I’m a sucker for anything 1940s-themed. Jesus, everyone looked good in the clothes they had then, and the music was all good. Plus, it’s a fun song.
A couple of years ago, I spent Thanksgiving at the house (a brownstone, bought insanely cheaply because it’s more or less in Flatbush) of a friend from the dogpark. Her dad had served in the Navy during WWII, and got to tell his Battle of the Coral Sea story again (interestingly enough, with a woman who’d grown up in Japan in the room) to new people.
My grandfathers were too young for WWI, too old for WWII. My dad got a college deferment during Korea (he did join the Navy as the war was winding down, and his big duty as a Lt. JG was securing enough condoms in Japan to let the men off the minesweeper.
My maternal uncles served during the Vietnam era. Jackie was a flight surgeon who probably got sent into Cambodia and never talked about that. Uncle Bren got drafted, but happily got sent to Germany, to Elvis’s former unit. The enlisted club, donated by Elvis, was AWESOME.
My brother did serve in the Gulf War*, and his wife was sent to Afghanistan, but I haven’t heard too many stories about all that.
___________
* The Gulf War service brought together the home-front stuff of WWI with the modern military. Mike, my brother, wrote my grandma during his many months in the desert with nothing to do to tell her that his tent flaps were flying open. Now, Mike learned early on that sewing and cooking were survival skills (not to mention, they helped with meeting girls in high school during home ec class), so he had his own set of curved upholstery needles. But the Army-issue thread wasn’t doing it WRT the wind in Saudi Arabia.
My grandma, who never threw anything away but somehow manged to make her house neat as a pin anyhow, dug out some silk thread that her mother had used to stitch up parachutes during WWI and sent it to Mike.
And, lo and behold, the stuff held. His was the only tent whose flaps stayed down, with 70-year-old silk thread.
BTW, to give you an idea of my grandma’s resourcefulness with everything she encountered, my mom was helping her clean out the basement after her stroke, and she found a jar full of white plastic things. “What are these?” “They’re pop-up timers from chickens and turkeys.” “And…why… do you have a jar full of these?” “I thought I could make a fence for a Christmas village.” And, y’know? Before her stroke, she woulda done just that.
IOW, get your older relatives talking, on tape. My grandparents were all born around 1900, half of them were from immigrant families, and there were all kinds of weird and random bits of info. Such as, my grandfather’s job as a teenager was delivering milk by horse-drawn cart to various clients in New Jersey. Including Thomas Edison. Who got very pissed that Grandpa’s horse ate his lawn.
Also, my grandmother used baked potatoes as handwarmers in her pockets.
You never know.
I’m trying with great difficulty to get my husband’s grandfather to talk about stuff like this WRT the war. I think what finally got him to start doing it was that I, who had never met him before, was interested and told him how much my husband talked about it and wanted to hear these stories.
Just as a head’s up for people who are having difficulty getting their relatives to talk, sometimes getting someone not related to ask can make it clearer that you really want them to say something.
The whole USS Indianapolis sequence in Jaws still makes my skin crawl.
“But we delivered the bomb.”
Yeah, grandparents have the most amazing stories. My Grandpop never liked to talk about his past very much to us, but he once told us about his long boat trip over from Wales (to Canada) when he was 12 (he ate everything on board as apparently everyone else was quite seasick). Also, hearing my Grandma talk about how she used to toboggan down some fairly major streets in Toronto was an eye opener to how much the city has changed.
In terms of resourcefulness, my Poppy has kept everything ever and when my father bought his midlife crisis car (an MG TF 1954) my Poppy had a vintage windscreen in his basement that fit it.
Weird stuff like that, windscreens from ’54 etc, are part of what make packrat grandparents amazing. Just thought I’d share a few examples as I only have my Poppy left and it really is key to talk to your grandparents while you have ‘em.
My great-grandfather was a Prohibition officer in the 1920s. Spent his time chasing down bootleggers (and they lived in the suburbs of Chicago, so there were definitely people to chase).
The day that Prohibition was repealed, my teetotaling great-grandfather went down to the local bar for the very first time and got himself a drink.
What can I say — I can’t help but love a man who’s willing to change his mind when the time comes. ;-)
I actually did an interview project for my ethnology class where I interviewed my mum and her two sisters about the house they used to live in in the ’50s.
