Anyone looking for a bit of vintage inspiration might want to take a look at one of these little books. An insight into the fashion and beauty advertisments from their respective eras, they are a nice little glimpse of a different world and how advertising refelcted changing attitudes. Despite a definite female bias, an interesting selection.

50s Fashion ISBN: 978-3822849330

60s fashion ISBN: 978-3822849354

The 1960s heralded a golden generation in British music, with a glut of bands peering across the Atlantic at Rhythm & Blues and adapting it to a more robust,  melodious sound. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Animals and The Yardbirds; all are bands etched into the very fabric of British culture, historically looked upon with a smile as they took our fine heritage to the US and shook it to it’s  foundations.

It’s easy to bask in the impact of these holy cows, but lest we forget the scores of other bands that for one reason or another didnt seep into the public conscious and remained overlooked – skulking in the undergrowth as their more illustrious peers frolicked in the sun-drenched fields of reverence.

The Attack were one such band. Formed in 1966, they brought a confrontational, harder edge to the R’nB formula, embracing the emerging freakbeat movement and tipping their hats to such garage rock luminaries as The Sonics and The Standells. Displaying a surprisingly astute pop sensibility, their music nonetheless proved just that bit too challenging for a 60’s audience not yet exposed to the Psychedelia that was to dominate the late decade. Right place wrong time? Perhaps, but regardless, The Attack are a band who deserve more recognition, and by golly i’m giving it to them

Today I got up for a poorly advertised after-Christmas DVD sale. The used DVD’s at this store were supposed to go for 19 cents, but of course when I got there, they were either scarce or scattered about. I did, however, end up buying MILK with Sean Penn, an 320 GB external hard drive, and German language software for $1.99! Not too shabby, huh?

Watched MILK today while I was prepping 12 homemade veggie burgers. That last scene with the vigil almost always makes me tear up. To know somebody so inspiring, bright, and warm – and then to know also, the day they were murdered, is a terribly sad thing. Especially because Harvey Milk brought light to so many people’s lives.

I’m intrigued by his story and I hope to read more about him. I’ve been meaning to stop by the public library anyhow, to catch up on my reading. I never got to finish The Working Poor by David K. Shipley. Here are a couple of texts I’m also hoping to read in the upcoming weeks:

• Off The Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor by S.A. Venkatesh
• The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy by Theda Skocpol

I should probably start researching more about the Khmer Rouge as well, since I’m hoping to get on storyboarding the project with my Aunties. I’d like to document their struggles to get here to the States since they always told us such compelling, fascinating stories as children.

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This lazy Saturday also involved me watching Der Baader Meinhof Komplex again. I looooooove that film, and will rub the belly of the individual who buys it for me on DVD (promise). Their radical actions and dedication to their stance in society is empowering. On the flip side, I can’t imagine living in Germany during that time when their group utilized such tactics in the public space. I don’t agree with their brutal take on social justice neither do I believe anarchy is the answer to the issues we face in society, but then again, I wasn’t alive in the ’60’s there and knew nothing first-hand of their oppression.
Great film! And even better if you’re snug in bed watching it

Poster design by Shepard Fairey

Thoroughly Modern Millie
d. George Roy Hill / USA / 1967 / 138 mins
Viewed on: BBC Four (UK)

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it’s a little too long, a bit silly and I still maintain that – despite being set in the 1920s – some of the fashion and a lot of the choreography seems very 1960s. But how can you not like it? Julie Andrews enters the frame as a dowdy Mary Poppins-type and, after a quick costume change, steps into a thoroughly modern world of ‘bob’ cuts, cloche hats and the Charleston. It also has evil ‘orientals’ (led by the distinctly un-oriental comedienne Beatrice Lillie), and a cast of characters that include the inimitable Carol Channing, as well as Mary Tyler Moore, the Pope from Mister Lonely, Marion Crane’s boyfriend from Psycho, Kung Fu’s Master Kan and the late Mr. Miyagi.

I also found it interesting that most of the musical numbers operate within the internal emotion of individual characters. Unlike traditional musicals, where songs are often addressed directly toward other characters, the songs here only illustrate the internal thoughts or feelings of a character and are often delivered in a direct address to the camera. Plus, when she’s not singing them, Millie uses silent film style intertitles to convey these emotions. Good-O!

