tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157953042024-03-07T18:27:45.770+00:00K.R.A.S. The Ken Russell Appreciation Society "Fullfrontalnus Illuminatio Mea"Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell 3 July 1927 to Infinity!Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.comBlogger349125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-33727631987827049082014-07-28T02:20:00.003+01:002014-07-28T02:22:09.129+01:00Huge Ken Russell Retrospective in Poland!<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">If you are in the country, check out the 14th Edition of the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland (in the Silesian Lowlands, 4th largest city in Poland). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">24 July - 3 August 2014 </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Breathtaking scope to this festival with films from all over the wo</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">rld. Of Ken's films, the following 22 films have individual screenings:<br /><br />Altered States</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Always on Sunday</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Boudica Bites Back</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Boy Friend</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Crimes of Passion</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Dante's Inferno</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Debussy Film</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Devils</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Gothic</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Isadora Duncan (The Biggest Dancer in the World)</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Lion's Mouth</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Lisztomania</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Mahler</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Music Lovers</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Mystery of Mata Hari</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Song of Summer (Delius)</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Revenge of the Elephant Man</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Savage Messiah</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Rainbow</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Tommy</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Valentino </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">and Women in Love.<br /><br />Mike Bradsell and Ken's wife Lisi will introduce the films. Special tribute to Derek Jarman's films as well!</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-14819617662754000412014-03-19T00:00:00.000+00:002014-03-23T02:11:48.805+00:00L'Wren Scott <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;"> "NOT THE END"</span><br />
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Ken Russell<br />
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-66932521165506339882014-03-10T03:14:00.002+00:002014-03-10T03:14:22.301+00:00Ken Russell - The Mystery of Dr Martinu (Full Film) Bohuslav Martinů by KENThis is a treat! NSFW and simply great. Bohuslav Martinů is yet another master of 20th century Classical music whom Ken pays homage to. Many of Ken's more obscure works are being released on region 2 dvd so keep your ears open.<br />
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<object height="315" width="360"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/nUnwST5R3vQ?hl=en_GB&version=3"></param>
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<embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/nUnwST5R3vQ?hl=en_GB&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-70241714999697342552014-03-10T00:44:00.000+00:002014-03-10T05:09:20.448+00:00A Brief History of The Universe: The Not So Basics of Ken Russell Complete Works Updated 2014<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zf1XddF5a0SseXODjLKkutIXSCSragMjGUGDaoutQw6iy_rOPtpTjbqO-GCgKX6twRI1tMHq3MV_KwEQkq884nTxkzSfCJj-z0mVONq5PBnMDxsxTLsDWbFOBs0dtfiDsRB60g/s1600/Ken-Russell_Vanessa_Redgrave_Oliver_Reed.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zf1XddF5a0SseXODjLKkutIXSCSragMjGUGDaoutQw6iy_rOPtpTjbqO-GCgKX6twRI1tMHq3MV_KwEQkq884nTxkzSfCJj-z0mVONq5PBnMDxsxTLsDWbFOBs0dtfiDsRB60g/s400/Ken-Russell_Vanessa_Redgrave_Oliver_Reed.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624858869855922818" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Here is to my best knowledge the majority of Ken Russell's work.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">I'm sure I will be adding to it shortly</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Thanks to <a href="http://www.iainfisher.com/russell.html">Iain Fisher</a> for his great research which helped me immensely in starting this project.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Ken Russell's world is very beautiful and remember..</span>.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">He's not perverted. YOU are!</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Fledging films, photography and student projects</span>:<br />
Teddy Girl photographs<br />
Peepshow (1956)<br />
Knights on Bikes (1957)<br />
Ken Russell's Lost London Rediscovered: 1951–1957<br />
Amelia and the Angel<br />
Knights on Bikes 1957<br />
Lourdes 1958<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">BBC Monitor short films</span><br />
Poets London 1956<br />
Gordon Jacob 1959<br />
Guitar Crazy (also called From Spain to Streatham) 1959<br />
Variations on a Mechanical Theme 1959<br />
Two Painters 1959<br />
Portrait of a Goon 1959 <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Marie Rambert Remembers 1960<br />
Architecture of Entertainment/Journey into a Lost World 1960<br />
Cranks at Work 1960<br />
The Miners' Picnic 1960<br />
Shelagh Delaney's Salford 1960<br />
A House in Bayswater/ Mrs Stirling of Old Battersea House 1960<br />
The Light Fantastic 1960<br />
Antonio Gaudi 1961<br />
London Moods 1961<br />
Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill 1962<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">BBC Monitor long form films</span><br />
Portrait of a Soviet composer 1961<br />
Pop goes the Easel 1962<br />
Preservation Man 1962<br />
Mr Chesher's Traction Engines 1962<br />
Elgar 1962<br />
Watch the Birdie 1963<br />
Lonely Shore 1964<br />
Bartok 1964<br />
The Dotty World of James Lloyd 1964<br />
Diary of a Nobody 1964<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Major works for film and television</span><br />
<br />
<b>1960s</b><br />
Elgar (1962, TV) included as it is widely considered Ken's first important film.<br />
French Dressing (1963)<br />
The Debussy Film (1965, TV)<br />
Always On Sunday (1965, TV)<br />
Isadora Duncan, The Biggest Dancer In The World (1966, TV)<br />
Dante's Inferno (1967, TV)<br />
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)<br />
Song of Summer (1968, TV)<br />
Women in Love (1969)<br />
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<b>1970s</b><br />
The Dance of the Seven Veils (1970, TV)<br />
The Music Lovers (1971)<br />
The Devils (1971)<br />
The Boy Friend (1971)<br />
Savage Messiah (1972)<br />
Mahler (1974)<br />
Tommy (1975)<br />
Lisztomania (1975)<br />
William and Dorothy (1976)<br />
Valentino (1977)<br />
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1978)<br />
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<b>1980s</b><br />
Altered States (1980)<br />
The Planets (1983)<br />
Crimes of Passion (1984)<br />
Gothic (1986) ·<br />
Aria (1987, segment "Nessun Dorma")<br />
ABC of British Music, A British Picture (1987)<br />
Salome's Last Dance (1988)<br />
The Lair of the White Worm (1988)<br />
The Rainbow (1989)<br />
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<b>1990s/2000s</b><br />
Whore (1991)<br />
Prisoner of Honor (1991, TV)<br />
The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992, TV)<br />
The Mystery of Dr. Martinu (1993, TV)<br />
Lady Chatterley (1993, TV)<br />
Mindbender (1995, TV)<br />
Dogboys (1998, TV)<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Later independent films, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">television and indie</span><br />
The Lion's Mouth (2000)<br />
Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)<br />
Brothers of the Head (2006)<br />
Colour Me Kubrick (2006)<br />
Celebrity Big Brother 5 (2007)<br />
A Kitten For Hitler (2007)<br />
EastEnders (????)<br />
<br />
<b>Cameo appearances </b><br />
Savage Messiah<br />
(coming out a train, scene cut)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Tommy<br />
(in a wheelchair before "Welcome")<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Valentino<br />
(the director)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Gothic<br />
(the last scene on the boat)<br />
Salome's Last Dance<br />
(the cameraman)<br />
Whore<br />
(the waiter)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Lion's Mouth<br />
(the clown)<br />
The Girl with the Golden Breasts<br />
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(Dr Lucy)<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Opera and theatre </b><br />
The Rake's Progress (Stravinsky)<br />
Madame Butterfly (Puccini)<br />
The Italian Girl in Algiers (Rossini)<br />
La Boheme (Puccini)<br />
Die Soldaten (Zimmerman) 1985<br />
Faust (Gounod) 1985<br />
Mefistofoles (Boite) 1989<br />
Princess Ida (Gilbert and Sullivan) 1992<br />
Salome (Richard Strauss) 1993<br />
Weill and Lenya (Paris and Russell) 2000<br />
Mindgame (Anthony Horowitz) 2008<br />
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<br />
<b>Acting roles, playing himself and interviews</b><br />
The Secret Life of Sir Arnold Bax<br />
(starring as Bax)<br />
Lady Chatterley<br />
The Fall of the Louse of Usher<br />
(Dr. Calahari)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Hot Pants Trilogy<br />
The ABC of British Music<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
A British Picture<br />
Don't Shoot the Composer: Vaughan Williams<br />
Classic Widows<br />
Brighton Belles <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Classic Widows<br />
In Search of the English Folk Song<br />
Elgar 2 Portrait of a composer on his bicycle<br />
Mr. Nice (scene cut)<br />
Brothers of The Head<br />
Marple: The Moving Finger<br />
Oliver Reed Wild Thing Documentary<br />
Edmund Dane 2005<br />
Colour me Kubrick 2004<br />
Waking the Dead: Final Cut 2003<br />
Felicity Kendal: A Passage from India 2001<br />
Turning Points 2000<br />
Carry on Darkly 1998<br />
Great Composers 1997<br />
A History of British Art 1996<br />
i-camcorder 1995<br />
(An educational series for Channel 4.)<br />
Empire of the Censors 1995<br />
Music for the Movies: Georges Delerue 1994<br />
Citizen Kane: a Critical Analysis 1991<br />
The Russia House 1990<br />
(Ken's only real acting role outside his own work)<br />
The Kids are Alright 1979<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Films unfinished, declined or planned but never made</span><br />
Moll Flanders<br />
Evita<br />
Maria Callas Bio Pic<br />
The Rose<br />
Beethoven Film<br />
Alice in Wonderland<br />
Tesla Bio Pic (thwarted by Edison's descendants)<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Books By Ken Russell:</span><br />
A British Picture (1989; published in the US as Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell, 1991)<br />
Fire Over England (1993; published in the US as The Lion Roars)<br />
Beethoven Confidential<br />
Brahms Gets Laid<br />
Elgar: The Erotic Variations<br />
Delius: A Moment with Venus<br />
Mike and Gaby's Space Gospel<br />
Violation (2006)<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Biographies and Film Criticism about Ken Russell:</span><br />
An Appalling Talent: Ken Russell, John Baxter (1973)<br />
Ken Russell: The Adaptor as Creator, Gomez, Joseph A. (1976)<br />
Ken Russell (Monarch film studies), Thomas R., ed Atkins (1976)<br />
Ken Russell: A guide to references and resources Diane Rosenfeldt (1978)<br />
Ken Russell. Phillips, Gene D. (1979).<br />
Ken Russell's Films by Ken Hanke (Oct 1, 1984)<br />
Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films (Cappella Books) by Joseph Lanza<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Russells-Films-Hanke/dp/0810817004/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309638758&sr=1-11"> </a> <br />
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<span class="bindingAndRelease"></span>Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist, Flanagan, Kevin M.,ed (2009)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7EVpB7WdE2WFfpvdiudZIoFihX72otva4rfXX5J-Wros_7LUtXIFE-LEar8l2ZJ7kRkvFC2IkZrVSN7_wSPPgoTsXKjRtUG2IrdBSi7-piMjlvEgqMly7UCUKjYUgltKftlgew/s1600/N04520_9.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7EVpB7WdE2WFfpvdiudZIoFihX72otva4rfXX5J-Wros_7LUtXIFE-LEar8l2ZJ7kRkvFC2IkZrVSN7_wSPPgoTsXKjRtUG2IrdBSi7-piMjlvEgqMly7UCUKjYUgltKftlgew/s400/N04520_9.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624859550778408802" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 271px;" /></a>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-29446422995062075082014-02-02T03:43:00.003+00:002015-03-03T02:15:25.099+00:00England: Winter 2013-2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(From above down: Ion Square Gardens, Hackney City Farm garden store and vegey pick up boxes, Winston at <a href="http://www.frizzanteltd.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16.1200008392334px;">Frizzante</span> </a>, the view up Goldsmith's Row onto Hackney Road, Adventure Playground Weaver's Field, Weaver's Field towards WhiteChapel and Swirly fun, Charles Dickens House Estate, E2 Church and Frizzante Garden seating)Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-82701996188110642132013-11-03T03:12:00.001+00:002013-11-03T03:12:33.213+00:00Who's in England?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-84125354035591749722013-11-02T23:49:00.004+00:002013-11-03T03:29:36.823+00:00Review: WHO I AM by Pete Townshend <i><br /></i>
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<i>(It took me a year and a fortnight but I <span style="line-height: 26px;">finished</span><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.625rem;"> it!)</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Pete Townshend writes in his autobiography that as an up and coming rock star in the early 1960s England he was approached by a group of peers (then teenagers) who asked him to write lyrics about the things they were experiencing. Telling him pointedly that they wanted him to speak for them through his song writing, essentially requesting that he make sure that The Who, not lose the connection to Mod street level culture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A decade later, a music industry and alcohol addled Townshend finds himself being assured by a younger more radical group of young people (this time Steve Jones and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols) that he's still relevant.
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If that sounds less like a Rock memoir and more like the plot of a British football film, with pub goers in wollen jumpers raising pints of ale and debating about the social codes of English life and chortling on about how "Geez was a visionary, he stood for what we believe in..." than a music biography then you're not far off. Much of what makes Townshend's biography work so well are his vivid reminisces of Great Britain in the late 40s, 50s and of course the 1960s. There are many sentient, Post War British moments in Who I Am with the audience being both territorial and loyal towards his music music. Home grown music much like football, drives Britain (especially London) to this day. And no bands personified it better in their heyday than The Who, who like their great contemporaries, The Kinks, stayed in Britain and sang about Britain.
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Of course The Who are one of the most popular British invasion bands in Bay Area history and for those who were fortunate enough to see shows at The Fillmore, Day on The Green, the Cow Palace and more recently San Jose and Mountain View will find that many concerts come back to life on the pages. Townshend even writes of not being able to enjoy himself nor play very well during the sold out anniversary concert in 1989 at the Oakland Coliseum. Apparently the FBI had picked up word of a possible mentally ill would be shooter who was trailing him around the country and there was a strong possibility of him being in attendance at the concert.</div>
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Fans and non fans will find the book clears up many questions. Townshend comes with a huge overlay of what fans think he's supposed to be made even more mercurial that he's been very private about his family for much of his career. He clarifies a great deal of personal information including his controversial intimate life. Rebecca Walker's auto -biography (which ironically contains a nameless and justifiably unflattering reference to The Who's nemesis and first producer Shel Talmy) also bravely confronted sexual doubts, desires and defiance. Like Walker, Townshend adds nothing prurient, apologetic or salacious; he's simply honest. As Pete has always been a great writer the tome is of course light years ahead of the proverbial ghost written tabloid style 'celeb bio'.</div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.625rem;">Ultimately, this book shows Pete's Townshend's ability to class shift. He endured bizarre instability and clearly lived too much of an at risk, itinerant life as a small child to be squarely middle class like his former wife Karen Astley yet he did not grow up proper council house working class like Daltrey or John Lydon did. Clearly being from an unstable, professional but not vastly solvent musical family gave him his class shifting abilities. Thus the only caveat for me </span><span style="line-height: 26px;">appears</span><span style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.625rem;"> to be a new project Pete is working on called "Floss". The theme and concept sound very staid and middle class given his oeuvre.
