Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Hemingway

FLASHBACK: Vanity Fair, 1934

He was big of heart and big of wind and his sentences had no commas. He was called Papa and before he was bushy he was smooth and had big fine teeth and knew how to say cheese. Here he is saying cheese with his wife Pauline for the photographer George Hoyningen-Huene and the sun is strong in their eyes and they will travel and hook marlin and flee lions and in their backyard have many many cats. Harry's Bar in Los Angeles sponsors an annual Hemingway-parody contest and the deadline this year is February 15 and first prize is dinner at Harry's Bar in Florence where the drinks are cool and fine and no jokes are written on the napkins. Harry's Bar must be mentioned once and the judges are fine men with lead in their pencils and none of them rummies. Papa comma he would be pleased. Or not.

James Wolcott