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unearths some literary gems.
From Blessings in Disguise, by Alec Guinness:[I don't encounter "bed-fluff" in print very often, but it showed up twice in the first fifteen pages of Alec Guinness's memoir, Blessings in Disguise. What's interesting is that while the first instance is a literal one (the child Guinness borrows a household implement from his mother to clean the bed-fluff out from under the bed of an elderly lady he visits downstairs), the second one is figurative!]To [Sybil Thorndike's] statements, though, about the greatness of Ibsen--how he cleared the air, got rid of all the bed-fluff, gave women their proper due, and so on--I could only nod in a way which I hoped looked intelligent.[As you can see, it's not clear whether Thorndike actually used the word "bed-fluff," or that was simply Guinness's "go to" word when paraphrasing.][Meanwhile,* a little later in the book]'So sorry I was late,' [Dame Flora Robson] said. 'My train is from Brighton. And at Victoria Station a plank fell on my head. Is my hat in good shape?' I reassured her: I wasn't quite sure what the shape should be.[*Because, of course, all pages in a book exist simultaneously.]***[sbj: a record from the Guinness bookThe Alec Guinness book, that is]Tyrone Guthrie was ... quite the tallest enfant terrible to be found in the English-speaking world--standing six foot four in his socks.***[Alec Guinness speaks of Edith Sitwell's "arched eyebrows like faint pencil lines querying the tiny eyes."][Guinness speaks of some actors at the makeup table "not knowing their elbow from a crimson-lake liner."Until I looked it up, I thought he was referring to some kind of inland passenger vessel!]***[sbj: the office cutupAlec Guinness, on first meeting his friend Ernie Kovacs]The first day Ernie and I worked together he deliberately got his head stuck in the clapper-board...***
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