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7月29日 Reading PalmsI don't do vacations. It's hard to find a parrot-sitter. But, it's vacation time, Will's tie last week (see previous entry) got me thinking along the lines of palm-tree exoticism , and a friend's grandson will be in town for a week for a Florida vacation.
Where am I going with this? How about five ties that are such a treat to wear that they are a vacation themselves? All five feature palms, which, of course, are not really trees, and four of the five have the same label, Tropicals by Tango (a nice Florida-orange label, by the way). Friday's tie is Tropical Americana. Two have labels "Made in Korea," and three "Made in the United States." All are silk.
In the glory days of pictoral neckties, palms were a common subject. The shape fits well onto tie, and the palm represents the spirit of fun that was so much a part of the necktie scene after World War II, a scene celebrated by K.N.O.T.
Among my vintage ties, I do not have any with palms. These neckties, I feel, make up for that omission. I don't have much to say about the individual ties. There is a pleasant range of base colors, reds, tans, and blue. The designs range from palms by themselves to a seascape with palms. Friday's tie puts the palms into postcard views, which, by the way, happen to be quadrangles, which provides a transition to next week. By the way, I have worn and blogged another tie with a palm
Enjoy! Since I may take a day off this week to join in the vacation with my friend and his grandson, I may change the schedule of ties later.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved
Click on photos to enlarge. 7月26日 Thou Shalt Not CovetExodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."
He can keep his ass and his ox, but, doggone it, I really want Will Stuivenga's latest tie. He says that a palm tree does not necessarily mean summer. That's right, since I have one outside my window all year long. But the sunny yellow of the tie means something good.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved 7月25日 Ties "4" Squares - 3So, we come back to those quazy quadrangles, this time with a twist. First, I'm not exactly being square with you to have a four-day theme week. Second, these ties all carry the Countess Mara label. The Contessa has been a recurring figure in this blog. She was the first designer to slap her logo into her designs. Some of my Countess Mara ties carry that logo - the letters CM with a crown over them. Over the years, it seems, there has been some variety in the manufacture of these ties and of their labels, but as far as I can tell, one constant, which is their attraction for me, is a distinctive reinforced neckband. Recently, I bought these four ties with Countess Mara labels (and six others as well) on a well-known online auction site for six dollars. With postage, the ten ran less than a dollar a tie. I do not know for sure, but although they have Countess Mara labels, they do not seem to have earned that label. They don't have the distinctive neckbands. At least one, I believe, is not even silk. They are, I believe, Countess-feits. But, they are decent ties, and, obviously, they give me a good story. If I had paid almost four dollars for return postage, I would have gotten only six dollars refunded, so I have ten phony CM ties, and you have a lesson. Square is an intriguing word. It used to be good, such as a right square chap, a square deal, but then the word changed. Squares, you know, wear neckties. Enough said. But, squareness has some archetypal solidity to it, and who would know archetypes better than Carl Jung? I remember reading somewhere that he believed that the Virgin Mary was elevated in the Middle Ages to equivalence with the Trinity to make the unstable three-sided figure more emblematic of the whole, with four sides. Some commentator speculated that there were four Gospels included in the New Testament canon (there are many more outside of it) to correspond to the four corners that, we all know, the earth has. With that, let's get back to earth and to neckties. Tuesday's tie (07-25) is my favorite, with pleasant colors shaped into quadrangles arranged on the diagonal. It is also the best silk. Wednesday's tie (07-26) wins a place in the collection for its blue, a color that I find rare among my holdings. I suspect it is not silk. Thursday's tie (07-27) mixes the rhombus and the rectangle in warm earth tones. Friday's tie (07-28) is, like the other Friday ties in the quadrangle series, rather explosive. Why? Look at this: every square is divided into triangles. Wear your ties proudly, whether or not they are what they say they are. Be what you say you are.
Copyright (C) 2006 by Michael Segers. Click on the photos to enlarge. 7月24日 A Solid PauseThis week has a prelude with something really shocking... a solid color tie. There is a reason, however. I was recently given a plaid shirt with a variety of colors and a rather large design. I thought I would ease it into its new role in life with a solid color, with which it would not have to fight on its first day of duty. The tie is polyester (that's another shocker... and here's another), with no identifying label, except for a fleur-de-lys with no words.
And, that gives us a four-day week for a theme. Stay turned. It also gives me an opportunity to comment on the new Johnny Cash album, American V: A Hundred Highways. A friend with whom I shared a song from this album added to my appreciation of the song by saying that she felt as if she were listening to something that she was not supposed to hear.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved
Click on photo to enlarge. 7月16日 TreasuresHmm... this is supposed to be a blog about neckties. I seem to have gotten off track lately. I'm about to get off track again. I already had this week's ties, the third week of neckties with designs based on quadrangles, laid out, ready to post, and I decided, no, there have been too many treasures come into the collection lately.
