The Algonquin Round Table

(1987 September 29)



I had a wonderful time last night! I watched the TV program "Ten Years of Lunch at the Algonquin" (a NYC hotel). It was called the Round Table, and it was a large round table at which all the wits in that magic circle, calling themselves "Thanatopsis," gathered every day for lunch. Lorin and I loved every one and read about them in The New Yorker magazine, for which many of them wrote, quoting each other.



Someone said, "Calvin Coolige is dead." Dorothy Parker: "How can they tell?"



Someone going bald said of himself, "My head is as round and soft as my wife's behind." Roberty Benchley felt of it and said, "Why, so it is. So it is."



Dorothy Parker wrote for The New Yorker in various capacities, usually poems. She wore horn rimmed spectacles but took them off when she talked to you. "Men don't make passes / At girls who wear glasses." One time she was in a hospital with an abortion, and she said it was from "putting all her eggs in one basket."

They bought an island which Alex Woollcott took upon himself to belong to him and told others when they could come! Occasionally they were bothered by trippers. Sometimes Harpo Marx would jump out at them from bushes naked and screaming, waving weapons to scare them off. All the time they were publishing their books (Edna Ferber), writing plays for the Marx brothers, editorials (Heywood Braun), etc. etc.

When the Sancho and Vanzetti trial was on, they took sides with them and paraded.

A little money made trips to Europe possible. A picture was shown of Alex W sitting outside a cafe drinking ale and from that spot he never moved to see scenic sights. He later was on the radio - "Hear ye! Hear ye!" - as the Town Crier. Also went to Hollywood and was in several plays. Many of them went there to write and act. ...

I loved every one and knew their names better than I do today. At last when it was over, "Stumbling" was played, and I got up to shut it off but danced around the room first with Fred Astaire, also a member.