I thought this pattern was one of the first I’d posted- excellent lace pattern, scooped yoke neck, puffy sleeves, what’s not to love? Color me surprised to find it languishing on my external hard drive. Well, better late than never; enjoy!
Opalsheen sounds like an 80s feminist superhero in touch with her emotions.
Tags: 1930, 30s, lace, puff sleeves, short sleeved, Thirties, yoke
Man, I was going to write a delightful essay linking together these racist and silly cartoon ads of the past, but time is short and sleep so sweet. On with the political incorrectness!
Just because America broke off from people that loved sticking whole animals in aspic doesn’t make Jell-O the apex of culture. If I recall the Chinese used spoons with flat bottoms so stuff wouldn’t spill while Europeans were still dunking witches.
This is exactly like the imagined joy of owning an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle but REAL.
Tee hee hee hee.
Remember when America saw Mexicans as comical bumbling lazy thieves instead of a swarm of brown locusts stealing all our best jobs (and probably women too)? Ah, for the golden days of a gentler racism.
Funny enough, Frito switched to the Frito Bandito from a wholesome all-American scamp called ‘The Frito Kid’. You can learn all about him here, and here, or you can experience interacting with him firsthand over at Angry Jim’s site. The audio comes from an old Disney setup where you popped a coin in and animatronic Frito Kid would call down delicious, salty Fritos from a guy in a mountain mine. Snacktacular!
Tags: ads, aspic, commercials, snacks
As a knitter, I am aware of the painstaking amount of effort that goes into each knitted garment. In a process like sewing, you cut the needed pieces out of a plane of existing fabric and reshape them into a three-dimensional garment. It’s a negative process, excising elements and leaving remnants behind. Knitting on the other hand is a completely positive process, creating only that fabric needed for the garment at hand, loop by individual loop. Nothing is wasted as it’s being created exactly for the needs of the project, except perhaps your time as it takes FOREVER.
The sheer amount of time involved in knitting is one of the reasons I like it – I get a visual record of that time passing by. There’s an artist who only ever knits one enormous project, sitting in museums as an installation piece knitting ever more of it as it rolls out the museum and down the steps. Unfortunately the internet fails me in finding her name (damn you, Google!), but if anyone knows who it is drop a line.
This amount of life and time poured into a hand-knitted object, when combined with the fickle and ephemeral nature of fashion, seems the cruelest waste. I get angry flipping through Vogue Knitting, as page after page of ridiculous trend pieces sure to be passè by the time one finishes working them up flash by (not to mention their projects use rather expensive yarns, so not only are you spending a month or two working on something already dated, you pay $200 for the privilege).
As Jean Cocteau said, “Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.” Well put, and part of the reason I so enjoy vintage knitting. These lovely objects have already passed the test of time, and are sure to… reward….. your…..uh, investment……. huh.
Well then. Fugly apparently spans the decades.
Tags: 1930, 30s, angora, cardigan, puff sleeves, skirt, suit, Thirties
In sadder news, Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress passed away recently. Reading this short obituary, the phrase ‘died suddenly of cancer’ popped out; how the hell do you die suddenly of cancer?
The truth turned out to be far sadder, with the director knowing he had terminal pancreatic cancer but choosing to keep it quiet, as he wasn’t going to undergo treatment and didn’t want to worry everyone. Still, there are cases of ‘sudden’ cancerous deaths with a cancer, usually malignant melanoma, spreading and metastasizing in a short amount of time. Usually the suddenness comes from a diagnosis made after several months of the cancer growing unchecked.
It should be clarified that ‘super cancers’, cancers that supposedly metastasize and kill in under a day/week, do not really exist except in one or two very rare medical instances where other factors figured in.
Just in case you’re a healthy young person with an unremarkable family medical history who exercises regularly and suchforth, there’s always pulmonary embolisms to worry about.
Tags: death, life is ephemeral, scary
