The Big Question

Why all this fuss about Trad?

Honestly, the amount of time, effort and expenditure put forth on obtaining the items and discussing them on the various message boards by a group of mostly American and English whack-a-doodles is astonishing. Especially when you consider how many of us there are posting - maybe 200, total?

Talk radio shows figure that one listener in 20 actually calls in; even fewer get through, since many of them wish to read a prepared statement on why Henry Kissinger is a nine-foot tall shape-shifting reptilian creature from another galaxy hell-bent on keeping the price of bobby pins right where it is, dammit.

Who knows how many lurkers on the MBs put in place some version of what they see and read about.

We've had all sorts of internecine battles on the subject, and like all good historical disputes the actual topic under discussion has never been universally defined. (Thus causing the disturbances.)

It gets rather heated at times, which is better than lobbing bombs or bullets but still pretty silly in the great scheme of things.

So what the hell is it we're arguing about?

I'd offer this pared-down list of characteristics of a Trad style (or Ivy, or TNSIL, or insert your term here):

Buttondown collars on the shirts
Relatively skinny ties - 3 1/2 inches at most
Undarted jackets with little or no padding in the shoulders
Flat-front trousers, with or without cuffs
Sensible shoes, occasionally crossing the line into elegance

Like the 12-bar blues, this is a basic template. Feel free to improvise, to the extent of creating something almost wholly unrecognizable as Trad, yet Tradly.

The Cinema - Bug-Eyed Composer, Bitten By Green-Eyed Monster, Finds Fiery Finale

John Brahm's Hangover Square (1945) illustrates yet again that the most dangerous thing a young chanteuse can do to a psychotic composer with bug eyes and a predilection for Norfolk jackets is get engaged to the slimy theatrical producer mere moments after snuggling with said composer in a hansom cab.

Laird Cregar plays composer George Harvey Bone, an absent-minded sort who writes ghastly concertos that aren't as bad as they sound. Along the way he gets snookered by music hall vixen Netta Longdon, who casts a hell of a big Netta over him, convincing him to write some pop tunes for her. George doesn't take much convincing once she's commenced shaking her considerable decolletage at him.

But what ol' Netta doesn't know is that George suffers from fugue states, brought on by discordant sounds, like a bunch of pipes falling off a wagon, or his own compositions.

And in these states, he's likely to do anything, and does.

The ever elegant and vaguely creepy George Sanders plays Dr. Allan Middleton, who suspects George of having a hand in the spate of violence in and around Hangover Square, but he can't prove it.

There's a lot of plot that interferes with the story but it all gets going when George attacks the theatrical producer, and then goes into one of his murderous funks. He lurks around Netta's building, kills her and carries her body off.

And in a stroke of luck, the sort that only seems to happen to the temporarily deranged, it's Guy Fawkes Day, and the street urchins are having a bonfire. George climbs up a ladder and sticks Netta's body, disguised by a mask, on the top of the pile. He also gets his pants singed on the way down, a fact that proves to be his downfall.

The Hangover Square Concerto was written by Bernard Herrmann, Hitchcock's favorite composer, and the final scene is a stunner, with the music and a long plan-sequence that takes the audience around the recital hall, back to the musicians, to George, and back out again, creating a marvelously paranoid and suspenseful atmosphere.

And George, who has managed to set the place on fire, dies while hammering out the final chords.

Great stuff. Sort of a CACA film, in that Cregar's eyes pop out of his head when he goes into psycho mode. Definitely a B movie, so it gets an enthusiastic three coil rating.

Why All the WTH Posts?

I was looking through the archives for something New England tweedy to make a point on a thread on the new Talk Ivy forum on FNB, and there's this feature where one can zap a saved photo from Photo Bucket directly to the blog.

So I did, and added the snotty titles later.

I spend entirely too much time photographing myself. It is weird, flat-out weird.

Conspiracy Theory WTH

Everybody has one of those days, but when this was snapped I was under extreme duress. The Lizard People had been active; Freemasons were pestering me on the phone with sinister questions like "Who is the 23 Skiddoo?"

Agents from the DEA were across the street, disguised as ducks, and my attorney was AWOL on a small boat somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay.

An aluminum foil helmet is not a guarantee of blocking interference rays - you want the Halliburton G9 Discombobulator for that - but it will do in a pinch.

And lest you fear exciting comment, rest assured that more people will wonder why you're wearing a necktie than about the unorthodox headgear. Thus is life in this lax, postmodern world.

Eraserhead WTH

I am often asked, "Sully, who is your barber, I wish to avoid him."

And I reply, "My hair gets this way because I do absolutely nothing to it. I do not even own a comb or hairbrush."

Bachelor Cooking WTH (cigar ash for flavor)

Mild-Mannered Reporter WTH