Showing posts with label Clothing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clothing. Show all posts
Friday, April 19, 2024
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 64th Edition. Things authentic and important.
Why there?
On Saturday, March 30, Pro Hamas protestors interrupted the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
Why St. Patrick's?
For the same reason, most likely, that LGBTQ+ figures had a protesting funeral there recently. People are drawn to Catholic places, as they're real, and therefore attention is paid to them.
Why her?
Courtney Love, in an interview with Standard, stated; "Taylor is not important. She might be a safe space for girls, and she's probably the Madonna of now, but she's not interesting as an artist."
This followed Billie Eilish criticizing, sort of anonymously, "wasteful artists" who put out multiple vinyl editions, an apparent softball for sustainability. She later said her comments weren't directed at Swift.
Hmmm. . .
Why are these chanteuses dissing Taylor?
I don't really know, but I will note that Love commenting on who is important and interesting in laughable. Is Love "important" or "interesting"? If she is, she might be interesting as she's the late wife of the tragic Curt Cobane, whom I don't find to have been particularly important, but certainly tragic. And for Eilish, she's sort of a teenage train wreck who probably needs to get over her weird diet and flipping between hiding her form and flaunting it.
Taylor is interesting because she's a musical success. I don't like her music, which I find to be juvenile, but I will note that appearance wise she's a throwback almost to the 1940s, and appears to have gained success while being basically normal in every fashion.
Culturally, therefore, she might be sort of important in a way.
Love, and Eilish, on the other hand, might be fairly unimportant in every sense. Musically, right now, it's hard to see what actually is important. Whoever they are, they aren't in pop music.
Indeed, much of society seems to be grasping for the authentic and important right now, without much out there in the culture offering it.
Appearances
Back in November, I posted this item:
What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the Trad Girls. The Authenticity Crisis, Part One.
Since that time, this trend locally has noticeably increased. It's really remarkable.
For whatever reason, I'm a student of people, so I take notice of what they wear. I'm probably in a minority of sorts that way. What people wear at Mass is a common topic in Cyber Catholic circles, but the recent turn towards the conservative amongst young, white, female Catholic parishioners is really remarkable. It's a real rejection of the cultural norm of our era.
Indeed, very recently, even amongst those young women who were part of this group, there's suddenly a change. One young woman who is routinely at Mass with her family on Sundays, and who typically showed a lot of shoulder (no, there's no problem with that) is now covering up hugely. Something's changed. It doesn't, however, carry over to Hispanic or Native American young women, both of whom continue to dress the way they have. Hispanics have always dressed very conservatively at Mass, but not in a trad fashion. They're keeping on keeping on with that.
News, real news but in a rumor fashion, leaked out recently that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Byzantine Church is looking at putting in a mission in Casper, which would be a mission of a mission. I don't know how many Ukrainian Catholics there may be in town, but I'll bet it's a tiny number. I also bet that the mission church that's thinking of establishing a mission here, which is out of Cody, serves a mostly non-Eastern Rite community.
Something is going on there too. At a time at which some in the Latin Rite seem focused on a topic that's frankly jumped the shark, by and large, and which is really a matter of European culture, not biology, the young and rank and file in the pews seem to be moving on.
Becoming a parody of yourself
One of the risks of taking the long reach for something is that you can end up actually becoming unauthentic in your quest for authenticity.
I'm reminded of Courtney Love again.
On her Wikipedia page, there's a picture of Love wearing a kokoshnik, a stiff hat associated with Russian women. Russian women don't wear them anymore, and I'm sure they haven't for eons. She's wearing it with a miniskirt. It looked absurd, but was probably meant to make a statement. Or here's another example:
The kind of dumb stuff you say when you actually really care about "your 'basic' fashion sense".
I don't know who Japanese Breakfast is (or for that matter what an actual Japanese breakfast is) but they've showed up on this Twitter headline:
Japanese Breakfast is too busy returning to Coachella and making 'music for bottoms' to care about your 'basic' fashion senseOh, bull. That's the exact thing you say when you've tuned your fashion sense to look like you don't have a fashion sense, so you can appear to stay edgy for Coachella.