They mentioned stuff I had never heard of, like that they used to sleep on mattresses stuffed with reeds which their father would fetch every year with their boat. And that the water cleaning plant on the other side of the river would let all its sewage back to the river uncleaned and that stuff would stink to high heaven. And that the rooms they lived in had slanted floors that would have frost on them next to the outer walls.
Mostly this was stuff about the house they had lived in, since it was one of the targets in the project. Little things not much of interest to anyone else but me and some etnographers.
My grandmother was born in Chernigov, in the Ukraine. The stories she told of her childhood there were not pleasant. Primarily she recalls, as the youngest, being left in their home alone while her siblings and parents went to work the fields and being hidden in the closet during the pogroms. One of her brothers was kidnapped by gypsies, so they had to get together a search party. They did get him back.
They left the Ukraine in 1916 when she was 6, though, and she had a couple of great stories about the crossing. At one point they stopped in Sweden, and she remembered walking on the dock and stepping on a man’s coattails. He turned around and smiled at her. Later the captain, who had invited them to his home for dinner, told her it was the King of Sweden. She also remembered dancing a kazatzke with her sister one evening on the boat, and an American man coming over and giving them $10. In 1916, that was a lot of money. The same brother who was kidnapped by the gypsies also fell off the boat into the ocean. He survived and was rescued. He led a bit of a charmed life.
I only rarely drew out my grandfather on things like that, and I regret that I was too young to get to all of my grandparents and get those kinds of stories. My boyfriend once got him to talk about his experiences as a ball gunner in WWII, and we found out that he got shot down once. None of his kids had known about that before. He also had a hard time talking about being stationed in Italy – his parents had immigrated from there, and he visited family while he was there, and had a really difficult time trying to explain why he was bombing them.
Growing up, Grandma wore clothes that were handed down from sister to sister. When there was no one left to wear them, they sewed the good cloth into quilt blocks, and the worn cloth into potholders. Grandpa collected the big glass jugs from apple cider–he had dozens. He used them to collect the rinse water from the washing machine, which he then used to flush the toilet in the basement. I remember being irritated with this whole process, but he sure did keep his water usage down. The only problem was that there was less demand for toilet-flushing water then there was output from the washing machine, so his basement was lined up with glass cider bottles full of murky rinse water.
During the influenza epidemic in the early 1900′s, Grandma told us that they went around and put quarantine signs on the houses of those infected. They would stay home from school for days, and when they returned they would look for the empty seats–which was how they would find out who had died. In an effort to contain the spread of infection, the town sent trucks around to spray lysol on the streets, which turned the snow black and was very dismal. Her mother was a single-mother, having been deserted by her bootlegging, abusive husband. While their mother worked, they went to school and came home to eat sandwiches made from lard and sugar to sustain themselves. Then they went off to the entrance of the mines to pick the coal that fell from the trucks, because they couldn’t afford coal. This is how they kept the house warm.
Grandma’s mother, Babusha, came over from Poland when she was 16 after her parents died and her brothers ran the family business into bankruptcy. Relatives who were here were supposed to come get her but somehow didn’t get the word so she stayed at Ellis Island for weeks, since a single,unaccompanied woman had to have someone sign for her.
Grandpa’s parents were poor Irish immigrants who had nothing. His mother, Johanna, decided early on that her children would do better, so she lined them up one day (there were 8 or so kids) and told them each what they were going to be… Grandpa was to be a dentist (whether he liked it or not). To her credit, she also decided her girls were going to have careers too. One ended up being a teacher, one a lawyer. From that day forward, every extra penny went into the college fund. When the first one went to college, they all worked jobs to get him through. As the older ones graduated and got their jobs, they were expected to help the younger ones get through too. In this way, they all ended up with college degrees and professions.
One classic story I remember about Grandpa was that as a young man in his early 20′s, one of his friends passed away. At that time, the body would be laid out and in the family’s living room and they all took turns keeping watch of the body (it could not be left alone lest the evil spirits get to it). When it was GRandpa’s turn to keep watch, he and his friends took the body and brought it to the local pub–where they propped him up at the bar and all had a last drink with him–a shot of good Irish whiskey.
I’m going to focus on Xtina: let the only reason she’s posted on a site like this w/o being skewered as a female version of a minstrel show be that you like her ’40′s inspired clothes. Please. She’s just awful! I hate her whole “sexual confidence” means enslaving yourself to the desires of men schtick.
