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Friday, June 12, 2009
Falling for Judy Garland
“Over the top” is, for some, an acquired taste—a few trips through the wringer may help get you there.
Judy Garland singing before a wall of roses
“Born in a Trunk” from “A Star is Born,” 1954
Agony has its rewards.
For some fine people (“fine” we can call them now) it builds character; for everyone, it changes capacity.
Like the capacity for Judy Garland. Back when the entertainment industry was still “show business,” she was IT, and we were very young – pre-agony. Her big stagy gestures, bow-shaped mouth painted red, the emaciated body and dyed black hair were horrifying to a ten year old in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky. How freaky. How needy! We were trying to acquire a completely different cultural temperature: cool. To be loved while gliding under the radar, not tap-dancing, arm-flinging, hair-twisting for approval. Judy’s blatant cravings – and vaudeville aesthetic – were side-show bizarre. We were kind of embarrassed for her, but mainly we were grossed out.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
HFQ #7: The Floral Part of No
How should a person handle unwanted gifts of flowers?
Someone who for obvious reasons wants to remain anonymous has written to say s/he’s being deluged with flower deliveries. S/he recently broke off a dating relationship, and the other person has continued to try making contact via emails, text messages, and phone calls. When our correspondent blocked those sorts of communications, s/he began receiving flowers at work from the ex.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Flower Vendors, Sing Out!
To Archie Green’s temple of laborlore, we bring another offering: “cries” from the street.
Archie Green
at home on Caselli Ave., San Francisco, 2008
Photo: Shelly Romalis
A month ago, one of my heroes gave out after 91 years. Archie Green died March 22 in San Francisco.
As widely read and thoughtful as anyone I’ve known, Archie stretched over political theory, linguistics, the history of art prints, ethnomusicology, 19th Century American literature…. In conversation, he was precise and boundless, also given to fine eccentricities, like intentionally mispronouncing the singer Madonna’s name – “Ma-dOne-Ah,” with a very long, dopey O.
Archie’s great commission was studying the culture of working people, what he called “laborlore.” From the inception of the Human Flower Project, I tried to get him aboard but never succeeded.
Here, I and others have looked at many dimensions of flower labor. We’ve written about the conditions for fieldworkers in several parts of the world, and tricks of the florists’ trade. We’ve run photographs of New York sweatshops where women made artificial flowers. We even documented the use of flowers in a Montreal labor union’s demonstration. Pushing all these efforts at Archie, I could tell he was never really grabbed by any of it.
Art & Media • Culture & Society • Cut-Flower Trade • Florists • Secular Customs • Permalink
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Olympic Flowers ‘10: Just Choose June
To make its victory bouquets, Vancouver’s Olympics committee has chosen a florist with prison credentials.
June Strandberg, florist for the Vancouver Winter Olympics
Photo: Sharon Doucette, for Surry Now
Conscientious consumption—the demonstration of ethics via your nearest and dearest commodities—will take the international stage next year, in the grip of swooshing ski jumpers and jaw-rattled luge riders.
The organizing committee for Vancouver’s Winter Olympics 2010 has chosen Just Beginnings Flowers to make the 1500 bouquets for next winter’s Olympic champions.
Just Beginnings, HFP readers may recall, is a fascinating flower shop that combines social uplift with retailing. Owner June Strandberg trains recovering addicts and ex-prisoners in floral design, offering instruction in the basement of her shop in Surry’s Phoenix Centre. Strandberg has also taught floristry behind bars.
Culture & Society • Cut-Flower Trade • Florists • Secular Customs • Permalink