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Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-41230705990181432272013-09-03T03:55:00.002+01:002013-09-03T04:16:10.843+01:00Banned 2007 Big Brother with Ken Russell!! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As many of you may be aware, Ken Russell's appearance on Big Brother in 2007 is the only good thing that has ever been shown on television outside of his work. <a href="http://youtu.be/odrnObOs9jk?t=23m33s" target="_blank">Watch this </a>to see what being joyful is!<br />
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-75534615201093467212013-08-25T09:00:00.000+01:002015-03-27T02:35:51.334+00:00How do you get an hourglass figure? Hourglass Figure Workout<b><span style="font-size: large;">UPDATE March 2015: I am solidly booked with clients until early June so anyone interested in a personalized program with me will have to please wait. Again, avoid 95% of mat Pilates and all bootcamp, Cross Fit, Insanity, Astanga/vinyasa flow yoga if you want to sculpt a classic mid century hourglass figure. A few dozen people have asked me about Cross fit being part of sculpting and accentuating an hourglass figure and I can't get over how rapidly it builds the obliques and waist to hip ratio up. Thus it does not cross train with this program. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Cross Fit is bigger, heavier power based movements based around lifting low reps for muscle taxing and minimal but consistent cardio. It is a great system if you want washboard abs , narrow hips and big guns. As for Insanity it is an opposite concept to Cross Fit with endlessly incessant high reps and jarring, pounding cardio based muscle taxing movements. Again, like Cross Fit the waist sculpting is based around squaring off and building up the obliques into a boxy, ripped linear shape. That is a look that is very on trend but not what we are going for here. Zumba on the other hand works fine with this program because it is dance based and movements are fluid while the balance needed in your waist and abs lightly taxes the muscles without building them up.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"> If you decide to waist train do NOT get the fake corsets that all the Kardashians and Instagram people are wearing that look like sausage casings bandages. To properly waist aka corset train you will need to invest in a steel boned gored hip/spoon busk style true underbust corset. Make sure it is long enough to grace your torso if you are on the taller side like me. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">August 25th 2013: Thanks so much to all the readers and my clients-you're the best! As of today, the Hourglass Figure article is in partial form as I now need to make a profit off of my work. There is still plenty for free to read here and in the comments thread. The entire original "How to get an Hourglass Figure" essay; guidelines for building size to the glutes (aka Booty); your own personalized hourglass fitness programme; personalized advice and much more is available via a one time 30.00 donation through Pay Pal. The Pay Pal button can be reached via the links on your right or by clicking on the "Amanda and SuperAmanda" header and then going to the links on the right. That includes a full personailzed programme, access to all of the essays, follow up, personalized advice and answers to all the questions you may have etc. Thanks for visiting</span></b><br />
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<b>UPDATE September 29th 2012</b>: Hello Hourglass fitness enthusiasts! This past summer I've been working with almost a dozen clients and I have a new trainer (she's mind boggling fit, educated, beautiful puts me in pain!) have some important new guidelines after receiving invaluable feedback. <b>I'm now advising against 85% of Pilates</b> if you are trying to create an hourglass figure. I'd still do split board, foot openers, ankles, parakeet and anything that isolates the legs without making the abs a central focus but that's it. Clients are going to Pilates even twice a week and seeing a wider waist the next day. On an already fit or very hourglassy body the Pilates abs hypertrophy won't be that noticeable but those who have a stomach to re-sculpt and weight to lose off their abs need to stick with my basic but very effective waist sculpting moves (available exclusively from me following a consultation) , Gyrotonics, Gyrokinesis, basic weight training combines effective cardio, dance and or and lots of twisting and lateral movement.
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My recommendations for Calanetics has new guidelines also</b>. <b>OMIT</b> the pelvic scoop aka Legs #1 and the 400 contractions for the hips and behind (Behind and Hips #1 and 2) and skip ahead to the stretch. When Callan Pickney says "you get the hips down to where they look like they've disappeared" she was not kidding, but we WANT hips in this programme. We do not want "childlike behind and hips" as she advocates in her best selling book. The two Hips and Behind exercises create a muscle pull in that breaks up the hip lines visually and creates an indentation that looks too modern, masculine and linear for this system. The standing pelvic wave creates a very flat butt via the tip up into the flat back posture.<br />
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There is a way to access the abs, floating ribs, pelvic floor and the obliques to wrap and pull the waist in by doing a similar standing posture but it is very subtle and does not include gripping and flattening the glutes into a board posture. Women did this hundreds off times a session in Jazzercise and stretch and tone classes during the 70s to the mid 90s usually lifting their butt off of the floor into a lower back irritating bridge repeated dozens and dozens of times rapidly. Ending up smaller and thinner yet with flat butts from overuse of the muscles, too much cardio and not releasing, resculpting and lifting the muscles instead. Once again for those who are simply fit or already hourglasses there may not be too much concern but others who are sculpting should consider the above.<br />
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To learn more about how this programme can benefit your specific figure, please contact me. For a 30.00 USD Pay Pal donation I can provide you with an indepth figure analysis and guide to getting started on your way to a smaller waist and shapelier hip ratio Pin Up figure. No matter what weight, body type or fitness level you are currently at you can achieve a feminine hour-glassier silhouette. This rate will never be lower and includes specific exercises for your individual body type and goals. You'll be asked to fill out an indpeth questionnaire, E-sign a standard liability waiver and then have me at your disposal for all your hourglass fitness questions and concerns. As with any exercise programme you should consult your doctor before starting.<br />
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Thanks so much and keep checking back. Let's get and keep the bodies we want and make all the effort pay off without buying into impossible media standards and masculine "one size fits all" forms of exercise.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">My original and work all of it authored solely by me. For a one time 30.00 dollar Pay Pal donation you can read more about HOW TO GET AN HOURGLASS FIGURE via t</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">he most googled and effective text article six running. </span><br />
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I've updated and added over 1000 words regarding different body types who want to look more hourglassy and answers to fitness questions heretofore unavailable anywhere. I have been getting hundreds of emails and this is here to address many of</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> the questions women and girls around the world have been asking me. Guidelines must be personalized as a woman who is larger framed should follow a different workout than a woman of the the same height who is smaller boned and a physique who tends towards muscular legs should follow different regimen then a physique who's legs tend to be weak and so on and so forth.<br />
<br />Read and find out how to implement the huge volumes of research and simple common sense regarding getting and keeping weight off of your waist and not having a larger stomach, especially after having children and especially over 30. Teens will also want to avoid what I call "Perma-Muffin." A small waist is the key to better health not simply an aesthetically pleasing dividend.<br />
<br />AND</span><br />
<br />
<b>Why no one body type is better than another</b><br />
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<b>How to determine your body's symmetry </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>How to embark on a major weight loss and exercise programme and still keep your curves.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>How to keep your boobs and not burn through your bust as you reduce</b><br />
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<b>Get the truth about Pilates and core work myths and why the majority of the Pilates method is taught incorrectly and builds up the abs square of the waist to hip ratio.</b><br />
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<b>Find out why Waist Training and Gyrtonics is superior to Pilates for a smaller waist</b><br />
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<b>Rating you Pilates and personal trainer instructor.</b><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">C sections, pregnancies and hourglass figures.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The ideal cardio fitness systems and sports for an hourglass figure<br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Why resistance training and weight lifting is crucial to a small waist.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Why clothing is a CRUCIAL part of getting a smaller waist.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Decoding the media hype and celebrity body lies regarding The Hourglass Figure "stats"</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Corset Training and shapewear for an hourglass figures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The above original work is subject to copyright and cannot be reprinted without permission from SuperAmandaProductions.</span><br />
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Copyright 2004,2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE: HOW TO GET OR AN HOURGLASS FIGURE</span></b><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">(EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T BORN WITH ONE) HOURGLASS WORKOUT, WORKOUT FOR A TINY WAIST, PIN UP WORK OUT, HOW TO GET A 1950s PIN UP FIGURE, HOW TO GET A SUPER CURVY BODY, HOW TO BUILD AND ADD SIZE TO THE GLUTES, BOOTY</span></b><br />
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</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-43951022053037313862013-07-31T06:29:00.001+01:002015-03-08T06:47:27.111+00:00A Transplant's Folly: The Failure of Racial and Cultural Profiling in Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue (not a Film By Ken Russell)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>(East Bay candyheart chakra, Hooper's Chocolates, Telegraph Avenue Oakland. Now a board shop)</i></div>
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<i>(Oh my where does time go?! My beautiful husband and I are planning a third honeymoon/vow renewal ceremony and are nearing our 1/2 decade anniversary alongside other romantic and wonderful things which are happening, including on Facebook where <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Super-Amandas-Official-Facebook-Page/124080354282461" target="_blank">I just hit 43,000 likes a few days ago</a>. Very exciting!</i><br />
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<i>Thank you to all my fans all over the world, you make it happen. We've come so far in seven years and I'm still not selling any ad space and spamming you with my panties for sale on Ebay or anywhere! I had time for some summer reading and the following is an extended version of my GoodReads review for Michael Chabon's Fall 2012 novel 'Telegraph Avenue '. </i><br />
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<i><b>I find the book to be a glaring race fail and I am not the only one.</b></i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>For starters Chabon comes off as a truly lovely person and a</i><i>ll my friends love his earlier work.</i><i> As a yummy mum myself, I enjoy his wife <a href="http://ayeletwaldman.com/" target="_blank">Aylet's</a> ebullient maternal and eco-conscious based writing. As Chabon has many enviable qualities this book was an even bigger let down for me, as his celebrity and fortunes preceded him. I'm very disappointed but not giving up and going on to read "Summerland " next. At the end of this review I explore what might have done with Michael Chabon's "Telegraph Avenue" if it were a film by Ken Russell. As harsh as the following review is, please don't get me wrong here-the man is a writing God-I'm just looking at this book and Chabon's style from a different angle than what is out there. From what I could see, apart from </i><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">Michiko Kakutani and Attica Locke,<a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2013/07/reject-agenda-we-can-knit-look-at-18-us.html" target="_blank"> 100% of </a></span><i><a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2013/07/reject-agenda-we-can-knit-look-at-18-us.html" target="_blank">upper tier of the msm and literary world who reviewed this book are white and barely acknowledged or confronted the graphic racial content in the book. </a>Why? </i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>Update August 2nd 2013: I recently found a oped piece that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/magazine/michael-chabon-telegraph-avenue.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Chabon penned</a> for the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hennessy#Aftermath" target="_blank"> historically racist New York Times</a> about what inspired Telegraph Avenue. Alongside photos that attempt to brainwash the reader into believing that Chabon grew up in a mostly working class black/mixed progressive community (he did not, Columbia MD was a white created middle/upper middle class city purposefully integrated but not based on the reality outside its borders) there are some honest and authentic assertions about his own perceptions regarding the OJ verdict, race etc. And while he's patronizing (a NYT reader Rachel aptly wrote: "This essay strikes me as odd, partly </i><i>because it assumes a monolithic response to the OJ verdict in the black community, and because it in fact assumes a monolithic idea of "understanding black people" in general." ) the overriding belief that Chabon has regarding racial understanding feels genuine and heartfelt. </i><br />
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<i><b>Why then is Telegraph Avenue such an atrocious fail when it comes to race and class?!!</b></i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>Those interested in joining the multi-racial and generational Telegraph Avenue online reading group I'm putting together to do an extended look at the book please contact me. I'm hoping to have a Bay Area native progressive Jewish geologist , a secular Jewish/practicing Catholic/Joyce expert expat living in Poland, a Black music historian, a dominatrix/visual artist, a Marin born super mom/grandma, a Santa Rosa born Oakland social worker/musician (he <b>loves and lives for birds</b> and as TA has a great bird character he's going to be in the "Chabon can do no wrong camp" for sure) and a few others join. You just know they are going to love the book and find absolutely no faults and drive me bat guano! This book has been above reproach by default and fawned over for too long. We've simply got to get real here! Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!)</i><br />
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<i><b>TELEGRAPH AVENUE by Michael Chabon. A Review by Super Amanda</b></i></span><br />
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<b> (Sarte in a neo-retro doughnut T-shirt. Author Michael Chabon cruises Telegraph)</b><br />
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Viewed as a complete satire and a send up, Telegraph Avenue might actually work but as a piece of American social lit (however whimsical) it is a huge yerba mate goji-berry infused dud littered with an appalling number of racial stereotypes and odd attempts at James Joyce style free-flow. The names are all so similar (they change and shift sometimes in the same paragraph) that the book should have ideally come with a list of characters. Chabon is a wordsmith par excellence, overly micro managed and prone to using academic anatomy vocabulary but he still delights-just not with the over all concept of Telegraph Avenue. I held high hopes for this, my first Chabon book, and was let down. I grew up in the East Bay from birth (pre dot com), was on Telegraph <b>every weekend </b>as a kid/tween, moved away in tears at 14, visiting often. I eventually commuted for four years and then returned full time from 2002-2006 . In 2004 (the time period that TA is primarily set in) I lived right off of Telegraph at Alcatraz and later 42nd. I have a great deal of emotional attachment, formative memories and life experience first hand on this very road throughout much of my life.<br />
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(Chabon first, Puppet show second. "What's the book called ?" someone asked me when I posted this on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/258481737497241/?fref=ts" target="_blank">When Oakland Was Fun</a>. '"Telegraph Avenue" I replied "but you can't tell from the cover, can you?!")<br />
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And truthfully? I love the title and was shocked and impressed that someone thought of it first! Since about 2003, I've often seen myself on the cover of an imaginary album/CD called "Telegraph Avenue". The photo blurry and pensive. All rock star wannabes like me dream up album concepts (real rock stars do this as well, this I can verify) this would be the "departure disc" and "nothing like my previous hard arena rock and dark sarcastic lyrics.'" '"Telegraph Avenue" aka Super Amanda Mach 2 with songs and vocals that recall Tom Waits, Gram Parsons, Willy DeVille, Bill Withers, Martha Davis, Lennon's primal therapy album and the soundtrack to William Friedkin's "Cruising." Sparse songs of dark reflection, space funk and soulful 3:00 am lyrics that describe how Prop 13, Reagan, the dot coms and various states of flux and social dissonance altered and permanently damaged my beloved SF/East Bay. Maudlin acoustic numbers about how I'll never get over having to move away when I was 14. Chabon's publishers have kitted the book cover out with a dizzying array of acid dipped hipster incarnations aka imitation Flying Eyeball style Fillmore Art. In less than a year the book has seen more variations in packaging than 'A Tale of Two Cities' has in the last fifty. Blaxploitation comic homages, album style art and merchandising mock ups of "TA" characters add a very bold camp factor, making the whole concept akin to a record or film release with Michael Chabon as the rock star he truly is. So at least great minds think up PR alike!<br />
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<b> (First to arrive. 1971 Peruvian Acid soul band Telegraph Ave)</b><br />
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Thus, in this mostly negative review (offered in detail to add balance to the gushing and overwhelmingly fawning reviews which greeted this book in the MSM literary world) I have not forgotten the man's undeniable talent-few could. He's a wonderful writer. However it is dangerous and very naive to believe, as the reviewers who lionized Chabon for this book and it's overlying theme, that the aftermath ('broken pieces' according to lead character Archy Stallings) of a death or loss of community businesses in a low income area is somehow liberating and "very beautiful indeed" (LA review of books) for the reader to enjoy. Urban blight, murder, being low income etc are diseases that cut short lives, destroy families and kill dreams, they not a serendipitous 'gift' that leads to the neo-hippie concept of "community as phoenix" (my words). People mistakenly have compared this book to "White Teeth" and "NW" by Zadie Smith. However, Smith was actually raised in the London area that she writes of while Chabon is not from the Bay Area, arriving very late in the game during the dot com boom. I'm certain Zadie Smith would vociferously defend TA but frankly having lived in both urban areas for almost equal amounts of time, I can say with authority that the experience of a black, non white or multicultural person or even a white person in London bears no resemblance to an upbringing in the Bay Area. London is decades in front of even the most liberal parts of the states in terms of race relations and somethings are simply not universal. For all of Chabon's dazzling talent and love of his new homeland, by anointing it a racial panacea of sorts he displays scant insight into what the real Telegraph Avenue was and is.<br />