My entire family lived in Latin America under a US-sponsored dictator. My grandfather was kidnapped, tortured and held for about 40-some days, which was standard for the country (He had been kidnapped before and robbed by goverment thugs). He noticed there was a bar where he was being held and, when left alone, broke into it, thinking, “They’re going to kill me anyway, might as well enjoy some whiskey.” He drank himself silly and started singing and tap dancing for the guards, which they enjoyed (Mind you, he couldn’t do either). They eventually let him go. When he died, two of the former guards showed up at his funeral and paid their respects. I swear. You had to know him.
I love the dancing that we see in music videos and films based on the 40s. This is probably why my roommates and I spend hours watching Dancing with the Stars every week!
Is there something particularly feminist about this song/artist that I am not picking up on? Sure, it’s a catchy song, but is there some other purpose for this being posted on a feminist blog? Why is this woman listed under “women we love”. What is her contibution to feminism? Just curious.
A) It doesn’t have to have a feminist purpose.
B) It’s under “Women We Love” because of the woman mentioned in the post.
C) I really shouldn’t have to explain all this.
Prior to her death at the age of 91, my great grandmother had written out her life story. My mother transcribed it, and had it bound, adding pictures and a family tree. We chose to leave the language the way she wrote it, because it sounds more like she is speaking and reflects her personality.
Great Grandmother’s best friend, Chryselda, lived in another state, and one summer Grandmother visited her in New York. She and Chryselda went on many social outings. As my grandmother described it:
A group of couples went on a moonlight trip on a boat over to Crystal Beach, Canada, across the lake. My date was George Fishback, a very nice guy. Crystal Beach was an amusement park. I had a wonderful time. Mrs. Long (Chryselda’s mother) always chaperoned us. We went to Niagara Falls and all the special places.
The part of the story that Grandmother didn’t record is noted in the endnotes by my mom:
When Grandmother and I were reading this portion of the book together, she told me that during this visit she went for a boat ride with a nice young man and while they were out on the lake he kissed her. When they got back to shore the young man said, “Now, Bertha, if you’re pregnant, I’ll marry you.” I asked Grandmother if she was worried, but she said, “No, I wasn’t as dumb as he was.”
We are trying to get her daughter, my Grama, to record her life story as well. She will be 89 in June, but refuses, saying that her life isn’t interesting enough. We’re thinking of just sneaking in a recorder and asking her questions if she doesn’t agree to set it down formally.
My grandmother was married off at sixteen, left her first husband, met my grandfather on a picket line, and later honeymooned with him on Coney Island. She wasn’t a very good mother or grandmother, but she had amazing stories.
Her younger sister, my great-aunt Sue, was maybe my favorite of that generation. When I was assigned a “family biography” project in high school U.S. history, I interviewed Sue for it. She and her sister, Helen, worked their way through college in the 30s and later worked for the Army as radio operators (I think, it’s been a while since I read the biography). After the war, they went on tours of Europe. Never married. Both of them are role models in my life.
World War Two is definitely the most romanticized war ever. My grandfather had some good stories about growing up in the depression, fighting in the war, meeting my grandmother, being a dad, and being the Director of Marketing at Oldsmobile back when GM was in the height of power. Ah, The Greatest Generation.
Then the Boomers went and ruined everything. Whoops. And people my age? We’re lazy and confused. :P
I really wish we’d asked my great-grandmother more before she died. We didn’t even know she and her husband eloped until she was in her 90s, which is a shame, because it’s an awesome story.
Apparently, their parents insisted that they were too young to marry, so one day the two of them snuck out, got married at a courthouse, and went back to their respective homes. They didn’t tell anyone they were married for months– just went about their business as if nothing had changed. Finally, my great-grandmother cracked and told her father. He went to his wife and said, “You know, I had a funny dream last night, and it made me think that something terrible’s going to happen if we don’t let Frannie and Harry get married.”
She said, “Well, I still think they’re too young, but if you really feel that way– all right.”
The only trouble was, by this point my great-grandfather was on a trip to Europe. So my great-grandmother signed the ketubah, the marriage contract, without him.
The reason we found out this had happened? My great-grandmother kept insisting that Harry was in Europe when they got married. We said, no, that’s impossible, you’re remembering it wrong, but she kept insisting, and finally the whole story came out.
