DA DO RAG RAG

Everyone knows what a durag is. Or dorag. Or doorag. I have one from the 70s in my Etsy shop. It’s vintage and retro, but the design is still current.

Where did this come from? Probably Africa, where women still wear fabulous head wraps. They’re like big do rags with the tie in front. We know in 1700s New Orleans enslaved women were required to wear head coverings to demean them and make sure everyone else knew they were enslaved.

That hideous law has been turned on its head, thank goodness. In current culture, the durag is embraced by musicians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, top fashion designers, medical personnel, people with hair loss and people with natural hair protecting their do. Rihanna’s dancers wore do rags under their fuzzy hoods at Super Bowl 2023.

This hip accessory makes me think of the 1963 song by the Crystals – “Da Doo Ron Ron” – specifically written to imbed itself in your brain. Sort of a rock ‘n’ roll tumor.

Enjoy:

Just imagine The Crystals performing at the first Super Bowl halftime show just four years later. It would have been rock and roll – you know – Satan’s music. They would have had those bare arms and those wiggly, shimmy moves. Outraged, God-fearing viewers would have complained to the FCC. They would have used words like "overtly sexual" and "patently offensive and completely inappropriate for children." Like porn. And you allowed your innocent offspring to watch because?

 

“Excuse me, ma’am, have you ever watched porn?”

 

Just like the more than a hundred people who complained to the FCC after Rihanna’s performance at Super Bowl 57. They claimed the show was "overtly sexual".  Some of the dance moves "were patently offensive and completely inappropriate for children." You know, just like porn. Sooo you let your children watch porn because?

 

“Excuse me, Karen, have you ever watched porn? How about you, Ken?

Never mind. Your fat red face is answer enough.”

 

God bless America.

THE CASE of the DEADLY HAIR DRYER

 In case someone is interested in why I haven’t written a blog post since 2015, maybe it’s because I was off the grid, lost in the woods, in witness protection, lazy or in prison. You decide.

And now,

THE CASE OF THE DEADLY HAIR DRYER

This retro, Mid Century Modern hair dryer was state of the art in the 1940s and 50s. The pretty pastel green, painted wood handle and extra-long cord made drying hair a breeze. No pun intended. Actually, I did it on purpose.

You’re fairly old if you’re old enough to have used one of these. Remember how heavy it was? This one weighs two pounds … the weight of a toaster or eight apples. Yikes.

You also remember how blisteringly hot it was. Just seconds before you smelled burning hair, you could turn on the ‘cold air’ switch. You also needed the cold air on your face. By now, sweat was dripping off the end of your nose.

My aunt, who lived in one of those great big, brick ranch style homes, gave this to me. After using it as a craft dryer for a while, I put it in my TangoPony Etsy shop. A couple of days later, BOOM! Etsy took it down for safety reasons. I assumed it was some kind of electrical issue, so I cut off the plug. I relisted it as décor for boudoir, bathroom or salon. It’s in someone’s cart right now.

Though it has the ubiquitous Underwriters Laboratory plate, the plug is only two pronged – no grounding prong. The law requiring safety outlets in bathrooms (GFCI-protected) was not initiated until 1975.

Besides risking injury just to dry your hair, hair dryers were great murder weapons. Milady in the bath and the terrible argument with Hubby ends with the handy hair dryer dropped into the water. Suddenly all the lights in the house flicker, the fuses are blown and Mr. Mister thinks he has the perfect alibi.

“As I was leavin’ for bowling night with the guys, she said she was gonna take a bath and go to bed early. When I got home, I found her like this. I guess she fell asleep and drowned. At least she was smart enough to have a big life insurance policy.”   

If that wasn’t scary enough, 90% of hairdryers manufactured through the end of the 1970s were insulated with asbestos. I guess the manufacturers forgot to tell us. What a surprise.

A photographer who was using a hair dryer to dry his prints ‘discovered’ the asbestos. Tiny, dust like bits of asbestos were blowing all over his photos.

Eau de What?

I have always been a collector.  I inherited the tendency from my dad and his carefully catalogued collection of transportation tokens.  Dad caught the collecting bug from his mother, who had a vast and stunning collection of salt and pepper shakers.  They were displayed on shelves below the big kitchen window in the ‘breakfast nook’.  What could be a better treat for a kid … Grandma's pancakes with a side of fun little objects to savor.

 

In childhood, my collections were things I loved … horse figurines, and things I found fascinating … rocks, seashells and bugs.  As an adult, I find myself drawn to things that evoke happy memories of childhood. 

Like salt and pepper shakers.

 

 

Another childhood treat was roaming a dime store with a few coins and being allowed to buy something all by myself.  I was drawn to the perfume ... the Eau de Toilette (very funny to a kid).  Oh, the treasures to be found … the gently curved, cobalt blue glass bottles of  Evening in Paris and the clear heart-shaped bottles with the pale blue rosebud tops that held Blue Waltz.

You guessed it.  I collect it.

 

 

 

 





 Happy Collecting!

 

 

So Where's the Chair, Raphael?

