Happy New Year, Boineros and Boineras!

Wishing all Boineros & Boineras all the very best for the New Year!

A year that hopefully offers less reason to wear a Reality Shield, but plenty of pleasure to wear a beret!

Sebastian Tauerbach

 
The image of a bearded and a mustachioed man in a beret wearing a hat with ear flaps are two of 30 preserved wooden heads adorning the ceiling of the Envoys’ Room of the Polish Wawel Royal Castle. The current arrangement of this ceiling is a creation from the beginning of the 20th century. 

The only source of information about its original appearance is the contract concluded with Master Sebastian Tauerbach in 1535. The contract mentions 194 carved heads and 194 rosettes, which the master was commissioned to fashion. There are no clues as to how they were to be arranged. The first ceiling burned down in 1540. It is not known whether the preserved heads were made before the fire – thus belonging to the original decoration – but there was no time to mount them, or whether they were carved after the fire and intended for rebuilding the Envoys’ Room.

The heads preserved to this day are only a small percentage of the original ceiling decoration.

Fidel Castro hits the Ball

The Great Revolutionary*/Dictator* was a keen baseball player and supporter of the game in Cuba. 

A long-standing myth in America is that Castro tried out for either the New York Yankees or Washington Senators and failed to impress enough to sign a contract; while a fan of baseball, Castro was not a good enough player to warrant such a try-out and there is no record of his having played professionally.

Nice to see he kept his boina on while playing though...

Prisoner 155

One of the best graphic novels I have read (yes, highly recommended!). 

Prisoner 155: Simón Radowitzky is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel that tells the story of Simón Radowitzky (1891-1956), a gentle soul caught up in a cruel world.

Author/illustrator Agustín Comotto is an Argentinian living in Spain where the book was first published in 2016.

Radowitzky appears in a few books (recently The Anarchist Expropriators and Rebellion in Patagonia--both from AK Press), but this is the first English-language book devoted solely to him.

His tumultuous life begins with his immigration from Ukraine to Argentina, followed by his assassination of Colonel Falcón (who presided over the slaughter of 100 workers) in 1909.

Banished to a penal colony, he escaped, was recaptured and tortured, serving a total of twenty years.

Upon release he joined the Spanish Revolution, after which he decamped for Mexico, where he died in 1956 while employed at a toy factory.

Cuban Baseball Berets

Cuba considers baseball its national sport. Since approximately 1865 or 1866 this sport has been practiced and has become part of the lives of most Cubans. On December 27th,1874, the first baseball game in Cuba took place in a field known as Palmar de Junco, in the province of Matanzas.

Havana's Marianao team, late 1940s or early 1950s

It became the most played sport in the country in the 1870s, before the period of American intervention.

Winter League's Almendares team, 1947

Despite its American origin, baseball is strongly associated with Cuban nationalism, as it effectively replaced colonial Spanish sports such as bullfighting. 

Habana Baseball Club beret, made of silk-screened felt, circa 1940

Fans typically wore berets, or boinas, with the logo or name of their favourite team printed or embroidered on it. 

Merry Xmas Boineros and Boineras!

 

Merry Christmas Boineros & Boineras!

Being almost a day ahead of many fellow boineros/as, down here in Aotearoa/NZ, it's my privilegie to wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Nga Kaimau Beret o Aotearoa

Boineros/as from Aotearoa / New Zealand:

Nigerian Beret Wearers

 Boineros/as from Nigeria: