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"I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini." Attributed to Robert Benchley.
At some point during the dervish dance of Fashion Week, many a journalist has glanced at yet another creamy model spilling out of a gown daring enough to pop the pennies off a dead Irishman's eyes, and thought:
"I must get away from these wanton clothes and into a dry martini."
And so come dusk she sneaks off to the Algonquin.
For seven decades the Algonquin Hotel on W. 44th St. in midtown Manhattan has been hallowed ground to New York's literati to editors and essayists, world-weary playwrights and worldly screenwriters, dry columnists and caustic critics.
It was there, sequestered in the Oak Room, that salty Dorothy Parker, perpetually slovenly Heywood Hale Broun, owlish Alexander Woollcott and genial buffoon Robert Benchley gathered 'round a round table every midday to eat a bit, drink a lot, smoke incessantly, construct complex word games, and trade calculated insults.
Once, when called upon to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence, Parker promptly replied: "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."
Shortly after lunch they would part ways. Then they would spend the afternoon duly...