My mom’s side of the family is full of stories like that. I don’t know as many for my dad’s side, other than the one about how Great-Uncle Sammy tripped President Roosevelt.
hmmm my relationship with my Nan isn’t great, and I don’t have any stories from her at that time. But there were a couple things I’ll always remember my mum telling me about.
My Grandad was in WW2, he and his friends were mischief makers and grandad would often sneak out and steal local farmer’s chickens to bring back to the boys.
There’s also another story from then he was a POW in a Japanese camp, he’d been sneaking around an office, heard someone coming and hid behind the door and actually got away with it.
At least that’s how those stories go ^^;
My dad was a communications specialist in the Marine Corps during the war. Basically this means he got to string telephone wire while every Japanese gunman on the island tried to shoot him. None of them did, but he caught tropical fever, which reduced his weight to 120 pounds (on a 6’2″ frame).
Kelsey, I can assure you that there was absolutely nothing “romantic” about it. If you can get your hands on some of Paul Fussell’s work, I highly recommend it.
I did think “Andrew’s Sisters” the first time I heard the song, but the video, yeesh. I guess it’s homage?
Well, I liked the video, the song makes me want to dance, and I love Christina because the woman has PIPES.
thanks, zuzu.
Christina! She really can sing. And I thing she’s come a long way in separating herself from the whole “Drrty” phase, where she very much played into the sexual confidence = grind around for men, thing. I see nothing of the sort of regressive patriarchal co-optation of sexual freedom from that phase in this video. If any critics, like Nellie, want to claim that it is present I think they need to delineate between when female sexuality is good (confident, autonomous, etc.) and when it is bad (playing into patriarchal fantasies, etc.). It’s totally regressive to collapse all of the former into the latter. It’s just slut-shaming with a feminist sticker.
Posting something that is not 110% all-feminist all-the-time on a feminist-minded blog?! Zuzu, you’re fired. Now please post some Ani Difranco.
Oh, I don’t think so.
First, we need to talk about this Shakira business.
according to some teen poll i read somewhere (yes i know how lame that sounds) the pussycat dolls are considered to have advanced the cause of feminism more than condi rice.
maybe that’s a good thing.
Hey – I know something feminist about Christina Aguilera! She donates hundereds of thousands of dollars to the women’s shelter in the Pittsburgh area. She also auctions front row seats and backstage passes to benefit the shelter.
Does she pass the litmus test now? =-)
This video makes me miss that swing revival that happened in the nineties. Squirrel Nut Zippers, where did you go?
oh hell YEAH, love Squirrel Nut Zippers.
I’m not normally much of a Christina fan, but I did enjoy that, I gotta say. yep, ancient stereotypes, total fluff. what can i say. i’m a sucker for pin-up girls. and dancin’. and she does have a nice set of pipes on her.
I have loathed Christina Aguilera for simply principle-based reasons, but damn, I may have to be a traitor to myself… that song was pretty damn awesome.
Nellie: What are you talking about? The lyrics and visuals that make up this video totally agree with third-wave feminism:
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a boy with charm
He’s a one stop jive, makes my panties drop”
“He’s a one stop jive, makes my cherry pop
He’s a sweet talkin’ sugar coated candy man (ooh yeah)”
“(Sweet, sugar, candy man)
He’s a one stop, gotcha hot, makin all the panties drop
(Sweet, sugar, candy man)
He’s a one stop, got me hot, makin’ my *uh* pop
(Sweet, sugar, candy man)
He’s a one stop, get it while it’s hot, baby don’t stop
(Sweet, sugar)”
“Good things come for ones who wait
He’s a one stop jive with a real big *uh*”
Not to mention the Campari product placement. Everyone knows feminists choice of drinks is Campari.
MattC: If you want examples of when Christina is playing out the “patriarchal fantasies” just look at the outfits she wears during the video. Boypants, short, short skirts, super high-heels. Are these functional for the woman or functional for playing off of man’s desires?
That’s great she donates to a woman’s shelter, but does that trump her message and posturing?
What’s with the feminist policing from new posters? Did we get linked somewhere?
Bluntly, yes.
Also, it’s not just the men who appreciate her look & “posturing.”
BTW, what’s the “message” here? That she likes sex?
What’s so anti-feminist about that?
“drink Campari”
because anti-feminism is totally synonymous with capitalism; we just only ever happen to mention it when it involves anything that looks like girly sexuality.
Yeah, the product placement bugged.
