Mathematics from Macy's

By extension, if you're wearing the WRONG clothes then games are only half as much fun.

A Word to the Fellas Who Wear Trackpants

You're always proud of her.

Good cause you have too. Sitting beside her in the car...strolling down-town...stepping out together...you know you have a perfect right to take pride in her appearance. But how does she really feel about you? Very little gets by that appraising glance... How do you suppose you would look to yourself, as well as others, say, on fifty feet of film?

Your tailoring is good, unquestionably. Your feet are well shod. And the Stetson emphatically lends an air of distinction. Yes, you'll pass inspection. And down deep, there's a little, sneaking feeling that you may have caught a gleam of pride in her glance, too, when it happens your way. There's really nothing like a smartly proportioned Stetson to finish off any turnout.

(From the February 22, 1930 issue of The New Yorker, when women reclaimed their waists, regular folks had stopped investing money, and men STILL wore hats).

Let's Have a Quilting Party Tonight!

Let's have a quilting party tonight in our cute quilted robes from Best's!

Pajama parties after ten will soon be known as quilting parties, for young things off to boarding-school and college are choosing Best's new quilted robes, stitched like the quilts that Grandma used to make.

Miss Shanton and Miss Maurice are having one wild time! But according to the photo captions, Shanton is suffering from "mannish frogs." At first I thought she'd gotten the frogs by cavorting with young Shanton, but now I know that they are "An ornamental looped braid or cord with a button or knot for fastening the front of a garment" and not some type of old-timey venereal disease.

Beefcake in Irish Poplin

And the award for LEAST sexy male apparel goes to...

Reis' jimpants of Burton's Irish poplin!

I'm not sure what that entire sentence means exactly, but according to the write-up these jimpants are as "Masculine as a Dunhill pipe" and are "For the man who is really particular about his nether apparel."

What's interesting is that in phys ed we always talked about our "GYM pants," since we wore them in the gymnasium. And even though our pants didn't look like KGB torture devices and we didn't smoke while wearing them, I suppose we never guessed that they were once called "JIMpants." I assume that this was an American-ized version of the term, before they just gave up and used "gym" instead.

Just think, kids...gym could have been worse!

Mr. B.V.D. Beefcake, 1929

Maybe you think the Muffyblog isn't sexy enough? If so, here's your B.V.D. Beefcake from April 27, 1929.

Love the smoking jacket and the elegantly rouged cheeks, and I bet he's reading a book by Oscar Wilde.

Something I learned when I began getting into the "vintage fashion" scene is that even though those clothes were the height of fashion at their time, we now associate them with our grandparents. When my grandmother wore bakelite jewelery she looked like a princess; if I wore it I'd look creepy.

Same goes for the B.V.D.s here, which surely were sexy for their time, but when I look at them all I can think of is my grandfather putting horseradish on his vegetables and singing "Barney Google."

It takes a special sort of somebody to cut through all those associations and still be sexy in vintage styles. And it also takes a special modification of said styles to make them a tad less modest.

Daily Muffy: "Maid of the Mist"

Season six, episode three of The Daily Muffy -- "Maid of the Mist"-- begins tomorrow! A new picture in the journey will appear every day...click here to watch the drama unfold!

Special thanks to Jenn Wilson, not just for taking the pictures but also for driving hours through a torrential downpour. A trouper!

PS: Ever since I started using a new computer -- and a new version of iPhoto -- my Flickr pictures have appeared strangely pixellated. Fortunately, by adding an extra step to the uploading process, this issue appears to be licked. Whew!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Aren't they CUTE!

I now present "Best's New Brevities" for 1929!


Apparently these "brevities" were "like those the professional dancers wear," though you have to wonder WHICH kind of professional dancers, since the ones in the picture are...you know...dancing in underwear and high heels.

This March 16th, 1929 advertisement from Best & Co. says that a "bareleg vogue" was approaching, presumably meaning that women would stop wearing stockings. In few months many women would no longer be able to AFFORD stockings, but that would have been more of a financial prediction than a fashion one.

