"An Introduction to Girl Watching"
from
The Girl Watcher
March 1959
Nary a male eyeball wavered as five foot and a half inches of cool
blonde female wow, glided across the sun drenched small town street.
Her lemon yellow skirt fit like a sausage
skin and she expanded a red silk blouse in a manner that would rate her
a traffic menace violation ticket from any police department.
"That's a Pittsburgh Blonde Flipper," said
the ardent Girl Watcher, with mounting interest.
"Don't hand me that jazz," the second Girl
Watcher glowered, "that's a Philly Floozie! I'll bet my membership card
on it."
Few people realize there is a vast national
organization called AGWA (Ardent Girl-Watchers' Association).
In order to join this club a new member must
prove he is mentally alert, a serious student and connoisseur of pretty
girls--able to appraise, classify and give the true zoological name for
each member of the species sighted at twenty paces.
We interviewed Christopher C. Tinker, national
president of AGWA. "Girl-Watching Clubs are spreading like a brush fire
across the nation, across the seas and into the far reaches of the hinterlands,"
said Mr. Tinker, enroute to Philadelphia to address the 1959 convention
of Ardent Girl-Watchers. "Applications for membership cards are
pouring in by mail bag."
We are, as one, with the AGWA's,
muy sympatico.
We hold further that you'd be stretching a tired bra to claim that collecting
retina imprints of passing females is any less a salutary hobby than, say,
saving stamps or strings, G or otherwise.
Watching the girls has had its ups and downs.
The Romans in their excesses got the whole view, albeit through the hue
of the grape. Then there was too long a period when it was deemed very
wow-wow-wee to even catch a glimpse of a well turned ankle.
Another GW is The Peeker. A student
of the femme-frame, he prefers by nature to be objective...also, because
there are only pennies in hi kick, and a tendency to wither if his appraising
stare happens to be returned. He's limited, therefore, to make his appraisals
over folded newspapers, while taking off his hat to wipe his forehead,
from the shelter of doorways, lighting his pipe or cigar and over a raised
coffee cup in the diner.
Among the Peekers there are those who
have mastered the half-lidded, unobtrusive or veiled appraisal. They can
look without appearing to look. They are skilled devils who can watch a
girl adjusting a garter simply by seemingly looking in a shop window and
blowing their noses.
The Flusher GW is the gamecock of the
breed. In a subway crush, for example, he can spot his quarry and stalk
her to a perch. He will endure, until he elaborates his first impression,
by viewing her in segregated light--such as seated alone on a park bench
or waiting for a light on an uncrowded corner.
The Shook-Up GW is the one carrying
a torch for a lost love. He re-lives her again in the thrust of this girl's
lips, in the cascade of soft hair on that girl's shoulders, in the studied
mannerism of that girl's cigarette lighting routine.
The Deerstalker: of all the Girl-Watchers,
these are the hardest workers. Once they spot a girl who interests them,
be it for her Swiss-movement hip maneuvers or for something else outstanding,
they stalk their quarry like underfed beagle hounds. Their power of concentration
is so great they have been known to fall off of river docks, roof tops
into rain barrels, and no one has ever counted the number of noses broken
by doors slammed in their faces.
The Swivel Head: A never die, diehard.
He can't take one sip of the wine without taking another. One glimmer of
his eyeball on a passing quarry and his head spins and spins, studying
the specimen fore and aft.
The Percher: This is probably the most
common type of Girl-Watcher. Burning shoe leather to stalk his quarry is
not his dish. This type gets himself a box seat perch, where the prettiest
quail are liable to pass by. Library steps, bus stop benches in front of
Girls Dormitories, or Schools for Nurses, or sitting on a wooden tower
with a life-guard friend at public beaches.
Then there are The Specialists, not
actively interested in the WHOLE specimen. Among these are The Titmice,
The
Hipster, The Derriere Devotees, The Lipsophiles and The
Leg-men.
The dedicated GW, like any other specialist,
soon learns there are certain provinces where his operations can be more
rewarding than others. Certain corporations, he learns, have casting directors
in place of personal managers. One Manhattan Insurance firm, for example,
has more lush dolls in its secretarial pool than you'll find in Las Vegas.
Frowned on by old-line GW's are the neophytes,
the johnny-come-latelies to the craft who look at any and all specimens.
The good GW doesn't waste his optics on the run-of-the-mill or the overly-showy
tomatoes who are asking to be looked at. His is the divining acumen, the
fine art of culling the dream from the dross.
Girl watching is edifying, transporting and
fulminative. The art has come a long way since the era of the underwear
section of the mail order catalog. Today's GW is the connoisseur of the
day, of the female figure come to its fruition, of Slenderella, Maidenform
and Saks Fifth Avenue. His is the sought approval of the Balmains, the
John Frederics, the Hattie Carnegies and the Lerner Shops.
Never before has the AGWA had such a challenging
prospect. To perceive, to approve, to countenance and limn is the forte.
Ardent Girl Watchers unite! The field
was never more fertile.
More Essays>>>
