Word: washere
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...remembers "when we curled together/innocent and happy as a pair of socks/fresh from the washer," but this was only a respite from "venom and boredom." Actually. "You ruined me." The poem works because the images bring the woman to life. When she gets to the metaphysical climax-"To love is crazy"-the empty words are suddenly meaningful...
...their eyes (some have taken to wearing sunglasses indoors), and that their parties are dreadfully dull: the guests all just stand around, staring out. Joyce Susskind gets glassy-eyed when she recalls the day she walked naked from her shower, looked out of her windows-and saw a window washer looking in. Stunned, Mrs. Susskind "just sat on the bed and stared. I'll never forget his face -and I'm sure he'll never forget mine...
Another potential witness shows up on the scene, a hilariously surly window washer. Adroitly played by James Coco, he is a sharply drawn caricature of the New York City prole ("I may be 40 stories up but I'm the man in the street"), who coolly surveys the tied-up man straining to free his bonds and ignores his gagged pleas and his plight with magnificent aplomb. He intends to write a book about all the crazy things a window washer sees, and this is simply another usable item...
...first book Down and Out in Paris and London records in an oral-tactile way what it was like to be a dish washer, a tramp and a louse-ridden outsider. In The Road to Wigan Pier, he experienced the squalor of hopelessness while his pink pals were pitying the proletariat. At the end of his life, when he was dying of TB, he characteristically decided to treat it on a fog-swept island off Scotland's west coast. Evelyn Waugh visited him on his deathbed, and the reactionary Catholic gourmet saw a rare quality in the socialist agnostic...
...generally too individualistic to work with others and cannot tolerate taking orders. When the womenfolk get work, male pride often degenerates to ire or alcoholism. The men get hooked on day-work (which they can quit easily), earning maybe $7 or $8 a day as a launderer, car washer or janitor. Or they begin hitting the bottle, hanging out in such bars as the "Country A Go-Go" (hillbilly music and rock) where they "jest set" and tip back straight shots of bourbon. Arguments start, fists and knives flail, blood is spilled. As one Appalachian woman complained recently, while...