The Fedora Lounge - Berets Anyone..?

Exactly one year ago, I wrote about The Fedora Lounge, a forum on all things Classic Fashion and of course, the beret is part of that. 


The thread Berets, anyone has some 16,500 views so far and contains 235 postings. Some very interesting, some better be ignored, but altogether good to pay a regular visit when interested in berets.


I believe it's well worth mentioning The Lounge here again.

Sandinistas

Still from the film Utopia 79

The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for 40 years.The people of Nicaragua, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979 a breathtaking popular revolution.

The Sandinistas were not perfect. They had a fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But these were intelligent, rational and civilized. They set out a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants were brought back from certain death. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built.A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third party. Polio was eradicated.

The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist / Leninist subversion.From the standpoint of the United States government, was setting a dangerous example. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to increase levels of health and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighboring countries will ask the same questions and do the same. At that time there were of course a fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.

I recall then President Reagan, made the following statement: "The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers..."

Edén Pastora

Edén (Atanacio) Pastora (Gómez) is a Nicaraguan politician who ran for president as the candidate of the Alternative for Change (AC) party in the 2006 general elections. He finished in 5th place. In the years prior to the fall of the Somoza regime, Pastora was the leader of the Southern Front, the largest militia in southern Nicaragua, second only to the FSLN in the north. Pastora was nicknamed Comandante Cero ("Commander Zero"). His group was the first to call itself "Sandinistas", and was also the first to accept an alliance with the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), the group that was to become more popularly identified by the name. At the end of 1982, a few years after the revolutionary victory, he became disillusioned with the government of the FSLN, and formed the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) with the object of confronting the "pseudo-Sandinistas" politically and militarily. 

Eden Pastora Aug 25, 1978 boarding the C-130 Venezuelan aircraft with 19 operatives, five hostages and 80 released political prisoners

He was reviled by Oliver North and other Reagan-era insiders for his refusal to subordinate to the CIA-backed FDN. He is also known for his unorthodox behavior in interviews. In an interview he responded to the question "what do you do to relax?" with the answer "I make love with my wife".

Famous Potatoes and Pete Cenarrusa

I never thought I would post advertising material for the Republican Party, but in this case, who couldn't just laugh at this picture:

It reminds me of a road trip I once made from Minnesota to Oregon and spotting my first Idaho number plate on fellow road users vehicles. Under the registration number, it said: "FAMOUS POTATOES". I thought it was a joke, or just one proud farmer boasting about his agricultural qualities, until I noticed more and more of these number plates. An amazing people, the Idahoans...
But, back to the purpose of this blog. I quote from the Library of Boise web site:


The son of Basque immigrants, Pete Cenarrusa was elected to public office 17 times—9 times as a state legislator and 8 times as Idaho Secretary of State—compiling a record of 52 years of continuous public service, the longest tenure of any officeholder in Idaho history.

      In a career spanning the entire second half of the 20th century, from 1950 to 2002, Pete Cenarrusa became one of the most popular politicians in the state.  Over the course of that half century, both he and his wife Freda were active in numerous political, civic, and cultural causes, and Pete Cenarrusa used his influence as a senior American statesman of Basque descent to work for peace in his ancestral homeland.
      The Pete Cenarrusa papers at Boise State University document an extraordinary political career, both in Idaho and on the international stage.

One Off's - Boinas Bonigor

An average of once a day, at least, I get the question "what is the best beret?" and I always give the same answer; how it depends on personal preferences, do you like a dense/heavy weight or a softer, more shape-able beret; do you live in Florida or Krasnoyarsk; do you like the classic black Basque or do you prefer colour; what size and shape head do you have...? Simply, there is no best beret.  

Objectively, I believe the Spanish Boinas Elosegui to be of a hard to beat quality, but that doesn't necessarily mean the B.E.'s are the best*/nicest*/most comfortable* berets to wear. 

Personally, I hardly wear anything but an Argentinean made Tolosa Tupida, be it in wool or cotton. It's the excellent quality and craftmanship that goes into these berets and the huge variety to choose from, depending on mood & weather. 
A few weeks ago I promoted the extra large (diameter) T.T.'s  in cotton and sold out in no-time-at-all. Today, the new stock came in (thank you for your patience, customers on the waiting list - yours will be send today!), available through South Pacific Berets. 