M'eh.
Exactly.
I note this as in the pews are a young couple, they're not married but perhaps engaged, whose family I somewhat know. From a very conservative background, they're trying to affect the disaffected but conservative look to the max. Unwashed hair and, for the young man, probably third or fourth hand overcoats from the 1970s with huge hounds tooth pattern. The young woman wears, of course, a chapel veil but also is affecting plain to the maximum extent possible, which is detracting a bit from her appearance. I do love her very round, plain glasses, however.
Anyhow, when going for something crosses over into sort of a parody, you've gone too far.
Lost
Anyhow, I think this trend has been going on for a while. It explains the entire Hipster look that's still with us, and was much in force several years ago.
Some days, when I leave the office, there's a young woman coming in. She's either a Native American or a Hispanic from somewhere south of the border. She's always dressed very conservatively, with dresses that remind me of what Latin American women traditionally wear. She always has a big smile when you see and acknowledge her.
She's authentic.
Last prior edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 63d Edition. Strange Bedfellows.
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Thursday, April 13, 1944. Soviet advances in Crimea.
The Red Army took Feodosia, Evpatoriya and Simferopol in Crimea. The Axis forces of the 17th Army fell back on Sevastopol.
Australian troops took Bogodjim on New Guinea.
The U.S. Army Air Force and RAF raided numerous coast batteries in Normandy.
Operation Overlord had effectively already begun.
Martial law was lifted in Hawaii.
In April 1944, Vogue covered fashions in Texas, Florida and California.
It's worth noting that all of these dresses were fairly plain, reflecting the wartime view on the same.
The last model (must have been teenage girl's clothing there) doesn't look very comfortable with the pony.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Thursday, April 10, 1924. Best dressed in the world?
There was of course headline news this day in 1924:
And the change in how Federal oil resources were administered was a huge one.
But it's the clothing ad that drew my attention:
"Best dressed men of all nations"?
Nobody would claim that now.
The Townsend Hotel, which was dilapidated by the time I was a kid, was opening. It was no doubt a great hotel at the time. Its café remained in use until it closed in the 1970s, just after the Petroleum Club moved. The café remained good until it closed, and was popular with men who worked downtown.
The Stratton's as realtors would carry on to the present day.
The Townsend remained abandoned from the 80s until it was refurbished as the current Natrona County Courthouse. It's now the Townsend Justice Center.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Palm Sunday, April 2, 1944. Soviets enter Romania, Rebellion in El Salvador.
Sgt. Walter Holden, Haleyville, Ala., Pfc. Raymond Holler, Route 1, Lenoir, N.C., and Pvt. John Mart, Route 2, Sanford, N.C. of the 3d Infantry Division in an obviously staged photograph at Anzio. All three men are wearing the new M1943 uniform, which the photo was probably intended to illustrate. The uniform featured the M1943 field jacket, the M1943 field trousers, and the M1943 combat boot. It remained the essential Army pattern of uniform for decades, and indeed to the present day, with modifications. Replacing earlier uniform variants would, however, take months.
Today in World War II History—April 2, 1944: Soviet troops enter Romania. First US B-29 Superfortress bomber arrives at Kharagpur, India, near Calcutta. Armed revolt erupts in El Salvador.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
The entering of Romania was more proof, if anymore was needed, that the Third Reich was in its final act. Romania had sought to exit the war, but had been dissuaded from doing so by the Germans. It would start pondering that once again in earnest.
Romania, although somewhat forgotten in the West, was not a minor power in some significant ways. The country had the third-largest army in the Axis in Europe, behind Italy and Japan, until Italy's 1943 surrender, at which time it was the second-largest Axis power. Its army was in fact the fourth largest in the world. It was plagued with internal problems, however, with a rank and file that was woefully uneducated and an officer corps that was condescending towards its men. Generally, Romanians fought better under German officers and NCO's.
It was a monarchy, but a monarchy which was, at the time, led by a military dictator.
Hitler issued his directive 54 with the topic of stopping the Russian advance, which obviously wasn't going to happen.
