DISSING (MERELY FOR CONTRAST) PART 2

COLIN M. JARMAN WAS KNOWN as the King of Quotes, and he certainly earned this in Barbed Quotes: Mudslinging, Backstabbing, and Celebrity Dirt Dishing. Here we continue sharing quotes from this book, together with added comments that come to mind.

Brigitte Nielsen. On their marriage—I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.—Sylvester Stallone.

This reminds me of great dialogue in a 1930s screwball comedy: “What’s grounds for divorce in California?” “Marriage.” 

It might be the movie Twentieth Century, but I was unable to confirm this. Maybe a reader will know.

Elizabeth Taylor. The queen of sequential monogamy.—Arianna Huffington New York magazine.

This one has a familiar ring to me. I once referred to Henry VIII as a serial monogamist; I don’t recall whether I cribbed it from The Times of Malta or not.

On a related note, this gets me thinking about the difference between “sequential” and “serial,” i.e., between “sequence” and “series.” Merriam-Webster says a sequence is “a continuous or connected series.” Getting downright mathematical, a sequence is “a set of elements ordered so that they can be labeled with the positive integers.”

M-W says a series is “a number of things or events of the same class coming one after another in spatial or temporal succession.” Mathematically, a series is a sum of elements of a sequence. Shorthanded with the Greek letter Σ, sigma, a series may involve an infinite summation. 

Back in the day when women were known as “actresses,” they were not unknown to diss each other regularly. 

Norma Shearer. The Women (1939)—I love to play  bitches, and Norma Shearer certainly helped me in this part.—Joan Crawford.

The Women was a subject here at SimanaitisSays. Its cast—entirely of women—included both Crawford and Shearer. There I cited another great diss: Lillian Hellman talked of Shearer’s “face unclouded by thought.” And, speaking of faces….

Bette Davis. Bette and I are very good friends. There’s nothing I wouldn’t say to her face—both of them.—Tallulah Bankhead.

And one diss even leaps across generations. 

Madonna. I acted vulgar. Madonna is vulgar.—Marlene Dietrich.

Jarman has an entire category devoted to Music. 

Mick Jagger. I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized to how many people he is not a sex symbol but a mother image.—David Bowie. 

Gee, I kinda feel the opposite about Martha Stewart.

And let’s not overlook Barbed Quotes’ political category. 

Richard Nixon. Here is a guy who’s had a stake driven through his heart. I mean really nailed to the bottom of the coffin with a wooden stake, and silver bullet through the forehead for good measure—and yet he keeps coming back.—Ted Koppel (1984).

Richard Nixon, Take 2. Nixon is a no-good lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and even if he caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.—Harry S Truman.

And one more Trumanism, this time about Dwight David Eisenhower: “Why this fellow don’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.”  

Now maybe I’ll go back to being nice. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2022.