"Why don't you come up some time and. . . see me?"

Cut-paper collage postcard created for scrapiteria weekly challenge: "Television"

I've always been struck by the expression: "I'm not a [—], but I play one on TV." It's as if television is a way of thinking about our alternative personae.

Background is from one of the etchings in Piranesi's Invenzioni Capric di Carceri (1761). Dinosaur is a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, as depicted by paleoartist Luis V. Rey. Woman is actor-writer Mae West, in costume for her 1928 Broadway play "Diamond Lil"--filmed as She Done Him Wrong (1933).

The title, of course, is Mae West's exquisitely lascivious line from that film (often misquoted with "some time" at the end). She inserts a tiny pause after "and" and then emphasizes the word "see." It was named by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 most memorable movie quotations of all time.

I associate Mae West with watching TV in the '60s. I've seen several of her flicks on the small screen, as well as her appearances on "The Red Skelton Show" and "Mister Ed."