Style Report - Support the Small Guys

In the weird world of internet clothing forums the word "artisan" gets a lot of play, usually to describe the maker of an item far out of my price range.

I have amassed a considerable wardrobe over the last four or five years. About half came from eBay and thrift shops; the remainder from deals like Lands End or Orvis overstocks, the regular sales at Brooks Brothers and J. Press, and some trading with fellow enthusiasts of The Look Unhappily Known As Trad.

It's been hit-or-miss, especially at the onset of the madness, and had I known more at the time I would have spent less for better things.

But this is why they call it "learning."

Now I am at the point where I do not need another shirt, tie or pair of grey slacks for the next gazillion years, assuming no dramatic weight change. There are a couple of holes in the sport coat and suit collection, but with patience the right pieces will materialize.

So in order to feed the dragon I have adopted a new strategy of adding small items to the collection, perhaps one a month or so; items that come from small outfits, where I have established a personal rapport with the "artisan."

(There has got to be a less snooty way of saying "artisan": Tiemonger; linkslinger; Baron of the Buttondown?)

The idea is to slowly add quality stuff to balance out the mass of RTW/thrifted/used items. And to do so in a manner that does not bust the budget.

I just took delivery of this shirt from Mercer and Sons. They call it "James Bond's favorite tattersall" and now that I have it in my grubby mitts I'm not going to begrudge them the hyperbole.

I have two old Orvis tattersall shirts that together have formed the Holy Grail of tattersalls in my mind - a sturdy cloth, looks good with a sweater and/or tie, and yet wouldn't be out of place with mud and fish guts on it.

The two Orvis shirts, however, fail in the "looks good with a tie" category, their necks being too small. And the current Orvis offerings in sports shirts are designed for a very portly sportsman indeed, with a Large gent apparently checking in at 220 lbs., with a 48-inch chest and arms that hang to China; and the Medium pretty much the same as Mr. Large minus two inches in the chest and an inch in the sleeve.

The Mercers will send you swatches on request. (They'll even send them without a request, once they get your address.) That is how I determined the fabric on the tattersall was about right. The pattern looked good. I already knew the cut was how I prefer it - baggy. (None of your slim-fit fashion geeks staring into space while leaning against a boulder on the Adriatic coastline for me, thanks.)

The big stumbling block was the price tag - $140. More sophisticated people than me ("sophisticated" = "loaded") will laugh politely at my concern, pointing out that $140 for a unique shirt made one at a time by a small company is in fact a bargain, especially as compared to fancy shirtmakers who produce some extraordinary-looking things at colossal prices - shirts I personally wouldn't be caught wearing while dead in a ditch.

But $140 represents a significant chunk of Ye Weekly Check, so I had to think it over.

For about ten seconds.

I wrote out the check, filled out the form, sent it away - and forgot about it. Turnaround on all but the most common items is about six weeks, and sure enough, six weeks later (almost to the day) the UPS man turned up with the modest padded envelope.

I'm writing this while sick. I am not even going to wear this shirt until I am better, that's how much I like it. I am thinking about erecting a temporary shrine to the shirt. A triptych, with the two Orvis shirts flanking the majestic New Tattersall.

Or maybe not.

Also in the mailbag this week were these little cufflinks from Mr. Kent Wang, the croquet-playing maestro of style in Austin, Texas.

Mr. Wang has an odd sense of humor and a great eye for the small flourishes that can make an outfit really come alive. His cufflinks are a particular relief to me, as I dislike great bulbous things hanging off my cuffs.

The pocket squares are first-rate as well, and a little smaller than many manufacturers', which makes for less migration during the course of the day.

And everything from KW is eminently affordable - in this case, $25 shipped. Let's hope he keeps it that way.

My latest non-thrift shop tie purchase was from David Hober, of Sam Hober (named after Samantha, the first-born of the latest crop of Hobers).