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<b>(Telegraph Avenue-Berkeley side-today)</b><br />
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Thus the <b>overlying</b> flaw in Telegraph Avenue is that this is a non-native transplant's view of the Bay Area, post 1997 with all the generic Yelp locations (Fenton's, Joaquin Miller, Peets, Oliveto) name dropped. I will give Chabon credit for accurately referencing the niche Rather Ripped Records, moreover the wonderful<a href="http://oaklandnorth.net/2009/11/28/marxist-library-flourishes-in-north-oakland/" target="_blank"> Neibyl-Proctor Marxist Library</a> but crucial cultural East Bay locations were overlooked, unknown to Chabon or "quiche-ified". For all his love of the land, Chabon simply does not know the old school East Bay despite what appears to have been some extensive research to appear so. Telegraph is his petri dish not his stomping grounds. 70s icons were also strip mined eg: "Bit O'Honey" a popular 70s candy bar becoming a Black dive bar while Minnie Ripperton's name is given to a corporate blimp "owned by the fifth richest Black man in America.". I also felt via the jazz and some of the cultural references that he was overlaying the East Coast onto the Bay. Unlike Richard Linklater's coming of age cult film "Dazed and Confused", a 1976 story set in Texas, Chabon mistakenly takes his 70s and tries to place it where it simply does not fit. Linklater's 70s was very different than the Bay Area's but by staying on his own ground as an artist he made it work and the film was actually very popular in Northern California. Thus Chabon would have perhaps been better off setting a 70s/2004 story back East where HE came of age in Maryland or perhaps writing of a large progressive family of transplants living in Elmwood circa 2004.<br />
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<b>(Hoppe's old Heidelberg and T-shirt Orgy on Telegraph Ave. circa 1983 by the wonderful Brett Hampton)</b><br />
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Towards the middle part of the book, the structure of the already tricky conversations gets unbearable when a community meeting and then a related conversation become nearly unreadable in prose. And in an attempt to describe every nuance (at this point from the perspective of a wonderful African parrot named "58"), Chabon OVER reaches and one is yearning for a James Joyce/Quantum Physics<a href="http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/previous_bulletins/0304/programs/nexa.htm" target="_blank"> Sf State NEXA class </a>taught in Krakow Poland for some structural simplicity. That is at least when the obvious attempts to write like and audition for Quentin Tarantino are not making you roll your eyes. Speaking of Tarantino, "Django Unchained" which was released a few months after this book, smashes many of the stereotypes that Chabon seems to accept about Black culture. My personal belief is that if Chabon had seen Django prior to the final edit of Telegraph Avenue, the book would have been much different. For all the cultural free flow and urban speak, Telegraph Avenue reads like a white liberal's unintentional self congratulatory parody of the multi-cultural Bay Area or to paraphrase my GoodReads friend Stephanie "inner city tourism". The bizarre tourist trade at Harlem's Sunday church services that Slate Magazine <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/nyregion/church-tithing-slips-in-harlem-even-as-neighborhood-improves.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">and others have covered </a> seems an apt cultural companion to this book, which also borders on the white upper middle class racially fetishistic well meaning auto-pilot of what Jello Biafra termed "bragging that you know how the n******* feel cold, and the slums got so much soul". I know this all sounds harsh but this style of art is actually encouraged by the both the liberal and conservative msm. I don't think a major publisher would touch anything else.<br />
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<b>(The original line up of the East Bay Space rock hard rock jazz funk fusion prog band, Automatic Man. Yes, they were all that and much more. 1976)</b></div>
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So yes, without a doubt, the <b>saddest </b>part of TA is Michael Chabon's attempt to write from a Black person's perspective. It reads like a huge unintentionally patronizing fail, not unlike "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by William Styron which was to paraphrase Paul Robeson, Jr., "a white liberal's distortion". A reader on Slate called 'Criminal Black Man' responding to the well written but <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/09/michael_chabon_s_telegraph_avenue_can_a_white_guy_write_about_black_characters_.html" target="_blank">'Chabon biased' piece by Tanner Colby </a> put it this way:<br />
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<i>"Michael Chabon and other white boys who think it is somehow unfair they don't get to talk dumbly about race is not a lack of sense, but of sensibility. They have sense enough to know, in a literary world largely oriented toward a white, female, middle-class readership, any book by a white person with a "racial" element will generate its own buzz."</i> and <i>"One thing White Supremacists have learned and taught the rest of us is that when push comes to shove, Blacks and Browns have an easier time fighting among themselves than fighting against the white power structure... Colby mentions Richard Price and George Pelecanos like they're the gay uncles who raised him and Chabon to be race-busting white literary heroes. Price and Pelecanos had a different relationship with Black people than just seeing them on the playground, or eating at their house that time. Price and Pelecanos actually lived with and more importantly, conflicted with, Black people in a real-world, real consequences social space</i>."<br />
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I don't care for addressing anyone as "white boys" but nonetheless , despite being harsh, the words are succinct, applicable, honest and they speak about the very issues that thwart Chabon's racist utopia from coming true.<br />
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<b>(East Bay punk band "Special Forces." The lead singer Orlando X, </b><b>worked at the pre-chain Rasputin's on Telegraph and was bit of an unapproachable snob-at least to starry eyed kids. The band is legend.)</b><br />
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I'm white, I'm Italian American with two Southern Italian parents which is a darker shade of pale and has occasionally not translated into what<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_Concerning_the_Increase_of_Mankind,_Peopling_of_Countries,_etc." target="_blank"> Benjamin Franklin </a>called "lovely white" in the US. I grew up with a father heavily involved in the record and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Man" target="_blank">music industry </a> (much of it RnB, Acid Funk and Rock). He was a session engineer on Roy Ayers "Red, Black and Green" as well as the Super group album "GO" among countless other music industry related projects. He also worked at a local cable channel called "Teleprompter" in Oakland alongside low budget community shows like <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oaklanders-calling-for-return-of-Soul-Beat-2510067.php" target="_blank">Soul Beat.</a> My stay at home artist mother attended art and sculpture classes at CAL. The area of the East Bay, close to Berkeley where I grew up was then very conservative and openly anti-Black so being bohemians, my anti-racist parents were not active in our immediate community. Our car was a wrecked jalopy, I had few clothes and bills were often paid by selling books and records on Telegraph. Both of my parents were from the East coast and left the <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/novak-the-rise-of-unmeltable-e" target="_blank">'unmeltable ethnic' </a> side of being second generation Italians behind. I was raised with zero religious indoctrination and all races and beliefs being equal similar to Chabon's racial Utopian ethos. When my parents split, I spent four nightmarish years in a backwards low income rural California area where they lynched two <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Gary_Matson_and_Winfield_Mowder" target="_blank">Gay men who founded a local Farmer's Market and there is still Klan</a> who torch synagogues. Many of the school teachers and admins were openly racist, religious fanatics who would have been Daily Mail homepage features circa 2013. The few Black people lived literally on the other side of the railroad tracks in a place called "the hole". I could not get out of that backwards area fast enough, even skipping graduation to head back to the Bay. In the 90s, alongside a multi-racial group of people, I co-founded a<a href="http://bayarearobeson.org/" target="_blank"> Bay Area based non profit 501c3</a> dedicated to keeping the history of Paul Robeson alive. I also started travelling to the UK yearly becoming an expat in 2008. Recently I've been doing the paperwork process to attain Italian citizenship. My experiences regarding race and class are unique even among the the most unique.<br />
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<b>(King of Old School. East Bay or Frisco, Bill Graham was and will always be the patron saint and the spirit of the Bay Area before the dot com invasion. You know that invasion that is making it possible for me to blog right now? </b><b>Bill Graham January 8, 1931 – October 25, 1991)</b></div>
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Other than a <b>few</b> aspects of local jazz legend Cochise Jones, NONE of the Black characters in Telegraph Avenue felt authentic to me in fact they were the classic stereotypes designed to make US readers comfortable in their ignorance not only about race but about the Bay Area. Michael Chabon's misappropriation of Black Bay Area culture I found incredibly important in that it shows, even in 2013, that even anti-racist and intelligent progressives are reflexively prone to racial fetishism and mindbogglingly tired stereotypes. This includes, as aptly pointed out by Professor Mark A. Reid in "Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen", ' ...the stereotypical response of blacks in horror films'. Archy becomes confused, irrational, unable to make few intellectual choices (or any at all) under pressure. There is also tardiness, the strong black woman, infidelity, homophobia, insolvency, felony criminal history, inarticulateness, overly ostentatious appearance, the over sexed Black buck, other woman Jezebel, dead beat dads, hair and nail obsession, filthy homes, body odor, animal negligence, speech affectations...pretty much every bad stereotype that exists of Blacks in film and popular culture, apart from "can they swim?" is found in kindly liberal Michael Chabon's book.<br />
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<b>(Long before the alien bumperstickers. The first Automatic Man album. Music and art produced for Chris Blackwell's Island Records by my father who co wrote much of the songs, Cover and art painted by the late East Bay artist Dawin Zerio </b><b>1976)</b></div>
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It was odd to see educated people like Gwen and Archie acting "street" and unable to make sound, healthy decisions (eg: why would a nearly due pregnant woman abandon her home and comfort to sleep in a dank and dusty Kung Fu studio and leave her cheating husband with everything?) Whereas the white couple, Nate and his wife were very grounded, defiant and confident under stress, Archy and Gwen displayed an embarrassing lack of equanimity. Indolent Archy is intimidated into taking a ride in the big box big wig's luxury Zeppelin while Nate actually lets it go in a crazy act of drunk courage and heroic defiance. Nate stood up to authority while Archy wavered. Gwen displayed rage while Aviva stayed balanced. When Gwen does finally focus and stand up for herself it is justifiably (but predictably) to sue over racist statements made by a white higher up at a local medical center. The decision making on her part takes pages and days.<br />
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<b>(French fries are so much fun. Telegraph Avenue McDonalds. Still one of the relatively small number of major fast food chain restaurants in the greater North Oakland , Berkeley, Albany, Piedmont area.)</b><br />
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Julie wanted love while Titus clearly wanted sex and was mostly unable to express emotion. Black Titus augments his sexual experiences with homophobic slurs directed at both Julie and his parents, Nate and Aviva. After being taken in by the Jaffe's , Titus is caught sneaking out at night and after a tense breakfast with Avia he agrees to follow the house rules and curfew. Upon doing so he then turns to Avia and states "Your boy's a little dick sucking faggot. Case you were wondering that ain't no lie." Her response is the accepting "great way to build a foundation". In all his Bay Area reconnaissance and special ops research into candy bars and Star Trek terminology, Chabon forgot to talk to the kind of Bay Area mothers who actually would take a kid in off the street. Homophobic slurs in the breakfast nook over Entenmann's or La Farine would not be addressed with calm liberal adages. The only redeeming feature Titus is given by Chabon (are you ready for this?) is that he's always bathed, manicured, clean and well dressed! White Julie knows where his own personal sexuality falls and whom he is in love with though and the folks in the area know and accept that he's Gay. Yet with Titus' swaggering homophobia and closeted sexual acts with Julie always as the sub, Chabon dangerously implies that poor, at risk Black youth intrinsically lack the ability for self definition (sexually and other wise), confidence, evolved values, and the power to make personal choices beyond being semi-feral. This is a view also shared openly by Far Right, paleoconservative and Neo-Eugenics proponents such as American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor. Chabon of course has the right (and apparently the carte blanche) to create whatever he wants and it is open to interpretation, I'm just shocked that so many people find accuracy in Chabon's prose and that he got it 'documentarily right' (Carolyn Kellog, Los Angeles Times) via the social realism in the book. In a media where saying the nword 45 years ago can bring down your TV show empire, no one in the msm has called Chabon, reputedly America's greatest living writer, on the bold racial nature of this one work. No one! Why?<br />
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<b>(Eat it. Promotional cakes from the official release party at Diesel books in Berkeley, California)</b><br />
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Yet it is Chabon himself who acknowledges this within the pages of this very book numerous times!! I feel like I'm late getting to the party and he realized what I did via this book ages ago. Is this an honest, brave move on his part? A way of saying "no more BS and skirting around race in post-Obama America"? At one point towards the end, a Black character says something to the effect "you live a million dreams and they are all created by white people". This is a brilliant line but left unexplored. Or is Chabon's move just <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Heep" target="_blank">"Uriah Heepish"</a> ? "Just an 'umble observer/anthropologist trying to do me best sir, yer right white people, you can feel validated that you were correct all along about the ghetto and I'm humble enough to say we all shared in making this book happen, every color of the rainbow engages in this teachable moment..." Something in between perhaps? I'm not sure. <b>Chabon has a sincere world vision of peace and racial harmony when you read his other works and the fail feels wholly unintentional </b>but is that really excusable given how lionized he has become as a literary figure? This books seems to have pleased the msm/literary critics world which is almost 100% white. The only Black msm review I could find, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/05/telegraph-avenue-michael-chabon-review" target="_blank">Attica Locke, summed up the book in The Guardian </a>with: "This is the Chabon I most recognize: writer as humanitarian." Chabon said afterwords to Spin that her "generous review" made him "really relieved." It would have been interesting to read other reviews by Black critics but they do not appear to exist in the msm or even the second tier. The only exception was <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/09/michael_chabon_s_telegraph_avenue_reviewed_.html" target="_blank">Troy Patterson </a> reviewing for Slate who sums up my entire review in one sentence, writing that Chabon's <b>"o<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">ptimism about the human race proves mostly ingratiating and totally unsupportable in light of what we know about real-life humans." </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;"><b>(The Hat. Alice Waters was yet to be a celebrity and stone fired pizza ovens were unknown when Straw Hat Pizza reigned over the East Bay alongside Lake Merritt's "Leaning Tower of Pizza") </b></span></span><br />
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Of course when it comes to creating and writing Black characters well few white writers have the intrinsic empathy that Harper Lee (or even Quentin Tarantino) has. Both of the aforementioned artists were not from privilege whereas Chabon grew up from what I can see (regardless of any Bohemian aspects) solidly upper middle class. Ultimately it is Chabon's well off upbringing that by default cuts him off from truly understanding Oakland and the poorer side of Berkeley-not his race. Telegraph is partly "in the ghetto" to Chabon yet to most who grew up in Oakland, lower Elmwood, Rockridge and Temescal were/are the <b>very</b> nice part of flatlands. Those areas are on the gradient away from East Oakland and West Oakland which are areas facing severe generational poverty and violent crime. Speaking of which "Dog Town", "Jingle Town" , "Ghost Town" etc those are all names dropped by transplants and were not in wide usage outside true Oaklanders until very recently. Even Glenview, Temescal, Maxwell Park and Millsmont all were unearthed and mainstreamed when the real estate bubble, Tribe.com and the transplant invasion occurred. "Adam's Point" is now known interchangeably as "Alice Arts" I'm now informed. The names grow more pretentious with each wave of transplants fooling themselves into thinking locals use these designations too. One reader, dbrekke, remarking on the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/michael-chabons-oakland-in-telegraph-avenue.html" target="_blank">abysmally ignorant New Yorker piece by East Bay transplant </a> Matt Feeny summed up Chabon's class disconnect very clearly:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><b>"Mr. Feeney, it's wonderful you're so taken with Oakland and write so warmly about it. It sounds like you've gotten an eyeful in Temescal and your lake neighborhood. Now, please go out and spend a few weeks hanging out at 82nd and International, and then tell us about the inspired work of God's diversity director. Get off of Lakeshore and Grand avenues and tour the flatland schools affluent Oaklanders shun, and tell us how segregation has been banished. Take a good hard look at where virtually all of the deadly violence that haunts the city is happening and who its victims are, then tell us again what civilization Oakland is ..."</b></span><br />
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Thus Chabon writing about Berkeley/Oakland is appears to be like that mechanic whom never owned a car.
