Charlie Rossiter

Charlie Rossiter writes, performs, and promotes poetry every chance he gets. His website, is the latest in a long list of poetry projects which include the creating and hosting the Poetry Motel, a cable television program still seen in upstate New York and neighboring states, and organizing all-day poetry readings at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC. He received an NEA Fellowship for poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Recent poetry collections include: Charles Rossiter Greatest Hits: 1975-2001 from Pudding Press; What Men Talk About, the winner of Pudding Press' 1999 Red Wheel Barrow Award; Cold Mountain 2000: Han Shan in the City (Backwoods Press), Evening Stones and On Reading the Thousand Year Old Sorrows in a Book of Chinese Poems.
 
His work is featured on the hour-long audio tape 3 Guys from Albany which can be heard in the poetrypoetry archives. His widely-acclaimed book Back Beat is published by Cross+Roads Press. As Director of Special Projects for the National Association for Poetry Therapy, he recently co-edited the anthology, Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace, (Wash. DC, NAPT Foundation, 2002).

French Berets at the Web Shop

A Beret Shop that does not stock French made berets...
I had to do something about that and the result is a selection of bérets nues, unlined berets in 28cm (11") diameter in a variety of colours.

In diameter these berets are identical to the Argentinean made Espinosas, but slightly heavier and without the Espinosa's smooth finishing.

These berets are made by France's oldest beret manufacturer: Pierre Laulhère in Nay (Béarn).

The price is the same as well, $23.50 (+ $10.- International Postage and Handling).

Please advise on colour when making payment: Black, Navy, Brown, Red, Green.

The German Series #5 - Heinrich Böll

German writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. Heinrich Böll portrayed Germany after World War II with a deep moral vision and attacked the materialistic values of the post-war society. With the writer Günter Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, Böll played an unwanted role as a sort of national conscience. Böll's unorthodox Catholic belief added also a spiritual content to his stories, which were anchored in the present-day reality.

Böll's early novels dealt with the despair of soldiers' lives, the oppressive cruelties he witnessed in his youth and in military service. From the "worm's-eye" view of World War II his scope widened gradually on the reality of modern German society. In a 1952 essay, Böll accepted the label "rubble literature" as a designation of literary trend which focused on the war, coming home, and reconstruction. Böll wanted to find a realism that would correspond "to the laconic nature of the generation which has 'come home', a generation that knows there is no home for them on this earth."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn seen with Heinrich Böll in Langenbroich in West Germany

Böll's major later works include The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974), which attacked yellow journalism.

The 1972 Nobel Prize: "...for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature."

Susan Travers - 1st and only Woman in the French Foreign Legion

Susan Travers (1909–2003) was an Englishwoman and the only woman to serve officially with the French Foreign Legion.

Travers was born in Southern England, the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, but grew up in the south of France, where she was a semi-professional tennis player.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Travers joined the French Red Cross as a nurse, but later became an ambulance driver with the French Expeditionary Force in Finland. With the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, she retreated to Finland. She then escaped by ship to Iceland and returned from there to England where she joined General De Gaulle's Free French Forces. By 1941, she was the chauffeur for a medical officer of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, during the Syrian campaign in which Vichy French legionnaires fought Free French legionnaires. She was nicknamed "La Miss" by the legionnaires. 

She then travelled to North Africa via Dahomey and the Congo. During that journey, she had a brief affair with Georgian nobleman and Foreign Legion officer Dimitri Amilakhvari. She was then assigned as driver to Colonel Marie-Pierre Koenig and also became his lover.

Travers went on to serve in Italy, France, and Germany, where she respectively drove an ambulance, lorry, and a self-propelled anti-tank gun. Later in the war, she was wounded when she drove over a mine.

In 2000, aged 91, she wrote her autobiography, Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion, having waited for all the other principals in her life story to die before writing it.

After the war she was formally enrolled in the Légion Étrangère, as an Adjutant-Chef.

Travers served in Vietnam, during the First Indochina War. She married Adjutant-Chef Nicolas Schlegelmilch, who had fought at Bir Hakeim with the 13th Demi-Brigade. They had two sons. In retirement, they lived on the outskirts of Paris.

