Saturday, May 21, 2005

the spirit of spider boy pays a visit

One of the most enjoyable parts of my research is finding old books that haven't been read forever. Yesterday, I picked up Carl VanVechten's Spider Boy, A Scenario for a Moving Picture (1928), which I had bought on Alibris about a year ago. I was reading this passage about the Chicago appearance of a screen goddess...

Her public could have been no more turbulent, Ambrose fancied, had she been on her way to heaven. He made her out now, on the platform of the observation car, bowing and smiling, with that taut smile which so easily may be transformed into an expression of malice, her unnaturally pale white face framed by her short black hair, her slender figure emphasized by her gown of white crepe georgette, partially concealed by a chinchilla cloak. In her arms she carried what Ambrose computed to be about seven hundred dollars worth of orchids...

...
when suddenly, out of the back of the book, a loose page fell onto my hand and it was this full-color cover from the original edition:


Spooky.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The dissertation gods are smiling down on you.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful cover, startling writing. Looking forward to hearing more about your dissertation on the blog?

You may be amused to know that there is a Charlie Chan movie that appears to be set in Los Angeles ("Meeting at Midnight" 1944 -- available on netflix) where he investigates a murder that occurs during a senance. But it's revealed to be just smoke and mirrors. (Here's a summary: http://charliechanfamily.tripod.com/id47.html).