WTF Wednesday: Dressing Right, A Guide for Men, 1978

 Heyo Wednesday! Heyo WTF!

This week will focus exclusively on a book called "Dressing Right, A Guide for Men" - straight out of 1978.

 

You may remember this author from his first book, "Looking Good."

Color works either by harmonizing, or contrasting. 



Neutrals calm, brights energize.



Pattern Play: Togetherness.



Practice the big step: asserting yourself.



All about outerwear.



Active sports influence.



Finally, a few sentences to repeat every morning. 

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions. 

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

New WTF this week:   

• 70s I Survived a Fall on Mt Mitchell T-shirt 
• 70s World's 2nd Greatest Canoer Tank Top

reading is FUNdamental

i have always loved reading. i remember being 3 and reading about a gem-encrusted crown in the childcraft encyclopedia. i read all the nancy drew books before 3rd grade. i would check out the maximum allowed on my library card and my mom's at the same time and chain-read them until i was done. same with anne of green gables, the baby sitter's club, and sweet valley high.

the textbooks in school when i was growing up had incredible covers. they inspired curiosity!  compared to the bland computer-generated covers of today, they are vibrant and interesting. all hand done.

these are all houghton mifflin reading book covers from the late 70's. my earliest classroom shelves were full of these. i was transfixed!

 this 'secrets' one i particularly remember because they were left over on a back shelf from an earlier year and i had to ask my teacher if i could take one home with me and read it. she said yes. i mean who wouldn't want to read 'secrets' with a cover like that?!

all this started when i saw this "windchimes" book at a second-hand store today and my mind was awash in a flood of cedar hill elementary school book covers.

the covers today do not hold a candle.

From Houghton Mifflin

"all depression has its roots in self pity..."

i just really love this quote from tom robbins' fierce invalids home from hot climates


“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously." 

At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes. 

"The key word here is roots," Maestra had countered. "The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can e, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression." 

"Yeah but Maestra - " 

"Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser - a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician - can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol' doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we're soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse's Mouth. And that's why when you've exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I've reminded you that you and me - you and I: excuse me - may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let's not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It's preventive medicine." 

"But what about self-esteem?" 

"Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace - and maybe even glory.” 

― Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

tiger woods loves his putter

make sure it hefts well in your hands.

from a pre-scandal book published in 2001.  

hard to believe he approved these graphics. 

will turned 1 year

amidst all the travel and bustle i neglected to mention that my amazing little nephew Will survived his first year on this earth.

we sent him the book "DOG" on recommendation from the mappy camper.

angela sent this phone-photo the next day saying "Will took his doggie book out totally independently and is reading it while I fold the laundry!"

not only is he an animal-lover, and super intelligent, would you just look at how balanced and graceful he is in his reading stance! i predict big things for this one. happy birthday Will!

rondettes

one of the most random things about asheville is the colony of rondette houses up on the mountain close to downtown.

this is from the april 1969 issue of popular mechanics, where they showed you how to build your own rondette.

these things are still standing. they're not in the best shape. not sure a flat roof is a great idea for a temperate rain forest, many of them have makeshift tarps on the roof.

rondettes are not to be confused with weaver chicken rondelets, which i used to eat out of the toaster oven growing up. i seem to recall a layer of cheese under the breading.

1 love

i read nick hornby's "high fidelity" this week. it's just as good as the movie, and the movie is excellent.

"The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing `Yellow Submarine' at the top of my voice in the back row of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they'll make me feel something, they won't make me feel anything bad."

i feel this way about james mcmurtry. and tea leaf green. and surprise me mr. davis. and the wood brothers. and billy joel (don't judge!). and dozens of other bands and artists who have recorded music that i have listened to obsessively at one time or another. 

when parents email: movie recommendations

DAD:

"I know you only documentaries but still. Maybe these qualify. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure these aren’t the best things you’ve ever seen but a little entertainment isn’t the end of the world right? You’ve probably seen Songcatcher. See it again. You’ve probably never had any interest in Cool Runnings. See it. So there. You have my suggestions of the day. Ciao"

i had not seen either of these movies. thanks to netflix, now i have.

cool runnings was visually stunning. based on a true story. i remember the true story from the mid 80s. the costumes were so 80s and so vibrant. every scene was like a rainbow doing a ballroom dance. the main character's name in the credits is just "Leon." awesome movie.

songcatcher is fascinating! it was filmed 15 miles north of asheville. when i go on hikes, the scenery looks like that. amazing singing. amazing singing. aidan quinn. DEFINITELY rent this movie if you get a chance.

also, if you like this movie, you will love the book "Hands in Harmony" full of striking black and white photos and stories of hard scrabble craftspeople of Appalachia by Tim Barnwell. I rented a house from Tim in 2008 and he is an outstanding photographer and really nice person.

the truest sentence

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

- Hemingway, A Movable Feast

success

from the exceptionally awesome Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues:

But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet, success mustn’t be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure.

silent letters be gone

to make spelling match pronunciation, i think it should be changed to wensday instead of Wednesday and febuary instead of February.

just one step after the next

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.

