Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Flapper's Prayer

It was ever thus. Click left on image to read. Found at a house sale several years ago, folded up into a small rectangle. I like to think copies were passed from woman to woman, a gesture of sisterhood as they kicked over old restraints but struggled with that old dichotomy: good girl--bad girl, virgen--vixen. "How can I be naughty and still be nice?"

This photo was found separately, but it sure seems a perfect match for the Flapper's Prayer. On the back of the photo, this couplet:

3 comments:

  1. After reading this I guess I am glad I was born when I was. Although I think this prayer might still hold true today, the dance would change but not much else.

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  2. I know what you mean. My nostalgia for the old days is always tempered with the knowledge that women had more constraints back then--including the very literal constraint of a girdle!

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  3. Thanks Linda! I love that ditty. The poem is pretty fabulous too. I can easily imagine it being sung (with a liberal dash of irony) by Mae West or Marlene Dietrich -- or even Eartha Kitt!

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