Berets At The Record Store

 Berets At The Record Store

Polish Airborne Major

I don't often showcase military berets on The Beret project, but this 1960s Polish Airborne beret is a great example of the typical Polish way of beret manufacturing. 

Similar to the Sosabowski replica berets stocked at South Pacific Berets, this beret is not knitted and felted (like any "real" beret), but sewn together from various pieces of woven wool. 

Another interesting detail is the rank (of Major) which is directly embroidered onto the beret; the badge is sewn on permanently.  

The cost of this collectors items? 2850 Zloty (approx. $720.00).

Bread Basket Beret

For boineros/as who are keen for a very different beret: the Bread Basket Beret by Ellini.

I quote from the website: "An assortment of bread based delights embroidered on a gingham "picnic blanket" sit atop a red beret."

"Each Bread Basket Beret is lovingly hand baked, so may differ slightly from the beret pictured."

No, not for sale at South Pacific Berets...

Mobylette

The Mobylette, sometimes shortened as Mob, is a model of moped by French manufacturer Motobécane during the second half of the 20th century. 

 The Mobylette was launched in 1949 and was manufactured until 1997, with production numbers exceeding 14 million with peak production in the 1970s, averaging around 750,000 annually. The word Mobylette has since become something of a genericized trademark in the French language, referring to mopeds in general.

In 1978, Canadian Walter Muma rode a 50V 11,500 miles on a 3-month trip that began in Toronto, brought him to Alaska, and back to Toronto.

Jean-Jacques Sempé #2

"L'homme qui part"

“Velo” 3

"Américanisation"

"Baignade"

"Pluie"

 

Jean-Jacques Sempé

Jean-Jacques Sempé: "Un peu de la France" - 2005

"En voiture"

"Vélo"

"Vélo" 2

"Grosse caisse"


 

Child Refugees Who Fled Nazis Plead for UK to Take in More Migrants

An old story (2018), but more relevant than ever:

Five former child refugees who fled Nazi persecution have urged Theresa May to welcome more young migrants into Britain.

The group of men and women, who came to the UK from Europe prior to the outbreak of World War Two, delivered a letter to Downing Street on Tuesday.

They were among 10,000 mostly Jewish children who escaped to Britain in 1938 and 1939 in a process that became known as Kindertransport.

Many of the children would never see their families again.

Lord Alf Dubs joined the group of former child refugees and campaigners 

To mark the 80th anniversary of the first Kindertransport trains arriving in the UK, the group of ex-refugees have signed a letter petitioning the government to take in more children.

Joined by Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs and Barbara Winton, the daughter of Kindertransport organiser Sir Nicholas Winton, the group wants more refugees welcomed into the UK under the Dubs scheme.

French Flemish

Unbeknown to many, there is a small part of France where Dutch is spoken, or better, the local dialect of French Flemish. 

Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Flanders that was ceded to France at the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, and which hence became known as French Flanders. Its dialect subgroup became a minority dialect that survives mainly in Dunkirk (Duinkerke in Dutch, Duunkerke in West Flemish, "dune church"), Bourbourg (Broekburg in Dutch), Calais (Kales), Saint-Omer (Sint-Omaars), with its Flemish ethnic enclave of Haut-Pont (Haute-Ponte), and Bailleul (Belle).

French Flemish has about 20,000 daily users, and twice that number of occasional speakers. The dialect's status appears to be moribund, but there has been an active movement to retain French Flemish in the region.

The video, by Mark Ingelaere, is about local farmer and boinero Maxime, but even for a native Dutch speaker like myself, close to impossible to follow. 

Merci, Frans

David Ben Avraham

On 21 March 2024, boinero David Ben Avraham, a 63-year-old Palestinian Jewish convert, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier near Elazar, an Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

When Ben Avraham got out of a taxi, the soldier approached him and asked for his name and whether he was Jewish, to which Ben Avraham responded affirmatively. In the ensuing encounter, the soldier pointed his rifle at Ben Avraham and threatened to kill him if he reached for his bag on the ground; Ben Avraham then complied with the soldier's orders by putting his hands on his head and stepping away from his bag but was nevertheless shot dead.

The Israel Defense Forces opened an investigation into what it called a "grave" incident. The soldier, a reservist, was released a week later by an Israeli court.

Bikers

 

Cécile Colombo

Painter Cécile Colombo (1969) followed Applied Art courses at the Beaux-Arts and continued her training as a visual artist in Architectural Environment and Urban Decoration. Her workshop is located in Gémenos, in the south of France.

Cécile Colombo has always worked in mixed media. She prepares her canvas in mounted paper, sticks colored papers, fabrics, ink and faded paint to give a general coloring to her canvas.

Once the background is reinvented, she draws on it with Indian ink, walnut husk, colored ink or acrylic. Watercolor colors are enhanced with oily or dry pastels.

All these materials give her paintings an atmosphere of fantasy and lightness. Inspired by the Mediterranean, Cécile takes photos of details, balconies, fruits, stones and plants which she mixes in her paintings to transcribe the atmosphere of the place. The suggestion, the material, the seemingly innocuous detail reveal a very inspired pictorial universe that offers us magical moments.

Théodore de Banville

Théodore Faullain de Banville (1823 –1891) was a French poet and writer. His work was influential on the Symbolist movement in French literature in the late 19th century.

Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the amusements of his companions. On leaving school with but slender means of support, he devoted himself to letters, and in 1842 published his first volume of verse (Les Cariatides), which was followed by Les Stalactites in 1846. The poems encountered some adverse criticism but secured for their author the approbation and friendship of Alfred de Vigny and Jules Janin.

The Odes funambulesques (1857) received unstinted praise from Victor Hugo, to whom they were dedicated. In 1858 Banville was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur and was promoted to an Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1886. He died in Paris in 1891 at the age of 68 and was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Two Days In April

2 Days in April is a double album by a free jazz quartet consisting of saxophonists Fred Anderson and Kidd Jordan, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, documenting two 1999 concerts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Cambridge.

Fred Anderson (1929 –2010) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who was based in Chicago. Anderson's playing was rooted in the swing music and hard bop idioms, but he also incorporated innovations from free jazz. 

Anderson was also noted for having mentored numerous young musicians. Critic Ben Ratliff called him "a father figure of experimental jazz in Chicago". Writer John Corbett referred to him as "scene caretaker, underground booster, indefatigable cultural worker, quiet force for good."