My dealings with David go back several years, when I first bought a Thai mudmee pocket square and was immediately impressed. It was unusual without being gimmicky.

Since then we've designed a couple of ties together and maintain a lively correspondence.

Sam Hober used to be based in Denver but they have relocated to Thailand, which means that David can call you on his Internet phone and sound better than someone in the next town.

The tie is the Trad Special #5 (that awful word again). Designed by one of the clothing forum guys, apparently, and David informed me mine was the first off the production line (such as it is).

What I like especially about the more traditional of the Hober ties is they look a great deal like the Brooks ties they are inspired by, but differ in some stylistic detail. A difference too subtle for the average jamoke, but I know it's there.

And once the Hober ties are handled in person the vastly superior workmanship is apparent. And at $75 shipped from the other side of the globe, I don't see the problem, unless you're in a hurry. Turnaround is again about six-eight weeks.

Here I am modeling the Trad Special #5 with the most conservative suit I own. Stodgy, yet effervescent. (!?)

The Super Duper

I am pleased to report that as of Friday morning I had not read or viewed one single scrap of information on the Super Duper.

The two-week layoff between the conference finals and the Super Duper is a disgrace. Where is the point of diminishing returns on pre-game hype? I'd say about two and a half days, or the first story about an assistant coach's crippled daughter - whichever comes first.

Some hype is necessary, even good. But more hype isn't gooder.

It's just hyper.

According to Tim Sullivan of the New York Post, "Teams that average more than 27 points in the regular season are 22-2-1 in the Super Bowl. The Giants average 23.2 points. The Patriots 35.6."

Got that?

Big Tim also points out the Pats have not covered in eons, and if you subtract 23.2 from 35.6 you get 12.4. By an odd coincidence, the opening line today is 12 points.

But I keep remembering the intensity of the Giants in that final regular season matchup, when they had nothing on the line and nobody (well, almost nobody) would have blamed them if they sat their regulars.

So the play for me is New York plus the 12 points. Final score, New England 34-28.

I'm looking forward to this. Maroney zig-zagging and breaking tackles for New England; the Patriot linebackers trying to tip Young Master Manning's throws. New York trying to blast it up the middle and not getting anywhere until about midway through the third quarter, when all of a sudden the holes appear; a death-defying Manning-to-Burress heave that gives the Giants momentum heading into the half.

And that inevitable, evil moment so familiar to the fans of teams that played New England this year - when Brady gets the ball with about three minutes left, two timeouts plus the two-minute warning. You just know they're going to score.

SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO EAT?

Rather last minute - a young lady friend is coming over, she cares not one whit about the Sooper Dooper but likes my cooking.

So, Bachelor Stir-Fry (Kwik-E version):

Bone and dice chicken breast meat, put in goop consisting of horseradishy mustard, blob of olive oil, blob or two of Paul Newman balsamic stuff left over from summer, some hot peppers from a jar, and blob of honey, let sit in frig.

Grab what veg are at hand, which tonight are a bag of Stop and Shop Ranch Veg, half a bag of S & S pepper strips, regular onion, can of black beans.

Serve on Trader Joe's pasta, as Mom sent me about 50 pounds of various types and I haven't even made a dent in the supply.

It's a two-pot meal - one for the noodles and a big frying pan for everything else. Plus we'll finish the holiday turkey soup if she wants. She's bringing dessert.

The Cinema - Jess Franco Gets Me Again

Stupid reporter, left, about to get the treatment from the Countess.

The first thing I noticed about the imaginatively titled Female Vampire (1973) was the insipid music. (Actually the first thing I noticed was the nekkid lady in the forest. Is that a dark loincloth? No, it's just...her.)

The musical motif re-occurred throughout the picture, driving me almost insane in the process, until I remembered where I had heard it before - in the immortal Zombie Lake!

Phew.

Countess Karlstein lives on an island in Spain and is a sexual vampire. It's a little confusing, as she operates in broad daylight and with none of the usual vampire trappings - coffins, Transylvanian dirt, fangs.

