Made in Japan

These pictures I found on a Japanese web site a few months back and saved them as "beret-boy Japan". Now I have no idea where they came from and what they are, really. Is it a plastic doll after an animation movie? Some sort of fetish item? And what does the red beret signify?

Any help from Japanese visitors would be much appreciated!

Leo and Vladimir Ilya Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828 – 1910), was a Russian writer. His literary masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent, in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction.

Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. 

Although a wearer of interesting skull caps and beret-like hats, I don't believe Tolstoy ever wore a Basque beret, living before the coming of age of the Basque beret really, but fitting all the affiliations of the beret of course. 

His grandson Vladimir Ilya did (as well as a beard very similar to his grandfather's). 

Leo Tolstoy`s grandchildren (left to right): Vladimir Ilya and Sergei, 1 May 1965 , photo by N. Granov

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (born December 13, 1948 in Washington, D.C.) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s. Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident, he has been working as a defense consultant and chairs a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense. "We thought turntables were for playing records until rappers began to use them as instruments, and we thought airplanes were for carrying passengers until terrorists realized they could be used as missiles," Baxter has said. "My big thing is to look at existing technologies and try to see other ways they can be used, which happens in music all the time and happens to be what terrorists are incredibly good at." 

He served as a national spokesman for Americans for Missile Defense, a coalition of organizations devoted to the issue.

In April 2005, he joined the NASA Exploration Systems Advisory Committee (ESAC). Baxter is listed as Senior Thinker and Raconteur at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and a Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. 

The Czech Series #1 - Vaclav Philips

The Czech series #1? No, I have written before about Czech berets (here, here and here), not realizing what a wealth of information there is on berets (or "radiovka's") from the Czech Republic and, previously, Czechoslovakia. 

The problem is to find the treasure (and not having any understanding of the Czech language doesn't help). I'll start the series with these two pictures of Vaclav Philips and really, that's all the information I have on these pictures, apart that they come from the Ostrava region.

They are not just old and vague pictures though; I think they show very well the atmosphere of living in rural Czechoslovakia before the Velvet Revolution of 1989.  I feel lucky to have visited Czechoslovakia a number of times during the 1980's and got a feel for the atmosphere, the people's resilience, the craziness and paranoia of the powers in place and the many great people I met along the way. These two photographs remind me of one very cold night, spent in a cottage without heating and electricity near Mlada Boleslav.

Edward Moran

Edward Moran (1829, Bolton, Lancashire, England – 1901, New York City) was an American artist.

He emigrated with his family to America at the age of 15, and subsequently settled in Philadelphia, where after having followed his fathers trade of weaver, he became a pupil of James Hamilton and Paul Weber. In 1862 he became a pupil of the Royal Academy in London; he established a studio in New York in 1872, and for many years after 1877 lived in Paris. He was a painter of marine subjects and examples of his work such as “Devil’s Crag; Island of Grand Manan” are in many prominent collections. Among his canvases are 13 historical paintings, intended to illustrate the marine history of America from the time of Leif Ericsson to the return of Admiral Dewey's fleet from the Philippines in 1899.

His sons Edward Percy and Leon, and his brothers Peter and Thomas Moran (member of Hayden Geological Survey of 1871), as well as his nephew Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, also became prominent American artists.

The NZ Series #17 - Ralph Hotere

Hone Papita Raukura "Ralph" Hotere (1931) is a New Zealand artist of Māori descent (Te Aupōuri iwi). He was born in Mitimiti, Northland and he is widely regarded as one of New Zealand's most important living artists.

Ralp Hotere was educated at Hato Petera College and Auckland Teachers' College, before moving to Dunedin in 1952 to specialise in art. 

After a spell in the Bay of Islands as an arts advisor for the Education Department, Ralph was awarded a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship to study in London at the Central School of Art in 1961. His time in England proved to be pivotal to his development as an artist. With the art world caught in a wave of general upheaval, which witnessed the advent of Pop Art and, subsequently, Op Art, Hotere found himself both influenced by the new movements and, as an outsider from New Zealand, at enough of a critical distance from what was new andtrendy in British art to develop his own distinctive style. 

Returning to New Zealand in 1965, he began to focus exclusively on his artistic career. Before being awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship and moving to Dunedin permanently in 1969, Ralph had two important solo exhibitions in Auckland: Sangro Paintings and Human Rights (1965) and Black Paintings(1968). 

During the same period he also struck up a relationship with the New Zealand literary world, publishing four drawings in Landfall 78 and designing the cover for Landfall 84, which was to come to full fruition in subsequent years in collaborative works with New Zealand poets.

In 1979, he used his friend Hone Tuwhare's well-known poem Rain to produce Three Banners with Poem, for the Hocken Library. The public appeal of this, and similar works is tremendous: the 1997 exhibition paying tribute to such collaborations, Out the Black Window, opened at the City Gallery in Wellington to an impressive 1200 visitors on the first day.

In 1994 Ralph received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Otago and in 2006 was awarded Te Taumata Award by Te Waka Toi recognising outstanding leadership and service to Māori arts. 

Ralph lives in Port Chalmers, Dunedin.

Gas Station Attendants and Berets

When was the last time your car was filled up by a gas station attendant? And if you were so lucky, was it a guy dressed in a well ironed uniform with a flat cap or beret?

I've never seen them in real life, but yes, they did exist. And, with berets, in the United States! 

As far as I can trace it back, only Mobil used berets for their gas attendant's uniforms, in black and white. 

The Txistu

The txistu or chistu is a kind of fipple flute that became a symbol for the Basque folk revival. The name may stem from the general Basque word ziztu "to whistle". This three-hole pipe can be played with one hand, leaving the other one free to play a percussion instrument.