Anyway, apart from anything else, it has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What more do you want?

What kind of music do I listen to?

Short answer: everything! herp derp

Thelonious Monk – Don’t Blame Me (1966)

I love this man. His sound was playful, swanky, percussive, and rhythmically complex. Don’t you love that fat pinky ring?

Carly Simon – You’re So Vain (originally 1972, live 1987)

You’re so vain. I’ll bet you think this song is about you. Don’t you?! DON’T YOU >:(

Earth, Wind and Fire – September (1978)

Awww yissssss ~ OH DO YOU REMEMBAH~

Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock (1993)

Before Billy Corgan went mega-douche and decided to ruin everything; back when Jimmy Chamberlain was still in the band and not on drugs; back when D’Arcy and James were happy and sometimes had the same hair color. Oh that beautiful, chugging guitar.

And around the same time…

Seal – Kiss From a Rose (1994)

Dude. SEAL. The man is so damn classy. But, Batman Forever, hahaha, oh wow…

A long (long) time ago, my family were on a day trip to Moffat in the Scottish  Borders.

In a shop window, there was a portraitof an enigmatic, beautiful and dark-haired woman. A little label said it was called Nicola. Aged about three, I recognised the outline of her name. My name.

My parents bought the portrait for me. I always thought that I’d look just like her one day. I don’t.

That Louis Shabner print was lost when my parents’  house was dispersed ten years ago, I guess it was sold at auction.

This Christmas Day, I received a special gift from my husband.

I was named – so the story goes – after a song! Written and released by Steve Race in 1962, the song is described on Wikipedia as a “short melodic piano instrumental”.

I’ve never heard it and I’ve been searching online. I can’t find a download but a 7″ vinyl copy is on its way from Oxfam’s secondhand shop. It’ll be a nice thing to have.

I thought I was a good Beatle fan till I read this, how do you fare – 20 Things You Didn’t Know About the Beatles

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Paul “Bear” Bryant (left) with baseball’s legendary A’s owner, Charles O. Finley or “Charley O” (right).

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From the desk of Contributing Editor, Eli M Getson–

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The other day I was watching the Philadelphia Eagles play an entertaining one against the New York Giants.  When NBC did the inevitable sideline shot of Eagles coach Andy Reid, I could not help but notice that he was clad in an all black nylon get-up emblazoned with Eagles’ logo that made him look like an NFL version of “Big Pussy” from The Sopranos.  This “NFL Licensed Apparel meets Sergio Tacchini track suit look” is pretty comical on such a big dude, and it made we wonder– why is it that coaches are not required to wear a coat and tie on the sidelines anymore for the sake of decorum?  It may help the guy who is in the midst of a 4-12 season keep his job–  or at least help him look more in control.  The sidelines have become another place where “Casual Friday” has spread its insidious reach.

Whatever happened to the tradition of the team coach actually getting dressed like a grown man?  It makes me long for the last guy who dressed with some style and respect–  like he was going to church. Maybe it’s because for him the sidelines were his church– Paul “Bear” Bryant.

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Legendary coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant in a familiar pose– leaning against the goalpost.

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With the Crimson Tide vying for the National title in the Rose Bowl on January 7th, it’s only fitting we pay homage to Paul “Bear” Bryant– a player and coach, synonymous with Alabama football.  He also did more for houndstooth than anyone short of the Scotsman who invented the pattern.  Bryant played “the other end” to NFL Hall-of-Famer, fellow Arkansan, and lifelong friend, Don Hutson on Alabama’s 1934 National championship team– and was second team all SEC that year.  After graduating in 1936, Bryant began his coaching career which finally led him back to Alabama in 1958.  ”Bear” Bryant said about his return to Alabama– “Momma called.  And when Momma calls, you just have to come runnin’.” By 1961 Bryant had his first National title, and would lead the Tide to five more in ’64, ’65, ’73, ’78, ‘and ’79. Along the way he would coach such greats as Lee Roy Jordan, Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Ozzie Newsome, Slyvester Croom, and Dwight Stephenson.

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The Legendary University of Alabama player and coach– Paul “Bear” Bryant”.