She does have the ability to turn herself into a bat, though.

But mostly she has the ability to walk around mostly nekkid and have sex with people, which is shown in fairly graphic detail.

So she backs a farmer against the fence and apparently bites him in a highly personal and sensitive area at a highly personal and sensitive moment in their encounter.

The Countess seduces (and, ergo, kills) the lady reporter who comes to ask her questions while wearing the world's largest white patent leather knee-length platform boots. Did I mention the Countess is a mute? This was not an especially bright reporter.

And the hotel stud. And a couple of whips 'n' chains lesbians. And some guy who wears eye liner, Edwardian shirt cuffs and spends his days on the balcony staring into space.

Meanwhile the director, schlockmeister supreme Jess Franco, plays Dr. Roberts, Nebbish, who is determined to get to the bottom of these weird and savage killings. He eventually makes his way into the Countess' bathroom, where she is writhing around in a tub of what appears to be unformed cherry Jello.

And she just croaks, for no apparent reason at all.

We're talking massive nudification and sexotology here. Solo and group sex with farmers, reporters, poets, mean lesbians, pillows, bedposts, and a bathtub full of alleged blood. One dead mute manservant. One blind idiot who performs a rather clumsy post-mortem. Lots of slobbering. One fat vampire hunter who does nothing. Atrocious dubbing. Theme music from Zombie Lake. Gratuitous voiceovers from the Countess during shots of the car's hood moving along, with a flying bird hood ornament (the wings flap).

An outstanding, if at times tedious, piece of doo-doo. Three coils.

Further readings from geek academics:

This one is not as dumb as this one

Coffin Joe's Sleep-Inducing "Awakening"

The Coffin Joe series goes seriously astray in 1969's Awakening of the Beast, an incomprehensible film that was somewhat foolishly suppressed by the Brazilian government.

If it makes no sense and is boring as all get out, how can it be subversive?

The idea, as far as I can figure after watching the thing twice, is that Jose Mojica Marins is part of a TV panel discussing the drug problem. We then get taken into the druggie world, with vignettes of assorted kookaboos and wackadoodles doing their various and tedious things.

There's a scene between a young woman and a bunch of male students that is sort of interesting in a clinical way, and Ze do Caixho pops up here and there to question the existence of being.

But the endless color LSD trip sequence completely negates whatever residual Coffin Joe-ness the audience might retain. It's worse than Corman's The Trip, and that's saying something.

I'm surprised some bright young cineaste hasn't tried to compare Awakening of the Beast with Godard's "Hey Lookit Me!" period - One Plus One, for instance.

Alas, this clunker comes with the Coffin Joe casket set so the buyer is stuck with it.

Summary: Some extremely half-hearted breasts. Hippie students. Psychiatrists with syringes. Brazilian folk-rock ("War! Peace! We're all going to die!"). Ultra-tedious LSD trip in color, with some whippings. Gratuitous references to Coffin Joe, to the director, and to Art.

Dumber and longer than The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, my previous benchmark for bad hippie-era CACA.

Half a coil.

Coffin Joe Hits His Evil Stride

The auteur and star, Jose Mojica Marins, on his way to the manicurist

Brazilian loon Jose Mojica Marins avoids the sophomore slump in his second flick, 1966's This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. Quite possibly the worst film ever shot in an abandoned synagogue, the film should delight arachnophobes and snake chunkers especially.

This Night... opens with the same sequence of the villagers chasing Ze do Caixho (Coffin Joe) to the cemetery, only to find him lying dead with his eyes bugging out in terror. But hey - turns out he wasn't really dead after all.

This time he's running roughshod over a slightly larger town. This town has a sort of a square and a pond and some marshes and stuff. (According to the interview with the director, included in the DVD, Mojica's budget went up about 11 bucks so he was able to shoot a few scenes outside.)