'Madonna of the Chair' was painted in 1514 in Rome by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, aka Raphael. 

Try not to confuse it with the painting 'Madogga of the Chair' from Australia.

We know Raphael is a famous artist because we refer to him by one name.  Like Madonna on her chair.
 

'Madonna' is an old Italian word for 'lady', which I doubt Madonna ever was (see gross photo).  The Madonna in the Raphael painting is supposedly not just a lady, but a virgin.  The kid with the chubby legs is her baby, Jesus.  The depraved looking person on the right is supposed to be John the Baptist.  Maybe he's just sleep deprived.  Maybe from having nightmares about being beheaded.

 

So where is the chair?  Maybe the thingie in the foreground that I thought was a wine bottle is a part of the chair.

The legend of the painting is the best part.  Raphael was supposedly taking a walk and saw a young mother sitting in a doorway with her baby.  He thought it would make a great Madonna and child, but he didn't have any paper with him. He found a cask head and sketched the idea on it.  He kept the round shape when he painted the painting which is probably why we can't see the chair.

I would just love to see that chair.

Sometimes a Choir Boy is a Girl

We've all heard the bad jokes about castrati … that the man who has an unfortunate injury to his private parts will soon be singing soprano in the choir.  That story is for another day.

The Boys Club of the Choir, where all parts are sung only by the male species, can be traced back to that most famous misogenist of the Bronze Age, Saint Paul.  He claimed that "women should be silent in churches" (mulieres in ecclesiis taceant), and so they were. 

Since girls and women were not allowed to sing in church, neither were they allowed in any other patriarchal venue that developed … like opera.

Having said all this, I am forced to admit that hearing an all-male choir with boy sopranos in a towering medieval cathedral is a treat for the senses. 

Girls are allowed to do almost everything boys do now.  They can even be choirboys.  In the 21^st Century, both genders are called choristers. 

Sing on!

 

 

 

 

The Marvelous Mittens Mystery or Fabulous Faux Finally Fails

Has anyone besides me noticed how well modern chemistry is duplicating natural materials now?

I have a couple of faux fur coats that people think are real when I wear them  I have red pleather short shorts that … never mind.  Just kidding.

My recent faux vs. real experience I will call the Marvelous Mittens Mystery.

I acquired a pair of vintage fur and leather marvelous mittens lined with fleece.  They were in great condition.  There was no brand label, just a very worn size label.

A couple of months later I decided to list them in my TangoPony shop and began the listing.  The title was 'Fur, Leather and Fleece-Lined Mittens.'

I photographed the marvelous mittens, edited the fifteen shots down to five, resized them and uploaded them to my in-progress Etsy listing.

As I began to write the description, it occurred to me that the lining might not be real fleece from a sheep.  It felt woolly, but something wasn't quite right.

I discovered the fleece was on a woven background.  Thinking it still could at least be wool, I pulled a few fuzzies off and took them to the Fire Test Laboratory … one of my dad's old glass ashtrays from the 1940's and a box of Rosebud stick matches.

The fleece flunked the Fire Test.

Of course that made me wonder about the leather.  It really looked real.  It felt real.  Even after an examination under magnification I wasn't sure.  I saw what could have been pore marks. 

This time I took the Marvelous Mitten to the Smell Lab along with a couple pairs of kid gloves and an old leather backpack.

The 'leather' on the mittens flunked the Smell Test.

Of course I had to subject the fur to testing and went back to the Fire Laboratory already described in the fleece episode.

And of course the fur flunked the Fire Test.

Now the mitten listing reads, "Wookiee Paws, Mittens, Faux Fur, Faux Leather, Faux Fleece". 

So what are these tests?

♣ The Fire Test for Fibers:  When lit, natural fibers smell like burned hair or paper and turn to ash. Silk threads will actually glow like the filament in a light bulb.  Synthetic fibers smell like chemicals and will melt and disappear when lit.

♣ The Smell Test for Leather:  Leather will always smell like leather.  Synthetic pleathers or vinyls never will. 

And that, boys and girls, is the Science Lesson for today.

Since I am not familiar with the test for wookieeness, I'll go out on a limb and say the mittens are definitely Genuine Wookiee. 

 

 

 

Are Fair Isle Sweaters Knit by Ponies?

Fair Isle sweaters are named after a tiny island in the north of Scotland. The island is part of the Shetland Islands, famous for little fat, hairy ponies like this pair.

 

I don't know if they knitted their own sweaters or not, but they are fine examples of Fair Isle knitting. 

 

Fair isle knitting is a traditional technique used to create patterns with multiple colors. It became popular in the 1920's when the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public. 

 
Traditional Fair Isle patterns use only five colors and have only two colors per row. Unused colors of the alternating colors are "stranded" across the back of the piece.

'Fair Isle' has become a generic term for a style and is no longer limited only to sweaters knit on Fair Isle.

Sometimes people like me come along, chop up a vintage wool Fair Isle sweeater and use power tools to make a purse.

 I call my washer, dryer and sewing machine power tools.  Doesn't everyone?