The Self-Created Immortality of Mae West | Hacker News Reader

The Self-Created Immortality of Mae West

criterion.com

49 pointsokfine20 comments

> When she sings with Duke Ellington’s band in Belle of the Nineties

That performance is chilling. No one can say she didn’t understand the blues.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CpS5aPlgWa8

It feels obvious to me that she and Groucho Marx, then Bob Hope a little later, had styles that presaged the much more naturalistic acting traditions that are thought to have begun with Marlon Brando and James Dean.

Don’t know of any dramatic actors who figured it out that early.

> Three years later West made one more film, The Heat’s On, then swished off the screen for many years, save two late-career efforts that will go unmentioned here.

Myra Breckinridge (1970) <https://youtu.be/ywcr3lYuVo0> and Sextette (1978) <https://youtu.be/as6Iv5R1G0M>.

It's unfortunate that the article doesn't link or embed a singe audio example of her voice.

"Come up and see me sometime" https://youtu.be/xY9QxFDwiL0?t=40

Since this was on HN I thought it was going to be about the Internet Hub.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West

Am I dating myself by thinking of this when I read the article title?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West

I wanted to read about tanks or life vests

I personally have no idea what this article is really talking about or what the significance of it is that would cause it to be up voted so highly. Baffled.

HN has high proportion of "tech" people. Tech people old enough to have lived through "birth of Internet" or into 80's hacker/phreaker culture will know of MAE West and MAE East. These people, upvoted for nostalgia and to express comradery with poster.

But why? What is the connection?

The post is about a person named Mae West. The wikipedia article linked is about a infrastructure exchange point with the same name

I’m talking about the original article. The person. Why?

I learned something from reading this article. Plus Mae West was a hacker of a sort: she interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it. Obviously not as much of a hacker as Hedy Lamarr, but still she led an interesting life.

Curious if you found the article interesting anyway.

Lost interest after the first few paragraphs.

In the UK, Mae West is famous for being one daughter of serial killers Fred and Rose West.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West

Not the same person.

I know, that's the point of my comment, it's a name that brings up very different imagery accross the Atlantic.

In that case your point would have been clearer if you said "the name 'Mae West'" instead of referring to the subject of the post.

> "instead of referring to the subject of the post."

I wasn't referring to the subject of the post.

You don't think it's interesting that you just did the same thing to my comment, that I did to the title of the post? That's fine it's not Earth shaking. Usually famous people have unique enough names, or I've heard of both or neither.

Isolated datapoint: I'm in the UK, the Fred & Rosemary West thing happened while I was growing up, and to me "Mae West" very definitely means the actress and not the serial killers' daughter.

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