Names make news. Last week these names made this news:
In an interview with the left bank Paris Review, Dorothy ("Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses") Parker, wit, versifier and short-story writer, spoke frankly about many things. Of the '20s: "Gertrude Stein did us the most harm when she said, 'You're all a lost generation.' . . . We all said, 'Whee! We're lost.' " Of her own verse: "I was following in the exquisite footsteps of Miss [Edna St. Vincent] Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers. My verses are no damn good. Let's face it, honey, my verse is terribly dated." Of the difference between wit and wisecracking: "Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words." Of being rich: "I hate almost all rich people, but I think I'd be darling at it."
Told by the Russian embassy in Washington that he and his combo may be allowed to visit beyond the Iron Curtain, Jazzman Louis ("Satchmo") Armstrong displayed his gleaming teeth in a famed smile and growled, "It's in the bag. We'll play one-night stands in as many towns as they'll let us. A gang of Russians came to hear us when we played Berlin last year, and we're looking forward to meeting those cats again—because they dig ol' pops."
A student at Boston's Northeastern University polled 1,500 teachers of history and government in 500 U.S. universities to find out how they ranked American Presidents, emerged with results virtually identical to those of LIFE'S 1948 poll conducted by Harvard's Arthur Schlesinger Sr. The top four: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson. The bottom two: Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding.
Struck in the face by a scorecard during the demonstration in the Chicago amphitheater that followed Adlai Stevenson's nomination for President, Old Democrat James A. Farley underwent emergency surgery last week "for the correction of a detached retina." It was not certain whether the retina had been loosened when the card hit Farley or when he snapped his head back at the blow, but it was plain after the operation that Farley's eyesight would still be good enough to distinguish a Democrat from a Republican.
Conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival, Britain's terrible-tempered Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham paused between downbeats to take a swipe at his Scottish host. The Edinburgh Festival and others like it are "bunk." said Sir Thomas. "They are for the purpose of attracting trade for the town. What that has to do with music I don't know.