Friday, March 22, 2013

FRIDAY'S SECOND POST

A Companion Piece to Dorothy Parker's
  Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk

Many thanks to Jez for sharing this with us earlier today.

http://www.redhatsociety.com/aboutus/howitstarted.html


Link provided courtesy of Faith aka Connie.

15 comments:

  1. How could anyone experience this and not instantly love Jenny Joseph?

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  2. Must have been the image that you posted that sparked Jez's associative response. :)

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  3. I rather think it was Dorothy's mention of The Color Purple, Thersites, even though she called it lavender.

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  4. I had never heard this poem before but I had heard of the Red Hat Society which I understood was inspired by a poem that started out "When I am old I will wear purple with a red hat...."

    Now I can't find that reference on the website of the Red Hat Society but I'm sure you can see the connection in the pictures.

    http://www.redhatsociety.com/aboutus/Legacy.html

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  5. Oh here, I did find a reference to the poem at the site:

    http://www.redhatsociety.com/aboutus/howitstarted.html

    "While visiting a friend in Tucson several years ago, Sue Ellen impulsively bought a bright red fedora at a thrift shop, for no other reason than that it was cheap and, she thought, quite dashing. A year or two later she read the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, which depicts an older woman in purple clothing with a red hat. Sue Ellen felt an immediate kinship with Ms. Joseph. She decided that her birthday gift to her dear friend, Linda Murphy, would be a vintage red hat and a copy of the poem. ...."

    And so the Red Hat Society was born.

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  6. What a nice surprise to see you here, Connie!

    Thanks for the information.

    Funny thing! A few years ago on a whim I bought a red straw "boater" at a local flea market for a dollar, but I've never had the nerve to wear it.

    I've never seen any men at gatherings of the Red Hat Society, but in this militantly non-sexist age I can't see any reason why we shouldn't be welcome there -- IF we wanted to attend. ;-)

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  7. NOW I see the link under the video. Was it there from the beginning?

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  8. You provided the information, Connie. I should have give you credit right away for sharing information with us when I posted the link. Thanks.

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  9. Get yourself a purple jacket to go with your red hat and crash the next Red Hat tea party. I'm sure you'd be welcome.

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  10. Purple jackets for guys are REALLY hard to come by. A purple TIE might have to do. But my fashion sense is even more conservative than my politics. I still dress like a refugee from an English Public School -- very out-of-date, but I never did do "casual" particularly well.

    Given my druthers I'd probably dress like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson -- knee breeches, satin waistcoat, frilly stock, powered peruke and a well-tailored frock coat, but then that really WOULD raise eyebrows, wouldn't it? §;-}

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  11. A friend of mine has a crushed velvet purple jacket, but he's cool enough to make it work. To successfully pass for ex-public school what you really need is a set of red trousers!

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  12. Your link to the red trousers didn't function, Jez, but I get the idea -- I think.

    I once had a red jacket -- a dark, garnet-colored affair, which I wore with aplomb soon after I entered my sixties, but Alas! I've literally outgrown it. ;-)

    In truth I'm more the dark blue blazer, button-down-collar, rep tie type. As I said -- fearfully out-of-date.

    Crushed velvet on men of any kind would never appeal to me. But you must know that, since I have freely confessed to wishing the 1960's had never happened.

    I don't expect you to understand.

    Funny! Waylon and I had a go 'round about outré attire not long ago. I'm an unabashed admirer of Oscar Wilde. Waylon, as you may know, is clearly not, and tried to turn me against Oscar by describing his outlandish lifestyle and penchant for wearing bizarre, effeminate clothing.

    I doubt if Oscar's wardrobe or his weird predilections would have attracted me had I lived a hundred-or-more years ago, but fortunately I've always been able to appreciate the works of literary genius, whether I approve of their personal lives and political pinions or not.

    I found Truman Capote, whom I met several times in my New York days, personally repulsive for example, but my aversion to him has never stopped me from enjoying the beauty in some of his earlier works.

    Quality of output trumps surface behavior every single time -- or so I believe

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  13. The url is lookatmyfuckingredtrousers.blogspot.co.uk/
    For some reason can't post a non relative link today (probably a worthwhile anti spam measure).
    Thinking of reading capote's breakfast at tiffany's, do you know / recommend it?

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  14. I suspect "Breakfast" is thinly-disguised autobiography, Jez.["Holly" is really Truman as Truman wished he could have been, and all that] You might enjoy it.

    Have you never seen the movie with Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Buddy Ebsen and Patricia Neal? It's pretty good -- very affecting.

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  15. I saw the movie (great cinematography, but quite annoyed by the Holly character) but recently read an article about the challenges they faced adapting the story, full of superlative praise for the writing. I expect to find the Holly/Truman character as annoying as ever but I might enjoy the writing as I enjoyed the filming.

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