Anne Revere and Helga: one and the same?

I think this is my second attempt to portray in photo collage what I think is an astounding chance resemblance between Anne Revere (a character actress of the 1940s and 50s who was often cast as a wise matriarch) and the immortal Helga, Andrew Wyeth's mysterious muse. Some years ago I saw a documentary which featured "the real Helga" coming out of hiding at last. (It seems that, surprise-surprise, she was Wyeth's mistress for years, with his downtrodden wife in full knowledge of the fact). Weirdly enough, she looked nothing like Anne Revere in older age - more like one of the elderly Gabor sisters, perhaps, pre-fat-farm. The earthenware features had hardened into something more like cement. She looked sort of - cheap, and it was a disappointment.  I don't know anything much about Anne Revere and don't feel like looking it up (but you can, if you want to). I haven't seen photos of  her past about age fifty or sixty. But whenever I watch National Velvet or A Place in the Sun (both of which feature her in the kind of solid supporting role that makes a movie memorable), I see Helga, the full lips and defined nose, the serenity and warmth of expression mixed with a strange remoteness. No doubt these two things have nothing to do with each other. But I see it, even so.

Arsenic and Old (green) Lace

Arsenic and old (green) lace 

 

(Excerpted from an article in Racked, a now-defunct historical website)

In 1814, a company in Schweinfurt, Germany, called the Wilhelm Dye and White Lead Company developed a new green dye. It was brighter than most traditional green dyes. It was bolder. The shade was so jewel-like that it quickly began being called "emerald green." And women loved it. Largely because it was during this time that gas lighting, rather than candlelight, was being introduced. When women went out to parties at night, the rooms were considerably brighter than they had been only a few decades before. These party-goers wanted to make sure they were wearing gowns that stood out boldly — gowns in a shade like emerald green. People also began using it for wallpaper and carpeting. Victorian Britain was said to be "bathed in… green." 

The effects of arsenic exposure are horrific. In addition to being deadly, it produces ulcers all over the skin. Those who come in close contact with it might develop scabs and sores wherever it touched. It can also make your hair fall out, and can cause people to vomit blood before shutting down their livers and kidneys. 

And if you think the effects were terrifying for the people who merely brushed against these fabrics, wait until you hear what happened to the women who manufactured them, working with the dye every day. Matilda Scheurer, a 19-year-old woman who applied the arsenic green dye to fake flowers, died in a way that horrified the populace in 1861. She threw up green vomit, the whites of her eyes turned green, and when she died, she claimed that "everything she looked at was green." When people began investigating such workshops, they found other women in similar distress, like one "who had been kept on [working with] green... till her face was one mass of sores." 

The Victorian slang for an attractive person — "killing" — even took on new meaning, with the British Medical Journal remarking: "Well may the fascinating wearer of it be called a killing creature. She actually carries in her skirts poison enough to slay the whole of the admirers she may meet with in half a dozen ball-rooms." 

You would think that these stories would have caused people to immediately stop wearing the color, but, of course, they didn’t. Some people tried to tell themselves that they’d be safe provided they did not lick the fabric or wallpaper, which was, unfortunately, not true. Others claimed that the doctors were simply lying, because some people will always believe that science is just not real. All this in spite of the fact that every Victorian household probably had a jar of arsenic to poison rats, so they knew it was poisonous. 

This backlash meant it took until 1895 for regulations to be put in place regulating conditions in factories where workers would be exposed to arsenic. Fortunately, by then, "in the absence of government intervention, the people of Britain had used the power of their pocketbooks" to demand alternatives to the arsenic-based dye.

Thank goodness they did.

Blogger's commentary: This seems like an extreme version of the old saw about "having to suffer for beauty". What alarms me most of all is the denial that existed for DECADES about the dangers of this extremely poisonous substance. Combined with the excessively heavy, close-fitting fashions of the time, arsenic dye would create a sweaty toxic stew ideal for skin penetration.

Even the ubiquitous green wallpaper in the fashionable Victorian parlour gave off a gas which eventually rotted a person's insides as well as their brain. Factory workers got the worst of it, with an incredibly horrible and grotesque death in which they literally turned green all over. 