It's worth noting that four of these women have typical '20s hairstyles, but the one on the left is edging into '30s territory. I bet SHE was the first one to lower her skirts, too...or at least she would have done if she weren't a cartoon.

Scrutable Poetry Corner: "Thoughts While Looking in the Window of a Shoe Store"

Another poem by Ruth Brown, this time from the March 9, 1929 issue of The New Yorker.

In blue shoes I am sure I'd be
A great deal more than merely me,
I'd be urbane and nonchalant--
Une femme du monde--une élégante.

With snakeskin shoes upon my feet
I might not always be discreet,
In fact it's likely I'd believe
Myself to be a bit like Eve.

In shoes with flippant crimson heels
I think I might learn how it feels,
While staying safely in Manhattan,
To go quite wholly, madly Latin.

But since I'm neither rich nor bold,
I think I'll have my brogues re-soled.

Broad-Jumper's Pants

It took me forever to figure out what was going on in this picture. Eventually I realized that the two old ladies were laughing at the man because he was walking funny, and the reason he was walking funny was because his pants were wrinkled. He was crouching down to hide the wrinkles, you see.

So why were his pants wrinkled? "Because he wouldn't take a trunk," according to the Hartmann Trunks advertisement.

After all these years--think of it--still a suitcase addict! O me, o my! And not even a best friend to tell him! Perhaps you, too, have weathered the withering eyes of the Hotel Porch Brigade...the doughty dowagers who never miss a trick--who spot the suitcase customers by their baggy, wrinkled wardrobe.

So that's one convoluted mystery solved, but maybe YOU can explain why the subheading for this advertisement is "Broad-jumper's pants." It might be because the posture of a man who is hiding his pant-wrinkles is similar to the posture of a crouching broad-jumper, but that's a real stretch.

In any case, I assume it's a term that didn't catch on (much like "bidding two spades.")

For Munch Enjoyment

I apologize for this sudden glut of New Yorker advertisements. I try to engineer this blog so that there are no "runs" of similar content -- personal anecdotes, pictures, videos, book reviews, etc. -- but I'm reading an AWFUL lot of The New Yorker recently, and I'm discovering SO many things that I simply can't resist posting. If I don't post them now I never will.

Hence:
It's Clara Bow having her daily nibble!

What's most striking about this advertisement is its mix of '20s and '30s styles. The art nouveau graphics -- dots, pyramids, choppy picture cut-out -- are sheer '20s, as are most of the typefaces and Clara Bow's top. But her skirt, plus the audacious tone and the style of the "Chock Full O' Nuts" logo and "munch enjoyment" subheading are unlike anything I've seen previously in the magazine.

A change is afoot, I can practically smell it. This is good because -- between you and me -- I've never much liked the look of the '20s.

(The New Yorker, January 26, 1929, p.62)

Owwwww!

Beware: you can bruise your feet with high heels.

This happens to me so infrequently that I forget about it every time, but during some circumstances -- like jumping around on a stage at the Holiday Inn during Guelph Pride -- I manage to damage my feet in an incredibly painful way.

It feels like a constant burning inside the ball of my foot, which becomes a sharp pain each time I take a step. Since my foot doesn't actually swell up or anything when this happens, I assume that the bruising is of some tissue deep inside...a muscle or a joint or something.

The last time this happened was when I tried to break in a pair of very high feather mules. The deceptive thing about this is that the pain doesn't actually start until a few hours later, so you've got no warning that something's wrong until it's time to recover. And that takes days of hobbling around and inspecting your foot for gangrene.

So be careful, girls...feet will only take so much.

In the Kingdom of the Sighted, the Vision-Corrected Myopic is Peer

I understand that's not a very catchy title but I felt the need to stretch an old saying, maybe because conventional wisdom has always told me to "get glasses" and I just never have...until now.