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<b> (The Temescal Area of Telegraph Avenue -Oakland side- by Joshua M. Moore)</b><br />
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And while his Telegraph Avenue has been described as "multi-cultural', this is erroneous as Chabon's TA is Black and White, not the very diverse, mixed area which it has been since about the mid 1960s. At about halfway through there is a 98 year old Chinese Martial arts instructor embarrassingly warmed over from a discarded Tarantino script who has appeared but her character like the two Hispanic characters and one Near East Asian Cabbie they are not explored in length. The Gay Julie and the Lesbian Kai are written as whiny submissives while the severely disabled man is viewed in complete contempt, not even given a name other than "Stephen Hawking voice box guy". Chabon's usage of what I'll call "Ebonics-lite" is embarrassing and coupled with his very weak grasp of Bay Area landmarks and history it is a bad combination. The 70s flashbacks are perhaps the most pallid, and incorrect in cultural literacy. He's an amazing when he writes about Jewish/European American culture via the character of Nate Jaffe (a transplant) and Aviva but the race of people East Bay born are beyond Chabon's reach and ability here.<br />
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<b>(Fetishization? Homage? Both? The faux merchandise created by for the enhanced edition of Chabon's Telegraph Avenue by the brilliant artist <a href="http://www.stainboyreinel.com/" target="_blank">Stainboy Reinel</a>)</b><br />
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eg: Chabon has a Black home birth midwife yelling at a White doctor Lazar (named for the cult actor<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_LaZar" target="_blank"> John Lazar</a> perhaps?) in "Chimes Hospital" emergency room with a 'purple skittle on his butt' over the fact he thought the Ylang, ylang used in the home birth is "voodoo". Then the same doctor tells the mid wife "this is child birth it is not like conking your hair". A waiting room patient (presumable Black) lets out an "awww shit...." In reality Chimes was an old school community market on College and Keith (a pharmacy bearing the same name still exists a few minutes up the road at Alcatraz) which sat next to "Bizarre Bazaar" , the first and still the best semi-upscale vintage store the East Bay ever saw. Now Cactus Taqueria and Rockridge Flowers occupy the same space. I would put money on the fact that there are few to zero white MDs that know the term "conking your hair" unless they sat through multiple screenings of Spike Lee's Malcolm X.<br />
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<b>(That screen could a tale unfold. The late great UC Theater on University. Words can't express how great this cinema was.)</b></div>
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And given all the loud "ghetto antics", Chabon would have you believe that East Bay Area circa 2004, was an episode of "Good Times" with loud choruses of Black voices shouting in unison "uh oh!" , "damn! she country y'all", and "oh yeah" emanating from unseen speaker boxes strategically placed throughout North Oakland. "Ibex faced" Ethiopian waitresses" administering blow jobs and quickies during the buffet hours was another cringe worthy fetish move as well. Kudos for anticipating the skittle(s) in a faux multi-cultural context though, that was a look into the future (though as the book was released post Trayvon Martin, I'm wondering who came first...) The pop culture outside of the splendid Jazz references feel off as well. Chabon appears to get Grady Tate, the Jazz and schoolhouse rock icon, confused with Grady WILSON, the character from "Sanford and Son" played by the late Whitman Mayo.<br />
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<b>(Niebyl-Proctor Director Bob Patenaude and a fabulous friend at the Marxist library's reading room, Telegraph Ave)</b><br />
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<b>The positive sides are that Chabon did get the Bay Area weather, the Emeryville docks, a safe house, the Port Chicago Disaster and even cooking put down on page very well</b> and the musical references are smart though (once again) 95% of the tracks were not hugely popular in Oakland and Berkeley during the time period mentioned outside of jazz snob OCD vinyl purists. Traditionally were no proper Jazz-centric areas of the East Bay and nor was there a jazz scene (<a href="http://www.scottamendola.com/" target="_blank">Scott Amendola</a> and other musicians making the SF/Bay Area their new home have worked to change all that though in recent years). Eventually towards the last third, the novel's structure steadily improves, you get used to the tired played out racial kitsch and the plot picks up with the music of Carole King's "Too Late"- a classic Bay Area theme if there ever was one. The prose becomes more fluid and the characters are finally fun and not baffling. Though I did have to ask myself if my attitude softened because the end was near.<br />
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<b>(His soul goes marching on. Paul Robeson sings the National Anthem at the Oakland docks)</b><br />
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Finally I believe Ken Russell, having been given this book to create a treatment, would have done a huge evisceration of the tired racial and cultural imagery to create a musical screenplay very similar to his version of The Who's rock opera "Tommy"-that is if he had decided to touch it in the first place. For a screenplay, cutting through the pseudo realism dressed as social criticism in an urban setting with thick prose would be a battle for certain for a artist who felt that there was "simply too much reality about." And, lest we forget, this is a director who gave Tina Turner a sentient cinematic moment as a Black female artist via The Acid Queen in "Tommy" which out does anything the Blaxplotation film stars Luther Stallings or Valetta were given as characters/caricatures by Chabon. Tina Turner, in the middle of "The<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounder" target="_blank"> Sounder </a>70s" and serious works like Roots, was colour saturated velvet camp and rock goddess incarnate. Exultation not exploitation.<br />
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<b>(After school. Before Whole Foods and taro root chips. Before organic corn, oven baked fries and childhood obesity, Bay Area kids ate BBQ tortilla chips by the bag from the local Granny Goose or Laura Scudders factory)</b><br />
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And Ken would have made many people angry by showing the shallowness of romanticizing the ghetto, playing the whole thing as a send up but he also would have created a beautiful, magical view through the parrot and the eyes of teenage boys for certain (few directors have understood and treated with decency GLBT characters like Ken Russell has) and perhaps (sin of sins) swapped the jazz for classical. The talented Cameron Crowe is reportedly slated to helm the film which is worrisome as he's kept his films even more lily white than Woody Allen, with "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" being the most glaring (and once again) unintentional example. After the racial rainbow world of the 1970s, Crowe (along with John Hughes) ushered in the teen film genre into the 'mighty whitey plastic' 80s with a clear message: "teens are now segregated again- even musically. Blacks like soul and are poor. Whites like rock and are middle class." I truly believe as a film, that Telegraph Avenue should only be done as a musical. Ideally with a preview onstage in London's West End , a full book etc first and ideally not directed by Cameron Crowe.<br />
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<b>(Tina Turner as The Acid Queen in Ken Russell's film of TOMMY)</b></div>
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Ken Russell I'm certain would agree that one can be inspired by a work of art by wanting to point out its obvious inaccuracies (in this case about Bay Area race and culture). Ken sought that out via harpooning Richard Strauss, the Catholic Church and the dangerous precedent of romantic hooker movies like 'Pretty Woman." An artist's bio film on Chabon by Ken would have been something to see as well and certainly as interesting as any of his books. Chabon has a great deal to give to the world. And if a book or film inspires outrage instead of indifference then it has at least something important going on and Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon <b>is</b> important. It will be wonderful to do a reading group with other Bay Area natives and some North Bay friends including <a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2008/04/cliff-malloy-living-record-and-photo.html">one pal Cliff whom is not only Black but ran a record store</a>. I hope to come back to this and reread it at some point, perhaps trying to harder to seek out Chabon's optimism which was lost on me.<br />
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<b>(Angel's Flight Chic. Handsome author Michael Chabon in a 1970s style shirt)</b><br />
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Again, if this was not lauded as social lit it would be a different case but not one literary reviewer found fault with this work and that is not healthy in a so called post racial media where an attorney general asks for the ability to speak honestly about race. Chabon is an amazing writer but in this book he's all skill and no authenticity (remember there are many opera singers but only one Tom Waits). And I do hope that one day a true Bay Area born native nails a book about the area pre and post.com, letting the literary world truly see what an amazing place it was and in some ways will always be. As long as native Bay Area torch bearers remain stalwart as to ward off erroneous and kitschy assumptions about East Bay history and culture that starry eyed transplants like Michael Chabon tend to bring with them (alongside crippling rents and housing prices) Telegraph Avenue will always stay hella real and on the good foot.<br />
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<b>(Pre-Tazo Tea. Old school cooler, East Bay style.)</b>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-19752974630513475872013-07-30T03:55:00.000+01:002013-08-06T23:36:38.971+01:00Reject the agenda, we can knit: A look at 18 US MSM reviewers and literary elites who gave Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue FOUR to FIVE STARS <br />
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Here are the major mainstream media and literary elite who reviewed Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, a novel that deals with race and class in graphic detail and who are quoted by his publisher. Here is an <a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-transplants-folly-failure-of-racial.html" target="_blank">honest look at the Micahel Chabon's Telegraph Avenue and an honest look at race that everyone in the states keeps talking about. It will make you uncomfortable.</a> You can find each name of each reviewer by back clicking on the photo. Other than Troy Paterson, Attica Locke (a UK review) and Michiko Kakutani, the most important book of fiction about race and the US Black community written in the past decades was reviewed exclusively by white people. Why?<br />
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I enjoyed many of the reviews that the critics wrote for this well written, important but deeply flawed book despite finding appalling racial stereotypes within much of the content. Though Michael Chabon seems to welcome an American landscape where race is looked at honestly and with shared respect and community, few of these reviewers were willing to do so and almost none of them mentioned race and class other than to dance around it or distance themselves (and Chabon). The book was giving overwhelmingly 4-5 star reviews with almost no hard look at the incendiary content and appalling racial stereotypes.<br />
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Chabon's wife Aylet Waldman, in an unproductive Twitter exchange we had, mentioned "that he was praised by Black critics for writing about race" yet I was only able to find Attica Locke's enjoyable but overwhelming one sided review. Troy Patterson has been quoted as reviewing the book "positively" but his ultimate summation of the book was closer to a kinder version of mine when he wrote:<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">"The book’s naive outlook is at odds with its sophisticated verbal surface. Chabon has often been a softie; here, his chin-up optimism about the human race proves mostly ingratiating and totally unsupportable in light of what we know about real-life humans. His heart bleeds where you might want him to get some bile up; the man is too </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">nice </em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">to attempt anything on the order of social satire. This is the opposite of a Tom Wolfe novel; the most Chabon will do is gently tease the local organic elite, describing a birth where the floor of a canyon home is covered in a Frida Kahlo shower curtain." </span></b><br />
<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.511213899999987 -0.1198243999999704151.195100899999986 -0.7652713999999704 51.827326899999989 0.52562260000002958tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-68009122212304934592013-07-03T05:16:00.002+01:002013-07-03T05:16:22.011+01:00HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEN RUSSELL!!!Not the end, ever.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-4931653634529025932013-06-21T05:19:00.000+01:002013-06-21T05:22:24.633+01:00My husband really wanted to watch this on his phone<object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/yVoclhLXhhs?version=3&hl=en_US"></param>
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<embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/yVoclhLXhhs?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-56620920217993528592013-02-20T01:56:00.000+00:002013-02-22T00:07:35.559+00:00Ken Russell's wife, Lisi Russell on "Django Unchained" <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-TatBpAY8rULMzXn2mLZ6AzRGSSCnDY9CR1pxr1HRglLdrP4JkGC3aXFZicOjk_Z_dLOHrudHwqhaA7G9a08km3T7TLwi6P8oyRm9r2_43gquvsWrnW6KN0lHeqtcpkVwvQrsqQ/s1600/item2.rendition.slideshowHorizontal.ss03-foxx-django-costumes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-TatBpAY8rULMzXn2mLZ6AzRGSSCnDY9CR1pxr1HRglLdrP4JkGC3aXFZicOjk_Z_dLOHrudHwqhaA7G9a08km3T7TLwi6P8oyRm9r2_43gquvsWrnW6KN0lHeqtcpkVwvQrsqQ/s320/item2.rendition.slideshowHorizontal.ss03-foxx-django-costumes.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>(Ken Russell's wife Lisi, who grew up in the South, has been kind enough to give us her extended take on "Django Unchained" as a film historian<b> and </b>a white Southerner. Having worked with her husband on dozens of film and literary projects she is also the keeper of his legacy. Here she also gives us an insight to how Ken Russell would have seen the film -including his influences found within -wrapped up in her superb writing style.)</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"type":45}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">"Django
Unchained. Seriously loved it. Was surprised. The essence and
details of Southern history were captured so well. When blood sprinkles
the cotton in the fields, only an atavistic response is possible if you
have history in the South. </span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">
By "atavistic" I mean a trigger
for primal coding which erupts in the presence of something so welded to
blood responses going back 5 generations and more for Southerners. I
become the slave, the cotton, the sharecropper, the plantation idiot
that was traded and was trading in souls and bodies for the sake of that
piece of fluff. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162986}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">My father's father picked cotton, though it was so
shameful to him that he denied it as an adult, as there was no position
so low in South Carolina as a picker of cotton and none so lucrative for
someone else other than the picker. Back-breaking work. My father
became a civil rights journalist - no surprise there. He used to say
often when I was 5, "If I were a black man, I'd be blood-curdlingly
angry." My father was anyway, just as a witness. The Klu Klux Klan
burned a cross in our yard when I was 9. Cotton, tobacco and paper are
what made the South the harborer of insane exploits, stubborn
self-righteousness, self-hypnosis and repeated denials dating to the
Civil War. It's genetic, the response of a Southerner to the
sight of King Cotton - it hurts out loud. No matter what side you were
on in the 1800's - and who knows what our past lives were then-something still throbs in the blood when confronted with a cotton
field. The millions of lies that formed the foundation to prop up a
society which to this day can still be overheard saying in some parts,
"But they liked being slaves." All that blood and nonsense for the sake
of a bud and I don't mean Rosebud. Even the sight of a field of cotton
is an insult to a black or sensitive Southerner.</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]"> </span></span></span>Damn, that shot of the cotton plants with the blood spilled on them...made me crazy with the power of the image.<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163113}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162375}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162375}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162375}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">Yes, the Verdi and Tosca were very Ken Russell. As
were the head-bagged KKK-ers. The big tooth on springs bouncing on the
wagon-top was very Ken too, as (this shocked me) especially was the
story of Siegfried and the dragon and Brunehilda - how many times did
Ken tell the story of showing that rented silent film at 14 (during the 1930s) in his
parents' garage (to his own invented soundtrack of Arthur Bliss). Oh, I
love that music in Django. </span></span></span><span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"type":45}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">
I didn't know Will Smith was first tagged for the role. I am so happy
Jamie Foxx did it. He was so triumphant. He could play every nuance.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDh15ykCMe4ZRmwheFzLcHwiOFqgT5qdhMG-jxMIzpK93RUo3kJOlllk1BuX5tJWk0z0plfjhJxBatGuv6zOdQCdFxliDO9at7t228MNKl7vB973UKoU6mbicGfeTLDpJbZ51cRg/s1600/tarantino_django.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDh15ykCMe4ZRmwheFzLcHwiOFqgT5qdhMG-jxMIzpK93RUo3kJOlllk1BuX5tJWk0z0plfjhJxBatGuv6zOdQCdFxliDO9at7t228MNKl7vB973UKoU6mbicGfeTLDpJbZ51cRg/s320/tarantino_django.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"type":45}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">The hick whose English is totally
indecipherable is a still-current archetype. Those men with their
killer dog-posse are my personal boogeymen. The stupi<span class="text_exposed_show">dity
of evil. The music choices are heart-stoppingly sublime. The Southern
belle is criminally accurate. The variety of responses to slavery is
the kind of intimate glimpse into character Tarantino gave us in Inglorious
Basterds. Imaginative, detailed, grown-up and riveting. The
splurting-blood card is for me overplayed, and seems adolescent more
than realistic, but the violence was apt for the subject matter and
Jamie Foxx was truly magnificent and his character subtly layered. </span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162463}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162463}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162463}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">Loved
the underlying, recurrent homage to Sergio Leone with the costumes, the
poise on horseback and the absolutely perfect, inimitable music by
Ennio Morricone. (Although the blue "valet" costume was more a Ken
Russell movie.)</span></span></span><span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"type":45}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show"> A
masterpiece, in all.</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162456}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162456}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162456}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">I
agree there were homages to Blazing Saddles too. Anyone who has heard Ray
Hicks tell his folk stories will recognise that indecipherable
"Elizabethan English" language dating to slave-trading Tennessee and
South Carolina on the way to Tarantino's "Candyland." (Brilliant name
for a plantation; and DiCaprio was superb.)</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162379}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> </span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> The hand cut was so brilliant. And the rubbing his bloody hand on her
face was so aptly horrific. It was also Tarantino's best acting yet. Easily Tarantino's most impressive movie. Incredibly deep and rich. He
should be honoured for this. It's true filmmaking. I respected the
Colour Purple, but the clean, spacious and airy perfection of </span></span></span>Spielberg's sharecropper houses irritated me.<br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> </span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162524}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162524}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162524}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">How
great was it to see Dennis Christopher from Breaking Away again.
Tarantino is great at rescuing actors. Bless him! Samuel L. Jackson
had the hardest role. When that sound erupted from him regarding
DiCaprio (trying not to spoiler alert), that was a one-note master class
in Stockholm Syndrome. You could feel their vampiric co-attachment
being sliced and diced all the way to your bones. A better vocal
performance than Laurence Olivier howling as </span><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=507078433" href="https://www.facebook.com/ooedipus" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162524}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" target="_blank">Oedipus</a><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162524}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]">!</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163402}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163402}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163402}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">I didn't even notice Django was a comedy. That's how warped I am by
my overly conflicted love/hate for the South - the heavy-duty
programming and grooming (hate) and the literature and movements that
sprang up in response (love). An image of
rice would evoke nostalgia, (all Southerners eat rice and worship their
ancestors, like the Chinese), but it's cotton that makes me react
viscerally. Cotton makes me crazy! Why? I don't know. It's a
behavioural pattern based on the memories of my ancestors and
conversations with descendants of slaves. I have always wondered why
Britain seems unaffected by their own slaving history - I've never even
heard it mentioned. Is it that Southerners are romantic, land-bound and
volatile by nature? They lost the war and are still ashamed? Unwilling
to have been wrong? Or am I alone in caring in an emotionally
unconscious way that says more about my childhood than about fact? The
memories are inherited, if such a thing is possible. . . the behaviour
in present time is a hair-trigger response to an image of slavery. Too
many family stories, too many logbooks and bibles, too many dreams
registering the whole bloody mess.</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163028}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163028}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8163028}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">It was the land which made a
Southerner mad with possession - that verdant, fertile landscape with
its heavy-blossomed and perfumed flowers. Hence the term "land-poor" so
popular in the South. That means all the money is tied up in owning
land and there is no cash. But the way you relate to the land is on
your knees with your hands in the soil - for North Carolina, the red
clay, for South Carolina, the black loam. They call Carolinians Tar
Heels - because our feet drag through rivers and get natural tar on our
heels, not because of the melting asphalt in the summer which also
creates tar heels on bare feet. It's all about the land - and soil -
and the perfumed drug of fertility - and the hound dogs - and the way
the silver is laid out - just like Tarantino showed in Django. It's
still like that in many ways. Even I had a "mammy" - with my dad the
hero of integration. I broke a habit of expecting 15 pieces of
dinnerware at table - I have those same salt cellars as Candyland did!
