Dartblog

I persist in vacay, today heading to Philadelphia to see some old friends. So, from P.G. Wodehouse’s Piccadilly Jim, for your diversion, one of the truly great establishing shots:

“The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almost to capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs Pett chiefly affected. She prided herself on the Bohemian element in her parties, and had become during the past two years a human dragon, scooping genius from its hiding-places and bringing it into the open. At different spots in the room stood the six resident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr Pett had such strong objections, and in addition to these she had collected so many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Square that the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futurist painters, esoteric Buddhists, vers libre poets, interior decorators and stage reformers, sifted in among the more conventional members of society who had come to listen to them. Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats. Apostles of free love expounded their doctrines to persons who had been practising them for years without realizing it. All over the room throats were being strained and minds broadened.”