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A reporter for the New Orleans Item who caught visiting Novelist William Faulkner in an expansive mood asked the Nobel Prize winner how he would like to re-live his life. Said Faulkner: "Why, youngster, I reckon I'd be a woman or a tramp. They don't have to work so hard. Or maybe a rich orphan, with a trust company instead of kinfolks." However, in his present existence he admitted that work was hard to dodge. "What else are you going to do? You can't drink eight hours a day. Or make love. Work's about the only thing a fellow has to do to keep from being bored." Furthermore, Faulkner added, "I ain't a writer. Why, I don't even know any writers. I don't pay no attention to publishers, either. They write me a letter—if it don't have a royalty check in it, I throw it away."
During the jubilee celebration of the Royal Aero Club in London, Lord Brabazon, holder of the first pilot's license ever issued in Britain, gave a television audience his latter-day judgment of air transportation. Said he: "Ballooning is the only way for a gentleman to travel. No noise, no drafts, and you don't know where you're going. What could be better than that?"
One of cinema's tough men decided it was time to deny that he was having a quarrel with his producer, and bought advertising space in a Hollywood trade paper to say so: "There has been a lot of talk, caused by irresponsible persons, to the effect that Sam Spiegel and I are feuding. This is not true. I love Sam Spiegel . . . Sincerely, Humphrey Bogart."
The Massachusetts Bar Association, which admitted him as a young Harvard graduate in 1930, asked that Alger Hiss, now serving a five-year sentence for perjury, be disbarred. After a nine-minute hearing, with no defense, the state supreme court agreed, following a similar decision last year by New York State.
When nominations closed in the triennial election to fill the honorary post of Rector of Edinburgh University, officials faced a diplomatic poser. Along with such acceptable candidates as the Ago Khan, Sir Alexander Fleming and Evelyn Waugh, some fun-loving students had entered the name of Iran's Britain-baiting Premier Mossadegh. Fortunately, the rules provided an easy way out. Candidates are required to accept their nominations in writing; Mossadegh had merely cabled his acceptance.
Collectors' Items
Manhattan's exclusive Lotus Club, which specializes in giving formal dinners for men of distinction, honored a woman flyer of distinction: Jacqueline Cochran, the first aviatrix to appear as a guest since Amelia Earhart in 1935. After fellow flyer General James H. Doolittle outlined some of her accomplishments (five world air speed records, the 1950 Harmon International Air Trophy, wartime head of WASP, flying with the French, Spanish, Chinese and Turkish air forces), Guest of Honor Cochran "just got all choked up" and replied: "I didn't realize myself I had made so many records."