The rebellion in El Salvador was a pro-democracy one against the country's fascist military dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez and included significant military elements. Martinez admired Mussolini and Hitler, and like Hitler he was a vegetarian. El Salvador declared war on the Axis in December 1941, but it took no actual part in the fighting and refused US requests to station troops there.
The rebellion would be violently put down, but it would nonetheless lead to Martinez' fall a month later.
Martinez was killed in a labor dispute with his taxi driver in 1966 while living in exile in Honduras.
The Japanese 15th Army (Mutaguchi) continued to advance.
The Italian Communist Party declared its support for the Badoglio government.
The 1944 Tour of Flanders bicycle race commenced.
Last prior edition:
Saturday, April 1, 1944. The closing curtain for the Axis.
Friday, March 22, 2024
Wednesday, March 22, 1944. German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to disperse and work singly. Convoy attacks were halted in anticipation of new U-boat designs coming on. Effectively, this amounted to a concession of German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.
New Zealanders made an unsuccessful assault on Monte Cassino. After its failure, Allied defensive lines are consolidated.
The US OSS began Operation Ginny II, again intending to cut rail lines in Italy, and once again failing, this time as the landing party was beached in the wrong place and captured.
80% of the B-25s of the 340th Bombardment Group were destroyed by volcanic boulders from Vesuvius.
The Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (Italian Liberation Corps) was organized to collect the Royal Italain Army units that were now part of the Allied armies.
Döme Sztójay replaced Miklós Kállay as Prime Minister of Hungary, and the country promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. The roundups of Hungarian Jews were soon to begin and the country would reenter the war as a German ally.
Hedwig Jahnow died at age 65 of malnutrition at Theresienstadt. She was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge and remains significant in those studies.
The Red Army took Pervomaysk
Mortar crew of 164th Inf. Regt., Americal Div., on Bougainville Island. 22 March, 1944. All of these men were from Minnesota. All enlisted, this photograph is unusual in that one of the soldiers, PFC Russell Campbell, is wearing his service cap with the stiffner removed, something almost never seen in the case of U.S. soldiers in combat outside of airmen.
The only example of the Northrup XP-56, the first one having been destroyed in a crash, was photographed in anticipation of its first flight the following day.
Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet (s/n 42-38353) on the ground at Muroc Army Air Field, California, March 22, 1944.
The weird aircraft was not a success.
Sarah Sundin's excellent blog on daily events in World War Two, whose feed updates are no longer working, notes this item:
Two gallons per week.
Could you get by on two gallons per week? Most days I drive a 1/4 ton Utility Truck, which is better known as a Jeep, and while it's small, it gets terrible mileage. I know that I use more than two gallons per week, but I would if I was driving my fuel efficient diesel truck as well. If I was limited to two gallons per week, I'd have to make major life changes.
Should I be pondering this as Congress, through the neglect of Ukraine, pushes us ever closer to a war with Russia, should she invade the Balkans?
During World War Two I know that my grandfather had a different class of ration ticket as his vehicle was used for business. His car was a "business coupe", which is about all I know about it.
I know it had a gasoline personnel heater, which probably provides a clue, but I still don't know who made it.
I had a 1954 Chevrolet at one time, and it got really good mileage. Interestingly, a 1973 Mercury Comet, with a really powerful V8 engine we had, also did. According to one site about older cars, the business couple should be something like this:
My '38 gets around 17-18 MPG @ 50 MPH. It drops to around 12-14 @ 60. She just doesn't like being pushed that hard.
My 54, and the 73, got much better mileage than that.
Whatever mileage the business coupé got, my father sort of brushed gasoline rationing off when I asked him about it, due to the other category of ticket. I don't know what that really meant, however.
Of course, for most long travel of any kind, people took the train. Something that we might want to consider as potentially being something that may very well return. High speed rail, for that matter, may be coming to Wyoming.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Friday, March 1, 2024
Friday, February 16, 2024
Removing your hat.
When I was a kid, it was emphasized to us that when we entered a building the polite thing to do was to remove your hat.
Heavily emphasized, I might add.
"Head cold?" was the semi sarcastic comment you'd get from some folks about taking your hat off if you were wearing it indoors, or just flat out "take your hat off".
