Ali Abdullatif Ahmida

Professor Ali Abdullatif Ahmida was born in Waddan, Libya and educated at Cairo University in Egypt and The University of Washington, Seattle.  

He is the founding Chair (2000 – 2014) of the Department of Political Science at the University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, USA.  His areas of expertise are political theory, comparative politics, and historical sociology.  

His scholarship is cross-cultural and focuses on power, agency and anti-colonial resistance in North Africa, especially in modern Libya.

The Felted Gnome Knows

Susi Ryan is a felt artist from Vermont and the woman behind The Felted Gnome Knows and this beautiful one-off creation: a wet felted large diameter beret ( a true ‘Txapeldun’, I would say).

All Susi’s creations are made from eco-friendly locally sourced wool, supporting farming and agriculture in the state of Vermont.

Marshall Glasier - 2 Self Portraits

Marshall Glasier (1902-1988) was an artist best known for his work that combined Regionalism and Surrealism. The result, commonly referred to as magic realism, took the figurative and narrative approach of the Regionalists and the mystery, humor, and irony of Surrealism.

Louis Kuechler, the Hermit of the Mountain

Jacob Louis Kuechler was a man of the mountains. Indeed, he made his home and his livelihood in the rocks, trees and hollows on Mount Penn. 

Living alone, Kuechler had a well-earned reputation as a hermit. But he was far from a recluse.

His homey cabin was a stop on the Mount Penn Gravity Railroad. Visitors were treated to homemade wine, bread, cheese and Kuechler’s specialty hasenpfeffer – a German rabbit stew. 

Kuechler rarely left his mountain retreat. When he died in 1904 Kuechler had not left the summit of Mount Penn for 20 years. When the Mount Penn railroad opened in 1889, Kuechler’s roost was the fourth stop on the winding mountain tour. As the popularity of the railroad increased, so did Kuechler’s roost. From the wooden shack just off the trolley line, Kuechler sold wine, cheese and his woodsy fare. He became a celebrity of the mountain with his scraggly beard, long pipe, black beret and wry glances. A native of Germany, Kuechler came to Reading in the 1870s and operated a saloon at 523 Penn St. 

In 1882, Kuechler purchased several acres on the eastern slope of Mount Penn to make wine and live in isolation. After Kuechler died at age 74, his property was purchased by Carl A. Schaich, who opened a much larger and grander establishment on the mountain.  The business lasted until 1919 when sparks from a Fourth of July firecracker set the building on fire.  

A few of reminders of Kuechler are still present on the mountain, including a wine cellar off List Road (last picture). It’s in a lonely spot in the woods, well-hidden from view, an apt monument to the Hermit of Mount Penn.”

Lilla Cabot Perry

Lilla Cabot Perry (1848 – 1933) was an American artist who worked in the American Impressionist style, rendering portraits and landscapes in the free form manner of her mentor, Claude Monet. 

Perry was an early advocate of the French Impressionist style and contributed to its reception in the United States. Perry's early work was shaped by her exposure to the Boston School of artists and her travels in Europe and Japan. She was also greatly influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophies and her friendship with Camille Pissarro. 

Although it was not until the age of thirty-six that Perry received formal training, her work with artists of the Impressionist, Realist, Symbolist, and German Social Realist movements greatly affected the style of her oeuvre.

Fox and Rust at Boneteria Aotearoa

Arguably the most beautiful colours found in berets: 'rust' and 'fox' in the Boneteria Aotearoa range (and at a most competitive price too!). 

Treat yourself and choose from a good range of diameters here, at only $50.00.

Iranian Hatters Qasemi Hats

While it can be pretty hard to find a good quality beret in the US, I am happily surprised to find that in "the axis of evil",  Iran, there is still a professional hatter who sells berets: Qasemi Hats in Teheran!

The description of the berets is not entire clear to me (on the English language page), but that may have to do with an automatic translation from Persian.  What I do like in the description, is that these berets "are suitable for good-humored people" and better still, for "excellent sex".

My first thought was that these are Czech berets by TONAK, but from what I understand from the text is that they are made locally by Qasemi Hats. Fantastic!

The Ohio State University Marching Band

The Ohio State University Marching Band (OSUMB) performs at Ohio State football games and other events during the fall semester. It is one of the few collegiate all-brass and percussion bands in the country, perhaps the largest of its type in the world. Its nickname is The Best Damn Band in the Land (TBDBITL).

Military training was an important part of the early curriculum at Ohio State, and a band was formed to provide music to the cadets for drills. Organized in 1878, the Marching Band was first organized as a fife and drum corps and was sponsored by the Military Department. In 1881, a stolen mouthpiece incident, which prevented the Marching Band from performing, led the Military Department to end support.

The band made national headlines in the summer of 2014 following the release of an internal investigation into the band's culture and reported incidents of hazing.

The Diamond Ohio logo, which is created by superimposing the I over the center of the H, and making the O's into pointed triangles, was first created by the OSUMB in the late 1930s. The band continues to use this formation today every home football game as the team entrance tunnel. The Ohio University Marching 110 has also used the Diamond Ohio logo since 1966 when director Gene Thrailkill designed a pregame set modeled after the Ohio State University Marching Band to give the newly reformed Marching 110 a symbol.