This was, in my opinion, far more dangerous than the extreme corseting which many now defend, claiming that if the corsets were "well-fitting" they could not possibly have caused serious health problems. But "waist training" is now a wildly popular activity for those who are into fetish-wear, not unlike the toe-tipping "ballet boots" which wrench the wearer's feet and spine into an unnatural c-curve. Thus it's a kink, a popular kink which is being vigorously, even angrily defended all over the internet in a way which puzzles me. 

Others claim - and in light of the thousands of crystalline-quality photos from the era, I can't see how they can defend this - that Victorian women didn't even wear tight corsets, but only reduced their waists by two inches or so. But the photos belie this, and the dresses on mannequins display astonishingly small waists, fitted on the dress form much as they would fit on the wearer. I can't help but believe that tightlacing fetishists are attempting to downplay or even rewrite obvious historical evidence to make a bodily-distorting kink more acceptable.

But never mind! We're not even talking about corsets here, but poisonous green arsenic-based dye which was killing people for some SEVENTY years before sufficient regulations were passed to make it illegal.

So why was this colour such a big deal, to the point where women were willing to risk their lives, or at least vigorously deny that there WAS any risk? The first time I saw this "arsenic green" (and I will admit I've never seen it in person), I was quite dazzled by it. Green is not my favorite colour in any of its permutations, but this was so deeply saturated, so dazzlingly jewel-like, that it grabbed me visually as few other shades do.

Then I thought of something (or someone) else: Scarlett O'Hara! Green was definitely her colour, from the glorious flocked barbecue dress with the ruffled neckline to her infamous Rhett-deceiving gown made from the green velvet curtains hanging at Tara.

Arsenic dye is never mentioned, either in the movie or the book, but in the novel it seems that everything Scarlett wears is green, a colour which brings out her alabaster skin and raven hair. She also complains all the way through the story about the agonizing tightness of her stays and how much they restrict her movement (but she never removes them, not even when reduced to picking cotton in the fields after the fall of the South). Though Margaret Mitchell was a blatant racist responsible for one of the most appalling pieces of historical fiction in literary history (and note that she won the Pulitzer Prize for it), she DID do her homework meticulously. I believe she was  accurate in portraying women with extremely tiny waists (and Scarlett's, remember, was only 17 inches!). Fetishists can do whatever they want with their own bodies, of course. But the revival of the kink is relatively new. What will happen when we come back in 30 or so years? Will pushing your stomach up, your liver down and your lungs in maybe-just-maybe turn out to have some long-term damaging effects?

Big Elf on a Mayonnaise Man (volume II)

 Flee to me, remote elf--Sal a dewan desired;
 Now is a Late-Petal Era.
 We fade: lucid Iris, red Rose of Sharon;
 Goldenrod a silly ram ate.
 Wan olives teem (ah, Satan lives!);
 A star eyes pale Roses.

 Revel, big elf on a mayonnaise man -
 A tinsel baton-dragging nice elf too.
 Lisp, Oh Sibyl, dragging Nola along;
 Niggardly bishops I loot.
 Fleecing niggard notables Nita names,
 I annoy a man of Legible Verse.

 So relapse, ye rats,
 As evil Natasha meets Evil
 On a wet, amaryllis-adorned log.
 Norah's foes' orders (I ridiculed a few) are late, pet.
 Alas, I wonder! Is Edna wed?
 Alas--flee to me, remote elf.

I recently posted a brilliant Weird Al parody of Bob Dylan singing Subterranean Homesick Blues entirely in palindromes (which, quite frankly, made about as much sense as most of his lyrics). It was so exquisitely funny that I just KEPT laughing at it as I watched it over and over and over again. This got me thinking about the art or science of the palindrome, how I`ve never really composed a good one myself, and how many there are lurking around that would only make sense in a sort of verbal Twilight Zone.

