The great success of the motion picture and musical "Chicago" seems to have birthed a renewed interest in that period known as the Roaring Twenties, especially in flapper culture.

My paternal grandmother was a flapper. At that time, she was herself a vibrant teenage girl living in the city of Philadelphia. As with any teenager in any period, she was attracted to what was de rigeur for her own years. You might be able to compare flapper culture with modern hip hop culture is terms of a cultural phenomenon that had a great influence over teen life. The flapper was an example of a woman without limits, a woman who lived life with passion and humor, a woman that set an example for an independent-minded young woman like my grandmother.

Out of love and dedication to my grandmother (whom I never got to meet and yet I know her intimately) and out of my own interest in flapper culture, I would like to share the following poem, "The Flapper" by Dorothy Parker.

The playful flapper here we see,
The fairest of the fair.
She's not what Grandma used to be, --
You might say, au contraire.
Her girlish ways may make a stir,
Her manners cause a scene,
But there is no more harm in her
Than in a submarine.

She nightly knocks for many a goal
The usual dancing men.
Her speed is great, but her control
Is something else again.
All spotlights focus on her pranks.
All tongues her prowess herald.
For which she well may render thanks
To God and Scott Fitzgerald.

Her golden rule is plain enough -
Just get them young and treat them rough.

Electric Apocalypse