My mother’s father was stationed in Europe, France, was it? and was involved in liberating one of the camps, I believe. I could swear he told us that they’d been so angry when they saw the prisoners that they’d opened fire blindly on the adjacent town. that was a long time ago, though, and alas, I can’t ask him for verification; he passed away in 1995.
he also wrote a column for the army paper while he was Over There; I have a copy of the collected articles.
As to the Squirrel Nut Zippers I know one member has a prosperous solo career, Andrew Bird. He had a group called Bowl of Fire for a while but now he is just solo and not playing the violin as much and not playing jazz either. I just saw him open for Devotchka on New Year’s Eve and he is playing more guitar.
Squirrel Nut Zippers talk about their album:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=g-8Ll778b4M
Andrew Bird live:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jqnPGX3WrCU
I did like the SNZ very much though.
I interviewed my grandparents about their WWII experiences for a class project and was amazed at how much I learned and how much fun I had. I wish I had a closer relationship with them, but I am glad we got a chance to talk like that.
I’m not the biggest Christina fan, but she can sing amazingly and that song has a very catchy beat. No need to explain Zuzu!
Whoa… tough crowd here.
Such a fun video.
I think Christina has always seemed in control of her own sexuality. She was the non-virgin back when all the teen singers were waxing poetic about the awesomeness of hymens. I have never gotten the feeling that she isn’t the one choosing her own career path.
Bitter Scribe, I’m making fun of the fact that Americans love to romanticize WW2. Also see: sarcasm.
I don’t usually defend pop stars publicly, but I also sorta like Christina. First off because, as others have noted, she can actually sing, whereas most pop stars can’t. But also, I may be deluded certainly, but I just think she’s spunky. When she did “Drrty,” yes, I suppose she was disguising “bowing to male pleasure” with “sexual empowerment,” but what I liked is that she actually seemed to go too far. Like, people were appalled at how slutty she was, possibly in part cause she wasn’t being cutesy about it, and she was totally unapologetic. And now that she’s all retro… well, I will never get tired of the platinum bombshell, red lipstick look. It’s such a welcome relief from the current look, I guess. Finally, I believe she earned respect from me because she was really funny on Saturday Night Live, which requires a little bit of intelligence and the ability to make fun of herself. And the women’s shelter thing is the best part, of course. So while I don’t really like pop music (I prefer “alternative”–Arcade Fire, Sleater-Kinney, etc), I feel like she’s better than a lot of it. Though again, I might be deluded.
PS: And by “current look,” I guess I mean 80′s, which is when I grew up! Ha ha. Maybe we just always tend to romanticize the past. But c’mon, the 80′s? Music yes, but those tapered jeans? So unflattering to most women’s figures…
She definitely seems like she’s having a ball, which I love.
Christina won my heart on her first stint on SNL when she sang one of her first-album ballads. It had some pretty high notes in there, and she nailed every last one, beating even SNL’s crappy sound system.
And her 1940s style lately? Yes, please.
And yes: Everyone looks good in 1940s clothes. Why do you think so many big women look so amazing as Rock-a-Bettys? Because the clothes are cut to a woman’s frame SO much better. I
I think it’s cool that she makes it clear that her entire new album — which is very sexual — is all about her husband. She didn’t buy into the Teen Virgin business, and now she’s not buying into the Standard Marriage crap, wherein all married public couples are supposed to smile pretty and hold hands, but not actually imply that they have really really hot sex lives. She puts it out there that she likes fucking her husband, a whole lot. I can support that.
Oh, and I’ll also point out that this isn’t a choice between “feminist” and “anti-feminist.” There can be some feminist elements and some anti-feminist elements, and the rest of it can just be. If Zuzu were trying to sell this as Totally Empowerful for All Women, I’d be annoyed, but she’s not. It’s not a feminist themesong, but it’s not a misogynist one, either. There’s a lot of space in between, and since it’s hard to find anything that’s perfectly feminist, I’m ok with just letting ourselves have fun sometimes.
The thing that freaks me the most about this video is that there are two different segments of it, one segment of which is 1941 or thereabouts, sartorially, and the other is 1953 or so. It seems as though the people who did the look-and-feel for the video kind of missed the fact that the two looks were separated by more than a decade. I don’t think anyone was doing big band music USO shows in retro costume in the DMZ in Korea, either.
It’s Totally Empowerful for All Women!
(annoyed yet?)