About ten feet in front of my nose, objects begin to fuzz and blur. This is one reason why I ignore you when you walk towards me on a street or in a bar; unless you have a characteristic hairstyle I simply don't know it's you. Other than needing to sit near the front of lecture halls and movie theaters this hasn't really disrupted my life.

But there was no way I was going to drive a car in that state, so part of my "I'm driving again" regimen required buying my first two pairs of glasses.

It was surprisingly easy, though apparently cannot be done all at once. I walked back and forth to Hakim Optical far too many times in order to make a vision test appointment, actually TEST my vision, pick out frames, and return on two separate days to pick up the two pairs I ordered. None of this was actually fun.

But when I put the glasses on...wow! I can see every stain on the bricks of the apartment building across the street! My cat's dandruff is suddenly apparent! My carpet needs vacuuming! Maybe I should take the glasses off and return to blissful ignorance!

Vanilla makes fun of me when I say I plan to only wear them while driving, and I see her point: when I put the glasses on it takes about ten minutes for me to stop walking like there's an invisible pit in front of me, and when I take them off I'm virtually blind for another ten minutes or so. Plus I don't really want to spend the money on another pair if I fall over and break them.

So if you see me with glasses on (probably falling down a flight of stairs because I'm not used to the way they refract my vision yet), tell me that they look good. I don't want to be like Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," implying by extension that I also don't want to die of a drug overdose, no way.

Richard Dawson, The Pig

I've rented a collection of "All Star Family Feud" episodes. I'm not exactly sure why I've done this, but I've had a number of revelations while watching it this afternoon.

First, Richard Dawson was a f*cking pig. It might not have seemed that way to the general public at the time -- I certainly don't remember anybody talking about it in the '80s -- but his attitude toward his female guests went beyond "chivalry" or "1984 machismo" into aggressive lechery.

I might dismiss his constant stroking, grabbing, and kissing as "of the time," but the women he's doing it to certainly don't seem to think so; just watch as they shrink from his touch, and watch as he gleefully comes back to do it again and again. It comes across as a form of physical intimidation that you don't see from TV superstars anymore (I hope).

Granted, some of the women seem quite happy with this, but most of them are obviously disgusted. Here's Dawson trying to grab the hand that Maureen McCormick is trying to make discreetly unavailable. She's probably in a tizzy about the cold sores she got from him last week. Christopher Knight, barely sentient, is smiling because of gas.


Second, the country hoe-down atmosphere had always escaped me. Our family watched this show a lot and I never noticed its rural theme: fiddle music, needlepoint set decoration, Dawson's plantation-owner outfit, the entire IDEA of a "family feud." It's only now that I hear the weird way that the announcer says "Family Fyeee-youd!"

An American "yokel show," and by no means the only one...we've had them in Canada as well.

Third, people get nastier as shows go on. It's interesting how the competition -- both between and within teams -- gets less friendly over time. The camera loves to linger on the glares and sneers, and there is something PARTICULARLY scary about a sneering woman who has feathered hair and professionally-applied raccoon eyeliner.

Fourth, the Petticoat Junction people were the coolest. I've never seen Petticoat Junction, but they BY FAR outranked the other teams in terms of personality, graciousness, and intelligence. Since I love "Leave It To Beaver" and at one time enjoyed "The Brady Bunch" this is a hard thing to admit.

Exo Hair Postmortem

Last month Vanilla sent me a link to Exoskeleton Cabaret and told me that I absolutely MUST buy some of their hair extensions. I said that such things require elaborate makeup and clothing that doesn't suit me, and she pointed out that the models were quite understated and I should stop being a wuss. She was right!

So I bought two of their pieces: a ponytail fall made out of wool and plastic, and a pair of enormous "tubular crin" extensions.

Saturday was the big night and I gave myself half an hour to get them "installed." But you see, I've always had this problem with hair...

