My first Venus was the Frankie Avalon 1958ish rendition. There was this American Bandstand thing (Dick Clark) and most every city has its own version - usually on late Saturday afternoons. My brother and I went with female friends who could dance - it wasn't a date, I was 11 or so and Francis Walters who sat in front of me in class and with whom I danced during our noontime dance times (we actually did that!). We didn't win but we got an honorable mention and a free record - the winnings were Venus sung by Frankie...
Sometime later I had to write a doctoral paper in my elective minor (art history) and my "drawn from out of a hat" subject was the Botticelli "Birth of Venus". I thought the picture looked like Salvidor Dali and wrote a paper that I delivered to the graduate seminars saying just that. NO NO NO Mr. House.(you nitwit). Stop. Rethink. Come back in a week.
I came back in a week and gave my paper on the Frankie Avalon "Venus" - imploring the gods to give him a girl that he could thrill - as opposed to having this luscious beauty just hatched from a scallop shell (obviously a pearl reference) and therefore (I'm not saying how) a goddess not attainable by mere men. A++++++ like Ralphie in "A Christmas Story".
Sometime later I had to write a doctoral paper in my elective minor (art history) and my "drawn from out of a hat" subject was the Botticelli "Birth of Venus". I thought the picture looked like Salvidor Dali and wrote a paper that I delivered to the graduate seminars saying just that. NO NO NO Mr. House.(you nitwit). Stop. Rethink. Come back in a week.
I came back in a week and gave my paper on the Frankie Avalon "Venus" - imploring the gods to give him a girl that he could thrill - as opposed to having this luscious beauty just hatched from a scallop shell (obviously a pearl reference) and therefore (I'm not saying how) a goddess not attainable by mere men. A++++++ like Ralphie in "A Christmas Story".