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I’ve always loved the bold, plaid sportcoat look, probably because so few wear them anymore– and no one did this with more flair then the Bryant.  I used to relish tuning into Keith Jackson calling an Alabama game and seeing “Bear” Bryant, game plan rolled up in his hand, leaning against the goal post while the teams went through their pre-game warm up, resplendent in his houndstooth hat and an epic plaid sport coat, usually with a coordinating sweater vest to boot.  There’s something reassuring about ritual and tradition– and I suspect it made most of the Tide faithful feel that they were destined to win on many a Saturday afternoon when they saw “Bear” Bryant with his trademark uniform on.  I know when the Crimson Tide line up in a few days in the Rose Bowl for the National title game, there will be a lot of ‘Bama fans sporting houndstooth for luck.  I hope a few go all out with the houndstooth hat, bold plaid sportcoat, tie, and sweater vest.  My respect for Nick Saban would go through the roof if he coached the title game dressed like the Bear.  We’re talking about Alabama tradition and legacy after all– and Bear Bryant’s legacy was the best there ever was.

–Eli M. Getson

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Paul “Bear” Bryant in his signature houndstooth hat– known as a “Bear Bryant” to Alabama fans.

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Bear Bryant in his signature houndstooth hat.  He owned several over the years of varying boldness.

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Joe Namath and Paul “Bear” Bryant.  Probably the most famous coach–quarterback relationship in history was the one between Bear Bryant and Joe Namath. On the surface, they seemed to be total opposites— Bryant growing up dirt poor in an Arkansas town so small it wasn’t on the map, while Namath, the son of immigrant parents, grew up in a Pennsylvania steel mill town.  Bryant was the full-time authoritarian, while Namath was supremely rebellious.  Yet, they clicked, or at least they learned to.  More HERE

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Artist: Vince Guaraldi Trio
Album: A Charlie Brown Christmas
Released: 1965

No real post for today, but definitely an album. Happy holidays to all!

Vince Guaraldi Trio – Linus and Lucy (YSI)

==TJ==

Image via Wikipedia

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Movie #20 in the Filmspotting Disney Animated Marathon takes us to the jungle, but it’s unlike any jungle I know!

Story By: Ken Anderson, Larry Clemmons, Vance Gerry, Bill Peet & Ralph Wright
Directed By: Wolfgang Reitherman

It would be very easy to finish The Jungle Book and dismiss it as a considerably lesser effort from Disney. The Reitherman style of animation is even less fleshed out than usual, and there are far too many scenes that look empty or borrowed. There isn’t any meat to the story, and the songs aren’t anything to write home about. Despite all of that evidence against The Jungle Book I still found it to be a fun movie going experience, and a movie that overcomes all of its faults for one reason and one reason alone.

All of the negatives I listed about The Jungle Book are true, and the films deficiencies are as simple as what I laid out in the opening paragraph. How then is The Jungle Book able to overcome such glaring faults? The answer is simple, sometimes a movie is fun and that’s all it needs going for it. This certainly won’t be a deep discussion about The Jungle Book on my part, my enjoyment from the film came about on a pure surface level. Characters such as Baloo, Bagheera and Shere Kahn were loads of fun and because of that the movie was oodles of fun as well. It doesn’t get any clearer than that, The Jungle Book is a simplistic road trip movie, and the characters Mowgli encounters along the way make the trip well worth it for the viewer. I know I sound like a broken record, but it really is that cut and dry with The Jungle Book, it’s a journey that you either have fun with or you don’t, and I did.

I do recognize the faults in The Jungle Book, and that is why even though I did have lots of fun with it I would never classify it as a great Disney animated feature. The Jungle Book is a good, but very flawed feature from Disney’s animation studios. It is a classic for a reason however, and that reason is the amount of fun that can be had with these characters. Sure, Baloo is a million times more awesome in TaleSpin, but everything in TaleSpin is a million times more awesome. If you are looking for some good old fashioned family fun then you can’t do much better than The Jungle Book, and did I mention that Baloo from TaleSpin is in this?

Rating:

***

Cheers,
Bill

Just in time for the holidays, we have a cheery offering from Richard Yates. I picked this paperback up at Costco; on its cover was a little white sticker emblazoned with “Bestseller.” Really? As much as I love Yates, I find this a little hard to believe since it was written 35 years ago.