Nothing changes in the South. The land always wins. And the people
remember, without logic, whom and what they sold to hang on to the
land.</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[1].[1][2][1]{comment10151239628995988_8162500}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]">"</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3tjXayKnVdlzAbE0pFtoGZUbHgXIPuQD_hcFQPchdnLEWNQlwwCzXxfu_1f3lENAGoJnMU8niCU8vGAdBzjiknzM5l6YCYNnoxr7nhRS_7aWHQf1P_0eOcDIs8LqDURe4ZuaeQ/s1600/django_unchained_samuel_l_jackson_leo__.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3tjXayKnVdlzAbE0pFtoGZUbHgXIPuQD_hcFQPchdnLEWNQlwwCzXxfu_1f3lENAGoJnMU8niCU8vGAdBzjiknzM5l6YCYNnoxr7nhRS_7aWHQf1P_0eOcDIs8LqDURe4ZuaeQ/s320/django_unchained_samuel_l_jackson_leo__.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-42414340752526960552013-02-09T04:50:00.000+00:002013-02-10T05:42:52.534+00:00Farewell to Michael Winner, the Underrated Genius of British Cinema 30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUX9qCOBWbHianR182TDZPraotau1McrtwpGK6ESpSfleXNuHQVBqP_OsZuEpabRVnm7C9XpTgnyUaPvMXwMXfrLvJoUT0K7rrphwmAU4VcG2KxWrpFoEK_c7EYbS5fm2iE0Md2g/s1600/michael-winner-001-00o-26a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUX9qCOBWbHianR182TDZPraotau1McrtwpGK6ESpSfleXNuHQVBqP_OsZuEpabRVnm7C9XpTgnyUaPvMXwMXfrLvJoUT0K7rrphwmAU4VcG2KxWrpFoEK_c7EYbS5fm2iE0Md2g/s320/michael-winner-001-00o-26a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>(I've been behind on finishing my review of Pete Townshend's "Who I Am" whilst caught up in raging "Django Unchained" euphoria -seeing it for the third time tomorrow-but I am remiss in not honouring this great man's passing two weeks ago so here we go.)</i><br />
<br />
If Ken Russell is the British Fellini then Michael Winner is the DeSica of 60s and early 70s England. Both men proudly referenced Fellini in their work but it was Winner that stayed closer to the non-surreal and everyday comedy of errors and romance when Ken went on to out -Fellini Fellini with "The Boyfriend", "Dance of The Seven Veils" , "Mahler" and "The Devils". Both men used a family of actors, actresses and crew (Russell for his entire fifty plus year career). Both men were also flamboyant food and wine loving raconteurs making them "honorary Italians" in my book (and as an Italian myself I should know!)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qEI0DN5O60IQjXvVumAG0bkbChCfYSLffg-ZSCr0i-3WWThCdaBx0Y4yObbP6rNok0eUmfeRtl8Ln67btbwTnipCtDuT_zNI9BksFurzN8EVpGTe6_2l_i72W_yYbDwP1XAdZQ/s1600/oliver_The+_System.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qEI0DN5O60IQjXvVumAG0bkbChCfYSLffg-ZSCr0i-3WWThCdaBx0Y4yObbP6rNok0eUmfeRtl8Ln67btbwTnipCtDuT_zNI9BksFurzN8EVpGTe6_2l_i72W_yYbDwP1XAdZQ/s320/oliver_The+_System.png" width="320" /></a></div>
(Oliver Reed forever blowing bubbles in "The System aka The Girl Getters" 1964)<br />
<br />
Upon leaving for Hollywood to make action films like "Death Wish" and "Won Ton Ton The Dog Who Saved Hollywood", Mr. Winner left behind a body of work as boldly artistic as <b>any </b>of the great British directors easily making him the most underrated one of the lot. The irony that Oliver Reed did his finest work with <b>both</b> Mr.Winner and Ken is not lost on me. Both men were able to stand up to "His Reedness", showcase his erotic beauty and place him perfectly within the physical scope of the photogenic landscapes that all three loved so much; England. Like a virtual lock of hair, my direct tweets from Mr. Winner about his films are something I will always treasure.<br />
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<b>("We're like Laurel and Hardy but more abusive" John Cleese on his best friend Michael Winner)</b><br />
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Both "The System" (1964) and "I'll Never Forget Whatisname" (1967) are the two films I watched the night Michael Winner bid us farewell. The following day I watched "Hannibal Brooks" (1969) which is his transitional film to Hollywood as an action director. While Ken made the men (in Raquel Welch's words) "turn around" and let their penises swing for all to see, it was Winner who for the first time in modern cinema made a man cry in anguish when he used for sex and dumped in "The System". He was also the first to imply a woman receiving oral sex (INFW) and enjoying it immensely; a land mark moment for the sexual revolution and the MPPA. Both The System and INFW are monuments to the sexual and cultural mores which were breaking down and rebuilding at the time yet Roger Vadim's "And God Created Woman" gets all the credit. With later controversial films like "The Nightcomers" (1971) Winner is <b>thee</b> unsung hero of pushing sexual boundaries in mainstream major studio backed films. That alone is worthy of it's own separate post.<br />
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INFW is by far and away the most intelligent film about the swinging 60s and also the most dazzling. "Smashing Time" is more colourful (just barely), "Magic Christian" more hedonistic for certain. Lindsay Anderson's "...If" more socially concious and "Performance" more artistic (again just barely) but INFW is by far and away the most <b>honest </b>film about swinging London. Standing as a veritable time capsule of the era. Shoot that one into space to explain London in the 60s and you'll be covered. Many great montage sequences of post war 60's Britain including some
postcard shots of Cambridge complete with Emily Choir style "oooo woooo"
background singers and an astonishing "advert" that Ollie's ego maniacal character
Quint creates to give the middle finger to the advertising establishment
at a swank London awards show. <a href="http://youtu.be/reZcuDHE-2A" target="_blank">The advert is still shocking today in ANY context</a> proves to be a smash however. The fetching Carol White (rest in peace) is brilliant
as the secretary who squanders her self worth on Quint while Orson Welles plays Jonathan Lute, Quint's conniving and lovingly sardonic boss. Look for Winner perennials Harry Andrews, Frank Finlay and Norman Rodway and countless iconic Swinging London locations (Robert Fraser's Gallery, Biba, The Troubadour, Battersea power station, Soho, Mayfair etc)<br />
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Winner and Reed's first major film The System (aka The Girl Getters) may be my most favourite of the lot because to watch it is to go back in time to the seaside era of post war Britain which is an era that I hear so much about. Torquay is proper seaside as well over two hours drive from London and on the far southwest coast. Great film shot in black and white with beautiful glittering shots of the beach, delightful music and Oliver Reed at his freshest playing the very handsome young local photographer (Tinker) who's on the pull for townie
girls, land ladies and even tourist girls on holiday. Jane Merrow is also divine as
the shapely upper class model who's father owns an estate in town and who wants to remain wholly unattached while enjoying her sexuality. I kept wanting to be both characters: the local photog with loads of friends and the beautiful buxom teenage model with her entire life ahead of her. Surely this could be remade?<br />
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Hannibal Brooks with the fantastic Michael J Pollard (who still looks great today) and Lucy the Elephant is Winner's last cinematography love letter to Europe before eventually becoming an ex pat Hollywood director. Making mainstream Hollywood films like "The Mechanic", "Death Wish" and "The Sentinel" (watch out for Beverly D'Angelo going 'solo' in a leotard) and his notorious remake of "The Big Sleep" saw flair and usually ticket sales but nothing as heartfelt as these early masterpieces. I give him full credit for making money and taking care of himself though. (The amount of unfair shit thrown at Michael Winner for being successful is simply shameful.) "Hannibal Brooks" delights though it is a nail biter for an large mammal defender like myself. It is a transitional film in the sense that it features many intense action sequences and distressing situations (even for a standard war film) not seen in Winner's earlier London/UK centric work yet the love of lush scenery (this time Europe) is still
apparent. Stunning cinematography-especially of the Alps and the authentic Germany and Swiss peoples. It was on the set of "Hannibal Brooks" that Ollie, loyal to Winner's judgement, was visited by Ken and offered "The Debussy film". Not wanting to "step down to television" Winner convinced him to work with Ken and the rest is history.<br />
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You got a friend. Lucy and Oliver Reed on the set of Hannibal Brooks.<br />
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"The Jokers" (1967) , a delightful film, can't be left out of Winner's early oeuvre nor can Francis Lai's unparalleled scores for HB and INFW. "The Jokers" stars Michael Crawford as an upper class Army reject and Ollie as his brother who hatch a plot to steal the Crown Jewels. Sadly the film has ver had any kind of release, even if I'm not mistaken, VHS and is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH2-w7SS7bw" target="_blank">only available on You Tube</a> but it is well worth a watch. Opening music is fab, sitar flavoured dramatic booming brass. More "Swinging London" - the film makers great use of London locations rivals INFW. Included is a short sequence of Jezebel, a 1916 Dennis N-Type fire engine (still owned and run by the Royal College of Science Union at Imperial College London), the Tower of London (but of course) and loads of great shots of the West End. While Johnny Pearson is The Joker's soundtrack composer /God <a href="http://www.francis-lai.com/" target="_blank">Francis Lai </a>scored both INFW and Hannibal Brooks with some of the most poignant sounds ever.<br />
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I can go on and on and undoubtedly will create some kind of longer and more elaborate tribute to Mr. Winner one day but for now I'd like to ask all off you out there to see one of these earlier films and celebrate the man, the country of England and his genius.<br />
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<b>Robert Michael Winner 1935-2013 Rest in peace.</b><br />
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<b> </b> <br />
<b>God, filled with mercy, dwelling in the heavens' heights, bring proper
rest beneath the wings of your Shechinah, amid the ranks of the holy and
the pure, illuminating like the brilliance of the skies the souls of
our beloved and our blameless who went to their eternal place of rest.
May You who are the source of mercy shelter them beneath Your wings
eternally, and bind their souls among the living, that they may rest in
peace. And let us say: Amen -Kaddish Jewish prayer</b><b></b><br />
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-80125836213817019012013-02-09T02:01:00.000+00:002013-02-12T02:13:33.841+00:00For the love of Ken Russell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvi1e0UOtTfFJsUuBR0j0fEcZVQdnnSvDeWJZQwZVIqzLVJbMi056xJAYGfm2yHIrVXMGyGwCOi1EhL-J_8V5unqWnweq0B-jOrO0-qdY8wfGOQ4JqWVw8JYTV7P-2Rx6oCN9pEw/s1600/ken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvi1e0UOtTfFJsUuBR0j0fEcZVQdnnSvDeWJZQwZVIqzLVJbMi056xJAYGfm2yHIrVXMGyGwCOi1EhL-J_8V5unqWnweq0B-jOrO0-qdY8wfGOQ4JqWVw8JYTV7P-2Rx6oCN9pEw/s320/ken.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660066; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">The above picture of Ken Russell calls to mind The TEMPTATIONS OF
DR. ANTONIO (LE TENTAZIONI DEL DOTTOR ANTONIO) from Boccacio 70 by Fellini who once told Ken, "They call me the Italian Ken Russell!" </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #660066; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">The film can be viewed in screen caps on the indispensable <a href="http://www.american-buddha.com/temptantoniotoc.htm" target="_blank">American Buddha website</a>.<i> </i></span></b>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-50702595878145522242013-01-30T03:44:00.001+00:002013-02-08T22:52:52.217+00:00Sandy Newton, Syria, Regents Canal, Chicago, Kruger National Park<br />
<i class="sz5">The greatest warriors, scientists, doctors and astrologers, without exception, have to bow to nature's common law, death.</i>
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<i class="sz2">October 1922,<br />Lord Meher Baba 2 p431</i><br />
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-27421835514382125372012-12-12T21:51:00.000+00:002013-08-05T14:12:16.490+01:00THE DISCIPLES OF SHIRLEY RUSSELL: THE 2013 ULTIMATE BUYER'S GUIDE TO VINTAGE REPRODUCTION AND PINUP CLOTHING (from Petite to Plus Size all you need to know about where to buy RETRO CLOTHING)<br />
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In honour of Shirley Russell, the High Priestess of Vintage Reproduction and the British Edith Head who's <a href="http://vintagereproductioncollectors.blogspot.com/2012/07/ann-margaret-s-pin-up-couture-in-tommy.html" target="_blank">unparalleled 1950s reproduction costumes for the film "Tommy" I covered in detail</a> earlier this year, here is a list of thee best places to buy Vintage Repro (VR) on the planet. Back when Ken and Shirley were working on his early short films, they'd comb Portabello road and Camden town collecting Victorian and 20's treasures and throughout Ken's entire film career he used vintage clothing to wonderful effect.<br />
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I've been wearing and collecting vintage since I was about 11 years old and with the help of my loving, patient hubby, I have spent the two past years building my Pin Up wardrobe to fuller proportions in preparation for the launch of <a href="http://superamanda.com/">superamanda.com</a> and superamanda.co.uk. and because it makes a big difference in comfort and style to wear mid-century era clothing for my body type. I sincerely believe that any body type can wear vintage reproduction clothing and feel fantastic. You can create curves where none seemingly were before and sculpt a fuller plus size figure that seems lost and amorphous in lowrise clothing.<br />
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Unlike many msm reviewers and fashion writers (few magazines ever properly cover vintage repro), I either own or have tried <b>almost on every single line listed below. </b> This list would not have been possible without the master list created by professional fashion writer and <a href="http://www.biggirlsbrowse.com/blog/" target="_blank">blogger Gemma Cartwright who runs Big Girls Browse</a>, a real size fashion blog. Though I knew the majority of the names on her master list very well , Gemma's expertise turned me onto Get Cutie, Lady Vintage and Big Beautiful Barbara Brown; three must know names for VR addicts.<br />
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The first list below is actual designer lines of VR I primarily wear and therefore have the most experience with. <b>Betty LeBonbon, Whirling Turban and Tara Starlet are on top but after that, there is no order of how they rank as all are fantastic.</b> The second, is a list of Vintage Reproduction boutiques and stores that I have yet to experience or who feature smaller house lines whilst the third list entails stores that sell all of the above. <br />
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<b>Lines and stores were </b><b>only included if...</b><br />
-they offer great customer service and ethical treatment of wholesalers (how I was treated online and in person with no one knowing I was buying, much less reviewing)<br />
- fair and easy return policy on non -vintage and non-bespoke (custom made) items.<br />
- did not have outlandish "restocking fees" which are unjust. Just say "no returns".<br />
-high quality product, not simply "cute" or "trendy"<br />
<b>-Nothing sourced from Asia especially China and Vietnam </b>who are criminally liquidating the few Rhinos and Tigers still left on the planet. Thus no Hell Bunny, Collectif, Dead Souls, Army or Trashy Diva and definitely no <a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2012/07/disciples-of-shirley-russell-alert-evil.html" target="_blank">foul, evil Queen of Holloway</a> who are ripping off Dolly Dagger and so many others.<br />
- the seller offers a website that shows their product very clearly <b> </b><br />
<b>- Sells a product that does not look like a fancy dress costume or Grease cast outfit</b><br />
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<b>And ideally they did not:</b><br />
<b> -Sell me an item at full price with inflated shipping and then post the same item on Ebay four days later at a rock bottom price.</b><br />
<b>-Sell to wholesalers and then continually have fire sales and cut prices to cost or below on newer items without rhyme , reason or warning.</b><br />
-charge my card and then not have the item in stock multiple times like the lowly Unique Vintage<br />
-refuse to return emails<br />
-lie about stock and sizing like the atrocious "Unique Vintage" based out of Los Angeles<br />
- inflate prices <br />
- use Confederate flags, pose with racist confderate flags, do burlequse with KKK flags and other unwholesome sleazy or racially arcane motifs<br />
-offer poor quality for the money<br />
- have a bad fit <br />
- have rude, "can't be arsed" service<br />
