London by Night

I'm currently reading The Victorian City by Judith Flanders.  In the chapter on prostitution (The Red-Lit Streets to Death) Flanders mentioned a cheap novel about a nice girl's descent into prostitution.  This is how I discovered London by Night.  I only read bits of it, but the colored plates interested me.

The author, Anonyma, had written many similar books.

This one has lots of illustrations.

I'm pretty sure these are in the public domain, so go ahead and check out these and others here.  However, if you purchased the copyright to the illustrations of William Gray, just let me know.

Too Late

It sounded like the Greek Independence Day Parade would last longer, but when when got to the Common, everything appeared to be over.  So I just got a few shots of people in costumes.  Then Rosemary and I went shopping.

It's National Hat Day...

National Hat Day is not in Wikipedia's List of Commemorative Days, so I don't know who invented it.  I love hats.  Please enjoy looking at some of them on this their special day.

It's Better to Have Gifts than Receipts!

Here are the gifts I bought for myself in New Mexico.

 I remember the title of this post from a Smothers Brothers record, but I haven't followed this up.  

Amber earrings

 

Reversible hemp coat.

 

The back of the blue side.

 

Loose-weave cotton shawl.

Easter Parade

This Easter Sunday, Rosemary and I wanted to get an eyeful of Easter finery, so we headed out to the Anime Boston convention. (Although I don't follow anime, I respect most costume-based activities.)

We encountered these three ladies from Quebec on the Green Line.

 

People  were happy to pose for us.

Some shots were more casual.

Check out all my photos at my Picasa Web Album.

More Gifts!

 From Rosemary, a kitty-cat mug with a tail handle and different sunken pictures on both sides.

 From Dad, a foot-spa to soothe my aching feet.

 Also from Dad, a new bag to soothe my soul!

Do Shoes Come From Heaven?

wait for the other shoe to drop wait for the next or final thing to happen. North American *

Sure!  Shoes come in pairs, so when the other shoe drops, you have a complete pair.  Then it's time to walk.

But why does the shoe drop?  What's it doing way up there?  My shoes are on the floor or hanging on my closet door.  Do other people keep their shoes on such high shelves that they must knock them down with a pole?

Or maybe shoes used to grow on tall trees, and people had to shake the trees to get the shoes to drop. (Thus, the "shoe tree.")

Do shoes come from heaven?

*"shoe"  Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Edited by John Ayto, Judith Siefring and Jennifer Speake. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Harvard University Library.  17 October 2011

Two Birds with One Stone

It's the last day of National Poetry Month and the day after William & Kate's wedding.  So here is a poem by Stevie Smith in the nick of time.

The Hat*
I love my beautiful hat more than anything
And through my beautiful hat I see a wedding ring
The King will marry me and make me his own before all
And when I am married I shall wear my hat and walk on the palace wall. 

 *Stevie Smith, The Collected Poems, New York: New Directions Books, 1983, page 272.

The Ghost of Halloweens Past

The costume I remember best from my little-kid days was not one of my own but that of a classmate.  He dressed up as a hippie and carried a sign that said "Send Batman to Vietnam!"  It was the sign that made the outfit.  Perhaps he got the idea from this comic.

Of course, in my little-kid days, Halloween was about the candy.  My brother and I were instructed to eat our Halloween hauls slowly over a couple of weeks.  But our parents shouldn't have allowed us to store the bags under our beds.  It was too easy to sneak sweets.
In junior high and high school Halloween was more about fashion and horror creation.  One year I helped scare kids who came to the door of my friend Louise's house.  Another year I played a corpse in a cardboard coffin.  Some of my friends and I had been granted the use of a classroom at the local grade school to make a scary house.  We constructed a giant papier-machete spider with glow-in-the-dark-eyes and a portrait painting that spurted blood.   Vampires Karen and Don guided groups of kid through the various exhibits.  After they had described my terrible death, I would suddenly sit up and yowl.  This worked well until my movements nudged the coffin off the radiator and onto the floor.  Wow, that hurt.  But I stayed still, and Don said, "Well, she's dead now."
Then there was the year I went to a Halloween party dressed as a Star Trek style alien.  I put green eyeshadow all over my face.  I won best costume at that party.
Nowadays all sorts of elaborate Halloween paraphernalia is available, and Halloween parties can be lavishly staged events.  Steve described one such party he attended where horror-themed stuff covered every inch of house and grounds.  There was a corpse floating in the pool.  Inside, a selection of meats had been laid out in the shape of a corpse. I suppose this Halloween intensification could mean something or other about our society, and if I think of any relevant sweeping statements, I'll post them.

