
Above: Roscoe looking quite scandalous, and fabulous, in his new bob.
So around the time of their first birthday, I received some emails from my now one-year-old pups.
Bruin, who lives near Boston and spends his summers and most weekends in Vermont wrote to let me know he "had an outstanding weekend in Vermont...hiking, swimming and celebrating." His new mom, Debbie, added "All is well and he is the best. Pics and further details to follow soon." I'm waiting!!
Now Roscoe he sent two birthday photos. He seems to be sporting a bob.
"Do you think I ought to bob my hair, Mr. Charley Paulson?"
Charley looked up in surprise.
"Why?"
"Because I'm considering it. It's such a sure and easy way of attracting attention."

So wrote the twenty-four-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), conjuring Bernice a society belle on her way to becoming "a society vampire" in his story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," published in 1920. History credits French libertines with inventing the scandalous hairstyle, cut sharp and short at the jawline.

Modernism called for drastic measures. The story of Fitzgerald's Bernice grew from a pointed 10-page letter he'd written from Princeton at age nineteen to his sister Annabel, then fourteen, instructing her on how to become a fascinating modern woman.