Travers was decorated with the Légion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre and Médaille Militaire.

Susan Travers died at the age of 94.

San Antonio de Areco Argentina

The Gaucho Festival in the small town of San Antonio de Areco boasts streets of low, whitewashed houses, a tiny tree-shaded plaza, and a big river -full of turtles- running nearby under shrieking parrots from their communal nests. 

The day of the festival the local troops of horses gathered under the sun-dappled trees in a large meadow, boggy from the recent rains. The families who brought them in camp under the trees and set up barbecues where sides of beef skewered on sticks are sizzling over fires. As for the horses, only the lead, or mother horse is tethered, the rest clustered around her, occasionally flurrying round in a circle, then coming to rest peacefully. 

The men are dressed in the gaucho uniform of loose, fringed trousers (bombachas), soft leather boots - some with spurs, broad leather belts studded with silver motifs and a sheathed knife stuck through the back, loose white shirt, neckerchief and the ubiquitous beret. They are preparing their lead horses with saddles over colourful wool or sheepskin blankets, bridles glittering with silver motifs, their tails cut neatly at the end, their manes combed. Some men have ponchos thrown casually over one shoulder or tied round their waists. The women who are to take part in the parade wear tight-waisted, puffed-sleeve, long frilled skirts of sprigged cotton. 

At the time of the parade the troops set off from the meadow, along the lane and around the town. The owners families, proud in their short black jackets and hard-rimmed hats, ride ahead, hand on hip, the other skilfully guiding the horse. Some have wives, daughters or girl friends riding behind them, their long skirts draped over the horses rear. After them come the troop of horses, a gaucho holding the rein of the lead horse. 

Watch these two fantastic video's, full of berets in all sizes and colours! Video 1, Video 2

NEW: Plato Grandes in Cotton!

Ordered by means of an experiment: "are there, apart from myself, more people who dare to wear these extra large diameter cotton Tolosa Tupida's..." 

These berets, or txapelduns really, are the same excellent quality as the 31cm (12.2") Tolosa Tupida's in cotton that I have been selling for a while now, but come in an even wider 35cm (13.8") diameter. Colour options are Black and Navy, they are lined with satin and carry the embroidered Tolosa Tupida label. I have only very few of each colour in stock and may not re-order these exceptional berets again...

The MFO's Terracotta Beret (in Wool and Ceramic Glass)

And to add another one to the monitors, observers and so-called Peacekeepers: those service men and women with nostalgic feelings about their time in the Sinai Dessert, can buy this ceramic MFO beret as a souvenir. 

The MFO (Multi National Force and Observers) wear a distinctive terracotta coloured beret; a peace symbol in cloth for the nco's, officers are allowed to wear a metal badge on their beret. 

Labels (5)

And every time I think I must have seen most beret-labels, there are more coming my way (thanks, Marc!). These are all French vintage labels, many from the same factory - the label designed for a specific hatter and many of them pieces of art in their own way.

  

Nick Lucas

Nick Lucas (1897 - 1982) was an American singer and pioneer jazz guitarist, remembered as "the grandfather of the jazz guitar", whose peak of popularity lasted from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s.

Nick Lucas spent the rest of his career performing on radio as well as in night clubs and dance halls. He made a number of recordings for various small or independent labels, including Cavalier Records, where he was billed as the "Cavalier Troubadour." In 1944 he reprised some of his old hits in Soundies movie musicals, and filmed another group of songs for Snader Telescriptions in 1951. In 1974, his renditions of the songs, "I'm Gonna Charleston Back to Charleston", "When You and I Were Seventeen" and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" were featured on the soundtrack of Paramount Pictures' The Great Gatsby (1974) with Robert Redford.

Nick Lucas died in Colorado Springs of double pneumonia, three weeks before his 85th birthday. By the end of his career, he had sold over 84 million records.

Pelota Vasca

Basque pelota is the name for a variety of court sports played with a ball using one's hand, a racket, a wooden bat or a basket, against a wall (frontón in Spanish, pilotaleku or pilota plaza in Basque) or, more traditionally, with two teams face to face separated by a line on the ground or a net. 

