Today, I was walking home from a morning of work, feeling the heat gather its power, and thinking how happy I was that I had a pitcher of iced green tea at home, how tea had more body than water somehow, was more satisfying.
Then I thought: No, someone else said that, something about tea having body and bite.
And then I realized I was thinking of CANDY, by Terry Southern*. The professor serves tea — not sherry –to his nubile student, with a little speech about it having body and bite.** She then tries the same speech on her family’s Mexican gardener, when she decides to seduce him.***
The copy of CANDY I read as a teenager had a black-and-white photograph of the kind of girl who was considered the epitome of beauty in the ’60s/70s, a girl who, to quote the Conchords, could have been an airline hostess in that era.**** My current edition is a trade paperback brought out by Penguin in 1985. I read CANDY before I read CANDIDE, which probably kept me from getting all the jokes. On the other hand, I think I enjoyed CANDIDE even more when I got around to it.
But here’s what I want to know about your memories — do you think this way, do you hear an odd phrase in your head, realize it came from a book or film, then try to remember what it was?
An aside — I have a feeling that CANDY has not aged well at all. CANDIDE, on the other hand, is still quite funny.*****
*CANDY is also credited to Mason Hoffenberg, butI couldn’t remember his name.
**Professor Mephisto says sherry “has body _and_ edge, while tea is such a messy affair at best, don’t you agree?”
*** Got this part right.
****I fell asleep during the first episode of The Flight of the Conchords, but I liked what I saw.
*****When I went in search of my copy of CANDIDE, I found I actually own a second copy of CANDY, this one the 1965 Greenleaf edition, with a beribboned candy cane on the cover. I wish I could say this was an unprecedented event in my library, but — no.
I recently found two copies of I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS on my bookshelf. One’s a signed first edition, the other’s for reading. It all makes sense when you love books, Laura. Will you keep both copies of CANDY, and if not, which one will you recycle?
I hate it when I think of a quote and then can’t remember where it came from. I’ll search through IMDB and other quote sites for hours. Then something else will come to mind and I forget the quote I was looking up. Then I’m frustrated that I can’t remember what it was I was looking up, at which point I start to drool and then wet myself. It’s sad.
Ditto Steve (until the part after <i>at which point</i>).
<i>*****… I actually own a second copy … wish I could say this was an unprecedented event … but — no.</i>
Unfortunately, not for me either.
I’m always coming up with quotes from books and sometimes can actually remember which book it came from. If I do something embarrassing I’ll ask for some linamint for my dignity. After a bad day I’ll decide that I need a restorative or that I need to sit on the deck with something tall and cool in glasses that clink. One of my favorites that I’ve taken and paraphrased is from Lenora Mattingly Weber and it’s about doing laundry, at the second coming I’m sure that I’ll be standing in the laundry room saying ‘wait,wait, I just have one more load of darks to do’
I’m also always finding a book in the bargain bin and thinking how good it looks, only to get home and find out it looks so good because I’ve already read it and it’s right there on the shelf, or the floor, or the bedside table, or the bathroom counter or in the car……you get the picture!
Yeppers, just recently I pre-ordered Nicola Griffiths book _Always_, forgot I did that and ordered it again. Got two copies at a rip roaring $25 a piece. Like I can afford that! It was a great book but no book is so great that I need to buy more than one copy unless I plan to give some to friends. I’m not fincially well enough off to be doing that. I can’t help seeing it every time I pass by the book case that it’s in and being reminded of how very tiresome it is to not have a good operating memory. For that reason any quotes that I love I keep on the computer or pinned to a kitchen cabinet. Like this one:
“Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity—We cherish books even if unread, their mere presence excudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance. AE Newton
I usually highlight great passages as I’m reading. My books and no first editions so I don’t feel bad about that. I had to get over feeling bad about it though, a friend of mine who is a writer finally convinced me that there isn’t really any need to keep ones books in pristine condition if you’re not a ‘collector’. I collect books but not for finacial value. My most highlighted book is Orlando by Virgina Woolf.
I like AE Newton’s quote — I’m not piggish, my soul is just reaching toward infinity.
A copy of CANDY will go into the give-away box I keep in my office, probably the mass market, which, although far quirkier, looks like it won’t hold up too well over the years.
As for Lenora Mattingly Weber — thanks to her, I am constantly muttering the quotations her characters borrowed from others — Life is real and life is earnest. For every door that closes, another one will open. And then there was Johnny Malone’s habit of saying, “Oh my sainted aunt.”
I agree about tea having more body. Especially the way my mom makes it. Its a jar of water with a couple of Lipton tea bags and then about a a pound of sugar. The stuff taste great and can back you up in a fight if needed.
Haven’t read either CANDY or CANDIDE, but I did stay awake during The Flight of the Conchords and really liked it. Quirky.
A word/phrase or character will pop into my head. Happens all the time and sometime I feel compelled to go re-read a book or watch a movie again. Seems to be the only way to get it unstuck. I think we all get songs stuck up in there (usually something we don’t want to hear) but it happens with words or people, too.
I just bought a book in softcover that I read in hardcover when it first came out. I hate when that happens!
I do it all the time, with song lyrics, lines from poems, scraps of movie dialogue and just yesterday I had this spring unprompted into my noggin:
“I have piles old enough to be president.”
It took a while to remember it was a line from Elmore Leonard, but I have no idea which book.
I read Candy as a teen, eager for anything salacious. I remember the hump. How could you forget the hump?
Candy led me to a Terry Southern short, Red Dirt Marijuana, in Evergreen Review and then Evergreen Review exposed me to Kerouac, Michael O’Donoghue, Burroughs and a whole host of other curiosities for a kid in mid-sixties Catonsville.
Funny how that works.
Wait a minute — you’re talking about tea, and Keith hasn’t commented yet?