But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. So on we go...we have a long way...no hurry...just one step after the next...with a little Chautauqua for entertainment. ...Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is."

- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Goethe, Faust

A longing pure and not to be described drove me to wander over woods and fields, and in a mist of hot abundant tears I felt a world arise and live for me.

Foods from Fresh Water

Bait

As a general rule, fish bite bait taken from their native water. Look in the water near the shores for crabs, fish eggs, and minnows and on the bank for worms and insects. If you catch a fish, inspect its stomach to see what it has been eating; then try to duplicate this food. Use its intestines and eyes for bait if other sources are unproductive.

- from the 1969 Dept. of the Army Field Manual Survival Evasion and Escape

joan crawford - my way of life (1971)

i got this book at goodwill last week and it's pretty damn fascinating. mommie dearest wrote 200 pages about why she does what she does. here's a snippet:

Some working women do pay someone to help with the housework, and why shouldn't they if they dread the thought of scrubbing the kitchen floor after a day in the office? I feel a great sense of accomplishment though, when I get down on my knees and scrub my own floor. When I spend months without doing a movie or a TV show and spend all my time at my desk or on a dais every night I have a lot of surplus energy to use up. Scrubbing, for me, is the greatest exercise in the world. It gives me rosy cheeks, and I just have a ball.

and one more:

I always pack in daylight. In artificial light when I'm in a hurry it's too easy to grab the wrong accessories and find myself in Kansas City or San Juan with a hot pink dress and a shocking pink hat -- and that's a catastrophe.

she seems like a total control freak, but very intelligent and funny too.

survival and evasion tips

i'm reading a field guide put out by the US Army in 1969 called "Survival, Evasion & Escape" full of tips for soldiers who found themselves trying to survive behind enemy lines. here's a couple things i picked up:

• when dealing with natives, leave a good impression. other men may need this help
• if caught in an avalanche, use swimming motions to stay on top
• take care when crossing thin ice. distribute your weight by lying flat and crawling

99notebooks.com

99notebooks.com, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

i got a blank notebook in the mail and i just wrote in it.

it's part of a project my friend spencer is doing called 99 notebooks.

if somebody gives you one of these notebooks you have to do 3 things - read everything in it, write something in it, and pass it on.

check out www.99notebooks.com for more details, and watch as 99 marble notebooks make their way around the world!

joseph campbell and the grateful dead

i posted this to another site about a year ago, and want to resurrect it here.

i've been reading a couple of joseph campbell's books & a biography lately and came across this quote of his yesterday in "The Hero's Journey" a kind of autobiographical conversation book Campbell did during the last years of his life where he went over the main points of his lectures and life's work that he'd done on mythology, symbols, dreams, etc. which is all summed up nicely in this book & PBS series, The Power of Myth.

"The next great, proud moment was when Mickey Hart and Bob Weir come along and tell me I've helped them. Well, I never -- the rock music never appealed to me at all. It was largely monotonous, it seemed to me. Then they invited Jean [his wife] and me to an event in Oakland that just became a dance revelation. I got something there that made me note that this is magic. And it's magic for the future...

They hit a level of humanity that makes everybody at one with each other. It doesn't matter about this race thing, this age thing, I mean, everything else dropped out. The wonderful thing was, compared to the Hitler rallies that you see in the film that were used to a political purpose, here it was just the experience of the identity of everybody with everybody else.

I was carried away in a rapture. And so I am a Deadhead now..."

In February of 1985, Campbell had attended a Grateful Dead concert and below are his comments from that experience.

Joseph Campbell :

"The Deadheads are doing the dance of life and this I would say, is the answer to the atom bomb."

"I had a marvelous experience two nights ago. I was invited to a rock concert. ( laughter in the audience) I'd never seen one. This was a big hall in Berkeley and the rock group were the Grateful Dead, whose name, by the way, is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. And these are very sophisticated boys. This was news to me.

