Title: Your Own Party Book
Author: Gertrude Crampton
Cover artist: Abbi Damerow (illus.)
Yours for: $10
Best things about this cover:
- That. Record. Player.
- Pink! Honestly, this is a super-delightful cover. Makes the '40s seem like fun. Super-white, but still fun.
- And nothing says "fun" like "Gertrude Crampton."
- P.S. "Gay"
Best things about this back cover:
- Everyone's so skinny and happy and gay! Look at the adorable short pants and pigtails. Weenie roast! Let's all go back! Civil rights, shmivil rights, the '40s were fun!
- Holy crap, did phones still look like that in '49?! Is your date gonna pick you up in his surrey?
- Jane's glue-sniffing addiction got totally out-of-control at the Valentine's Day dance…
Page 123~
[A recipe for "English Monkey"] [Yes, seriously]
English Monkey
2 cups stale bread crumbs
2 cups milk
2 cups cheese in small pieces
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
A little pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon thin bottled meat sauce
"Sprinkle with paprika to look stylish."
Note that they didn't have *kinds* of cheese in the '40s. Just "cheese." Also, I am unaccountably imagining a teamster grabbing his crotch and going "I got yer thin bottled meat sauce right here!"
I will straight-up *give* this book to someone if he/she promises to a. throw a party directly out of this book, and b. provide multiple photos.
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]
5 comments:
Isn't Gertrude Crampton also the creator of "the man in the polka dot tie" from Scuffy the Tugboat?
Wow, there's so much here that I associate with the commercial art of maybe five years later. Lots of modernist design, especially on those coke bottles and the record player. Actually based on both front and back, I'd have guessed this was from the mid-50s.
The guy on the front cover is rather suspiciously dark, if you ask me. Not to mention rather feminine. Just what kind of party is this, hmm?
But maybe the biggest surprise to me is the bikini in the center of the back cover. Weren't they still rather scandalous in 1949? And if it's not a bikini, then that skirt is daringly short and her midriff is bare.
If no one's claimed it yet, I'm totally willing to throw one of these parties. I think I have a friend set that would appreciate it.
This is EXACTLY the kind of book I would have pored over repeatedly, at 13 or 14 years old, dreaming of the day I would be a groovy, successful party-giver, without the slightest realization that 20-years-out-of-date (at the time) advice might not be the key to social popularity that I'd hoped.
I had a "Cooking with Bacardi" booklet from 1972 that gave me similar futile hopes...
Eli,
I'll send you the book if you email me your address at rexparker at iCloud dot com.
RP
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