With the new stock, also a few samples that are for sale as one-offs:
Tolosa Tupida 30cm in white merino wool, with satin lining and leather headband in size 60 or the headband-less version (one size fits all):

Also, I now have four Tolosa Tupida Plato Grandes in stock; 2 x 32 and 2 x 34cm diameter, all in size 60. Black Merino wool with satin lining and headband:

And last, I have one Plato Grande (35cm diameter) in cotton in Grey and one in Green:

Green Berets

US Army Green Berets

Many readers ask me about green berets; not those in the Tolosa Tupida or Castilla range, but the small diameter, txortena-less, military berets. Returning visitors to this blog know about my rather cool feelings towards the military, but then again, I shouldn't ignore my audience and actually, there is  some interesting history associated with this clone of the Basque beret.

 French Foreign legion

Best known are the berets of the US Army Special Forces, generally known as The Green Berets, but the green beret is actually worn by all sorts of special forces across the world (and much longer than the US Army does); the British Royal Marine Commandos, the French Commandos Marine, the Irish Ranger Wing, the Bosnian Zelene Beretke, the Greek  Dynameis Katadromon and the Dutch Korps Commandotroepen, to name only a few. 

Over the next few weeks I'll post on each of the regiments wearing a green beret, but first a look at the origin of the green beret. Although best known for it's use by the Americans, especially after Vietnam, the Americans were only followers of European corps. 

Royal Marines Commando

The British Royal Marine Commandos introduced the green beret in 1942; a most interesting article on the birth of the green beret by Capt. Derek Oakley can be found here. Many allied troops training in the UK during WWII joined in the idea of a having a green beret specifically designated to their commandos.

The US Army joined this tradition over a decade after, in 1953, when Special Forces Major Herbert Brucker initiated the green beret designation.

To be continued.

The Scandinavian Series #7 - Mentz Schulerud

Mentz Schulerud (1915 – 2003) was a Norwegian author, radio personality and theatre director. He was known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the city of Oslo.

Schulerud was born in Kristiania, but grew up in Rena, Lillehammer and Ringsaker as the older brother of the famous children's book author Anne-Cath. Vestly (see T.S.S.#2, 6 September). During the German occupation of Norway he was involved in a Norwegian resistance group called 830-S. For his work in the Norwegian illegal press, he was incarcerated at Grini concentration camp in 1944.

After the war, was hired as programme secretary in the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, in 1946. He was later subeditor from 1959 to 1962. During this period he also worked as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Vinduet from 1959 to 1963. In 1962 he left the NBC to become director of Oslo Nye Teater. Through his numerous radio programmes, articles and books, he vividly conveyed the history of the capital with anecdotes and biographical scetches, particularly relating to its artistic life.

The Scandinavian Series #6 - Evert Taube

 Evert Axel Taube (1890 - 1976) was a Swedish author, artist, composer and singer. He is best known for his folk songs, and is widely regarded as one of Sweden's most respected musicians.

Evert Taube was born in Gothenburg, and brought up on the island of Vinga, Västergötland, where his father, Carl Gunnar Taube, a ship's captain, was the lighthouse keeper. His mother was Julia Sofia Jacobsdotter.

In 1925, he married Astri Linnéa Mathilda Bergman, a painter and sculptress. 

Having spent two years (1907-1909) sailing around the Red Sea, Ceylon and South Africa, Taube began his career as a singer-songwriter and collector of sailors' songs, and on Christmas Eve1908, on board the Norwegian ship SS Bergen headed for Spain, he performed "Turalleri, piken fra Hamburg".

Following a five-year stay (1910-1915) in Argentina, he developed an interest in Latin American music and introduced the Argentinian tango to Sweden in the twenties. Contrary to widespread perceptions, Taube did not work as a gaucho on the Pampas but as a foreman supervising workers who were digging canals designed to prevent flooding on the vast plains.

He is perhaps best known as a depictor of the idyllic, with motifs from the Swedish archipelagoes and from the Mediterranean, from a perspective every Swedish four-week holiday tourist could recognize. But he also wrote the most hitting anti-fascist anti-war poem in the Swedish language, "Målaren och Maria Pia", about the Italian war in Abyssinia, from the late 30s, as well as the anthem of the budding environmental movement in the 70s, "Änglamark" (originally written for the successful 1971 "Hasseåtage"-film The Apple War).

On his 60th birthday in 1950, Taube received the Bellman Award from the Swedish Academy and in 1960 he received an honorary doctorate from Gothenburg University. He was elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1970.

1985 statue of Evert Taube at Järntorget in Stockholm

He died in Stockholm and is buried on the graveyard of Maria Magdalena Church on Södermalm.