Cooking with Vince

Vincent William Pernicano (1943 – 2016) would joke that his father had him working the family pizzeria/catering business from the time he could reach the sink on a wooden box.

Actually, Vince began working for the Sears Corp., becoming a department manager which led to management positions in Washington, Oregon and Montana. He opened the Southgate Mall Sears store in 1978 and in doing so he fulfilled a childhood dream of coming to Montana after writing a story about the state in elementary school.

Hunting wild game was everything to Vince who also made it his mission to teach hunters how to properly dress and cook their wild game so as not to waste any of the meat. To accomplish that mission Vince belonged to the Outdoor Writers Association of America writing numerous "Cooking With Vince" cookbooks, and offering cooking seminars and TV wild life cooking classes KECI-TV. Vince's weekly recipes under the title, "Wildlife Chef Vince" were carried in several Montana newspapers.

Minnesota Artist Ron Hunt

It wasn't until age 26 that Ron Hunt tried his hand at painting, and it wasn't for fun. He was working for a loan company that was opening a new branch office. The supervisor gave him $40 and told him to buy art to fill a huge, blank wall in the new building. It quickly became clear to Hunt that the money wasn't going to go far.

So, he improvised. He gathered some of his favourite photos he took while serving in the Army in Hawaii, Japan and Germany and displayed them on canvas with a projector. He sketched the images as best he could and began painting. It was then he learned a basic fact about colours — blue and yellow mixed together makes green. He finished the paintings and hung them on the loan office walls.

"I wrote myself a check for $40," Hunt recalled.

That first foray into art led to a 57-year passion for painting and drawing. But the moustachioed artist, known for his trademark black beret, has had to put away the brushes and paint. Five years ago, Hunt was diagnosed with macular degeneration — an incurable eye disease that causes vision loss. 

He can no longer see well enough to do the landscapes he so loves to put on canvas. He has also been diagnosed with prostate cancer and lymphoma, a cancer that affects the lymphatic system, which is part of the body's immune system. In addition, he is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

His partner of 34 years, Billie Hunt, decided to open a temporary art gallery in downtown Lake City to feature the painter's work.

Riek de Raat

Hendrika Geertruida (Riek) Milikowski-de Raat (1918) is a Dutch painter who was born in a working-class family in the Amsterdam Jordaan neighbourhood. She attended a training course in 1936 at the Institute for Applied Arts in Amsterdam and then at the New Art School, with Jan Havermans also in Amsterdam. This training, founded in 1933 by artist Paul Citroen, was strongly anti-fascist and inspired by the Bauhaus in Germany. In the Second World War she was active in the resistance.

De Raat was married in 1947 to sociologist Herman Milikowski, who died in 1989. Their son, born in 1947, is the photographer and graphic artist Efraim Milikowski. Her first marriage was with the resistance fighter Antoon Winterink, who was executed in Belgium by the Germans after he was arrested for illegal acts.

Herman Milikowski 

In 1953 she became a member of the Leiden painting and drawing society Ars Aemula Naturae and took classes at the Vrije Academie and at the Academy for Visual Arts in The Hague, where Paul Citroen was one of the most important teachers.

Since 2011 she lives in the Rosa Spier House in Laren. where many notable Dutch artists live out their final years.

Curcuma, Mustard & Yellow

Not to everyone's liking (strangely), but I am a great fan of berets in yellow shades; the Auloronesa in curcuma the for most, but also the Czech Classic and Le Béret Français berets in mustard.

A bit bolder still are the bright yellow berets under the Hispano Basque label. Stunning!

 

Berets & Musical Instruments

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Kyam Anthony (1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Anthony attended Towson Catholic High School and Oak Hill Academy before playing college basketball at Syracuse. In Anthony's freshman season, he led the Orangemen to their first and only National Championship and was named the NCAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Since entering the NBA, Anthony has been named an All-Star ten times and an All-NBA Team member six times.

Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant  getting fitted for the Olympics

Anthony has been a member of the USA Olympic basketball team a record four times, winning a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and gold medals at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Summer Olympics. He is the United States Olympic men's national basketball team all-time leading scorer, leader in rebounds and games played.

Anthony has recently advocated various social justice causes. He is also being criticized by South Bronx community activists for aligning himself with Mott Haven developer Keith Rubenstein's efforts to build luxury apartment buildings in the neighbourhood, which could lead to gentrification.

John Yewell

From the website of John Yewell: "I was born in the six-room Santa Clara Valley Hospital in Santa Paula, California. It's now an old folks home, so maybe I'll go out through the same door I came in". 

"I grew up as a simple southern California surfer boy ten miles down the road in Ventura".

"Who knows when, or where, or why the need to write things down will first strike. I'd been going to the mountains since I was eight. But in the summer of 1971, when I was 17, something special happened. My cousin and I crossed the Sierra east to west over some pretty rugged, mostly trackless, terrain. It was then I first experienced how vital a sense of place was to me. When I returned, I started writing stories".