Being with Hemingway meant joining in his elaborate game playing as a necessary mark of respect. Tennessee asked only that you be colorful and that you be honest.
Looking back I still find the 50s the most exhilarating decade I've lived through. The only mistake I made then was in thinking it would go on forever. I keep reading it was all Dull Conformity and I wonder where those people were living. Not on my planet. The fact that we had won World War 2 and that we were alive led to a post-war cultural explosion.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Being with Hemingway meant joining in his elaborate game playing as a necessary mark of respect. Tennessee asked only that you be colorful and that you be honest.
Looking back I still find the 50s the most exhilarating decade I've lived through. The only mistake I made then was in thinking it would go on forever. I keep reading it was all Dull Conformity and I wonder where those people were living. Not on my planet. The fact that we had won World War 2 and that we were alive led to a post-war cultural explosion." in the context of ""A Stranger Comes to Town" (c. 2001)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.