One day, during the fortnight of quadrangles, Ken, my friend and DS (Designated Shopper, perhaps Doctor of Shop-ology), found three Beatles ties. (He also found the previously blogged "Ticket to Ride" tie.) Although I would prefer Woody Guthrie ties (see the previous entry), these are a lot of fun. I found my first Hermes tie (as I mentioned in the last entry), as well as one of the most stunning old ties I have ever seen.
The main attractions this week are the three Beatles ties, made by Manhattan, with a label for that company in the blade, with the name of the song and the date of its release imprinted onto the cloth. Strangely, only Friday's tie has the original "Apple Corps" label as a keeper (the label sewn as a loop onto the back of the wide end of the tie, into which one passes the narrow end). One has "Berkley" and the other "John Henry" - not, as far as I know, either company had anything to do with these ties. (More information here.)
7-17 - "Goodnight"
7-19 - "Because"
7-21 - "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
On Tuesday (7-18), I'll be wearing a necktie that really amazes me, with its swirling design of birds and flowers. I don't know the material, but there are designs so subtly woven into it that I can only see them by shining a bright light onto it. One label reads "Champagne Crepes by Signet," and another - a store label, I guess - offers "Demery's | Detroit." Unlike many of my old ties, this one has the design the whole length of the tie, not breaking for a solid area for the knot.
On Thursday (7-20), I'll wear my first and so far only Hermes tie. In case you do not know, these things are outrageously expensive. I think I'll wear this backwards, so that the label can be seen. Otherwise, since I have three ties commemorating Beatle's songs this week, I may add another musical connection, Miss Peggy Lee's world-weary "Is That All There Is?"
News flash: While working on this entry, I learned that my D.S. just had another grandchild born! Congratulations to all, and welcome, Brock, to our messed up planet! When you get ready for a necktie, your grandpop can find you a great one.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved
Click on photo to enlarge. 7月15日 Birthday and Bastille Day GiftsI've had some pleasant things come into my life this week, and so, I consider them birthday gifts of a sort. Last weekend, I accidentally came across a reference to the IWW. The good news is that those good folks are still around; the bad news is that they are in such small numbers that it becomes news to find out that they are still around. At least, the dream of "One Big Union" is still alive... and that news was a very special gift.
Later in the week, I watched a documentary on Woody Guthrie. The film itself was a gift, but it gave me another gift, the discovery that I recognized every song in the film.
Then, my very odd "spider orchid." bloomed. As you can see (not my photograph; my plant is apparently camera shy), it does indeed look like a spider, which accounts for its name, Miltassias Shelob. Miltassias, according to that last link, is the name for hybrids of two kinds of orchids, Brassias and Miltonias; Shelob is, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien's spider monster. I bought it, blooming, on my birthday last year. This year, it had twenty buds, but the first one did not open until the day after my birthday. There are now four open. A gift like that is worth the wait.
Yesterday was Bastille Day, a day that doesn't have much meaning for me. I'm not a Francophile, but neither am I a Francophobe. When I was in the fourth grade, I had a chance to take an introductory language course, Spanish or French, and I chose Spanish, a language and a culture that have brought me much happiness over the years. I suppose I should have found a French tie (with quadrangles) for the day, but I didn't. Here is my idea of a great commemoration of Bastille Day.
Today, I stalked neckties in three thrift stores, found two ties from Spain (I had had only one)... and found my first Hermes tie... so I splurged (two dollars). No quadrangles, so it will have to wait.
It has been quite a week for necktie hunting. There is a little thrift shop near my office where ties are twenty-five cents each. The other day, I stopped in and discovered that that day, all men's clothing was half-price. Ties at 12.5 cents each? That was another birthday gift. There were very few ties that I would have bought otherwise, but I did stock up with generic neckties for Lent 2007.
I even got a very special birthday card, which featured neckties all over its front.
And, in the ongoing combination of French and Spanish culture and neckties today, I redeemed Christmas present gift certificates at the Columbia Restaurant in Tampa, treated myself to a Christmas in July or birthday present of paella. Definitely naptime. What other blog offers Woody Guthrie, J.R.R. Tolkien, and paella... in one entry?
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved 7月12日 Ties and PoetryI come across different associations of neckties and creativity: either that wearing a necktie is one of the few creative options in clothing available for men... or that wearing a necktie is a cause or effect of loss of creativity.
I beg to differ. My fellow Internet tie-guys have recently outdone themselves in coming up with poetical descriptions of their neckties. Will Stuivenga offers Pseudo-Meta-Paisley from Hawaii, and Burl Veneer provides Techno Deco.
Two of my alltime favorite poems allude to the wearing of neckties. In A.E. Housmann's "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff," which I can almost recite from memory, there are these four delightful lines:
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where, And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: So, he got nearly halfway home with that beer... serves him right to lose his necktie? (He shouldn't have even started home.)