"Remove your cover" was the comment you'd get from NCO's if you absent-mindedly wore one indoors where you were not supposed to. You had to wear them, however, in formation in a drill hall, although that was indoors, the military had somewhat inconsistent rules on this.
I suppose they still do.
Little did I realize that earlier in the state's history, it had been statutorily emphasized:
Wyoming Statutes, 1910.
That shows, I suppose, just how common that wearing was.
Caps, Hats, Fashion and Perceptions of Decency and being Dressed.
Some time ago the Old Picture of the Day blog ran a Hat Week, featuring photos of men wearing hats. The introductory comment to that thread observed that men don't wear hats much anymore, but that the blogger suspected that they'd like to.A farming crowd. . .everyone wearing a hat or cap, courtesy of the International Museum of the Horse.
The lengthy thread goes on from there.
Hats have, of course, yielded to caps on a widespread basis, but as that thread explores, caps weren't uncommon then. Baseball caps as headgear for adults were, of course. Children wore them informally, but newsboy caps were the cap of the era,
And no wonder. They're superior to baseball caps in every way.
Anyhow, this standard certainly has changed. A certain percentage of people, and not all of them young by any means, have caps, and occasionally hats, glued to their heads constantly. People, including men older than me, come in the office with their baseball caps on and do not remove them. In the courthouse you'll see people wearing them. People have to be reminded to take them off in court.
Churches are about the only place that you don't see this, or at least I haven't so far.
This shows (and this isn't the only thing), how much standards in this area have really changed. In the first half of the 20th Century, when hat, including real hats, was a universal feature of being dressed, to wear a hat indoors in some circumstances was a crime. Later it was just rude. Now, it's common. . . unfortunately.
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
A Mid Week At Work Blog Mirror: Catholic Stuff You Should Know. Sunday Best.
Bar scene from The Best Years Of Our Lives. Yes, they are supposed to be at a bar, and at sort of a blue collar bar at that.
This is an interesting podcast, by two priests, on dress at Mass on Sunday:
SUNDAY BEST
We've covered this topic before, and in other context, we note. Consider:
Declined Sartorial Standards. Have we gone too informal?
A Nation of Slobs
Let alone the plethora of related posts below:
So what of this?
Let me start off by noting that this is't the first time I've heard Catholic clerics address this (I've never heard Protestant ones address this, but as we've noted many times before, Protestants tend to dress up for Church, at least by way of my limited observation. Catholics, well, it's mixed.
And let me say that I"m one who is pretty bad about not doing so.
For years and years, I tend not to shave on the weekends. I probably ought to just grow a beard, as I don't like shaving, but at this point, it'd be too much of a shock and I'd look like a short, not too fat, Santa Claus. When I was young, my beard was a bunch of different colors, brown, blond, red, etc., reflecting no doubt my wild Hibernian heritage. People don't think of humans having hair coloration like a Calico cat, but I used to.
I've had a heavy mustache since my 20s. It was brown with red and blond streaks, but not enough to notice unless you looked really close up.
Now it's gray.
That is no doubt what my beard would also be. The hair on my head isn't yet.
Anyhow, when I was a college student, I'd rarely shave every day. In retrospect, I probably should have as looking like Yassir Arafat, in the pre stubble as fashionable days, isn't a cool look. I had to start shaving at age 13, and I've just never cared for it much.
I've started to shave on most Sundays, however, recently. And before listening to this podcast.
The one time I've heard a priest orally reference this before was at Mass, during the summer. A visiting Priest made a pointed comment about people showing up in shorts, and indeed, people did, and do. One extremely devout young man down at the downtown parish seems to only own shorts, and a large collection of religiously themed t-shirts. I'm sure that his dress should not be of concern.
And in a slight way, I think this topic may have a jump the shark aspect to it. It was really in the 80s when dress went too far, and you'd see t-shirts with rude comments and the like. There was a popular "Big Johnson" line of t-shirts that I can distinctly recall somebody showing up to Mass at.
I don't see that anymore. Indeed, the younger people at Mass are almost never dressed t-shirt fashion. They are often dressed informally, but pretty nicely.