Not Just Basic Black!

Last Friday the Archives had a special display for visiting parents, and one of the items was this antique student gown. circa 1834.  (The student was David Greene Haskins.)

Shockingly, it was not black.  The accompanying rules for student dress (1822) specifically said "mixed blacks."  But the student who owned it was supposed to have worn it during the summer of 1835.  (The school year ended in August.)  If you click on the picture, you'll see it was a charming green gingham check.  I felt inspired to look into student dress in the old days.  Here's an excerpt from Harvard A to Z, available on Google Books 

Sources of Retro Style

People are nuts about Mad Men, and the search "Mad Men party" in Flickr gets almost 6000 results.  Obviously the fashion is a big draw, since people are partying dressed up like early 60s sophisticates.

I wonder if these maddicts are aware of Peter Gunn on RetroTV (check your local listings).  This is an excellent primary source of retro style and suavity.

Peter Gunn and Lt. Jacoby (Gunn's friend and foil) hunt trouble in a world of noir chiaroscuro.  Harsh neon light flashes on rain-slicked streets and through the windows of cheap hotels, where people are usually hiding from the Mob.  Gunn is impeccable in his charcoal-gray suit; Jacoby, much less so. (He's the foil, remember?)  And both of them stay poker-faced all the time.

Maddicts, don't blow your wad on one TV show!  There's a whole world of historical TV out there to explore and live vacariously through.

Dress-Up Op

The Sunday before last  Sue, Julie, Dave, and I went to the Loeb Drama Center to see Clifford Odet's Paradise Lost, a play set during the Depression.  Wouldn't this play ring relevently true in today's economic environment?  In case our audience is too dense to figure it out, let's have the characters in modern dress (but with the 1935 dialogue) and have a couple of characters in the 3rd act wear Enron and AIG tee-shirts.  But, alas, even with good acting this stinker wasn't good enough to survive revival.

All of us, including J.B., who went on Saturday, thought the acting was good and the play weak.  (The Crimson reviewer thought different.)  But we still enjoyed going.  Something about live performance thrilled us more than movies.

This thrill is partly due to Dionysus, the divine patron of theater.  By going to a play we participate in a Dionysian rite.  Any accompanying numinosity should not surprise us.

Theater-going is also a dress-up op: a chance to wear those items too flashy or weird for work.  Of course, people don't dress the way they used to, when the whole theater stayed lit, and you could examine the audience's raiment (such as the lovely presentation gown by Worth, at the right) at any time during the evening.  In 1881 the Savoy Theatre introduced the practice of darkening the auditorium during the performance.*

Even though we aren't visible as much to our fellow theater-goers, we can dress up to satisfy ourselves and Dionysus.  We satisfy ourselves by playing a more festive alter ego, and this makes Dionysus happy.

* Judith Flanders, Inside the Victorian Home:  A Portrait of Life in Victorian England, London: HarperCollins, 2003, page 204

I'm Sick of my Hair! Help me Choose a New 'Do

Bangs

Very Short

More Hair

Down-Memory-Lane Monday: Hair Continued

When I was a little girl, I wanted long hair swinging wildly down my back. My mother said that if I was going to have long hair, it would have to be styled. She thought long hair just hanging around was sloppy. So I spent many nights sleeping on spoolies, a 60s innovation. Finally, I gave up and consented to a pixie cut, which appears in almost all my young photos.
I can now sympathize with her. Long hair catches on things, gets easily tangled, and is generally a lot of work for a mother trying to keep her daughter neat. Can I find some low-upkeep substitute for long hair? I haven't so far.I wanted hair like that sported by Vinnie Ream, sculptor of the Lincoln statue in the Capitol Rotunda.

My mother insisted on some arrangement like this lady's.

I ended up going the short, practical route.

What To Wear

Chuck's post on fashion reminded me that I must begin thinking of what to pack for my trip to the Canadian Rockies. One of life's keenest pleasures is planning to pack: settling on the clothes with just the right weight, practicality, and beauty.