A blog with the name "Pies Men Like" was bound to meet up wtih this book sooner or later. I have known about SSG for years - dating to surreptitious peeking at Cosmo in high school - and as a lover of early- and mid-twentieth-century advice manuals for girls and women, I'm glad I finally have my hands on one of the masterpieces. My interest was recently re-piqued by an old episode of This American Life in which they played part of an LP by Helen Gurley Brown. She said she had too much material to fit in SSG and so put out the record to continue the good work. The segment they played was advice for men on how to have an affair and included "don't drink all your girl's booze" and "don't let her spend her birthday alone, even if you have to lie like heck to get out of your house to do it." I mean, that's how you should treat any person in general - that's just being kind (except for the part with lying).
So far I am so enchanted with the book that I keep hopping from bit to bit, plucking pearls of wisdom as I go. But I need to settle down and do an organized, thought-out response. So I shall, a chapter at a time.
This SG is tired enough to be unable to go beyond a page or two tonight, so let's take a look at the table of contents.
1. WOMEN ALONE? OH COME NOW!
2. THE AVAILABLES: THE MEN IN YOUR LIFE
3. WHERE TO MEET THEM
4. HOW TO BE SEXY
5. NINE TO FIVE
6. MONEY MONEY MONEY
7. THE APARTMENT
8. THE CARE AND FEEDING OF EVERYBODY
9. THE SHAPE YOU'RE IN
10. THE WARDROBE
11. KISS AND MAKE-UP
12. THE AFFAIR: FROM BEGINNING TO END
13. THE RICH, FULL LIFE
We won't get there for awhile, so you should know now that chapter 8 does indeed have recipes in it. If it has a pie, I will flip out. That pie would have to be an absolutely foolproof man trap, if both food editors and HGB decree it attractive to men. [flips through book] There is! There is pie! It's in a set of recipes for a dinner "for him" and is called chocolate angel pie. This throws off the whole fruit filling theory, but still. Pie! Damn.