So why read a novel about a paranoid schizophrenic suffering from extreme psychosis, whose defining characteristics are his alcoholism and extreme hatred of humanity? And during the holidays, no less? Well, let’s take a lesson from Hollywood. This time of year, they shower us with frothy, family-friendly vehicles of “holiday cheer,” invariably starring Reese Witherspoon or Sandra Bullock, and it must be said that a good number of us flock to the theater to imbibe of this fare, the eggnog of films (low-fat, hold the rum). Then there are those grim, serious, Oscar-begging dramas which also come out during the holidays, this year starring Natalie Portman or Rachel Weisz. These no-holds-barred, grit your teeth kind of arty films are hard to watch, reduce one to tears and supposedly provide one with some feeling of catharsis. And many of us — yours truly especially — love these kinds of movies and wait all year to be released from the tedium of the summer blockbuster or the charming slapstick romantic comedy so we can chew on our sleeve and breathe a shuddery sigh of relief when we finally spill into the theater lobby some three hours later.

Those types are to whom Disturbing the Peace may appeal. There are a few things to recommend it. First — and most importantly — it is written by Richard Yates, one of my favorite authors who is most famously known as the writer of Revolutionary Road (a book I loved, and oddly, a movie I have not seen). As with everything Yates wrote — I suspect — it is clear, articulate, devastatingly told with economy of language and action, and very, very sad. An uplifting book, this is not. In fact, this novel makes Revolutionary Road look like a teleplay of Mork and Mindy.

Second, it takes place smack in the middle of the early Sixties, in Manhattan, from the point of view of an ad man. Sound familiar, anyone? Yes, I too am a huge fan of Mad Men, but I often wonder about the authenticiy of the characters and situations, as part of its allure is the pure cultural shock value for anyone aged 50 and younger. Disturbing the Peace was written in 1975, and (if Mad Men is to be believed) it contains all those touchstones of rampant alcoholism, philandering and sexism that seemed to be de rigeur in 1962.

But let’s pull away all these comparisons and see if Disturbing the Peace can stand on its own. Well, mostly yes, and no. The story is of John Wilder, a thirty-six year old ad man living in Manhattan, with a loyal if bland wife, and a ten-year-old son. They lead predictable and obvious lives, “the man in the grey flannel suit,” observes John. Unbeknownst to Janice, the long-suffering wife, John and a friend also rent a basement apartment on Varick Street, “a secret retreat from their married lives,” cleaned up and equipped with a full-stocked liquor cabinet, an unlisted phone number and a double bed, ready for “an available, willing girl.” The apartment plays a very small role in the novel, but it seems to be a symbol of everything Janice does not know about her husband, the largest of which is the fact that he is suffering from psychotic breaks, induced by his extreme alcoholism.

And so we are treated in the first fifty pages to a gritty and relentless stay at Bellevue, where John has been committed for a week, following the first of three significant psychotic episodes. Just when you feel as if you’ve been tricked into reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he’s suddenly sprung and life returns somewhat shakily to normal.

Except of course, that it doesn’t. And how Yates tells the saga of John and his relationship to alcohol, his girlfriend Pamela and his antipsychotic drugs is quite masterful — if you have the stomach for it. Interestingly, the novel begins and ends from the point of Janice, the bland well-meaning wife – a curious narrative device, given that Yates spends so much time in Wilder’s head for the entirety of the novel. Yates is something of a narrative carpenter, so Janice playing the bookend is obviously intentional, meaning … what? That the power of sincerity outweighs the fireworks of madness? I still can’t figure it out.

Merry Christmas!

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“A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”

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–Benjamin Franklin

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Circa 1955, New York, NY — The Ed Sullivan Show Dancers show their Christmas spirit. –Image by © Michael Ochs Archives/Corbis

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Joan Crawford is coming down your chimney… and she’s gotta gun. –Photo by Clarence Sinclair Bull Via

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Circa 1953, New York, NY — Audrey Hepburn, recently named the top movie star of 1953 by “Film Daily,” gets a kiss from Santa Claus during ceremonies at the “Heart Thrift House,” in New York Dec. 21.  Miss Hepburn also tied the bow on New York’s biggest Christmas package, “The Heart Thrift House,” a model home exhibited for the benefit of the New York Heart Association. — Image by © Bettmann/Corbis

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Circa 1951– Marilyn Monroe poses while standing inside an oversized nylon Christmas stocking beside a fireplace. Monroe wears a two-piece bathing suit. –Image by © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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(Left) Circa 1961, Newfoundland, Canada — Marine Pfc. Bob Kamineki dances the twist with Jayne Mansfield at the U.S. Naval Station Argentia. Mansfield traveled to the Arctic base with other Hollywood celebrities as part of the Bob Hope Christmas Show. — Image by © Bettmann/Corbis (Right) Jayne Mansfield decorating the tree.