- distort the colours of the fabric of their items with photoshop <br />
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<b>*What is true to size?</b> (see asterix below this post) UK sizing, even in Vintage Repro runs smaller than US overall-sometimes as much as three sizes. Obviously few of us are going to fall within these exact numbers but this is a clear indication of how to shop via this list. Ideally you get a specific size chart for that clothing line but not always. My measurements are a very hourglassy 44(32GG)-28-40 and I'm almost 5'10 so I'm wearing a 12 to even 18 in some lines with tailoring. I'm not truly plus size, closer to what I call 'real size' but my frame and bust line means I often by XL and over. I have friends who are in the 4 to 6 range as well as the plus size. In my late teens and early 20's I wore a US junior's 9/10 and was 37 (32EE)-25-38 inch waist, then for a good solid five years in the Noughties I taught Pilates, exercised full time and was an athlete at about 39 (34F) -27- 38, <b>and</b> I was a true full figured plus size for a time after pregnancy and due to breastfeeding 48(34H)-36-47. Apart from never having been very thin or very overweight, I doubt there is any body type that would be news for me and there are many of photos of me one My Space to back this up. Thus unlike many Pin up clothing reviewers I've <b>dramatically</b> run the gamut on fit and really know my stuff.<br />
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<b>Special Sizing</b>: Currently there is no single VR line solely doing Plus Size or Petite vintage. You do have lines like Pin Up Girl Clothing and Bettie Page which go up to 2x and 4X and use fabrics like bengaline and viscose that work with many plus size figures though. You also can find many bespoke Pin up dresses thanks to ETSY. Smaller built and petite gals can rejoice in lines like Jones and Jones and Trollied Dolly which only go up to a UK12/US 9-10. As frustrating as this can be this offers smaller busted and slightly built gals a chance to rock Vintage Repro without needing to fill the "buxom bombshell" slot. Vintage Reproduction is for ALL body types after all. As of this writing Bernie dexter is phasing out all 1X and 2X sizing so act quick.<br />
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<b>Note: This list does not include bespoke etsy sellers/designers or vendors who solely sell vintage.</b><br />
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<b>THE TOP VINTAGE REPRODUCTION LINES</b><br />
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1. <a href="http://bettylebonbon.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank">Betty Le Bonbon</a> (Made in Australia)</div>
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Betty Lebonbon helmed by <a href="http://bettylebonbon.tumblr.com/">Jasmine Norrie</a> ticks all the boxes and is one of most favourite vintage reproduction line on the planet. Betty le Bonbon symbolizes the next step in Vintage Reproduction which I predict will be moving toward old school bespoke and custom fit instead of factory produced clothing. A bespoke boutique offering easy care aprons, circle skirts (and soon dresses) in high quality fabrics insanely great fabrics, Betty Le Bonbon is not only craftsmanship with a scholar's knowledge of VR but customer service at her finest; the kind of customer service where the client leaves metaphorically with their dress in a beauteous striped box with a satin ribbon around it. Ten years from now, Betty Le Bonbon 100% cotton circle skirts, aprons and dresses will not have lost there resale value. To top it all off her clothing is accessible to all sizes, there are payment plans, and clothing is FUN to wear and wearable. The owner Jasmine helms a fabulous <a href="http://bettylebonbon.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tumblr account </a>with some of the best hand picked photos of Vintage Repro anywhere on the web.</div>
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Signature: Circle skirt</div>
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Sizing: Custom baby!</div>
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Fits: Up to a 45 inch waist, 10.00 extra for above, with a well thought out dress line coming soon!</div>
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Avoid: Nothing</div>
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Do note: Many of Betty Le Bonbon's items are made to order so shipping may require a well worth it wait!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-nhwk7TVG9SI6GKGDdljCLtalSOH9FwaAchq_CifHT2_WHVM9J7TMJ9fav-zeoLIAWianYVWT8oWVGkz97K-gJhcOwb9N9GIAlDedZMjCBUkTF5S9vMqfvvt2g6UQJV73RMdog/s1600/Night_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-nhwk7TVG9SI6GKGDdljCLtalSOH9FwaAchq_CifHT2_WHVM9J7TMJ9fav-zeoLIAWianYVWT8oWVGkz97K-gJhcOwb9N9GIAlDedZMjCBUkTF5S9vMqfvvt2g6UQJV73RMdog/s400/Night_1.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
2. <a href="http://www.tarastarlet.com/" target="_blank">Tara Starlet</a> (Made in The UK).<br />
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Tara Starlet's craftsmanship and styling is of the <b>highest </b>quality. The ENTIRE line is vintage reproduction with virtually no modern fabrics like bengaline and no nods to <b>any</b> modern cuts. TS uses end of roll fabrics which not only means they are helping the environment but you end up with a garment almost no one else will have. They also offer Hawaiian clothing made of <b>real</b> Hawaiian fabric from the island itself! TS has perfected a look that is sexy, Victory girl and British belle all at once. Tara Starlet fits best on petite sizes up going to a trim UK 14 which is a US Juniors 13/14 with fit all over the map at times so call customer service if you have any questions. In a few (emphasise on few) dresses which have open necklines or stretch satin you may get away with a much larger fit in the bust with free hips. Tara Starlet cuts many busts on their standard collar bust bustier/smaller ribcage shape which is used for a large portion of their halter tops, evening, day and wiggle dresses. I'm at the very top of their sizing and can attest that large busted women (FF cup and over) will need tailoring or to simply opt out as a few necklines will not work at all on big breasts (even if the rest of you fits) If you have a classic thin Audrey Hepburn or trim modestly busted figure that you don't think will look good wearing vintage then think again, because you can <b>rock</b> this line. Ideally it is made for trimmer and A to 32DDUK cup busted gals.<br />
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Signature item: Sailor Pants and Sailor shorts. The best anywhere.<br />
Sizing: Varies, call if you have any questions<br />
Fits: Not recommended for the full figured, very buxom or even remotely plus size. Most styles only fit up to a US size 13/14 tops.Collar bust cut only works on smaller bust lines.<br />
Avoid: Nothing if it fits<br />
Do note: Few TS items ever go one sale so grab what you want when you see it and check back often. Their founder is active in the Shoreditch community and her work is indicative true of a British Heritage label.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6SKlwa2ntoh6s8I_q-b5D70RB238LVWme7G7fiJoAFbwUZUf9XEQdYjL7FktN7BGRNFqnGEbYn8LG39NqtURnDpMnO7rrxlDQiYR3LslqnaAnZyUEDP6P8F3cPKo27NHxvFecxQ/s1600/J.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6SKlwa2ntoh6s8I_q-b5D70RB238LVWme7G7fiJoAFbwUZUf9XEQdYjL7FktN7BGRNFqnGEbYn8LG39NqtURnDpMnO7rrxlDQiYR3LslqnaAnZyUEDP6P8F3cPKo27NHxvFecxQ/s400/J.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
3. <a href="http://whirlingturban.com/" target="_blank">Whirling Turban</a> (Made in Bali with ethically locally sourced Green fabrics by a small family of staff)<br />
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My first Whirling Turban playsuit arrived a few months back and it is the one of the most beautiful pieces of clothing I've ever owned. Until you actually hold the clothing in your hands you can't imagine how wonderful Katharine's work is. Questioning Katherine's unrivalled knowledge is not advised though! I actually thought I moulded modern bra would work with vintage repros and she strongly suggested sticking with the era's conical shape. Thus when I wore a conical shape bra with a waist cincher and the fit was astonishing. My twin torpedos defied physics, nearly creating a riot on the District Line and would have made NASA proud. Her wing bust dresses and play suits are fully boned which means you really are turned up and put out to your best vintage repro couture look possible.<br />
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Signature item: Shaheen Wing Bust reproduction<br />
Sizing: Bespoke and Vintage<br />
Fit: Hollywood aka "like a glove". <br />
Avoid: Buying any WT items "second hand". It's like wearing someone else's wedding ring.<br />
Do note: This is Vintage Reproduction bespoke taken to the highest level. Shirley Russell would be proud. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtK4LJ5fgM6nKIrWSVeyOHn3U1bpVeNjGzCaFpKu6pChzOz5mg-eM6ZxZdAhrqpfMUTfNz7g-gpyqW2e_SBaI2RBVPLhOD6iVvNS_JMMBpUgy2UVSXzQ6SnHe6Y9Phe1pw7SzDKg/s1600/fables.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtK4LJ5fgM6nKIrWSVeyOHn3U1bpVeNjGzCaFpKu6pChzOz5mg-eM6ZxZdAhrqpfMUTfNz7g-gpyqW2e_SBaI2RBVPLhOD6iVvNS_JMMBpUgy2UVSXzQ6SnHe6Y9Phe1pw7SzDKg/s320/fables.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>
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4. <a href="http://fablesbybarrie.com/" target="_blank">Fables By Barrie</a> (Made in the US)</div>
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Tucked in to a delightful San Diego store front, fables By Barrie recalls the great masters like DeGraff and Cole of California who made woman's casual wear and swimsuits to be both functional and feminine. Everything that Barrie makes is 100% easy to with many items sewn on site. She's now branched out from swimwear into dresses and jazzy capris. Customer service is top knotch and they make you feel like family.<br />
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Signature: Tuxedo swimsuit and high rise Peggy capris <br />
Sizing: True to size<br />
Fits: Up to an XL/14-18 in some styles with bespoke service available during less peak times. Call to check.<br />
Avoid: Not having the proper bra, you may need one for some of the one piece swimsuits if you are very buxom.The owner kindly offered to sew mine into the swimsuit for a small fee but I found that wearing a one size too small white push-up extreme balconette did the trick.<br />
Do note: Bikini top separates are US sizing. Ask if you have fit concerns, they are happy to help.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbal9laUhiC82zQzaAMWl93afxEW2lVbheISZNQs9nJtuigGFZJt3wxdPO9Fg_W2SMZ9qoofZrW5RNsRT60SFMEo8SJx_MUc84OjYYe-PsAkiuVEJ6uyeFTHpmFKrWfilQYVKMA/s1600/pug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbal9laUhiC82zQzaAMWl93afxEW2lVbheISZNQs9nJtuigGFZJt3wxdPO9Fg_W2SMZ9qoofZrW5RNsRT60SFMEo8SJx_MUc84OjYYe-PsAkiuVEJ6uyeFTHpmFKrWfilQYVKMA/s400/pug.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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5. <a href="http://www.pinupgirlclothing.com/" target="_blank">Pin Up Girl Clothing </a>(Made in the USA)<br />
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Let's give credit where credit is due: Pin Up Girl Clothing did not create the So Cal Pin Up scene-they <b>ARE </b>the scene. Back in the early internet days PUG was doing it all; trying out styles, fabrics, cuts and melding it with the glorious and burgeoning rockabilly, swing, psychobilly, biker, stripper, fetish, burlesque, kustom kulture lifestyle of the West Coast. This vibe has made them the most popular Vintage Reproduction line in the world. They offer, alongside very wearable, modern takes on Pin Up styles and even clubwear with a VR twist. Many of their models and muses are swiftly becoming household names in their own right. Their creator, Laura Bynes also allows free speech on the PUG Facebook page and room for debate alongside the hundreds of thousands of loyal customers talking up the wonderful products they create. PUG is a movement unto itself!<br />
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Signature Dress(es): Blue Malibu Tiki Wrap (size large just went for over 200 used on Ebay this summer and has now been reissued in honour of Amy Winehouse who wore the dress often with a matching bolero),<br />
The Micheline Dress and the Evelyn Dress<br />
Fit: Check the charts and ask questions because sizing varies though once you nail the proper sizing then PUG is easy to buy and wear.<br />
Sizing: From petite to plus size <br />
Avoid: Nothing just check the size charts and reviews.<br />
Do note: Returning customers get 10% of all purchases and they often have secret sales for email subscribers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP91gKbJTWvLaWUbwWyrBS1Myf1Srxn19jNC-W3WMFtFrdlKon_33BbTDcmQRq2BIFIpuZdq2nvfm8hfaJKgou1vN_LOYGDiOi1JXdrE1Y1zXzRTgLyB8OkuJS38xQ5m32kGF3vg/s1600/dollydagger-scarlett-dress-english-rose-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP91gKbJTWvLaWUbwWyrBS1Myf1Srxn19jNC-W3WMFtFrdlKon_33BbTDcmQRq2BIFIpuZdq2nvfm8hfaJKgou1vN_LOYGDiOi1JXdrE1Y1zXzRTgLyB8OkuJS38xQ5m32kGF3vg/s400/dollydagger-scarlett-dress-english-rose-300.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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6. <a href="http://www.dollydagger.co.uk/" target="_blank">Dolly Dagger</a> (Made in England)<br />
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The Dolly Dagger boutique is a vintage repro fanatics dream come true; the layout, the location, the service. You simply can't replicate the vintage reproduction shopping experience to a higher level of charm. Tucked into a charming white gingerbread store in the historic Laines section of Brighton with cute accessories and home wares artfully placed here and there, Dolly Dagger is it! They have recently expanded their small house clothing line adding over half a dozen new styles which some of the most stunning vintage style dresses anywhere in the world. The dresses with names like Brighton Belle, Paloma/Lulu, Gypsy, Scarlet etc are on the pricer side but well made locally in Brighton. The bust on the Brighton Belle looks great on smaller sizes while anyone over an E cup will need a vintage fit bra to get the proper shape. The full coverage Paloma and the Lulu is a one of a kind vintage repro I've seen nowhere else with the waist wrapping around and buttoning superbly under the bust. There is no elastic ruching on any of the dresses so fit runs old school. Dolly Dagger is expanding their line every season so check back often.<br />
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Signature Dress: The Dolly Dagger Scarlet Dress<br />
Sizing: Running smaller. Check measurements as they use their own size chart which varies slightly for each dress. If you are ordering online, have them do a precise measuring of the actual garment you will be getting.<br />
Fits: Most sizes up to 2X running slightly small. Enquire about bespoke services.<br />
Avoid: Nothing<br />
Do note: A delightful place to visit in the historic Brighton Laines area -<b>do not miss out if you are in town.</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKaHe3oWj1DMYfaf9fYEvfPf7SnPg3L7k_n6_6ny0VyRZSU10q7V6KisAFLE57NpkxgrCtxQ6HcFpMZkiN34IJs3OzaR9dAMvfUZJ9KKWKzUdk9MCLzeJBoFQjgpS0F12O0yEGQ/s1600/Day_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKaHe3oWj1DMYfaf9fYEvfPf7SnPg3L7k_n6_6ny0VyRZSU10q7V6KisAFLE57NpkxgrCtxQ6HcFpMZkiN34IJs3OzaR9dAMvfUZJ9KKWKzUdk9MCLzeJBoFQjgpS0F12O0yEGQ/s400/Day_4.jpg" width="159" /></a></div>
7. <a href="http://www.ladyvlondon.com/" target="_blank">Lady Vintage</a> (Made in Romania and the UK) <br />
A hidden gem which I'm only sharing out of the goodness of my heart! You can't get a higher quality vintage repros for the price and, joy of joys, they only make a certain number of a design-often as little as 30 pieces! Plus size, petite and all sizes in between, this is "put it on and be comfortable and classy" vintage repro.<br />
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Signature Dress: Viscose cap sleeve swing dress<br />
Sizing: Check measurements as they use their own size chart<br />
Fit: Runs large, even in non-plus size and through the rib cage and bust. Does not detract at all from the product which is superior.<br />
Avoid: Nothing<br />
Do note: Items sell out very quickly<br />
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<b>Other lines I highly recommend, own one or two pieces from or whom I've yet to try and plan to VERY soon:</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.20thcenturyfoxy.com/en/index/a1" target="_blank"><b>20th Century Foxy (Made in the UK)</b></a>: Sells a variety of lines and has a rapidly expanding house line including a plus size line called "So Foxy". 20th Century Foxy has a lovely 40's/50's signature look all of their own and looks to be a major player on the UK vintage fashion scene. Fantastic shipping and customer service.<br />