Though "Flee to me, remote elf" - titled The Faded Bloomers Rhapsody, for some unknown reason - is universally believed to be the world's longest palindrome (and if you don't believe me, just go to the end of the thing and read it backwards), I was not able to find it on Google except for the first line, which was used as the title of some song or other. I was extremely irritated, because I had no trouble at all finding it in 2012 when I first posted it (along with these images - too good NOT to repeat). Has the internet perhaps become a little less literate in almost 8 years? It wouldn't surprise me. It's a sinking ship now, weighed down by unbelievably shoddy filler and outright garbage. Finding the good stuff is getting harder than ever.

I first encountered the "Flee to me" tour de force (written by one Howard W. Bergerson, not known for writing anything else) in a book called An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard Espy, which I believe I still have somewhere (and first read in the 1970s). Some of the word-games in there are likely NOT on the internet, because no one would get them now due to the mass lowering of IQ which has taken place over the past ten years or so. So I may just replicate some of them in future posts, even if I have to scan the buggers. It might just be worth it.

 

 

SPECIAL BONUS `DROMES!

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas

Tired nude man, in a pajama I am. A japan I named under it.

A Santa Lived As a Devil At NASA
 
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era ?

 

Weird Al Yankovic - BOB

I don't know how I've lived up 'til now without hearing this song! Weird Al has been around forever, my kids grooved to "Eat It" (his Michael Jackson parody of "Beat It"), and now my grandkids are digging him too. But I never dug QUITE this much dig in two and a half minutes. This is why it  is sometimes worth it to watch those "top ten artists who hate Bob Dylan"-type of things on YouTube, because, bad as they often are, they can lead you to to a musical Valhalla like this.

I've always loved palindromes, and I guess it was the sudden Zenlike realization that Bob IS a palindrome that set this thing in motion. Good palindromes almost make sense, or a kind of peculiar-to-the-palindrome-universe sense, a world alarmingly askance and atilt. There can be a sense of apocalypse in some of them, or an economy that is almost scary. Like Dylan, a palindrome can say so much with so little that they appear here as small lyric miracles.

"Bob"

I, man, am regal - a German am I

Never odd or even

If I had a hi-fi

Madam, I'm Adam

too hot to hoot

No lemons, no melon

Too bad I hid a boot

Lisa Bonet ate no basil

Warsaw was raw

Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Rise to vote, sir

Do geese see God?

"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod

Rats live on no evil star

Won't lovers revolt now?

Race fast, safe car

Pa's a sap

Ma is as selfless as I am

May a moody baby doom a yam?

Ah, Satan sees Natasha

No devil lived on

Lonely Tylenol

Not a banana baton

No "x" in "Nixon"

O, stone, be not so

O Geronimo, no minor ego

"Naomi," I moan

"A Toyota's a Toyota"

A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Oh no! Don Ho!

Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!

Senile felines

Now I see bees I won

UFO tofu

We panic in a pew

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

God! A red nugget, a fat egg under a dog!

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog

Three speeds of Lucretia

(From eBay page for Lucretia's Lair) 

This is "Candy". She is a vintage Scandia house troll doll 2-1/2" .

She's had a spa bath and has new long soft Icelandic sheep fur hair in shades of strawberries and mangoes, and new hand painted spiral eyes in shades to match her hair.

Her "skin" is rough in spots and is not perfect on her little face so I gave her a bunch of curls and pulled her hair off to the side which detracts from her flaws.

She comes wearing a little double ruffled dress in white iridescent fantasy fabric trimmed out in a pink/green mini gimp making up the bodice/sleeves.

Her hair clip is covered in the same trim and has a single ivory Mulberry flower that I dusted with iridescent glitter.

I design and make these clothes/accessories by myself. I create my own

patterns and most of the embellishments.

BLOGGER'S NOTE. As addicted as I am to trolls, and let me tell you it's bad, I don't have a Lucretia troll (yet) - that is, a troll made by Lucretia's Lair, an Etsy store specializing in trolls so deluxe that when you're around them, you always feel underdressed.