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Circa 1953, Rome, Italy — Silvana Pampanini Celebrating Christmas — Image by © ANSA/Corbis

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(Left) Circa 1942, Hollywood — Ida Lupino, Warner Brothers star, delivers a few wallops to Santa Claus’ spankable rear extremity for, although you would never guess it, that jolly spirit of Christmas is 1,600 years old this December. Miss Lupino, however, just gives him a few for good-measure. (Right) Circa 1947, London — Diana Dors, British film player, holds a Christmas greeting in French. — Images by © Bettmann/CORBIS

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Debbie Reynolds wrapped-up under the tree.  Via

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Mary Pickford posting the way to Santa Clause Lane.  Via

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The news of deaths during the current winter weather is always sad but why is the wintry weather so much more of a crisis and so much more ‘difficult’ to deal with than it used to be 40 years ago?  Even the current weather, which is more severe than we have seen in perhaps the last 10 or so years is no worse than I recall from my childhood in the 1960’s.

Or perhaps it’s society that’s changed.  In the 1960’s we were more dependent on walking and less dependent on travelling by car.  It was more likely that our families and our jobs were within walking distance and we hadn’t yet developed the habit of holidaying abroad, especially at Christmas. We were less likely to expect it to be our right to travel whenever  and wherever we wanted, regardless of the weather.  We knew the dangers of getting hypothermia and took more precautions to protect ourselves.  And I can’t help feeling that our news services were a little less inclined to hype up into such a drama every negative bit of news and comment that came their way.

So let’s recap.  It’s winter.  It’s cold.  It’s snowed and is snowing still.  Now lets strike a blow for common sense and just get on with it.  Help the old and vulnerable if you are able.  Use modern communications to keep in touch.  Instead of moaning about what we cannot do lets boast about how we coped and how much fun we had instead.  Like we used to in the old days.  And plan next year’s special long distance visits when it’s less likely to be dangerous to travel (or so expensive).

Expergiscere, homo! It’s time for Christmas!

…Did Chris Wright score a game-high, career-high 34 points yesterday afternoon? Yes, he did!

Rich Chvotkin had the line of the day: “Whatever your were going to give Chris Wright for Christmas, double it.”

…Pope Benedict’s encyclical on hope is really a meditation on the following dialogue, which occurs before every Baptism:

PRIEST: What do you ask of God’s Church?

CANDIDATE/PARENT: Faith.

PRIEST: What does faith offer you?

CANDIDATE/PARENT: Eternal life.

The Pope explains:

The human being needs unconditional love. He needs certainty…Man’s great true hope, which holds firm in spite of all disappointments, can only be God–God who has loved us and who continues to love us “to the end,” (John 13:1) until all “is accomplished” (John 19:30).

…Washington is unlike other American cities. One of the ways it is different is this:

Back in the 1960’s, the big thing was to build super-highways THROUGH cities. The plan was to build big highways through Washington, just like there are big highways through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, etc.

But people rebelled. One of them was Peter Craig, who died last month. There was a nice editorial about him yesterday.

Because of the resistance of local Washingtonians, we DO NOT have the big highways running through town that we were slated to have. This is an ENORMOUS blessing.

I am not familiar with all the projects which the editorial mentions. Nothing interests me more than things like this, so I am going to have to do some heavy-duty research to get a firm grip on all the details of what was to have been built, but thankfully was not.

If the Lord allows me the leisure and resources, you will read a nice, long description of it all here someday.

I acknowledge that this will be interesting only to Washington-geography nerds like myself, but I make no apologies. We will see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, merry Christmas, dear readers!

In ‘The Graduate’, Anne Bancroft is the epitome of vintage cool and embodies a certain kind of hangover chic. The leopard skin, the sunglasses that hide a multitude of emotions, the iconic stockings and heels and the ever present cigarette that defines her status as a heroine from an era past. Compare Kate Moss chuffing on a fag looking like Kathy Beale with the effortless sophistication of Mrs Robinson. Smoking isn’t cool kids but she made it look so good!  Of course, this was an era when smoking was a symbol of sexuality rather than lung cancer.