Evidence of the txistu first mentioned as such goes back to 1864. Yet it is apparent that it was used earlier, although it is not easy to establish when it started out; actually, it is impossible to do so, the txistu being the result of an evolution of the upright flutes widespread as early as the Late Middle Ages, when minstrels scattered all over the Iberian Peninsula brought in instruments that locals, noblemen first and common people later took on and developed.

At different stages of the three-hole flute's history reeds and metal mouthpieces were applied for a better sound. While some claim that it is closely related to the early link of the Basques to iron and the forging industry, others suggest that the embedding of such pieces began in the industrial revolution of the 19^th century.

The Association of Txistularies in the Basque Country was formed in 1927 to promote txistularis. The organization has continued its activities to the present, except for an interruption during the Francisco Franco dictatorship (and believe me, even I still get abusive comments from the dictator's supporters who are unhappy about my blog...). 

Atelier du Piment Espelette

Anything pepper with a Basque flavour to it can be found at the Atelier du Piment Espelette, even berets with the embroidered logo of the company.

Obama Supporter John Fry

French journalist Charlotte Parlotte captured Indiana born, Missouri resident Obama supporter John Fry in a beautiful series of photographs.

Ironically, Fry's father was a member of the Klu Klux Clan. When asked what his father would think of seeing his son to vote for a black candidate, he replied: "My father died in 1963. He no longer has a say."

Why he will vote for Obama? "Because this is the first president who really excites me, it speaks for itself. It matters; I am tired of seeing the ugliness in politicians."

June

Big in Japan

Berets are big in Japan, but interestingly, most popular are the locally made berets versus the traditional Basques from Spain, France and South America.

Unable to try any myself, I can only judge on the pictures I found on some Japanese web sites, like this one, or this one.

Many Japanese berets seem to come with print, badges or embroideries on it, suggesting potential customers to be from a generation or what after me. 

Personally, I quite like these cotton berets, complete with anchor.

Ornithologist Hermann Heinzel

Hermann Heinzel has been enthralled by birds nearly all of his life. After World War II, Heinzel's family moved from his native Poland to West Germany, leaving almost everything behind. For the eight-year-old boy, the only thing available in abundance was the nature that filled and surrounded his village. He was fascinated, and spent hours watching the wildlife all around him, especially the kind with wings and feathers.

 "In the village, there was a boy who had a bird book, and I wanted one as well," Heinzel recalls by phone from his home in the Gers,  France. He didn't have a lot of resources, but he was resourceful. "I cut the ends off a newspaper and glued them together. I had no colored pens, but in one way or another I made it look like a bird book."

 

Heinzel's still drawing birds, only now he's a world-renowned illustrator who has followed his avian interests throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Galapagos and North America. His most recent work, Birds of Napa County. 

Corkscrews

"In Gérard Bidault's book Les Fabriques Françaises de Tire-Bouchons 1820-1970, Gérard traces the history of two great factories of 'tournerie' (wood-turning) situated in the Jura: Vaillat Emile 1945 - 2000 and Verpillat C. et André 1889- 1972.

The corkscrews in these photographs show the heads of Basques, easily recognizable by the Basque béret. 
These corkscrews were sold as tourist souvenirs after the second World War."

Ratko Mladić

I heard it in bed, this morning, listening to the news: Ratko Mladić was arrested on May 26, 2011 in Lazarevo, Serbia.

I have met the general numerous times, while working in Bosnia during the war and yes, to me all the villain stereotypes are true: hard, cold, paranoid, obsessed with the injustice done to the Serb people, the defeat of the Serbs at Kosovo Polje in 1389 and his disgust for the Bosnian Muslims.
And then, today, I see an old man limping into a cell block, after being on the run for 16 years... 

It may be a relief for himself, in the end - I don't know how things work in his head, but hopefully, it can bring some form of closure nearer for the thousands of relatives of his victims. I can't deny it does something to me, although I don't really know what it is.

Back to the beret. These pictures are taken in Srebrenica, 1995. The general handing out supplies to Bosnian men who would soon be murdered by Mladić's own soldiers. The other photograph was taken at the same time, a Dutch UN Peace Keeper who was meant to protect the 'safe haven' of Srebrenica form what happened in the end. 

More on the Hmong People

Travel writer Naomi Lindt visiting a remote local market in the northernmost region of Vietnam, near the town of Ha Giang (above). The men wearing berets are Hmong; the berets are a carry-over from the French (the Hmong fought with the colonists against the Vietnamese). "I guess it's pretty obvious my presence there didn't go unnoticed", Naomi remarked with a slight touch of understatement.

A rich narrative history of the worldwide community of Hmong people, exploring their cultural practices, war and refugee camp experiences, and struggles and triumphs as citizens of new countries can be found in Paul Hillmers book A People's History of the Hmong.

The Hmong of Vietnam

There have been a few posts relating to Vietnam; about the French heritage (and therefore the beret), Dong Ho painting and of course a few that mention American Green Berets. I am more interested in the 'civil side of the beret in Vietnam'.

I came upon this photograph through this web site.  A man who tells the story of how "his" Hmong people came through China from Mongolia and how they adopted the Basque beret.
Hard to get the full story with my French, but I appreciate the picture. 

Botanists

It is always interesting where my quest for beret-related pictures takes me...

Botanists and gardeners, for example, like this photograph of Mrs. H. Young, of Ashton Under Hill, Worcestershire, England in October 1946, who harvests seeds from her sunflowers. The seeds are distributed throughout the country to be sold as bird feed. 

Or this Russian lotus grower of Kuba in the Stavropolskii Krai. 

Or this botanist-gentleman, going for a walk on the footpath he has carved out himself.