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On Holidays 1

On Holidays

The Beret Project is on holidays from today; back to the country of my birth, spiced up with trips to Belgium, France and Germany.
Never truly on holiday, I am sure I'll come back with loads of beret-related material.

In the meantime, until 11 June, every day an interesting, beautiful, funny, sexy, historic, special photo by means of daily post.
All orders placed between today and 11 June will be shipped on 11 June or earlier (as some orders will be taken care of during my absence).
See you all in 3 weeks time!

Lenn E. Goodman

Professor of Philosophy Lenn E. Goodman's interests center on metaphysics and ethics, and he has paid special attention over the years to Islamic and Jewish philosophical thought and their creative interactions. 

He has written philosophical essays on most of the major figures of Islamic and Jewish philosophy and on a variety of topics in political philosophy, biophilosophy, and the theory of knowledge and culture.

Peter Neill - World Ocean Observatory

Peter Neill,  a graduate of Stanford University, is the director of the World Ocean Observatory. 

Looking around us, we see a world wounded by the history of our ideas and actions. We are seeking solutions to the critical challenges of carbon, water, food, energy, and health as essential elements of human survival. Ultimately, those solutions will be found in the ocean--sequestered CO2, desalinated fresh water, sustainable protein production, geothermal and alternative energy technology, the medicines necessary to assure our well-being, and the new values and changed behaviors for successful living. This perspective informs the World Ocean Observatory, a unique, web-based place of exchange of information and educational services about the ocean defined as "an integrated, global, social system." Peter Neill, W2O founder and director, will present his personal journey to this understanding, an overview of the present, critical situation, and some provocative ideas for the future of the one ocean that connects us all. 

Walt Whitman - Goodbye my Fancy

Here is a virtual movie of the great Walt Whitman reading "Goodbye my fancy" which he wrote in 1891 his final year as something of an epitaph by this time his health was in steep decline.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892 was born in Long Island, New York, the son of a Quaker carpenter. Whitman's mother was descended from Dutch farmers. Good-bye My Fancy shows us a dying Whitman who is no longer fighting the inevitable, but rather embracing it. In Good-bye My Fancy, Whitman is giving his farewell address to his audience as he knows that he will soon be dying. Throughout his poetry he has turmoil with death and the idea of his own mortality. However, in this final poem, Whitman is accepting of his fate. Whitman begins this poem by saying that he doesn't know how much longer he will be around or to where he will be next, but he doesn't seem worried by this. Whitman is speaking to his reader as his love which makes this goodbye very intimate.

Madhur Jaffrey and Mr Cardamom

Madhur Jaffrey (85) is surprising old fans and winning new ones with her latest guise as a grandma MC in a music video for a New York-based rapper.

The Delhi-born actor, who trained at London’s Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts, then published a series of influential cookbooks, stars in the film clip for the track Nani – Hindi for maternal grandmother – by the hip-hop artist Mr Cardamom.

 “I’m the best damn nani that you ever done see,” she tells her son, after he berates her for neglecting her grandmotherly duties. “Fuck top five nanis and fuck top three, I’m the number one nani, don’t fuck with me.”

Jaffrey refused to accept payment for her role in the video clip, but insisted on keeping the yellow beret.

Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins, live in Denmark, 1968.

With Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass, Albert 'Tootie' Heath on drums and Kenny Drew on piano.

Happy Bikers with Beret #2

Man of Montmartre

Man of Montmartre - A novel based on the life of Maurice Utrillo by Stephen Longstreet and Ethel Longstreet.

This biographical novel about Maurice Utrillo, half mad genius, alcoholic and one of the greatest painters of the century, is set against the background of Paris from the 1880's to the 1920's. Through the crooked streets of Montmartre which he was to immortalize, wanders Maurice, the illegitimate child of artist and model Suzanne Valadon; a teen-age drunkard who took up painting as work therapy; the friend of Modigliani and finally awarded the Legion of Honour. 

