ERNST AT HIS WORST
Rodell, Fred
Ernst At His Worst EDITOR'S NOTE: So there Mil be no doubt as to what Mr. Rodell is up to, bear in mind that his review is a burlesqued imitation of Mr. Ernst's style, all the way down to...
...Rodell says that his facts "are all gospel truth...
...Roger is a great liberal, a great man, and one of my dearest friends...
...It's all very silly but part of the tradition of the islands...
...The ones I saw were bright red...
...He wrote one of those letters to one of the big shots on Life demanding the retraction of more than a dozen "errors...
...I was wrong...
...Ernst came slumming that afternoon wearing a pair of flashy swimming trunks...
...Here I was meeting Ernst at Roger's place after having met Roger at Hays' place...
...Maybe now he will ask for a retraction from The Progressive...
...Harper & Brothers, Reviewed by Fred Rodeil IONCE wrote a review of a book by Morris Ernst in which I said his style resembled a pogo-stick in full flight...
...A sort of paradox...
...I often am...
...AND if you just love this chatty palsy-walsy flea-of-consciousness style of writing, my dear, you'll just adore his new book, The Best Is Yet—which I guess I'm supposed to be reviewing...
...I met Roger 17 years ago at a patty at Arthur Garfield Hays' house, which is quite a coincidence since Ernst and Hays nre the chief lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union which Roger runs...
...I guess she just thinks too straight to enjoy being bounced all over the lot in the Ernst person singular...
...I found out quite a lot about Ernst while he thought he was finding out quite a lot about me...
...Roger and his swell wife, Evelyn, encourage nude swimming at their Martha's Vineyard home...
...It's his mind...
...I've not seen Morris Ernst since...
...For instance, it was untrue that he wore flashy swimming trunks...
...I've always discovered that people who go in for personal questions are likely to reveal more than they learn...
...I thought Ernst was very entertaining and very conceited...
...The first time I met Ernst was up at Roger Baldwin's place on Martha's Vineyard...
...And speaking of poetic justice reminds me that I once wrote a little poem about Ernst which nobody would publish until now...
...Morris Ernst came over that afternoon from his place on Nantucket...
...I don't think he likes me much...
...his were always a solid color...
...Why take offense at the human body ? Do we put clothes on dogs ? And so it goes...
...She also reads about 300 books a year...
...And vice versa...
...I could have been wrong...
...After the article appeared, Ernst got pogo-sticking mad...
...A game little game-cock, a cut on the cocky side...
...One never knows...
...He did his best to get Life not to print any more articles I wrote...
...Katherine is my wife and the loveliest and most intelligent person I know...
...Ernst's style, all the way down to particulars...
...Personally, I have always felt that men and women look far more salacious in scanty bathing suits than they do in the nude...
...At the moment she's feeling a little immoral, thanks to Morris Ernst...
...It goes: Morris Ernst Puts his wornst Foot firnst...
...He is a great defender of freedom of speech and press...
...The next time I saw Ernst to talk to was when I was writing what Ernst, in his new book, calls "the nasty job Life magazine did on me last year...
...In fact, he is our worst best civil liberties lawyer...
...It's full of sex, censorship (synonymous), celebrities, sailing, self-certainty, and such stuff—all in the Ernst person singular...
...Poetic justice, perhaps...
...A great little guy if a touch on the touchy side...
...People who live on Nantucket, even for a few months a year, have a sort of chauvinistic contempt for people who live on the Vineyard, only a few sea miles away...
...I still say flashy...
...THE BEST IS YET, by Morris L. Ernst...
...Traditions may be silly but you can't ignore them, I always say...
...Or maybe you don't know Katherine...
...Hi, Morris...
...It's not his style...
...She has a strange sense of having been immoral if ever she starts a book and doesn't finish it...
...We all sat around and talked brilliantly about the affairs of the world...
...Not completely trusting my own view of the book, because I love Morris so much, I asked Katherine to please read it and report...
...I took him to dinner at "21" and had a pleasant if expensive time...
...I love him dearly...
...Shucks—she won't like this review either...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 21
