I contend that, while Brendan Gill was a better writer than Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker is an incredibly important (and markedly more famous) figure for a reason. Sometimes it doesn’t come down to a contest about how good your writing is. Her contributions to civil rights and feminism are vitally important to this very day, in all sorts of unquantifiable ways. She totally deserves to have a birthday party. So nyah.

And in other news, today is also Ray Bradbury’s birthday! He is almost 115, give or take a decade or three. SF Signal celebrated by posting a video with a look into the far-away world of 2001:

Happy birthday to Bradbury and Parker, and apologies to Mr. Gill for suggesting that a lesser writer should be better known.