A very different kettle of fish, of rare and sparkling varieties, to be sure, is "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," which has this single, memorable reference to a tie:
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
Here is a special online treat (with a brief commercial to begin), Eliot's own recording of the poem, which has long been one of my favorite poetry recordings. Left click the link to hear the poem now, or right click to download and save it... at least in Internet Explorer.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved 7月10日 Blog of AgesOK, I'm a year older (note change of number in my personal information), but, consider the alternative... So, isn't it about time I outgrow this blogging foolishness? That's for kids, isn't it?
No, it isn't, and my birthday is a great time to call to your attention a fellow MSN blogger, Gentle Breeze (A soft, gentle rain with the smell of the desert in the breeze!). The gentle Ms. Breeze fills her blog with fun, with jokes, with graphics, with love for her grandchildren, and best of all, for us bloggers of a certain age, lists of... well, lists of bloggers of certain ages, from infants, mewling in their 30's, to those of us who have been there and done all that and then some.
I am particularly aware of age, because in my work, helping people who are legally blind use computers with adaptive software, I work for a large number of older people, suffering from macular degeneration, some of whom have never used a computer before. Tomorrow, I'll work for three people, ranging in age from 18 to 89, and if they perform as they usually do, all three will impress and humble me.
Thanks, Ms. Breeze. Middle age loves company... and also loves the Countess Mara necktie that I wore today.
July 20 - update. More than half of bloggers are under 30. I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said that youth is too good a thing to be wasted on the young. So is blogging.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved 7月7日 Ties "4" Squares - 2I started to look through the eligible ties for this ongoing exploration of neckties with designs based on quadrangles. While this project could feel rather Lenten, I am excited by the variety that the theme offers.
Monday (7-10) is my birthday, so I need a birthday tie to go with my birthday suit? Not quite. But, it is also a special day because I'll start a new computer class, with all of two students. On my birthday, I'll wear a Countess Mara necktie with a lot of things going on. The quadrangles - little squares in this instance - are rotated a quarter turn, so that they stand on a corner. Actually, these are square dots, arranged like so many other design elements (from flies to sail boats) into diagonal lines. Notice that the background is a quadrangle-based grid. Who would think I would wear a simple, elegant necktie on my birthday, but my dear Contessa is my birthday girl. (Follow that link for four CM ties, one with a grid based on quadrangles, one with - how shocking! - triangles).
Tuesday (7-11), the necktie suggests a party to me. Maybe a jester? Somehow, a rather serious jester - as all the best jesters are. (Zianetti, "Italian silk collection," US) For some reason, my mind runs to Poe's story, "The Cask of Amontillado," and the unfortunate Fortunato's carnival dress. (Speaking of being unfortunate, I just had another occasion to grieve the loss of one of the great cultural treasures on the Internet, the bulging library of Blackmask, to which I would usually link for a literary text.)
From the rhombus to the square on Wednesday (7-12), with a subtle palette of colors, just what one might expect from Colours by Alexander Julian (silk, US). It is amazing how many different textures a silk necktie can have. I wish I could somehow post them.
Thursday (7-13), I dip into my older neckties for this one; its only surviving label reads "Macy's Men's Store. New York," with the number 77 in a circle. The tie has a combination of orange stripes (which are, after all, rectangles), dark brown wider stripe or rectangle, and a cross-hatch pattern on tan which reminds us of something that stretches this topic even further: all plaids are based on quadrangles.
On Friday (7-14), the squares are anything but square on this striking Oleg Cassini (silk, "handmade in Italy") tie. Just as I wish I could convey the textures, so also do I wish I could capture all the subtle designs that I can see on this necktie only when I shine a light directly onto it. I wonder if there is some secret message here. Maybe the message that those who do not wear neckties do not know what they are missing...
Once again, I want to refer to a site that I have had a lot of fun with, Wolfram MathWorld, "the web's most extensive mathematics resource," to which I turned for definitions and links in my first week of "Ties '4' Squares."
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved
Click on photo to enlarge. 7月4日 4th of JulyI wore no necktie on the Fourth of July... but I seem to be writing a poem. Yesterday's tie was about six inches longer than other ties, maybe enough necktie for two days?
It has been a low-key day, with cooking out and (sensibly) eating in, with two key ingredients for a great Fouth of July: watermelon and a marathon of Twilight Zone , the great television anthology series (1959-1964), full of neckties and cigarettes (even in hospitals, even on spacecraft).
NASA finally succeeded in its launch. I have sat on the couch in the living room and watched the shuttle rise as if it were being launched from a neighbor's backyard, but we had too many clouds today. Maybe it got lost in the zone.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved 7月2日 Ties "4" SquaresSix months and 135 ties blogged, where do I go from here?