In fact, they dress nicer than I do.
I started really noticing that the Sunday before last, which was also before I heard this podcast. I wasn't feeling great, quite frankly, and didn't shave. I don't recall what shirt I was wearing, but I've been getting a bit self-conscious about my dress at Mass in general and so took note, at some point, of what I was wearing. I'm not sure why I took note, but in part it's because the men I see sitting at the back of the Church are all dressed better than me, save for one guy who is retired and who shared my profession, whose always super casually dressed, and a few genuine quite old men who are probably well past the point where they care much about dress in general. One of those guys wears a BDU M65 Field Jacket to every Mass in the winter, which now really stands out.
I've worn M64s to Mass lots of time, when I was younger, as that was the coat I had. When I was a National Guardsman and living in Laramie, it was often my go-to coat. I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be, but it was.
Anyhow, soon after Mass started I noticed that my Carhartt coat, which I was wearing, is really a mess. The sleeves are fraying, and it has a blood stain on the front I hadn't previously noticed. It's so bad, in general, that I really need to replace it or retire it exclusively to working cows or hunting. For that matter, even if I do restrict its use, I need a new one.
The clerical podcasters in this podcast urge people to basically up their game at Mass on the basis that clothing matters. And indeed, as I've noted before, it does. They urge people to dress one step up from what they do at work.
They're centered in Denver, which has retained a higher dress standard than Central Wyoming. It always had one. Even now, when I go into Denver for work, I'll walk up 16th Street and notice men headed to their offices in suits and ties, or sports coats and ties, with overcoats and occasionally the odd Fedora. In Houston, recently, I noticed that male lawyers really turn out.
Oddly, however, I've also noticed that on Teams/Zoom, even at official functions, this is less so. I was in an administrative hearing the other day where I was the only one in jacket and tie. And I've been in court proceedings, on Teams, where I'm the only one with a tie.
Frankly, if I were the judge, which I will never be, I'd make a point of that to a lawyer without a tie. As in "Mr. X, before you address the court, it appears that you failed to finish dressing. Do you want me to pause for a couple of minutes while you put on your tie?". If the answer came back that he didn't have one with him, the next line would be; "Well, rules of courtroom decorum apply even here. We'll note your failure and decline to accept any statement to the Court. Please pay the Court $50.00 for being in contempt and make sure you are properly dressed next time."
Anyhow, advice of the clerical gentlemen notwithstanding, I'm not going to up my game from work. I am going to up my game at work, however, as recently I've been really lazy about it unless I know I have an official function to go to. I've been back in my office with Levi 501s.
Slacking pretty heavily there.
And I do need to up my game a bit on Sunday, while remembering where I live.
The podcast mentions that a bit, but only a bit. You do have to remember where you are.
As I've noted quite a few times, in my region of the Rocky Mountain West, really dressing up for Mass was always a Protestant thing. It's probably because there were so many Irish Catholic Sheep Ranchers, Mexican Sheep Herders, and oilfield workers that this was the reason. People came clean, but as they were, consistent with their status, and that's continued.
And that's why in part I disagree a bit with the pod's advice. We are the publicans and the sinners, and we're there. I don't think a person should dress in appropriately, but they can come as they are, in my view.
In terms of coming as they are, there have been some interesting trends. One is the rise of the Trads and the Rad Trads, which I've mentioned quite a few times before. The Mantila Girls have a certain look to them, and its very conservative. It's charming also, and I'm not criticizing them. I'm glad their doing that.
Some jacket and ties, or at least ties, are appearing, and in some cases I don't know what to make of that, in part because I've long known some of the so clad, and their dress has really evolved. Most of them are Trads,and that explains it, but they were pretty Trady 20 years ago. Their dress has evolved to more conservative as the young Church itself has become more conservative. They're not young, however, and taking up that sort of dress, if you didn't naturally affect it earlier, looks a bit odd. They don't really look like they know where they are, or what their station is.
So I guess there's a middle ground.
At any rate, the pod is correct for certain that clothes do matter. They do send a message. I've been dressing outside of my vocation for months and need to address it. Why a person would do that is a topic for some other time.
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