First off, I don't like the incredible PICKINESS of hairstyling, where everything must be meticulous or it looks stupid. Separating my head into REGULAR pigtails is arduous in itself, but building up HIGH pigtails has always been my worst nightmare. My hair is incredibly heavy and my arm-strength is marginal; after half an hour of building, demolishing, and rebuilding my high pigtails I was ready for the sanitarium, and also losing hair.

Then the extensions themselves, attached to thin strips of elastic fabric that are obviously intended to be attached to something -- like a barret -- instead of just being tied up and pinned to death. Then just imagine the joy of arranging these things; it was like herding cats, albeit sixty of them made out of extremely light, long, bouncy plastic.



It took an hour, and by the end of it I was hardly feeling glamorous. All I wanted to do was come back home and make a drunken video with a hand-puppet (see below).

But here's the thing: I think I can do better next time. Maybe I'll try putting them closer together, and attaching bobby pins to the extensions BEFORE I put them on. I can't recommend these extensions highly enough: they're sturdy, they look amazing, and people can't stop touching them.

The latest few pictures are up on Flickr, but I'd like to leave you with this enigmatic shot of Victoria and I which you can try scrounging up a rationale for:

A Moment's Pause

Sometimes, when this blog goes silent for a day or two, it's because I'm stupid and brain dead and I just want to take a seventy-two hour nap.

But at other times -- like this -- it's because I'm working on so many things that I simply don't have the time or brainpower left to explore heavy blog topics (such as the potential fetish appeal of 1920s cruise-line fruit).

What am I doing? I'm glad you asked! Besides the physical/mental logjam that occurs the week before any approaching drag show (it's tomorrow night!) I am also swamped at work (wading into the treacherous waters of DITA), continuously shoveling the sidewalk, finishing off a song that's been in the pipe for more than a year, experimenting with my new hair extensions, and...

...putting together a silly online project that I will link to in a day or two, but which will be of interest only to die-hard devotees of a certain obscure musical group. I mention this not to get you excited -- because I don't think anybody who reads this would be interested in the final product -- but only to explain why I'm so quiet right now.

PS: I'm also watching a DVD collection of pioneering films from the turn of the century, back before anybody realized that a camera could move (unless it was mounted on a train) or that chase scenes didn't HAVE to show every single participant arrive at one edge of the film, cross laboriously across the middle, and exit completely off the opposite edge.

Oh, those simple, child-like directors with their top hats and mustaches! Oh, those sickly-looking infants dressed in oversized doilies! Oh, those insatiable, oat-eating horses! And let's not forget the eight-year-old children working in factories to help buy heroin-laced medicines for their consumptive, coal-mining fathers.

It's no wonder they didn't have time to discover "the close-up."

Sewing Day

In order to motivate myself to sew -- as opposed to just using safety pins to hold my clothes together -- I rent a really stupid movie, sit down on the floor, and do all my backlogged sewing duties at one time.

Starting is difficult. I don't like sitting down and evaluating each project, trying to find the best way to fix something. It doesn't help that all my sewing experience comes from grade eight home economics, where I made a stuffed beaver and learned how to fry won tons.

Usually I end up taking the "brute force" approach. I start out nicely, genuinely enjoying the relaxing and repetitive action of sewing. But near the end of each project I start to get impatient, and I almost ALWAYS have an insulin reaction at some point; all that hand-work must burn a lot of energy.

So anyway, near the end I tend to have little loops of thread sticking out...but that's okay, because most of this stuff is only worn in dark little bars anyway. My winter mittens are now nice and warm, my "Pride" outfit no longer has a slit that goes to the middle of my back, and my "Lexx" wrist-gloves -- after much evaluation -- have been fitted with the perfect finger-loops: those small black plastic hair elastics that hairdressers use.

Today's "background to sewing" rental was "Boo." I can mend clothes better than these people can make movies.