The origin of this sport is tied to the decline of the ancient jeu de paume (jeu de paume au gant), ca. 1700.

While the game evolved to the modern jeu de paume (with racquet, called real tennis in England) and eventually to tennis, rural alpine and pyreneean communities kept the tradition.

In the basque country the "pasaka" and "laxoa", local versions of the paume evolved to the peculiar style of the pilota: instead of playing face to face, with a net in the midfield, the basques began to fling the ball against a wall.

According the basque pilota historian Chipitey Etcheto, the first recorded matchs took place in napoleonic times; it is believed that the game was close to currently rare specialty of "rebot".

The mid-19th century saw the explosion of the "pelota craze".

The player "Gantxiki" is considered the original "father" of the chistera, the basket-shaped racquet which can propel the ball at incredible speeds, introduced around 1850.

The top champions of the end of the 19th century, like "Chiquito de Cambo" were immensely popular and the best paid sportsmen of their time.

The first official competitions were organized in the 1920s, and led to the world championship in the 50's.

Romani

Long fascinated with Romani history and culture, I was delighted to find some old photographs of Romani in the Spanish Basque Country wearing berets (whereas most Romani stick to rimmed hats). 
There were a number of Romani tribes in the Basque Country and some still exist as ethnic groups. These were grouped together under the generic terms ijitiok (Egyptians) and buhameak (Bohemians) by Basque speakers.

Kalderash in the Basque Country, date unknown

• The Agotes (also known as Cagots) also were found north and south of the mountains. They lived as untouchables in Basque villages and were allowed to marry only among themselves. Their origin is unclear and has historically been surrounded with superstitions. Nowadays, they have mostly assimilated into the general society.

Three generations of Basque Romani in Bajo Bidasoa, 1918

• The Cascarots were a Roma subgroup found mainly in the Northern Basque Country.

• A subgroup of Kalderash Roma resident in the Basque Country were the Erromintxela who are notable for speaking a rare mixed language. This is based on Basque grammar but using Romani-derived vocabulary.

• The Mercheros were Quinqui-speakers, travelling as cattle merchants and artisans. Following the industrialization, they settled in slums near big cities.

Labels (4)

I started wearing berets, then rose to become a collector of berets (who would imagine the hundreds and hundreds of different berets in this world..?) and gradually was drawn into collecting beret-labels as well. 
I know, there are people who frown at this, but, it can always be worse: one could start collecting labels with linings.
Like my friend Marc, who has some very nice samples in his collection:

Les Montreurs d'Ours - or Bear Trainers

The "montreur d'ours" — literally, "displayer of bears", were men who trained a bear and took it from town to town, charging the public to see it perform tricks. It was an occupation peculiar to the Alet and Garbet valleys of Ariège (France). As elsewhere in the Pyrenees, these two valleys were once highly populated. Around 1850 there were up to 10 000 inhabitants; today there are 1500. Living conditions were very difficult and traditionally a significant portion of the population, mainly men, would leave to work temporarily in other regions of France and in Spain. During the 18th century many became "colporteurs" --itinerant peddlars--returning to their villages in the spring to replenish their stocks.

It was in Ustou, at the end of the 18th century, that the first montreurs d'ours appeared in the Pyrenees. This practice originated with gypsies and bohemians in the Middle Ages throughout Europe. One probably gave the idea to an inhabitant of Ustou to train bear cubs captured in the surrounding mountains. Later this activity died out in Ustou but expanded greatly in the Garbet valley.

From the middle of the 19th century until World War I, more than 200 montreurs d'ours left the villages of Oust, Ercé and Aulus to travel the world. The first showed their bears in France and neighboring countries. Later, some traveled to the United Kingdom, then to Canada, the United States and throughout North and South America.

In the beginning the bear cubs were caught in the Pyrenees. However, because the mother bear was killed in order to get the cub, this activity decimated the bear population. Eventually montreurs d'ours had to travel to Marseille, where animal traders sold cubs from the Balkans.

By the early 20th century the number of montreurs d'ours began to diminish. World War I hastened the demise of this occupation in the Pyrenees, though it never completely disappeared among the gypsies and bohemians.