone is safe even your sister's-cousin's-cleaner-who-might-have-seen-you-together-once-in your-car-but-can't-be-sure might betray you.
xx
winnsome

Anonymous said...

absolute genius. i am crying due to laughter…and also jealousy.

kudos!
http://passionlessfashion.wordpress.com

Skinny Little Bitch said...

http://coffeeandcigarettestainlove.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Most edgy and chiccest Karl:This's one of your bon vivant nephews from Mexico,you know telling names is not always chic,as is not chic ask anyone who desigend ones clothes..is it?so i'll keep mine for myself,just call me darling please..anyway i'm your big fan,and i'm dying for you to write about the new and always the same troubles of the same fatidic lindsay lohan...give her some chic advise please before she'll be totally demode,and also i want to know your whole opinion about gucci and D&g and their multiple logos embroided eveywhere and worn by "fashionistas" Xoxo