Sweet Mink

It still shocks me, digging through the feminine duds in an antique store, to come across a small gutted mammal with its head and feet still intact. I can't reconcile these gruesome puppets with the fashion accessories they once were, rakishly hanging around a rich lady's neck with dead paws a-dangling.

In the pre-guilt days of fur coats it seems that few people were concerned about the ethics -- not to mention the taste -- of such things. And once in a while (in the July 21, 1928 issue of The New Yorker) you run across a cute fantasy that portrays the animals as somehow ENJOYING the process of being trapped, killed, skinned, and carted out for tea:

THE MINK -- is only at home in the forest -- until immortalized in a Russeks Mink Coat. Then he forgets his wildwood wanderings, becomes sophisticated, and wouldn't recognize a muskrat if he met it in the same Rolls Royce.

This ad for Russeks Fifth Avenue makes me think of a lyric that's always equally delighted and baffled me, from the film "The Opposite Sex":

Why do mink--
(Yes, why DO mink?)
willingly let themselves get trapped?

The song goes on to say that mink allow themselves to get trapped "for the opposite sex," which could also explain why frogs (yes, why frogs?) willingly let themselves get run over on the highway. At least frogs are doing it the opposite sex of their own species.

You know what? Fur coats ARE absolutely beautiful and I swoon in their presence. But somehow I don't think I could bring myself to buy a new one, and even if I did I don't think I could ever wear it, which certainly defeats the purpose of having one. I DO have a totally utilitarian bear-skin muff, but I never use it because not even a bear can encompass all the crap I carry around with me.

My Little Black Cloud of Mishaps

Sometimes it seems like the world is out to get me. You know this is leading to a story about intense frustration, so let's get right to the point.

Sunday, December 16th: a tremendous snowstorm -- the second in three weeks -- wallops my little town.

It's the night of Club Abstract's Christmas party. Since the party is mainly for staff members, they insist you arrive before 10pm so all hands can lock the doors and retreat into debauchery. With this in mind I call a cab at 8:45 and wait.

And wait. And wait. Once again a cab driver has been unable to find me, and instead of calling to check my address he's simply driven away, leaving me without transportation. At 9:30 I am frantically talking to the cab company: they can send somebody else, but not anytime soon; they're booked solid with Christmas parties and the roads are terrible. The fact that THEY screwed up doesn't seem to change the situation.

I make a snap decision. I put on my sturdiest boots and begin to walk, over twelve inches of mostly-uncleared snow, through 60kph winds. Here's a brief excerpt so you can share the joy with me. I make an appearance at the end that turned out surprisingly well. I figured that if I died like a stranded Jack London character, they could use my camera to learn about my last desperate moments.



A survivor, I arrive at Club Abstract...and discover that I'm dressed like a bar skank at a formal event. Alright, maybe I should have asked about the night's "tone."

I feel terribly out of place, I brood about the inevitable walk home, I get increasingly nervous and repetative. People are looking at me strangely. Eventually I discover that my blood sugar is catastrophically low; the walk through the snowstorm has done me in.

A sweet bartender serves me Shirley Temples, I eat a bag of Skittles, I acknowledge that things couldn't possibly get worse.

THEN THE SOLE OF MY RIGHT BOOT FALLS OFF. I cannot walk back home, in a snowstorm, post-insulin shock, with only one boot. I want to kill myself.

Fortunately a quick-thinking staff member gives me an early Christmas gift: duct tape.



Desperate for home, my little black cloud parts long enough for me to grab an impossible cab. I count my considerable blessings.

The next morning I walk to work; a half-hour ordeal through a city paralyzed by the storm. I stop at Tim Horton's for food and realize I've left my wallet at home. I only have petty change with which to buy lunch. I am going to cry.

I sit down to eat my paltry food, I reach into my bag to give myself insulin...and realize I've forgotten my insulin as well. I've come all the way to work and I can't buy or eat anything.