Rock Music has never seemed that interesting to me. It's very simple and the beat is the same old thing. But when you see a room with 8000 young people for five hours going through it to the beat of these boys ... The genius of these musicians- these three guitars and two wild drummers in the back... The central guitar, Bob Weir, just controls this crowd and when you see 8000 kids all going up in the air together... Listen, this is powerful stuff! And what is it? The first thing I thought of was the Dionysian festivals, of course. This energy and these terrific instruments with electric things that zoom in... This is more than music. It turns something on in here (the heart?). And what it turns on is life energy. This is Dionysus talking through these kids. Now I've seen similar manifestations, but nothing as innocent as what I saw with this bunch. This was sheer innocence. And when the great beam of light would go over the crowd you' d see these marvelous young faces in sheer rapture- for five hours! Packed together like sardines! Eight thousand of them! Then there was an opening in the back with a series of panel windows and you look out and there's a whole bunch in another hall, dancing crazy. This is a wonderful fervent loss of self in the larger self of a homogeneous community. This is what it is all about!

It reminded me of Russian Easter. Down in New York we have a big Russian Cathedral. You go there on Russian Easter at midnight and you hear Kristos anesti! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! It's almost as good as a rock concert. (laughter) It has the same kind of life feel. When I was in Mexico City at the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, there it was again. In India, in Puri, at the temple of the Jagannath- that means the lord of the Moving World- the same damn thing again. It doesn't matter what the name of the God is, or whether its a rock group or a clergy. It's somehow hitting that chord of realization of the unity of God in you all, that's a terrific thing and it just blows the rest away."

live music is the best.

some more shantaram

madonna is friends with linbaba?



this AP bit about madonna's trip to India this week mentions Shantaram with Johnny Depp in the present tense:

Madonna, Ritchie Visit Slums of Mumbai
By Associated Press
MUMBAI, India — Madonna visited a crowded Mumbai slum Tuesday, where impoverished residents showered her with rose and marigold petals.

Madonna didn't speak to journalists, and a New York-based spokeswoman for the 49-year-old singer wasn't immediately available for comment.

Millions of people live in makeshift huts in slums along railway lines and roads in Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment center.

Wearing a black jacket, T-shirt and jeans, Madonna spent nearly 45 minutes with residents of the downtown shanty township.

She was accompanied by her husband, Guy Ritchie, and Australian author Gregory David Roberts, who made the Mumbai slum his home in the early 1980s.

Roberts worked for the city's crime bosses and set up a free health clinic in the slum when he took refuge in Mumbai after escaping from an Australian high-security prison.

The slum features prominently in Roberts' best-seller "Shantaram," which is being adapted into a film starring Johnny Depp and directed by Mira Nair.

from the LA times

shantaram movie update

it looks like that book i read about the bombay slums, shantaram, is having a hard time getting to the silver screen.

The Times of India
25 Nov 2007,PARAG MANIAR ,TNN

In Depp Trouble! - Casting Hollywood star Johnny Depp in a film is a luxury that director Mira Nair cannot afford, perhaps.


According to our sources, Nair’s ambitious project, Shantaram , has been shelved because the actor demanded a huge price. “Mira Nair will be unable to go ahead with the film because Warner Productions has decided to back out of the project. Also, the amount quoted by Johnny Depp is very huge. The producers don’t see how they will be able to complete the film with such big money involved,” says a source.

Mira Nair had announced her ambitious film, Shantaram , based on Gregory David Roberts’ book of the same name, earlier this year. Hollywood superstar Johnny Depp and Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan had been roped in to play key roles.

She had also approached Vishal Bharadwaj to score the music of the film. Our source says, “Mira Nair was to start shooting with Amitabh Bachchan from January 2008. Unfortunately, that will not happen any more.”

Deals with all the other actors had fallen into place but things did not somehow work out with Depp. Our source says, “Depp loved the novel by Gregory Roberts. He even invited the author to visit him in London. Gregory Roberts did go and meet him. Everything was going fine until Depp quoted his price! All activity related to Shantaram came to a screeching halt after that.”

It may soon be officially announced that the film has been shelved. Our source says, “Warner Productions will hold a press conference announcing the cancellation of their Shantaram project in the second week of December.”

The official spokesperson of Warner Productions kept mum about the film being shelved because of the sky-high money quoted by Johnny Depp. The spokesperson just mailed the production house’s official statement that says: “Production on Shantaram is being postponed due to Hollywood writers’ strike and the inability to guarantee a February start, which would then place the production in India in an inclement weather corridor.”

greedy americans