I've been "trolling" and making videos to share for quite a while now, and when I look up I am startled, even shocked to see how many of them there are. WHY did I do this? Have I really gone crazy, at last? I've been called crazy, often very graphically and nastily, and by family members, so it's not a good look for me. People jocularly telling me to "just embrace your craziness" is like saying "enjoy your leukemia". Or so it would seem to me.

There IS something crazy, though - in the extremity of it - the need - the fact that maybe nine people see those videos (or none at all - YouTube seems to want to shut me down for no good reason, leaving the billion-view channels to transgress in any way they see fit.) And though I've sort of come to and rubbed my eyes lately, and wondered what the hell it is really all about, these trolls are really beautiful to me. I have worked on costumes and hair replacement and all sorts of things, and no, I am not going to sell them, which seems to be most people's imperative for enjoying something this much: surely I MUST be going to DO something with them. Get rid of them? 

I don't post many of my troll videos here, mainly because it just doesn't occur to me. Separate worlds, you know! But here are a few. Just a few. 

Dustbuster car

The car that looks like a mini-vac.

Pease, pease. . . NO!!

To My Old Brown Earth

Primal Pete Seeger. His last song. I just watched, for the second time, the PBS bio of Seeger, and could not help but shudder at how much the world has changed in those few years. How dark  it seems now, and how out of place this man's eternal optimism, inextinguishable hope. The stakes are far higher than ever before, and we can't just fix it with a change of ideology. Even if we were to come to complete world reconciliation, it would not stop that which we have set in terrible, heedless motion.  And I don't want to pass that hopelessness on to my grandkids, so I won't. But I will listen to this, and sink into it, and feel some peace for a while. Self-recrimination and hopelessness is no way to live.

You can still say "Welcome" in wartime (but be careful who you say it to)

Inside every housecat is a little bit of wildcat

Cliffhangers you will never forget!

This is actually much better without the sound. Lame Bossa Nova music does not add anything. How I wish they had left in the natural sounds.

By popular demand: THE MUNSINGWEAR MEN!

Ye-e-e-e-e-s, it's those crazy old guys, the Lotharios of the locker room, the Munsingwear Men! Here we provide you with more than you ever wanted of those unforgettable Munsingwear Moments, as these seemingly straight guys act about as gay as men ever did in history. I'd transcribe the dialogue on these, but I'm afraid you're on your own. Just read it real fast. The first gif is the trimmed version of the ads, the second one complete and unadulterated. (Fit That Lasts!) Sorry, it's the best I can do.

Should parents "out" their children on social media?

I don't often publish long personal essays on this blog, unless something is really bugging me. 

And something really is.

I have a Facebook friend (not someone I've ever met), a writer and teacher who is deeply involved in gender issues and dispelling stereotypes/stigma around sexual orientation. She counsels students who have been wounded by internet bullies, and her published poetry often touches on these hot-button issues. 

But I do notice something in her posts cropping up more and more.

She describes both her kids as "queer", and is fiercely proud of this identification as an example of personal integrity in the face of an intolerant world. As far as I can make out, they are either pre-teens or in their early teenage years. I know that some parents have helped their pre-pubescent kids "transition" to the opposite gender because the kid identifies as such. I have mixed feelings about this, because I know about the wild emotional swings of late childhood/early adolescence and the highly volatile quest for an authentic identity, which, to be perfectly honest, I am still engaged in now.

I'm not saying "kids don't know what they want". I am saying "kids don't ALWAYS know what they want," and, even more importantly, "kids don't always know what they NEED" - or what is good for them, or even safe for them. 

This fellow poet recently "outed" one of her kids (including photos) as "non-binary", a term I never heard until recently. It's one of the many buzzwords around gender  that I admittedly find hard to keep up with (given that I came of age in the 1960s, before Stonewall even happened). 

I have always believed gender is much more fluid than has ever been acknowledged or accepted in the past. But if a kid in their early teens identifies as both male and female, or neither male nor female, particularly if this revelation is recent, I think they need to be very careful how and where such sensitive information is displayed.

Even if that child gives their parents "permission" to have this information posted on social media, even if that child is "cool" with it or even wants it out there where everyone can see it - maybe because of the rush of initial exhilaration at making the discovery - does that make it a wise idea or even safe to actually do what they are asking?