For a wider look at a variety of advertising from past eras, including some witty discussions take a look at Leif Peng’s blog. http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/06/pall-mall-1941-1962-what-did-we-learn.html There are some really fun cigarette advertisments there that really encapsulate how times have changed.

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I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming– “Wow! What a Ride!”

— Hunter S. Thompson

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Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better.  I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me.  Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.  That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…

— Hunter S. Thompson

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So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

— Hunter S. Thompson

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THE EDGE– there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a terrorist sympathizer.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas … with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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A word to the wise is infuriating.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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To make a point of declaring friendship is to cheapen it. For men’s emotions are very rarely put into words successfully.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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No More Games.  No More Bombs.  No More Walking.  No More Fun.  No More Swimming.  67.  That is 17 years past 50.  17 more than I needed or wanted.  Boring.  I am always bitchy.  No Fun — for anybody.  67.  You are getting Greedy.  Act your old age.  Relax — This won’t hurt…

— Hunter S. Thompson

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USA 131m, B&W
Director: Mike Nichols; Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a demanding film that provides a barrage of caustic and quick-witted dialogue adapted from the play of the same name. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as husband and wife, who verbally take out their personal frustrations on a young professor and his mousy wife who come to visit them late one evening. Over the course of visit, which lasts the entire night, Burton and Taylor give tremendous performances as an extremely unhappy couple who live out a delusional life that is fueled by alcohol and which is perpetuated by his lack of success in academia, and their inability to have children. Although the plot is minimalistic and the characters are highly unlikeable, the excellent writing and outstanding performances demand and deserve your utmost attention (Klaus Ming December 2009).

I love the series ‘Mad Men’. Yes, it depicts an essentially male dominant culture where the genders roles are clearly defined as breadwinner vs homemaker. However, the character Joan stands out. She is confident in her sexuality, as ruthless as the men she supposedly ’serves’ and has a great wardrobe. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t disturb me that she is considered a role model for the ‘larger lady’, as she is hardly large but that speaks volumes about what we now consider a healthy size in the world of television and celebrity.

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The hard core, the outlaw elite, were the Hell’s Angels… wearing the winged death’s-head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their ‘mamas’ behind them on big ‘chopped hogs.’  They rode with a fine unwashed arrogance, secure in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole history of Christendom.

–Hunter S. Thompson – Hell’s Angels 1966

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Hunter S. Thompson’s epic images of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members

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We’re the one percenters, man — the ones who don’t fit and don’t care.  So don’t talk to me about your doctor bills and your traffic warrants — I mean you get your woman and your bike and your banjo and I mean your on your way.  We’ve punched our way out of a hundred rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists.  We’re royalty among motorcycle outlaws, baby.

–A Hell’s Angel speaking for the permanent record

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Hunter S. Thompson’s epic images of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members

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Some of them are pure animals.  They’d be animals in any society.  These guys are outlaw types who should have been born a hundred years ago– when they would have been gunfighters.

–Birney Jarvis, a charter member of the Hell’s Angels who later became a San Francisco Chronicle police reporter

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Hunter S. Thompson’s epic images of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members

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They’re not bad guys, individually.  I tell you one thing– I’d rather have a bunch of Hell’s Angels on my hands than these civil rights demonstrators. When it comes to making trouble for us, the demonstrators are much worse.

–Jailer, San Francisco City Prison

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No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well… maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.

— Hunter S. Thompson

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2 weeks after a double-decker busload of people is gunned down on a Stockholm street in November 1968, the consumer pulse of the metropolis does not skip a beat.  On page 101 of The Laughing Policeman, we get this deliciously noir-ish description of Christmas shoppers continuing forth, even as the specter of death hangs about the city:

The consumer society and its harassed citizens had other things to think of.  Although it was over a month to Christmas, the advertising orgy had begun and the buying hysteria spread as swiftly and ruthlessly as the Black Death along the festooned shopping streets.  The epidemic swept all before it and there was no escape.  It ate its way into houses and apartments, poisoning and breaking down everything and everyone in its path.  Children were already howling from exhaustion and fathers of families were plunged into debt until their next vacation.  The gigantic legalized confidence trick claimed victims everywhere.  The hospitals had a boom in cardiac infractions, nervous breakdowns and burst stomach ulcers.

