Behind the Green Door

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

William Safire discusses porn film etymology this week.

As usual, it's wrong and incomplete.

My name is Barry Popik, and this is about my tenth correction of Safire this
year, and I'm not really trying hard. It would be nice if a correction did
appear, and also a correction of "spoiler" as promised, and if he mentioned my
web site to his readers. Almost anyone would do this. I mean, I'm goddamn
penniless, I work in a city workplace without goddamn air, and for one-tenth the
salary per hour of any other New York CIty lawyer, and I give my work away for
free. Any simple kindness or understanding is well-earned.

Except for Barry Popik. Anyway, here goes.


(SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE)
http://www.nytimes.com/ads/carrotink/CarrotInkApril28.html
    ON LANGUAGE

Behind the Green Door

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: August 1, 2004

The mystery of the spymaster's metaphor. 'Everybody talks about 'military
capability' or 'law-enforcement capability,''' George Tenet told the 9/11
commission in April, three months before his resignation as director of Central
Intelligence. ''Well, we sit behind the green door. And for the bang for the buck,
the American taxpayer gets a hell of a lot for what we give them.''

(...)

William Sydney Porter, a Texas newspaperman who taught himself to write short
stories during a three-year term in prison, later went to New York and wrote
under the pseudonym O. Henry. In a 1906 collection of his stories, titled
''The Four Million,'' he seizes the reader with this unforgettable opening: '

'Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner. . . . Suddenly a
hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to look into the thrilling eyes of a
beautiful woman, wonderful in diamonds and Russian sables. She thrusts hurriedly
into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of
scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one
word, 'parallelogram!' and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back
fearfully over her shoulder. That would be pure adventure. Would you accept
it?''

The theme of the O. Henry short story is the need to open the colorful portal
to the twin spirits of Romance and Adventure, which a century of novelists
idealized in tales of espionage and today's real-life spies have made part of
their lingo. Get a copy in your library or read it on the Web at
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext01/4milln10.txt. The title of the story is ''The Green Door.''



All good, except "green door" had been used in several stories before this
that were well-known.


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
THE LITTLE GREEN DOOR; PART I PART. II PART III.
MARY E WILKINS. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Apr 19,
1896. p. 45 (1 page)

This house where Letitia lived was, of course, a very old one. It had a top
roof, saggy and mossy, gray shingles in the walls, and a well-sweep in the
yeard. It was quite a large house, and there were sheds and a great barn attached
to it, but they were all on the south side. At the back of the house the
fields stretched away for acres, and there were no outbuildings. THe little green
door was at the very back of the house, to-ward the fields, in a room opening
out of the kitchen. It was called the cheese-room, because Letitia's
grandmother, who made cheeses, used to keep them there. SHe fancied she could smell
cheese, though none had been kept there for years, and it was used now only for a
lumber-room. She always sniffed hard for cheese, and then she eyed the little
green door with wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely higher
than her head. A grown person could not have passed through without stooping
almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one who was not slender could
have squeezed through it. In this door there was a little black keyhole, with
no key in it, but it was always locked. Letitia knew that he Aunt Peggy kept
the key in some very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor unlock
the door.

"It is not best for you, my dear," she always replied, when Letitia teased
her; and when Letitia begged only to know why she could not go out of the door,
she made the same reply: "It is not best for you, my dear."

Somjetimes, when Aunt Peggy was not by, Letitia would tease the old maid
servant about the little green door, but she always seemed both cross and stupid,
and gave her no satisfaction. She even seemed to think there was no little
green door there; but that was nonsense, because Letitia knew there was. Her
curiousity grew greater and greater; she took every chance she could get to steal
into the cheese-room and shake the door softly, but it was always locked. She
even tried to look through the keyhole, but she could see nothing. One thing
puzzled her more than anything, and that was that the little green door was on
the inside of the house only, and not on the outside. When Letitia went out
into the field behind the house there was nothing but the blank wall to be seen.
There was no sign of a door in it. But the cheese-room was certainly the last
room in the house, and the little green door was in the rear wall. It was
very strange. When Letitia asked her Great-aunt Peggy to explain that, she only
got the same answer:

"It is not best for you to know, my dear."

(...)

"I should never think of disobeying my parents and open the little green
door," remarked her great-great-grandmother, as she put back the key in the
drawer. "I should think something dreadful would happen to me. I have heard
whispered that the door opened into the future. It would be dreadful to be all alone
in the future without one's kinfolks."

(OK, I'll end the suspense. Beying the little green door are tzatzkas from
the past--ed.)


BOOKS RECEIVED.
New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Dec 7, 1901. p. BR54 (1
page)
For the Young. (...)
THE GREEN DOOR. By Margaret Compton.


Display Ad 2 -- No Title
Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 31, 1903. p. 8 (1
page):
The House with the Green Door. Seumas MacManus.


 The Green Door.
O Henry. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 18, 1904. p.
E7 (1 page)


QUERIES.
New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 1, 1905. p. BR442 (1
page):

W. ABBOTT, New York City--I want to find a poem by Mary E. WIlkins entitled
"The Little Green Door," published years ago in The Pocket Magazine.

It appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine, Volume 15, Page 239, in
1896.