The 20’s again...

[Godfrey]

Hello! I realised it’s less than 60 days before the 20’s begin. I was wondering if anyone was planning anything? We are thinking of a bit of a 20’s garden party (Southern Hemisphere summer helps) but looking for inspiration!

 

[3fingers]

My sister posted this on Facebook.

 

[GHT]

The twenties are back next year, of course. As if I need a heads up to re-enact one of the greatest indulgences of the 1920's.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And of course, the Twenties were the golden age of extraordinary and unprecedented corruption at every level of American society, while the media occupied itself with crass celebrity scandals, sex, vice, sports, and crime. 2020? "Honk! Honk! It's the Bonk!"

 

[Zombie_61]

And of course, the Twenties were the golden age of extraordinary and unprecedented corruption at every level of American society, while the media occupied itself with crass celebrity scandals, sex, vice, sports, and crime. 2020? "Honk! Honk! It's the Bonk!"

So, it's 100 years later, and nothing has changed.

 

[Godfrey]

Ok, trains, corruption, and Essie Davis... keep it coming I’m taking notes!

 

[3fingers]

"Honk! Honk! It's the Bonk!"

Daddy and Peaches may have been outrageous at the time, but if they were around today they would struggle to be noticed after their 15 minutes was up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Where is the African Honking Gander now that we need him?

 

[Godfrey]

@LizzieMaine coming from the other side of the planet I hand the read about Peaches and Daddy. Wow! Crazy. We had Squizzy Tailor and Snub Pollard to both frighten and entertain.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had Snub Pollard here, too -- he was Harold Lloyd's sidekick for a while, and then made a bunch of two-reelers on his own.

The look on Harold's face pretty much sums it up.

 

[tonyb]

Daddy and Peaches may have been outrageous at the time, but if they were around today they would struggle to be noticed after their 15 minutes was up.

Fame may have a very short shelf life these days, but, alas, infamy rarely washes off.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Terrific idea for a thread, Godfrey. And so far, the responses are great. Any chance that ocean liners, hats, jazz, and speakeasies will come back into style? Of course, I hope the Roaring Twenties Redux does not end the way the original version did; as F. Scott said, they “leapt to a spectacular death in October 1929.” Over-inflated bubble economy? What? Me worry? Never mind. Champagne for everyone! And Zelda skinny dipping in the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wonder if Aaron Judge will miss most of a season with a bad case of the clap, while the sportswriters say he ate too many hot dogs?

 

[Tiki Tom]

“Forty-seven ginger headed sailors” (first recorded in 1928)

 

[Godfrey]

I’ve been thinking of a 1920’s news feed. My great grandfather collected a Melbourne Magazine called Punch (based on the UK version) and had it bound each year. I ended up with the 1912-1914 collections and spent 2012-2014 reading the appropriate magazine for the year and month. Was a really great experience.

 

[Fading Fast]

I wonder if Aaron Judge will miss most of a season with a bad case of the clap, while the sportswriters say he ate too many hot dogs?

As noted over in the "The Era - Day by Day" thread, thank God for penicillin.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Re: Planning for the next roaring twenties.

How to throw a 1920’s New Year’s Eve party:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/10404483/How-to-throw-a-1920s-cocktail-party.html

• Send out black and white, art deco party invitations;
• Invitation should include a one-page list of common 1920s slang phrases.
• Have a nondescript entrance to your “speakeasy”;
• Entrance requires a secret password;
• Encourage guests to dress like an extra in The Great Gatsby: flappers, gangsters, tycoons, and newsboys. Hats, spats, plus fours, dresses with fringe.
• Have a silent movie playing in the background;
• Engage a dance-instructor to teach everyone to dance The Charleston;
• Here’s the sound-track for your party: https://open.spotify.com/album/0vO7F7XD2FawRZNAJp9y29
• Champagne and period cocktails.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Have lots of bottles behind the bar, all with fancy labels, and all containing the same vile-smelling straw-colored liquid spiked with industrial ethanol. Or if you want to be really authentic, throw in some methanol.

 

[Fading Fast]

Have lots of bottles behind the bar, all with fancy labels, and all containing the same vile-smelling straw-colored liquid spiked with industrial ethanol. Or if you want to be really authentic, throw in some methanol.

But you could always drink some Radithor to deal with the hangover:

Radithor was a patent medicine that is a well-known example of radioactive quackery and specifically of excessively broad and pseudoscientific application of the principle of radiation hormesis. It consisted of triple distilled water containing at a minimum 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the radium 226 and 228 isotopes.

Radithor was manufactured from 1918 to 1928 by the Bailey Radium Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey. The owner of the company and head of the laboratories was listed as William J. A. Bailey, a dropout from Harvard College,[1] who was not a medical doctor.[2] It was advertised as "A Cure for the Living Dead"[3] as well as "Perpetual Sunshine". The expensive product was claimed to cure impotence, among other ills.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor

 

[LizzieMaine]

Eben Byers' bones were dug up forty years after his death and they were still glowing. You can't say that Radithor was mislabled!

There's a very signficant book from 1932 called "100,000,000 Guinea Pigs," by consumer activists Arthur Kallet and Frederick Schlink, in which many of these quack products of the twenties are exposed to the spotlight of scientific rigor -- Radithor is in there, along with such horrors as Kormelu, a thallium-based depilatory that caused not just unwanted hair to fall out, but all the rest of it as well -- and would induce paralysis and/or cancer to boot.