The police stations downtown had frequent visits from the outriders of the great family festival, in the shape of Santa Clauses who were dragged blind drunk out of doorways and public urinals.  At Mariatorget two exhausted patrolmen dropped a drunken Father Christmas in the gutter when they tried to get him into a taxi.  (101)

From the pens of married authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahllöö, Christmas in Sweden does not resemble quite the winter wonderland that I would have imagined.  In fact, the above version of the Christmas holiday rush seems more on par with a holiday scene from my birth nation, the place that invented the modern consumer Hellscape, crippling credit card debt, and the drunken Santa Claus.

This being the case, in The Laughing Policeman, an excellent work of crime fiction that I would easily mention in the same breath with the works of Cain, Hammett and Chandler, American consumerism is not the biggest fish to fry.   Sjöwall and Wahllöö paint a picture of Stockholm as a city under siege by that most invasive and troublesome of American exports: violence.  Published in 1968, The Laughing Policeman can be read as a vision of the global ripple effects of American corruption and violence as fictionalized so deftly by the above trio of crime writers in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s.  According to Cain, Hammett and Chandler, there was something rotten abrewing in the Land of the Free in the 20th Century, and according to Sjöwall and Wahllöö, whatever it was had a passport.

The novel opens with a fully-armed squadron of policemen attempting to break up a Vietnam War protest on the steps of the American Embassy in Stockholm.  The police presence is so great that the rest of Stockholm is left unguarded.  It is in this space of time that an unknown assailant unloads an automatic weapon – later discovered to be American-issued – on 9 people on a double-decker bus.  The crime, the bloodiest in Swedish history, sends shockwaves throughout the country.  The Stockholm police force is caught completely off-guard, leading them to turn to American research in order to decide how to proceed forth with an investigation.  “We have no Swedish precedents,” one of the detectives notes, “…unless we go back as far as the Nordlund massacre on the steamer Prins Carl.  So [our investigators have] had to base their research on American surveys that have been made during the last few decades” (92).

What follows is a pleasurably cynical back-and-forth between these beleaguered Swedes, as they discuss their surprising case and those bloody Americans who have been dealing with instances of this nature for years:

“Unlike us, the American psychologists have no lack of material to work on.  The compendium here mentions the Boston strangler; Speck, who murdered eight nurses in Chicago; Whitman, who killed sixteen persons from a tower and wounded many more; Unruh, who rushed out onto a street in New Jersey and shot thirteen people dead in twelve minutes, and one or two more whom you’ve probably read about before.”

He riffled through the compendium.

“Mass murders seem to be an American specialty,” Gunvald Larsson said.

“Yes,” Melander agreed.  “And the compendium gives some plausible theories as to why it is so.”

“The glorification of violence,” said Kollberg.  “The career-centered society.  The sale of firearms by mail order.  The ruthless war in Vietnam”.

Melander sucked his pipe to get it burning and nodded.

“Among other things,” he said.

“I read somewhere that out of every thousand Americans, once or two are potential mass murderers,” Kollberg said.  “Though don’t ask me how they arrived at that conclusion.”

“Market research,” Gunvald Larsson said. “It’s another American specialty.  They go around from house to house asking people if they could imagine themselves committing a mass murder.  Two in a thousand say, ‘Oh yes, that would be nice.’” (92-93)

Having visited the Swedish Army Museum (Armémuseum) in Stockholm last summer, I know that this is a country where violence was not simply introduced in the 1960s via American global influence.  For centuries, Sweden was a war hungry nation, hellbent on military expansion and conquest.  However, what The Laughing Policeman documents is a new era, with the USA as the epicenter, of modern warfare, consumerism and industrial malaise.  As with every great work of noir fiction, The Laughing Policeman takes the reader beyond the veil of a modern world, exposing the vile creatures who thrive wonderfully in the modern urban setting and with whom we can admit, if we’re honest, we all share a bit of complicity.  But honesty doesn’t play well in the modern city, and for the detectives who must spend their days peering into the nastiness, the truth of things is no laughing matter — although the occasional cynical wisecrack, as a means of keeping things at arms length, never hurt anybody.