The Scandinavian Series #5 - Gunnar Ekelöf

Gunnar Ekelöf (1907 - 1968) was a Swedish poet and writer. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1958. He was also awarded a honorary doctorate in philosophy by Uppsala University in 1958. He won a number of prizes for his poetry.

Gunnar Ekelöf has been described as Sweden's first surrealist poet; he made his debut with the collection sent på jorden ("late on earth") in 1932, a work (written during an extended stay in Paris in 1929-30) that was too unconventional to become widely appreciated and which the author described as capturing a period of suicidal thoughts and apocalyptic moods. It was, in a sense, an act of literary revolt akin to Edith Södergran's Septemberlyran a dozen years earlier.

Ekelöf's father had been mentally ill and when his mother remarried, he strongly disapproved of his stepfather and, by extension, of his mother who had let him in: he became a loner and a rebel already in his teens - and would never feel at ease with the mores of the established upper and middle classes or with their inhibitions and, as he perceived it, hypocrisy and back-scratching.

Färjesång (1941), a finely expressed blend of romanticism, surrealism, and the dark clouds of the ongoing war spelled a mark of maturity and would influence later Swedish poets, as would his debut over time. From this point on, his transformations of style and imagery, his deep familiarity with a wide array of literary idioms, stretching far beyond modern writing, and an almost Bob Dylan-like propensity to make fresh departures in his writing and challenge critics' readings of his work in order to keep true to it, made him one of the most influential and, in time, widely read of Scandinavian modernist poets, a kind of father figure and challenging and inspiring model for many later writers not just in Sweden but also in Denmark and Norway.

The Scandinavian Series #4 - Bergen's Buekorps

Buekorps is a Bergen tradition, although historically not unique for Bergen, it is only here that the tradition has survived. If you are visiting Bergen during the march - april period you might come across one, if you visit Bergen during 17th of may you will surely come across them all.

A Buekorps is a group of children (mainly boys) who practice marching, drumming and different formations in the streets of Bergen. Buekorps is a rare and very stange tradition orginating from the old ”police force” or brigades of citizens. Children had their fathers in these brigades and thought it looked cool, so they started playing with doing the same stuff their fathers were doing. The first buekorps Dræggens Buekorps dates all the way back to 1856, some also think that Skutevikens Bataljon is older, but that can’t be confirmed. 
Buekorpsene isn’t involved in politics, religion or anything of the like and according to the Buekorps web site, "Everyone can join a buekorps. There is one restriction though, only 3 buekorps accept girls, and only one of those Løvstakkens Jægerkorps accept both sexes."  
I'd say "everyone" is a pretty big word in this case...

Strictly speaking, it is not a beret that the Buekorps use, with the pompom on top, but it's close enough for The Beret Project.

The Scandinavian Series #3 - Anne-Cath. Vestly

Anne-Cath. Vestly (1920 – 2008), was a Norwegian author of children’s literature whose stature in Norwegian society can somewhat be compared to Sweden's famous children's book author Astrid Lindgren among Swedish people. I believe she is one of the most photogenic beret wearers of our times as well!

She was born Anne Catharina Schulerud in Rena, Åmot in Hedmark. Her first book, Ole Aleksander Filibom-bom-bom, eventually developed into a series of twelve books. She challenged the traditional gender roles in the "Aurora" series (1966–1972), in which she depicts a family where the mother works as a lawyer, while the father, an ancient history Ph.D. candidate, stays at home with their two children.

Her most famous work Eight Children and a Truck (Åtte små, to store og en lastebil in Norwegian) concerns a family with eight children living in a small apartment in Oslo. It was the first in a series of nine books, the last of which was published in 2000 about the children’s grandmother. The series is known as the "Eight Children" series in English ("Mormor og de åtte ungene" in Norwegian) and was published in English translation by Methuen. It is one of the most famous Norwegian children's book series. Methuen has also published several of Vestly's other children's books, including those of the "Aurora" series.

Vestly also worked as an actress, playing Grandma in the television and screen versions of Grandma and the Eight Children (Mormor og de åtte ungene). She also co-starred with Alf Prøysen in Kanutten og Romeo Klive (1963), a popular children's television show.

She married Johan Vestly in 1946, who illustrated all her books until his death in 1993 (although some of the English translations were illustrated by John Dyke).

Anne-Cath. Vestly was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in early 2006. She spent her final years living in a nursing home in Mjøndalen, where she died on 15 December 2008 at the age of 88.