Getting Ready: August 1914 and 2014

Sewing Circle of Evil

Cheap made -in-Japan needle packaging--for the U.S. market-- from the 40s or 50s.  (It still has the needles in it.)  The Japanese artist seems to have been a bit unsure how to draw European-looking eyes and eyebrows--with the result that everybody here seems slightly Mephistophelian, especially the two gals in green.  Somewhat decadent, too: lezzie pose of the other pair.  Is anyone here really threading a needle?

Stripey Trunks

...and other mysteries.  1920s?  1930s?  Where?  Several of the reclining gents would appear to enjoy one another's company.  But what was the occasion?  And who's that in the turban?  (One of the outnumbered women in the picture?)  Why the two men in 3-piece suits?  Why are other people holding up long sticks?  Several men in bathing trunks look bronzed; others, peely-wally pale.  Again: why? why?

Naughty Docteur

From Your Best Friend Bobby

Forget Terry, I'm in Florida and I am now Bobby.

Malay Men

Looks like a fun gathering: tea, narghile (?), melon, something green and bisected under a cloth.  The infamous durian fruit?

Bébé Musique

We are the Kings of the Guitar

Home With Bells On

Back from NZ, which now seems like a blue sunny dream.  Paekakariki: Lesbian Capital of the Universe.  That's where I met this pair.   They've been together for 100 years.

Le Paradis perdu

So much better than Milton!  'You take me for a woman of the street'!

Cooking Instruction with Ginger

AKA Tina Louise, who poses here with two young contestants in some sort of television cooking contest.  The food looks scrumptious--like freeze-dried meals shipped straight from Gilligan's Island.

The redheaded Louise (b. 1934) seems to have been rather more serious-minded than one would have ever surmised at the time--i.e., when one sat glued in front of the TV with one's 4-year old sister in 1965.  Yes, Tina started out--with Jayne Mansfield--as a "product advocate" in the 1958 Frederick's of Hollywood catalog.  But she longed to be a serious actress and later said Gilligan's Island had ruined her career by causing her to be typecast forever after as post-nubile bimbo. 

In the glamorous AP publicity photo above, her culinary partners seem smitten enough.  Heavily lacquered locks are everywhere.   Below, a recent pic of Tina from Google images.

Working On My Abs

...as in absinthe.

A very rusty-grotty linen card from times gone by.  Looks as if negative itself got dipped in absinthe in the darkroom, rather than the approved chemicals.

The man, the white shoes, the red fire hydrant, the green doors and shutters: oddly syphilitic.