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<b><a href="http://vintagesuitsbymary.com/" target="_blank">Vintage Suits By Mary</a> (Made in the USA)</b>: Reputedly the highest quality vintage repro play suit/swimwear available what I see just looks astonishing. You can't tell the difference and I cannot WAIT to order!The owner is very kind and bespoke service is available.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.bettiepageclothing.com/" target="_blank">Bettie Page Clothing</a> </b><b>(Made in the USA)</b>: Quality made in the USA range up to a 3x (sometimes 4X) with some items working as night club wear. Betty Page playsuits are not only running roomy and comfortable but are affordable. Tatyana , Beach Bash and Elvgren are the equally vintage inspired sister lines<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.bigbeautifulbarbarabrown.com/" target="_blank">Big Beautiful Barbara Brown</a> (Made in the UK)</b>: My new Vintage Repro crush! Looking forward to ordering and she also sells vintage. Mostly custom and one of a kind Vintage Repro dresses, tops etc<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.bluevelvetvintage.com/" target="_blank">Blue Velvet Vintage</a>: </b>Great website layout, a small house line of Vintage Repro called "Classic Dame", well sourced authentic vintage and great customer service. BVV carries 20's to 60's designs by other lines as well.<br />
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<b></b><a href="http://www.feverdesigns.co.uk/" target="_blank"><b>Fever (Various countries, check labels)</b> </a>UK Line which features vintage inspired clothing all of which is very well made and very cute. So many standouts they can't be named. Check them out!<br />
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<a href="http://www.freddiesofpinewood.co.uk/" target="_blank"><b>Freddie's of Pinewood </b></a> (UK label made in Turkey) UK based line which features raw denim and authentic 100% cotton no stretch denim jeans, dungarees, capris and a small house line of tops. Men's wear too.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.getcutie.co.uk/home/index.html" target="_blank">Get Cutie</a> (Made in the UK)</b> Brighton based Vintage Repro dresses in ANY fabric you want. They aim to create anything the customer desires.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.digforvictoryclothing.com/" target="_blank">Dig For Victory</a> (Made in the UK) Brighton does it again! Stunning and ornate dresses made from end of roll and vintage fabrics. Custom available. Highly recommend.</b><br />
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<b><a href="http://heartbreakerfashion.com/" target="_blank">Heartbreaker</a> (Made in the USA)</b>: Large selection of very sweet and simply VR styles in US sourced fabrics with The Sweetie dress being the standout.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.jonesandjonesfashion.com/" target="_blank">Jones and Jones </a>(Made in the UK)</b>: Offers beautiful Vintage styling (50's to 70's) and Liberty print fabrics alongside modern/70's St.Tropez cuts for the super small and petite.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.limb-clothing.com/" target="_blank">Limb Vanity Project</a> (made in the UK) </b>A wide range of vintage inspired dresses. Using the finer fabrics and trimmings sourced worldwide.Hand cut patterns to ensure a great fit for modern women who want a chic and stylish look from a vintage era Based in Woodend Mill, a converted cotton mill in Greater Manchester, nestling at the edge of the pennine hills.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.lolitagirlclothing.com/" target="_blank">Lolita Girl</a> </b>(Made in the USA) 1950s swimsuits and dresses plus much more made by a small team based in Southern California.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.loveurlook.co.uk/" target="_blank">Love ur Look</a></b> (Made in the UK/upcycled and vintage fabrics) 50s styles with a small production line and great prices.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.ilovelowie.com/" target="_blank">Lowie </a></b><b>(Made in the UK)</b> Spectacular French and Italian inspired semi-posh vintage Repro line with some British Heritage influences thrown in. Bardot would have worn them. Runs small.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.newlook.com/" target="_blank">New Look</a>:</b> (Various countries, check labels) British High street label with roomy playsuits and great florals. Last month they became the first major retailer to release an entire Vintage Repro inspired line for the High Street with the Kelly Brook Collection.Do check out this <a href="http://superamanda.blogspot.com/2012/06/disciples-of-shirely-russell-kelly.html" target="_blank">indepth review!</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.oasis-stores.com/?lng=en&ctry=GB&" target="_blank"><b>Oasis:</b></a> (Made in Romania and various countries, check labels) UK High Street that produces a vintage Repro line each Spring called Floral Frocks. 2011 was a standout with silk dresses which came with matching bags and scarves. 2012 had very nice cotton VR dresses running slightly small. Once they sell out they are almost impossible to find.<br />
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<a href="http://puttin-on-the-ritz.net/" target="_blank"><b>Puttin on the Ritz:</b></a> Shirely Russell would be so proud of putting on the Ritz. This is an all bespoke 30's and 40's 100% wearable and as well made as it gets.<br />
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<a href="http://queen%20of%20heartz/" target="_blank"><b></b></a><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=15795304" target="_blank">Queen of Heartz</a>:</b> Created by a vintage and fashion history expert, they offer a surprisingly large selection of roomy vintage repro dresses, rompers, and separates in high quality fabrics. QOH is the "wear to the office as well as the ball" side of vintage repro and that is a high compliment as nothing looks like a costume.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.shabbyapple.com/" target="_blank">Shabby Apple</a> (Made in the USA) </b>East Coast vibe with a vast selection of mostly vintage themed clothing designed to segue to day's workplace and evening out. Unless they shoot at EPCOT centre, Shabby Apple hey appaer to have a staggering budget for very well thought out and lovely international photos shoots to showcase their clothing<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.stopstaringclothing.com/sunshop/" target="_blank">Stop Staring</a> (Made in the USA):</b> Considered THEE vintage reproduction line by many, SS is ideal for top heavy figures. The Starlight Swing dress is one of the most beautiful dresses I own, but sadly I found the Cover Girl style did not work for me. There seems to be something for everyone in their line though.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.trollieddolly.com/" target="_blank">Trollied Dolly</a> (Made in the UK): </b>Vintage style fabrics with a wearable high street twist runs very small but Mod Cloth carries an XL (UK 12). They carry some wonderful floral prints.<br />
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<a href="http://www.whatkatiedid.us.com/index.php?fes_lst_id=" target="_blank"><b>What Katie Did</b></a> <b>(Made in the UK and India):</b> The best ready to wear and made to order corsets and waist cinchers anywhere in the world alongside their legendary vintage reproduction lingerie. Do note that new school UK sizing is not available on the bras meaning that there are no 30G, 34FF and 32GG sizing and fit is closer to old school aka bigger band size and bigger cup size which for larger busted gals can mean that the straps take the weight of the breasts. Ideally you are under a 34E to wear their bras. Katie is also one of the only manufacturers left in the world making seamed stockings on vintage machines.<br />
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</b><b>ONLINE BOUTIQUES SELLING VINTAGE REPRODUCTIONS:</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/red7movies/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686" target="_blank">Red7Movies:</a> <b>Ebay seller with a huge selection plus some of the best service anywhere</b>! Red7Movies will try to get you<b> ANY </b>dress, just ask.<br />
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<b>BabyGirl Boutique</b>: Great service, huge selection including vintage and 10% return customer discount<br />
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<b>JBR Clothing:</b> <b>Some of the best service anywhere!</b> <br />
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<b>Mod Cloth:</b> I'm neutral on Mod Cloth. I love the vibe, the voluminous selection (dresses number into the thousands), the exclusives and all the reviews but feel a bit annoyed that they carry many UK high street and US/UK Pin Up brands and then simply rename the dresses for their own website with no brand often listed. This detracts from the original seller, the UK vibe and seems sneaky but their selection can't be denied and as I said they have many exclusives.<br />
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<b>*What is true to size? </b><br />
In this case here is a Vintage Reproduction guide that I created combining over a dozen vintage repro size charts. Sizing is in women's not junior's fit. Do note that UK sizing as a whole usually runs smaller than US.<br />
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Bust-Waist-Hips-Dress Size<br />
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30-22-32 2<br />
32-24-34 4<br />
34-26-36 6<br />
36-28-38 8<br />
38-30-40 10<br />
40-32-42 12<br />
42-34-44 14<br />
44-36-46 16<br />
46-38-48 18<br />
48-40-50 20 <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAFYZQgbDqJc6goyQvbu7Dt7YFQWJtQExy2hezwUqDsK53BDRp794gi233VHKoGp7nLXBmzv4snvIgG99WRzlmYoQkkUGcd7hkk_5PA9YrG0zFK9ZW8-ChNBoWAeTfBgvqShyzA/s1600/PORTIA_DRESS_BLUE_pop_up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAFYZQgbDqJc6goyQvbu7Dt7YFQWJtQExy2hezwUqDsK53BDRp794gi233VHKoGp7nLXBmzv4snvIgG99WRzlmYoQkkUGcd7hkk_5PA9YrG0zFK9ZW8-ChNBoWAeTfBgvqShyzA/s400/PORTIA_DRESS_BLUE_pop_up.jpg" width="254" /></a>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-31599931486538853072012-10-27T06:09:00.000+01:002012-10-27T06:20:47.979+01:00Who I Am related music<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRybuxZ671DF557LUM2uC_3-potysYNsGYTD7PnXUJh3kA0NLJmOjTsXv9ST7mGnWJk3sb4jup5T078bkbaMuMJiZP1a_Rkv7bJ0gicbPKzzt_6zvmwkBZtT8k7gth2oI0KIO1Q/s1600/Say_hello_to_the_Loveman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRybuxZ671DF557LUM2uC_3-potysYNsGYTD7PnXUJh3kA0NLJmOjTsXv9ST7mGnWJk3sb4jup5T078bkbaMuMJiZP1a_Rkv7bJ0gicbPKzzt_6zvmwkBZtT8k7gth2oI0KIO1Q/s320/Say_hello_to_the_Loveman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b> LONG MONTH! Anyone else feeling it?</b><br />
<br />
I'm reading through Pete's book a second time and working on a review. So far much of what I've read reviews wise, apart from Salon and bits of the Robert Christagau Sunday NY Times piece have not really turned me on at all nor have they done justice to this very fun book. Where is the collective sense of humour these days with the press? Lighten up bitches! <br />
<br />
Our son loves the pewter cover as he can unfold it and the entire book falls to the floor with a thud. How cool that it was taken by Terry "God" O'Neil too. The nice thing for me is that I'm really playing The Who and Pete's solo stuff again. I vowed that when my son was born he would not be one of those kids branded and cajoled via what their parents likes and his music, myths and cartoons would be chosen by him alone. Yes, my husband chose "Strummer" as his middle name but it's been "Who Lite" in our lives for quite some time. He's listening and sometimes protesting but the music had got his attention. Will Pete and The Who over take Al Stewart in the nursery? Stay tuned!<br />
<br />
Here are few non Pete/Who songs that have come to mind while reading the book:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7pmPPbfWt5k" width="320"></iframe> <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HyM251--3uU" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N5qNk7H9gF8" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O9giC9W3sqk" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XBuMC25npYk" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jcr4_Tr0uZA" width="320"></iframe><br />
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<br />Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-18845635399204714002012-10-16T21:45:00.000+01:002012-10-17T18:38:03.903+01:00A Kid for Two Book SigningsHow often do West London rock stars deign to grace East End venues with their presence? Proper East End venues? My adorable husband wanted to surprise me and went down to Truman Brewery this evening to get an autographed copy of "Who I Am" signed by Pete.<br />
<br />
We must have miscommunicated because he returned about an hour ago sweetly telling me that his honey had made "him look like a right **** " and that it wasn't on tonight. Well of course not honey, it's on <b>tomorrow</b> night... He missed the England game which is now postponed until tomorrow (thank God!).<br />
<br />
He's very determined to go now even though I said "no worries". I'm not able to bring our son over there at that time as he's an early sleeper/early riser so I sadly can't go but he wants me to have a special second copy of the book because he loves me so much. He is the best and we are so lucky to have each other and of course our God like son too who's more of an Al Stewart fan currently. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I'm on page 155 of Who I Am now- right before Tommy. Best autobiography ever! Here's Al Stewart now for you all</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IS-1ZTSCqio?list=PLBA609BB18D18EDA7&hl=en_US" width="380"></iframe><br /></b></span>
<br />
(*In Cockney speak the freely used C word means "complete idiot" or
"thoughtless person" possessing none of the shocking, damning anti-feminist fist
fight inducing incarnation it has if it is used in the States)Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-67421312852374167622012-10-16T05:40:00.000+01:002012-10-27T06:43:44.304+01:00Who I Am by Pete Townshend HERE IT IS!"<br />
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<b>ICONIC </b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i>(I'm going to be reading and and reviewing Pete's new memoir over the next few days. This is not going to be the syrupy and fawning review by a life long Who fan. This is going to be NSFW real! And Pete is coming to the East End tomorrow....WooWHO!)</i><br />
<br />
<br />
So after consulting the index and reading both Ken and Matt Kent's entries I skimmed over the the later chapters and thought...what cack! "Chunderooney" I said to myself as I read a sentence of Pete rebuffing a "mildly Ethiopian looking" hot chick here and way too much information style references to hooking up with his partner Rachel there. And are my eyes actualy reading that Pete went to a Mankdonna concert? I'm not trying to take the piss with my first world problems folks but <b>f*ck</b> that. This comparatively 'big print" book is really "it"?<br />
<br />
As I pathetically customized my Facebook status update to exclude Lawrence Ball, Irish Jack, Michael Cuthbert, Dougal Butler and Simon Townshend I moaned about "not wanting the dream to die" and "free book if you want it" and the best (and most inadvertently dating one) "I feel Horses Neck was the true definitive bio..." and took it down two minutes later. <br />
<br />
Pete Townshend is like Leonardo DiCaprio or Russell Crowe; a star and a myth who can't be mass branded or homogenised to make you feel comfortable-even if you are a long time fan. You see DiCaprio on screen and no matter what he's in, "Titanic" is going to come to mind and instantly you can't really look at what he's doing without seeing this huge overlay of what you think he's supposed to be. But then about ten minutes into a film like "The Departed" you are thinking, "Christ, he's astonishing and this is one of the all time great and most magnetic presences". Russell Crowe is caught off guard at "In and Out Burger" and he still looks scary and handsome as fuck. Pete is astonishing and resplendent in this exact same way. And I feel like this is Pete Townshend on the big screen; his life squashed down to a few hours and them blown up 40 feet high. <br />
<br />
And now I've not really slept much because the book is so great,
starting from the start. I was about when Pete uploaded an early
germination of this memoir and it is wonderful to recognize the bits he
kept in. Am I the only one who's noticed that oddly his dark time at his Grandmother's also coincided with the year Meher Baba was in a near fatal and life altering car crash? And that there is no formal dedication. He won't wear Macca's golden suit and hat-ever.<br />
<br />
Ken Russell as a biographer of a musicians is smiling down and all around at this book. It's because of Ken that I can see the book as a film and because of Pete that I can hear it and I'm so thankful for that- miserable, crazy and pretentious as I am sometimes. Pete is deserving of his own Ominbus musicians bio and I'm sure Ken is working on it now.<br />
<br />
There has been nothing like this book thus far for Who fans and curious Pop culture aficionado/non die hard fans alike. Just has Tommy "eluded Broadway for thirty years" there has been no major biography (much less autobiography) of this great man so I literally expected angels, larger than life people and London buses to leap from the pages and what do you know folks? They do!<br />
<br />
BUY THE BOOK PEOPLE!!<br />
<br />
<br />
He could a tale unfold...."
