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Gmod billiards pool hall1/23/2024 When Felson meets his love interest Sarah Packard, she reveals how a prim looking girl like herself found the pool hall side of the tracks: This mid-20 th-century movement was primarily fueled by hunky Paul Newman’s turn as the pool shark “Fast” Eddie Felson in 1959’s The Hustler, which portrayed the world of pool halls as seething with boozy, working class indignation. It was during the 1950s, though, that pool halls became a seedy pop culture phenomenon. This wealth encouraged the construction of billiard halls for gaming gentlemen who also enjoyed a drink and an occasional scuffle. The Music Man hit during the sweet spot of pool’s second coming on the silver screen, depicting the gilded excess of the Robber Baron-era. “ the first big step on the road, to the depths of degrada-I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon, then beer from a bottle!” “Oh, you’ve got trouble! Right here in River City! With a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for ‘pool!’” 1912)-is an embodiment of this fear. In the film, con man Harold Hill’s signature song extolls (as a means to his own end) how playing pool is the “gateway drug” that turn boys into carousing ne’er-do-wells: Even as the church consistently demonized it, pool found friends in high places, from wealthy businessmen to Abraham Lincoln, who called the game “health-inspiring.”īy the 1920s, the pool hall had fallen from grace to become the poster child for liquor-tinged depravity, and a place for men to escape from the societal structures of home and family. Amongst the church-pew whisperers-who feared gambling nearly as much as hard booze-there was a belief that the game itself could lead their innocent children down a path of wicked drunkenness.Ī scene from the The Music Man-the 1962 classic musical about the infiltration of pool hall culture into a wholesome Iowa town (c. While the exact origins of the game itself is muddled at best, we do know that the game was played in 15 th-century European royal courts and is referenced in French nobles’ journals as well as Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Like so much of barroom culture, pool halls have long been male-dominated territory, the game’s competitive ferocity adding a helping of testosterone to the clubhouse mix. Even during my visit, it seemed as if I had accidentally strolled into a meeting of a secret, chalk-dust baptized fraternity. Now over a century old, the bar was-during the “golden age” of pool in the early 20 th century-an emblem of rip-roaring, pool shark culture and a haven for beer swilling men, where roughnecks and Tennessee gentlemen engaged in friendly competition over a shot and a beer. Just a stroll away from the roving packs of tourists humming Joe Jackson’s “Walking in Memphis” and the Technicolor blight of Hard Rock Café, People’s scripted neon fizzed modestly in the night sky. Founded in 1904, People’s firmly carries the torch as the oldest continually operating pool hall in the city and, perhaps, the entire country. When I went looking for a holdout in Memphis last fall, all signs pointed me towards the legendary People’s Billiard Club. Like the former bad boy who succumbs to a bad back and trades in his motorcycle for a Subaru, pool halls are just not as wild as they used to be. In the 21 st century, the game’s havens are once again experiencing the kind of identity crisis that often comes with age. These seedy associations have become so commonplace over the course of the 20th century, that it’s difficult to imagine pool’s previous, far more respectable, incarnations as a game beloved by Renaissance-era monarchs and Civil War soldiers (who even collected trading cards of their favorite billiard players). It’s also a game long tied to societal ills, with pool halls serving as the much-maligned dens of sin where game and drink rendezvous. Of all the barroom games out there-from darts to video poker-pool has always struck me as the most romantic, even in supremely decrepit environs.
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