Ze is still obsessed with fathering a son, so he and his creepy fez-wearing deformed assistant set about kidnapping a bunch of girls. To test their mettle he releases a whole herd of big ol' tarantulas into their dormitory. The lady that doesn't freak out he keeps around; the rest go into the snake pit he has conveniently located under the master bedroom.

The girl he's picked happens to be the daughter of the town bigwig, so Ze's got a gang of mercenaries to contend with, led by the village idiot who is in love with the same girl.

Of course, Coffin Joe runs rings around the hired hands, and it takes a skinny black zombie to drag him - literally - to the underworld.

Which is in color!

The Hell sequence, which must run 10 minutes at least, is where This Night... goes from being an above-average but quaint schlocker into sublime CACA territory. Ze wanders around this rather chilly and snowy version of Hades and marvels at the excellent tortures being used on the damned, all the while proclaiming loudly that he believes none of it.

Which is not very convincing when the King of the Underworld is lounging on a nearby throne, surrounded by half-nekkid snake women, laughing his head off.

We have, in addition to Hell: A stampede of tarantulas; tarantulas on pretty girls; tarantulas on pretty girls' bottoms; well-stocked snake pit; corpse-dissolving pool; one axe in head; death by quicksand; gratuitous (and ad-libbed) blasphemy; terrible dentistry; fez-wearing hunchback.

A masterpiece. Four coils.

Coffin Joe - A Pioneer of CACA

Joe gets busy with the blasphemy in an early scene

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963) is the debut of Brazil"s "Coffin Joe" character - part philosopher, part demented genius, part plain old bad guy with the nastiest fingernails you ever saw. Played by director/auteur/fruitloop Jose Mojica Marins, Coffin Joe is an underground institution in Brazil.

Gravedigger Ze do Caixao is a bully who's got everybody in the little town buffaloed. Not only are they scared of him physically - he attacks anyone who crosses him, quite viciously - but his defiantly blasphemous attitude really gets folks right where they live.

So Ze discovers his wife cannot bear him a son and kills her. Then he tries to rape his best friend's fiancee but she bites him. She dies too, in childbirth, as does the best friend. And so on.

Eventually even the timid villagers get fed up and they track ol' Ze down- to the crypt where, perhaps luckily, the supernatural has already caught up with him.

Bear in mind this was made in a Catholic military dictatorship in 1963, and then consider the following laundry list of CACA-tatiousness: One hand mangling with bottle; one barren wife vs. tarantula; one eye-gouging with nasty long fingernails; one attack with crown of thorns. Also gratuitous bad teeth, long speeches about the futility of life (in general) and religion (in particular), and eating meat on Friday.

With all this going on, I figure At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul would be a good entry for an Easter double feature. A heart-felt three coils.

NFL Playoffs - Coffin Joe Will Have To Wait

I have three films in the exceptionally weird "Coffin Joe" series to review, but the pro football playoffs must come first.

After hitting three of four against the spread in the first round I promptly evened it up by going 1-3 in the second round, getting only the Giants/Cowboys tilt right.

Today the Patriots - "Team of Destiny" - are giving an even two touchdowns to the San Diegos. New England hasn't covered much this season, mainly because of the inflated spreads oddsmakers wrote to discourage bandwagoneers.

And 14 is a lot in a conference final. But for once I think the Patriots will handle this - I just can't see the banged-up Chargers doing much this afternoon, and one of those New England linebackers is going to tip an ill-advised pass and bammo - off to the races.

So New England minus 14 is the pick.

At Green Bay the Packers are favored by seven. Young Master Manning has an excellent Packer secondary to contend with. On defense the Giants are facing a real Quick-Draw McGraw in Brett Favre, and their decimated secondary will be in trouble if they play man-to-man coverage. In a zone they might make Favre hang on to the ball just a little longer, and increase the chances of a rushed or errant throw. It will be cold. The Giants can run, we've seen that the last two weeks.

I like New York plus the even touchdown.