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Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-51988856480793603072012-10-09T15:23:00.003+01:002012-10-09T15:23:36.246+01:00Two more days and England gets the book!!<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rgFQzIfb9ok" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-59241295969891896072012-09-03T05:38:00.001+01:002012-09-03T05:42:28.308+01:00Becoming Ken Russell!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_taKRmSbcqd143-Kp72ld9WBY-_cOnAWElm83l1W6TF6F6q-aQF6QG7dX-5QuAYduEpmZ-SB2JtTKFFoyL2pFdnvrV_N_mNC7PybW73uprZQ8wNQMgnyomoZrKYgOCC3ESufag/s1600/Debussy_Ken_Paul_Sutton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_taKRmSbcqd143-Kp72ld9WBY-_cOnAWElm83l1W6TF6F6q-aQF6QG7dX-5QuAYduEpmZ-SB2JtTKFFoyL2pFdnvrV_N_mNC7PybW73uprZQ8wNQMgnyomoZrKYgOCC3ESufag/s400/Debussy_Ken_Paul_Sutton.jpg" width="289" /></a></div><br />
All fans and advocates of Ken know the name <a href="http://thekenrussell.blogspot.com/">Paul Sutton</a>. In the fellowship he's one of the most committed people to preserving Ken's oeuvre for posterity particularly the first 35 shorter films that Ken did for the BBC. Just as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_Rupe">Shade Rupe</a> has worked tirelessly to keep Ken's major studio works before the public, and Ian Fisher keeps the online fires burning, Paul is assuring that the smaller films (films that the UK public paid for) are no longer buried and hard to see. As it stands now, there is only a region 1 release of a half dozen or so films. A region 2 release of some very rare later works is due in a year....makes no sense really. Is it really <b> that</b> challenging for the beeb to make Ken's work available? Work that TV licensing fees paid for?<br />
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So in an effort to continue the tradition of Ken Russell scholarship (Ken being the star scholar thus far ;) Paul has authored the first of what is apparently going to be a staggering five volumes of sorely needed "Russell indepth". Started in 2007, Becoming Ken Russell: The Authorised Biography of Ken Russell: Volume One (Volume 1) is now been made available and here is Paul's take on it:<br />
<br />
"Ken Russell was thirty-two years old in 1959, having been rejected by the British Film Industry because he didn't have the right family connections or the right school tie. Without connections there was no chance of his having a career in film. Until the industry collapsed. The failing studios at Lime Grove, where Alfred Hitchcock made The 39 Steps, and at Ealing, where Alec Guinness closed a series of unprofitable comedies with The Ladykillers, were now in the control of the BBC. And the BBC were looking for new talent.<br />
<br />
Hired as an independent filmmaker, Ken Russell made seven short 35mm films in his first year at Lime Grove and at Ealing. The films were about dance and painting, architecture, comedy, poetry and music. The seven films were all about England. And they were all about him.<br />
<br />
The Seven Ken Russell Films of 1959 advanced the art of cinema, acted as a sort of `blueprint' for masters such as Stanley Kubrick, and redefined the meaning of `English Cinema'. The films stand with the best made anywhere in the world that year. The year Ken Russell `became' Ken Russell.<br />
<br />
Using tens of thousands of pages of original documents, decades of letters, and hundreds of interviews with Ken Russell, his family and his colleagues, Paul Sutton's multi-volume biography of Russell is the most complete portrait of an English film artist"<br />
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Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-77591824752130093462012-07-28T19:51:00.006+01:002013-08-05T13:43:52.240+01:00Disciples of Shirley Russell ALERT : EVIL QUEEN OF HOLLWAY- COUNTERFEIT VINTAGE REPRODUCTION CLOTHINGThis is a call to action for all vintage and vintage reproduction fans, advocates and sellers. I came upon the most awful discovery a few weeks ago while online window shopping.<br />
<br />
A website called "Queen of Holloway" (I refuse to link to their site).<br />
<br />
No, they have <b>ZERO affiliation </b>with the far superior pin up brands who manufacture clothing in London and put money back into the British economy. Queen of Holloway may have a British web address but they clearly manufacture in CHINA; stealing ideas, clothing designs and yes, <b>ACTUAL PHOTOS </b>of clothing from ethical Pin Up Clothing designers like Whirling Turban and Dolly Dagger.<br />
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The name "Queen of Holloway" is horrendous. That's like calling one's company "Pin Up Gal Clothing" , "The Dancing Turban" or "Fables By Bonnie" <b>a complete and utter copy of someone else's hard work and creativity.</b> Even Vintage reproduction names like Brighton's wonderful Dolly Dagger who have a relatively small production line are being copied which is inexcusable.<br />
<br />
<b>So those who are buying Made in China rip offs like this, ask yourself how would YOU feel</b> if you'd started from scratch, building your own following, choosing fabrics and designs that were your personal signature, paying taxes, licensing and then someone simply came along and photo copied every single thing you did and sold it-even down to illegally using your own professional photos?<br />
<br />
I see more than few of my fellow dress addicts are buying from "Queen of Holloway" which is<b> saddening. Come on ladies! REALLY bad call!</b><br />
<br />
Many of us who are investing in Pinup and vintage reproduction are considering starting our own clothing lines at some point or have friends that already are. Vintage Repro and Pin Up is becoming big business and a chance to do what you love and have fun while turning a profit. I'm discovering how costly it is and what an investment I'll need to make. I would be gutted if this happened to me and worst of all- powerless. Legal fees for businesses domestically are astronomical enough but international rip offs like this are very hard to monitor and bring to justice because you need thousands of dollars to go after them.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>IF YOU BUY FROM EVIL QUEEN OF HOLLOWAY YOU ARE AS BIG A THIEF AS THEY ARE!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>F.A.Q.</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>But isn't ALL Pin Up clothing somewhat of a "copy"?</b><br />
No. The majority of what you see has been meticulously hand crafted, modernized and fitted on various shapes and tested (sometimes for years) for fit and form on a multitude of fabrics. Women's lives, figures, fabrics etc are not the same as they were mid-century and vintage reproduction designers have had to be creative to accommodate this. The labels being ripped off by Evil Queen of Holloway made it possible for millions of women who can't afford vintage and/or do not fit in high street/modern clothing to look good and feel great in what we wear.<br />
<br />
<b>But hasn't there always been this kind of clothing? Why is the price still so high? </b> No, in fact before the internet, if you were bigger than say a 34C-24-36 and 5'5 and did not live near a major city, your chances of getting vintage that was wearable was near impossible unless you had literally loads of money. Sometimes you'd find new "vintagey" pieces at Macys or Contempo Casuals but only if you were lucky and below a juniors size 13. If you saw a vintage repro in magazine often you could not even find it. As recently as 2000 I tried ordering an Anna Sui vintage style top and when they sent the wrong one I had to travel to Neiman's to return it. Vintage often ripped , fell apart or had to be altered so thankfully the internet and lines like Pin Up Girl clothing, Dolly Dagger, Whirling Turban and Bettie Page changed all of that for the better AND have kept their business in the USA. The price is NOT high for the quality and the ethics. In fact it is VERY reasonable if you look closer.<br />
<br />
<b>But some of the big names in Vintage Reproduction manufacture in China why not buy from "Queen of Holloway" if its all coming from the same place? </b> Actually the majority of the big names in vintage repro <b>do NOT</b> manufacture in China. Stop Staring, Vivien of Holloway, Pin up Girl Clothing, Bettie Page, Fables By Barrie, Heartbreaker, Dolly Dagger etc, etc all create in either the UK or the United States,<b> putting money back into the economy and selling a superior product</b>. Some UK labels like Oasis Floral Frocks and Lady Vintage manufacture in Romania but that's still a huge improvement over China.<br />
<br />
<b>What about Trashy Diva? Don't they manufacture out of China?</b> Yes, Trashy Diva moved their production to China awhile back which is of course disappointing but not an excuse to see them ripped off as they make a superior product. For starters they still employ US citizens at FIVE store fronts in New Orleans and they were doing vintage Repro as far back as the 90's. It may not been possible for them to keep stores open and still manufacture in the US. Remember, in the 90s and there was a huge surge in "globalization" and "free trade" that saw nearly all US and many UK clothing manufacturers outsource to China. The companies operating post 2004 or so, unlike Trashy Diva, have all had the benefits of the internet, Facebook, You Tube, My Space, Pay Pal, Ebay, social networking, Etsy, the Pin Up and burlesque community etc etc etc to make their name. Hopefully Trashy Diva will come back to the US someday.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>But what if I just buy ONE dress that isn't a copy? They have SO many cute fabrics and designs that are NOT copies after all and they have hard to find sizes so what's the harm in that?</b> For starters you are still funding actual fraud. That would be like saying "Ok, I'm not a thief if I steal your butter but not your cow." You can go onto Etsy and have custom dresses made where you can pay off the seamstress in installments and get an astonishing product that will last a lifetime. Sometimes a custom dress on Etsy is as low as 150.00. You can get a great product made by someone earning a living wage or walk around in your Chinese slave labour rip off dress-the choice is up to you.<br />
<br />
<b>Sorry, I'm still not sold. A dress is a dress and I'm not paying high prices.</b> Please see below then.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPB5j1IAFhHTU3VysJN8l7BciX6adz6n1KQtmNlTtUxqPuueaQXdwIG4q7X0Tv8n02IAz8_-rZvncHRYVS3KXcvnNmcwBmpIngau3-xmVUfsjM0TnvwpfOLW9gRQdJfVfAeUPpA/s1600/Ell-Macpherson_Rhino_horn_Death.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPB5j1IAFhHTU3VysJN8l7BciX6adz6n1KQtmNlTtUxqPuueaQXdwIG4q7X0Tv8n02IAz8_-rZvncHRYVS3KXcvnNmcwBmpIngau3-xmVUfsjM0TnvwpfOLW9gRQdJfVfAeUPpA/s320/Ell-Macpherson_Rhino_horn_Death.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b>When you buy Made in China Pin Up Clothing and counterfeit Vintage reproductions from fakes such as "Queen of Holloway" you are supporting the horrific tragedy above. The Chinese Government will do nothing to stop Rhino and Tiger extinction and are in fact encouraging it. And of course human rights abuses in China are some of the worst in the world and include some of the most awful things I've ever read about and will not mention here. True, we have all been literally forced via the greedy 1% in this era to buy many things we need from China but at LEAST Pin Up fans and vintage aficionados are keeping their money in Europe and the US. </b><br />
<br />
<b>WE MUST SUPPORT THEM AND SAY NO MORE MADE IN CHINA! NO TO COUNTERFEIT VINTAGE REPROS!</b><br />
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<b>IF YOU DON'T THEN YOU PAY FOR THE ABOVE. Convinced now?</b>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15795304.post-7013186755048162702012-07-15T19:20:00.004+01:002012-07-15T19:51:44.444+01:00Walking up to Valhalla<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9OXpMxwJxyne6Iu5bE0wY_dEtTh6yx0r72-OoDEtlKc2XW0vK8tBC_q6l6RYPKqtq1G1qk0_x2M48e0eGv3gyjmNZlIvcGH6_gGfiytKBz_9N8lGIw0yFohypyoA4LpZ3LuFUA/s1600/Ken_Lisi_Nipper_Forever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9OXpMxwJxyne6Iu5bE0wY_dEtTh6yx0r72-OoDEtlKc2XW0vK8tBC_q6l6RYPKqtq1G1qk0_x2M48e0eGv3gyjmNZlIvcGH6_gGfiytKBz_9N8lGIw0yFohypyoA4LpZ3LuFUA/s320/Ken_Lisi_Nipper_Forever.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuUgqijdDZb0YtY8IbY9zGSqk9urS7_cB9mERN9OMC5R4FjBnrlPm0NxebLGSsWqcbwYVRjoVg1oh892omEhmVOVq8AXj49CJzYCwsvIWLmcAZPwyct0a9HyXfgbzdndzGiJwog/s1600/Beaulieu_river_under_railway_arch_Ken_Russell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuUgqijdDZb0YtY8IbY9zGSqk9urS7_cB9mERN9OMC5R4FjBnrlPm0NxebLGSsWqcbwYVRjoVg1oh892omEhmVOVq8AXj49CJzYCwsvIWLmcAZPwyct0a9HyXfgbzdndzGiJwog/s320/Beaulieu_river_under_railway_arch_Ken_Russell.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3loTjum8h1vTavCA38L-Qh_sjvvmgLIX6SAIhnfg7E68X0Z4XgMHt2yOUGTJCph-wSySWuwhlwql8CttjvZjVmB_zY4Rb_M0LwQA-HtI6TCvzCziVmQtigNUou_wWtYNtcGdVg/s1600/bucklersHard2_KenRussell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3loTjum8h1vTavCA38L-Qh_sjvvmgLIX6SAIhnfg7E68X0Z4XgMHt2yOUGTJCph-wSySWuwhlwql8CttjvZjVmB_zY4Rb_M0LwQA-HtI6TCvzCziVmQtigNUou_wWtYNtcGdVg/s400/bucklersHard2_KenRussell.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLvt8UqYsJCha42ID8kY5IYksyQ9HzmTFmOEpDwpcAUcD6wNvXO1XKl-Rv3RspUVEohnpUoCzXGj19Zsk0M38mcb0nj_3kj3e1ajqZDAO97sh_x5F2eo4wN-e6sIhFHoFQ75r8w/s1600/Ken_Lisi_Nipper_Forever_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLvt8UqYsJCha42ID8kY5IYksyQ9HzmTFmOEpDwpcAUcD6wNvXO1XKl-Rv3RspUVEohnpUoCzXGj19Zsk0M38mcb0nj_3kj3e1ajqZDAO97sh_x5F2eo4wN-e6sIhFHoFQ75r8w/s400/Ken_Lisi_Nipper_Forever_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7C92QtoVwDeiZAkJ6U1bCWFUJd7l63T1k9Hg_e_paJJcIZA0YRs4YKI-UrE5IbJDCKwJT6a9-KUnv4t8DpSXOiUI6FYdhtU0-btbY333mOTsQR_1L1XMVzF-aWZHBUOUIOselVw/s1600/lepeBeach_KenRussell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="282" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7C92QtoVwDeiZAkJ6U1bCWFUJd7l63T1k9Hg_e_paJJcIZA0YRs4YKI-UrE5IbJDCKwJT6a9-KUnv4t8DpSXOiUI6FYdhtU0-btbY333mOTsQR_1L1XMVzF-aWZHBUOUIOselVw/s400/lepeBeach_KenRussell.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Our endless UK rain gave way to glorious sunshine and a few willowy clouds and Ken had a wonderful send off with all his dearest family and friends this past Monday afternoon, 9th of July. He had asked especially for a Viking funeral and his wife Lisi officiated a lovely ceremony. The ceremony was held on the spectacular Beaulieu River in Hampshire which starts next to homes and gardens, winds past homes to meet the marinas and small boats and then pours into the sea. Ken is joined with all this beauty not so far from where he was born, came of age and where he lived and will continue to surrounded by loved ones and friends. When I was about 6 or 7 I read a story in a school book of two boys who had a little river tributary near their home and sailed a canoe upon it. In the book they also became lost and spent the night in a forest building a 'tent' from branches and leaves. The illustration looked just like where Ken is today.<br />
<br />
<br />
Early sun on Beaulieu water<br />
Lights the undersides of oaks,<br />
Clumps of leaves it floods and<br />
All transparent glow the branches<br />
Which the double sunlight soaks;<br />
And to her craft on Beaulieu water<br />
Clemency the General's daughter<br />
Pulls across with even strokes.<br />
<br />
Schoolboy sure she is this morning;<br />
Soon her sharpie's rigg'd and free.<br />
Cool beneath a garden awning<br />
Mrs Fairclough sipping tea<br />
And raising large long-distance glasses<br />
As the little sharpie passes,<br />
Sighs our sailor girl to see:<br />
<br />
Tulip figure, so appealing,<br />
<br />
Oval face, so serious-eyed,<br />
<br />
Tree-roots pass'd and muddy beaches,<br />
<br />
On to huge and lake-like reaches<br />
<br />
Soft and sun-warm, see her glide,<br />
<br />
Slacks the slim young limbs<br />
<br />
revealing,<br />
<br />
Sun-brown arm the tiller feeling,<br />
<br />
Before the wind and with the tide.<br />
<br />
Evening light will bring the water,<br />
<br />
Day-long sun will burst the bud,<br />
<br />
Clemency, the General's daughter<br />
<br />
Will return upon the flood.<br />
<br />
But the older woman only<br />
<br />
Knows the ebb tide leaves her lonely.<br />
<br />
With the shining fields of mud.<br />
<br />
Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, by John Betjeman<br />
Hants (1945)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The river is always flowing<br />
Relentless towards the costal tides<br />
It travels down to the great ocean<br />
While most of us simply watch from the water side<br />
<br />
The water becomes Siddhartha's teacher<br />
Sometimes powerful and stern<br />
Sometimes gentle , forgiving<br />
It never changes in direction<br />
As it carries even mountains down to the sea<br />
<br />
I'll take you over<br />
I don't want your money<br />
Just hang on tight<br />
Till we reach the other wall<br />
Kings and beggars<br />
They all cling to my ankle<br />
The horn blows wide, and the currents roar<br />
<br />
God fill this gutter<br />
That breaks my shoulder<br />
Smash me to pieces<br />
And wash me to mud<br />
Dry me to dust<br />
And set me to smolder<br />
Please let me dissolve in the autumn flood<br />
<br />
The rivers always flowing<br />
But I'm free now<br />
From It's grace<br />
I'll be swept down to the ocean<br />
And now you<br />
You will take my place <br />
<br />
-Pete Townshend "The Ferrymen"<br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRz742U8-_EqeT3oRBgmSDknyXPGmxrUB8HSf6kNRilehyphenhyphenUZk-hG0PXCtn2vp4q5_m4Z0ZeQsKGJbC2hVPlPiFHHSk4t7W0zebRIODEP3oMBNE8mrn8hZWCzNGM7bZ7zt6Ryowg/s1600/ken's.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRz742U8-_EqeT3oRBgmSDknyXPGmxrUB8HSf6kNRilehyphenhyphenUZk-hG0PXCtn2vp4q5_m4Z0ZeQsKGJbC2hVPlPiFHHSk4t7W0zebRIODEP3oMBNE8mrn8hZWCzNGM7bZ7zt6Ryowg/s320/ken's.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Amanda and SuperAmanda™http://www.blogger.com/profile/11405128770699138128noreply@blogger.com3