My heart has gone cold and squishy. I gently put my head on the table. I cover my head with my hands and press, scratching my scalp, moaning slightly. I have had a terrible, terrible weekend. I am actually looking forward to going to work; I can't get hit by a car while sitting at my desk, probably. I do not feel safe in the world.

I wait patiently for a cab to take me home so I can grab my wallet, my insulin, and return to work. This costs me twenty dollars. Smiling over its shoulder, my little black cloud of mishaps laughs and wanders off to torture another soul, hopefully not you.

Golf Sweaters, Plus New Yorker Racism

Hmmm. There are a few things to be said about this June 30, 1928 advertisement from The New Yorker.
First, there was simply no escaping this black caricature in the '20s press. The cartoons always showed these big-eyed, slope-headed, huge-lipped creatures, usually scuttling in the background and carrying somebody's bags. Even when the cartoon's joke did NOT involve the servile black character (and it rarely did), he was invariably drawn in this way.

At first I was shocked, but after three years of New Yorker cartoons I'm gradually realizing that the cartoonists of the time -- whatever their own beliefs -- were largely drawing in an accepted style, the same way that all chorus girls were distinct in their comparative bustiness, all businessmen were fat, and all Jewish characters had big curly beards and glasses.

So in this illustration featuring the dignified golfer and the servile caddy, the black character has the additional indignity of wearing the offensive golf shirt. Peck & Peck tell us that the days of "bold, bad checks and Chuck Connor stripes" are gone, and that "good taste" is now the order of the day. That was 1928, mind you.

The question (other than "who was Chuck Connor?") is...why do people continue to wear ugly golf sweaters, eighty years later. Are some just taking an awful long time to transition? Much like the "ugly car salesman suit," the "ugly golf sweater" is a long-standing joke with more than a kernel of truth.

Is this because the stereotypical dedicated golfer -- like the stereotypical car salesman -- is clueless and reactionary, meaning that they're forever out of style? I wonder how this fashion trend started, what defines it, and why it continues today. Since I have never actually golfed I'm afraid the answer eludes me.

Pridetoberfest 2007, Plus Hiking, Plus a Bonus Cat!

I had four days off work during the long weekend, but somehow it only felt like six hours.

First: the lead-up to "Pridetoberfest," during which I prepped and worried and messed with my hair. Jodi (super-stylist) had revealed the secrets of hat-defeating hairdos, and I spent all week trying to replicate her instructions. I bought hairclips and practiced segmentation, I rigged up an extra bathroom mirror so I could see the back of my head, I experimented with gel and pomade and the fake-hair braids she'd made me...

Well, I certainly learned a lot about hair, but only enough to develop a style that I call "Ugly Squirrel's Nest Mess (with Braids)." And even after four days of fiddling I couldn't remove those evil stylist-elastics without losing hair. After all that worrying and experimenting I settled on two pigtails, wrapped them in dirndl scraps, and considered myself to be suitably German (but still "hat-able").

The actual "Ilsa on Ice" outfit worked BEAUTIFULLY. You can really jump around in an organza skirt if you're willing to grab it and flip it over your head. I probably only broke two toes in my new silver shoes, and the run in my fishnets appeared only thirty seconds into the night, a new record for me.

Click here for a few more pictures from the event, including shots of the fabulous B-Girlz (who were spunky, professional, and hilarious, as expected).

Early the next morning -- nursing a hangover and a set of hamburger-toes -- I went on a 5km hike to Spencer Gorge with Jon & Vanilla. The place was drenched with an impossible fog which made the experience even more magical...click here for the trip in pictures. Consider it a "Bus/Walk Tour" without the "bus."

(You can also find a new collector's photo of Zsa Zsa called "Zsa Zsa A-curl.")

I wimped out of Monday's Oktoberfest Parade, but I did enjoy a super-heated patio lunch with my mother. Breakfast and booze and easy chatter, always nice!

Now, suddenly, I'm back to work again. Did I do a Rip Van Winkle on this weekend or something? Where the heck did it GO? I want to do it all again!