I've noticed that when I have a week of non-representational ties (such as during Lent), I have more to write about than when I have a week of neckties with, say, pictures of horses. I enjoy speculating on what I call arche-tie-pal designs, and so, for some weeks now, I am going to begin the second half of the blog year with a very basic necktie design indeed.
Quadrangles. Yep, the old four-sided figures, which across the next few weeks, perhaps, we'll look at in a wide range of themes and variations: the rectangle and the rhombus, the square and the trapezoid, the parallelogram and the lozenge.
We start with a four day week (thanks to the Fourth of July) in which we can look at four ways this idea will develop.
On Monday (07-03), we'll begin with a sort of grid. At first glance, there is nothing but little gray squares; look closely at the lighter colored lines, however, and you'll see even smaller gray rectangles. This is about as basic as the quadrangle gets. (Ralph Lauren, silk, US)
For Wednesday (07-05), we'll see a regular grid of rectangles with decorative elements framed in them. (Roundtree & Yorke, silk, US) Just think what this idea can lead to... maybe Winnie the Pooh neatly boxed?
By Thursday (07-06), the angles change, but the number of angles and lines remain the same. We've reached the realm of the rhombus or the land of the lozenge. (Woodbury, silk, Italy)
The necktie for Friday (07-07) takes us beyond the tightly disciplined grids of the first three days. But, the design is built up of parallel lines and right angles. (Andhurst, fabric not identified.)
And so, we have a pattern. We'll start the week with a neat, orderly grid of quadrangles, then as we go through the week, we'll loosen up that grid (but not, of course, the ties) until Friday's tie might take us by surprise.
The links for the geometric terms in this post will take you to a wonderful site, Wolfram MathWorld, "the web's most extensive mathematics resource," which I have had so much fun with that I thought I would never get through this post. Do check it out.
It has in fact been six months and 135 ties since I began blogging in January. (There were some preliminaries in December, including some ties which I have not yet worn during the time of the blog.) Of those 135, eleven are old or vintage ties. There are three bow ties and nine bearing the label of Countess Mara.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved
Click on photo to enlarge. 7月1日 So, What Was June All About?The first of July, my father's birthday... and, at last, I can explain the mysterious references throughout the month of June. I have a problem, because my wearing of neckties is so tied up with my work at the Lighthouse for the Blind, and yet, I have to preserve the confidentiality of the people I work for. (I avoid the word clients.)
In the month of June, we had a group of visually-impaired high school students, together with three certified teachers of the visually impaired, at the Lighthouse for a program of vocational training, independent living skills, and recreation. I had thought of updating readers of this blog throughout the month, but I decided it would be better to wait until after the program.
I ended the month of May and began the month of June with a week of neckties featuring imaginary animals for two reasons. One, the program was very much about encouraging the kids to dream, perhaps to harness unicorns, and two, the first tie had Snoopy at a computer, and that provided some identification for me, the computer instructor. (If you follow these links, you will notice that some of these weeks have more than one entry. Here is another entry for this week... and another.)
The neckties of the second week were dedicated to horses not only to welcome back a co-worker who owns a horse but also to commemorate that the kids went horseback riding. Kids who are blind? On horses? Yes, they also went bowling, but I had already worn all my bowling-themed ties. About the only time you could have heard the word can't this month was in a sentence such as "You can't hold these kids back."
The third week's neckties were all about food because the kids did a lot of cooking, under the guidance of our Independent Living teacher, who gets around in a kitchen better than a lot of people who have their vision. There were no cherry pies, but there was a red velvet cake that makes me gain weight just thinking about it.
Then, I offered a week of ties on the theme of transportation. That is quite an issue for people who are visually impaired. Many of the elderly people I work for have told me poignantly about the milestone event of giving up their car keys, and the kids feel a sense of loss as their peers get their drivers licenses and cars. They discussed options for transportation, and they learned how to wash cars. Why would kids who are blind need to know how to wash cars? How about a trade? Give me a ride, and I'll wash your car. The poor kid who got to wash my car, after I had driven through a swarm of lovebugs, ran his hand over the hood and quipped, "Mr. Mike drives a Braille car!" (There are two more entries for transportation week: here and here.)
Finally, I celebrated the kids' achievements with a week of neckties featuring flowers. (I had wanted to suggest that they do a little gardening.) I finally had the opportunity to do something I have thought about doing many times this year, wearing two ties in one day. On Thursday, I began with a floral tie, but for the graduation/family night I switched to my beloved lighthouse tie.
The program is over, but the kids will go on to teach, play music, cook, be computer geeks (I worry about my job), and get licensed as massage therapists, I am sure. But, I am even more sure that they will continue to be the charming and challenging folks that they are right now.
By the way, no one mentioned my ties during the whole month; of course, the kids wouldn't. But, as always, for me my neckties added a level to an already rich experience.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Segers, all rights reserved |
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