There is no such thing as deletion on the internet. My son the professional techie calmly retrieved ALL of my files when my computer self-destructed a few years ago. I was in hysterics because I was sure it was all gone forever. He told me he retrieves deleted files for businesses all the time, and it's a piece of cake. People take screenshots of disastrous tweets  every day, then replicate them millions of times, claiming "hey, they posted it first!" 

Can a teenage kid in a highly vulnerable position really make wise decisions about publicly disclosing something so fraught with emotion? What should the parents' role be in all of this? Most problematic: what if the child takes a different direction in the future? The transgendered community is notoriously inflexible and unsupportive of people who DO take a different direction and decide to "detransition". Meantime, the record of their initial transformation is there on the internet: the photos, the videos, the posts - forever.

My four teenage grandkids are all in that violent pendulum-swing between insightful young adulthood (including serious conversations that just blow me away with their astute perceptions and mature observations) and faux-toddlerhood, going wild over shirts with pink llamas on them and the adventures of Peppa Pig, a primitive and extremely obnoxious British cartoon series designed for preschoolers.

So: Albert Schweitzer versus a one-dimensional, lame-looking family of pigs. Where does the truth lie? It should be completely OK for adolescent kids NOT to know where they stand. It may be perceived as healthy to come out, the kid may even ASK to come out, and on the surface of it, coming out on social media may seem like a wonderful way to counter stigma and publicly display an example of personal courage. I "get" this, and the immense pride which seems to be behind all of this woman's posts about the subject

But I very strongly believe that it can be a disastrous decision to let the child call the shots. When parents do not play watchdog, do not act as a filter, and do not safeguard their child from the consequences of too much exposure, they are falling down in the first duty of parenthood, which is to keep their children safe.

Due to the influence of that ravening monster, the internet, parental responsibilities are changing rapidly, and people have not yet had time to adjust to it. Those of us who did not grow up with social media often make disastrous blunders which are the result of not thinking things through, and - even worse - cannot ever be retracted. But in this situation, who if anyone is really thinking it through? This woman is a published author, something which takes her posts to a whole new level of public awareness, and has been very vocal about working with "many-gendered" people. She has shared the way her child came out to her joyously, with a great sense of celebration. She received many warm and supportive comments  from her Facebook friends, backing her up unconditionally in everything she is doing. The one person who expressed concern about how kids sometimes "go back and forth" and should not be expected to be consistent received a hurt, defensive and even angry response.

But celebrations of difference need to be tempered with reality. Having personal gender issues displayed on the social media billboard is risking the child's emotional wellbeing, particularly at school where teachers and students are not likely to react with sensitivity.  "Awareness" programs can only go so far, and haters are going to hate no matter what.  My feeling is that this woman exists in a sort of bubble, preaching to the Facebook choir and thus living in the illusion that most people are OK with all this and that any potential harm to her child can be resolved.

My daughter-in-law has asked me, and sometimes reiterates, that I not post any photos or videos of her daughters on social media. My grandgirls are smart, beautiful, funny, interesting, and (by the way) brilliant dancers who are now winning trophies in competition hand-over-fist, so you can imagine how hard it is for me to stick to this. But I know EXACTLY why she is doing it. My own daughter is careful about her two kids, and does not have  a "share" feature on her Facebook page which, in spite of her being a public figure in media, only has a small and select group of friends. The only pictures I can share appear rarely on their Dad's page, which is part of his internet presence as a prominent sportscaster. But these are posted selectively and with care. I find it all kind of frustrating because these kids are so magnificent and I love them so much, but I totally understand why all the ins and outs of their adolescence CANNOT be made public. 

Lest you think I  believe people should go back in time and hide all revelations about gender identity, it's not that way at all. What I'd say to MY kid is: wait. That part of your identity will still be there and still important to you when you are twenty and on your own. If not, then you have evolved in a different direction, and that's OK too. It's all OK - but it's not always OK, or even safe, to tell the whole world.

Troll animations