La Classe Operaia va in Paradiso

La classe operaia va in paradiso (released in the US as Lulu the Tool) is a 1971 political drama film directed by Elio Petri.

It depicts a factory worker's realisation of his own condition as a simple "tool" in the process of production and, implicitly, his struggle with the trade unions.

Lulu Massa is a highly productive worker at a factory paying piece work but is disliked by his colleagues as his efficiency is used by management to justify their demands for higher output. While employees are told to care for and rely on their machines, they see radical students outside the factory campaigning for higher pay rates and less work.

The film competed at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, where it tied for the Grand Prix International du Festival, the highest honour. In Italy, it also won the David di Donatello for Best Film.

Yusuf / Cat Stevens – I Was Raised in Babylon

Yusuf / Cat Stevens – I Was Raised in Babylon

Eating

Following yesterday's post on 'Cooking with Beret', it needs little explanation what follows:

Cooking

The many ways of cooking with beret:

Boer (Dutch Farmer)

Dutch farmer, dressed as was typical during the middle of last century: alpinopet (beret), blue chore jacket and trousers, wooden shoes.

True Basque Berets from France!

For many decades, the only true “Basque” beret manufacturer was Boinas Elósegui (from Tolosa, in the Spanish Basque Country). Not anymore though, as Le Béret Français has moved its factory from Làas (in Béarn) to Bayonne (the capital of the French Basque Country).

Le Béret Français has done extremely well, since starting only 6 years ago. Numbers are up, but much better in my opinion, is the enormous work they have done to re-popularize the beret. 

Although Béarn is the birthplace of the beret, I really like the fact that after some 40, 50 years, there are again Basque berets made in the French Basque Country. With the move to Bayonne, Le Béret Français has expanded its range of berets with some really beautiful models. Made from Pyrenean spun Merino wool, the ‘Vintage Béret Basques-Français’ berets are knitted in a higher density (weight) and fitted with beautiful long vanished traditional French-Basque beret labels. These Vintage Béret Basques-Français have the Le Béret Français trademark red cabillou. 

Another exclusive by Le Béret Français are the ‘Bérets Marbré’. Berets made of 100% Merino wool with a marbled (camouflage-like pattern) that are not only extremely comfortable to wear, but also absolute head turners. 

New in the range of Éco Bérets Printemps are the ‘Rouille’ (rust) and Wild Blackberry. 

Last in the range of new wool models, is the Béret Casquette in khaki; a beret made in Bayonne and finished in the Pays de la Loire. South Pacific Berets has now 2 dedicated pages of Le Béret Français berets: wool models and Éco/cotton models.

Louis Deltour

Louis Deltour set up the artists' collective Forces Murales together with his companions Dubrunfaut and Somville, in 1947. 

They wrote a manifesto that expressed their strong commitment to the major social and political issues of their time. The collective used the creation of "a public art that glorifies the life and work of the people, their struggle, their suffering, their joy, their victories and their hope".

Deltour left Forces Murales in 1953 and six years later the collective would be completely defunct. The three founders each went their separate ways. 

Dubrunfaut and Somville gained international fame. Deltour, however, remained an almost unknown artist. Not because of a lack of talent, but because money and fame did not interest him. He preferred to stay in his rural homeland, where he consistently worked on an oeuvre portraying the working class. An oeuvre with which he wanted to mobilize that working class to break the prevailing bourgeois thinking and to strive for a different society.

Louis Deltour's son

Google and Wikipedia have little or nothing to say about him; Louis Deltour undoubtedly couldn't have cared less. He felt best in his somewhat remote workshop. He found no connection with modern movements and opposed the grandeur of gaudy new collectives. 

For Deltour, art had to be rooted in the daily life of the simple people around him. That is why he mainly portrayed the working man: the miner, the stonemason, the bricklayer, farmer and peasant woman. He also depicted the workers' struggle in a simple but penetrating way. Deltour was a realistic artist with a mission: to form the working man in the spirit of socialism.