Hello Kitty credit card?

Shopping then and now, Part 7
Found in Mom's Basement: 1960 TV ad.

The 60s also witnessed the increasing growth of consumer culture. Its success has meant that today we no longer produce goods we only consume goods. Tanaan ei oo yhtäkä hattukauppa Thunder Baysä, kuus kymenta luvulta asti emme enää valmista tuoteita, meistä on tullut kulutusyhteiskunnan kuluttajat. As I mentioned earlier, there are a few exceptions, with local artists selling a few hats, and I did see a Lappalainen hattu for sale at the seniors' 55+ craft store.

For my talk, I decided to wear some antique hats, so off I went to the second hand stores to look for some hats. I went downtown to Jennifer’s Antiques [this store has since closed down], Value Village, the Sally Ann. NO LUCK. So, then I went to Sears and Winners and thought I might find some retro looking new hat. NO LUCK. So, once again, I turned to mun äiti, my mother, ja mun kaverit, and my friends. Sure enough, I found lots of great hats to wear that once belonged to Mrs. Ladigen, Kaitlyn's great aunt, Janice's grandmother, and Mrs. Budner.

vintage consumer dream?

Shopping, once an occasional, purposeful activity, has changed into consumption, literally, consuming people in its path. Ennen, naiset lahti ostoksille silloin tällöin, ja se oli määrätietöinen toiminta. Now people go shopping for no reason but to go shopping. You can shop on Sunday, you can shop on television, and you can shop online.

a Hello Kitty credit card? Clearly, this is part of targeting tweens to set them up to shop on credit, to normalize debt, to set them up for a lifetime of debt. How cute is that? How cute of capitalism.

You don’t even need to have any money, just a bank card or charge card. In fact, for TV shopping or online shopping, only a card will do. Cash is no longer king – plastic is. Indeed, putting everything on credit cards and living in debt is encouraged. Ennen hävitiin jos oli velekaa, nyt se on normaalia. Today, restraint, delayed gratification, or saving for something is old-fashioned; "choice" is the buzzword. “You deserve it” say the ads all around us: Buy it now! Tänään, pidättyvyys on vanhan-aikaasta; vaatitaan valinnanvaraa.

The Girl and the Hat. Finnish film 1961

the blue glow of Earth

"the soft blue glow" of Earth below the Moon. photo by Douglas Wheelock, NASA astronaut.

A necessary diversion from my shopping story: the wonder of our beautiful Earth. I stumbled upon these amazing photos and I wanted to share their magic with you. They are Douglas Wheelock's photos and words from space. He tweeted images and words from space this past fall. I have spent most of the last hour going through his photos, dumbstruck by the sheer wonder and sacredness they evoke. The peace and awe that Wheelock shares through his words is tangible. You can find more of his incredibly beautiful and stirring images here.

"On this sacred night, when the aurora looked like rain, I reflected back on my childhood dreams of flying a spaceship through the infinite expanse of space... to be among the mosaic of billions of stars, and visit other worlds. Now as I look from space at our planet I realize that had I been born and spent my childhood here in space... how much greater and more vivid my dreams would have been to visit this blue planet."

"Another breathtaking sunset…we get 16 of these each day in Earth orbit, each one a treasured moment. That beautiful thin blue line is what makes our home so special in the cosmos. Space is cool…but, the Earth is a raging explosion of life in a vast sea of darkness."

night view of the Nile River

"An explosion of color, motion, and life painted on the canvas of our wonderful world. This is a section of the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Australia, captured through a 1200mm lens. I think even the great Impressionists would be awestruck with this natural display."

"My 100th Tweet!...Of all the beauty of our planet, I am completely awestruck when I get a chance to watch the dance of Aurora …simply breathtaking… “Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel?... I can only imagine…”

the musical Hair in Port Arthur

Shopping then and now, part 6

Today there are no millineries in Thunder Bay, although there are a few individual crafters who make hats. Hat wearing declined dramatically in the 1960s as hats became seen as establishment: hair increasingly became the symbol of freedom. [note: of course, many of us still wear hats in the winter due to necessity. E.g. Sunday when I went for my morning walk, the temperature was -25C with windchill of -38C, and today I heard on the radio that Ignace, a small town north of us has -49C windchill! So a hat is a must in winter; here I am talking about women wearing hats all year round, spring, summer, fall and winter.]

pillbox hat with an updo

Hats look best when hair is sweep off your face, tucked smoothly behind your ears -- in other words, controlled. Having not been of the generation of year round hat-wearing, I had to look up on the Internet how best to wear a hat. Kuinka hattua pidetään? I found out that there are a lot of "do's and don'ts" to their aesthetic. Pienet kasvot? If your face is small, wear a small hat. Leviät posket? If your face is wide, wear a wide brim. Wearing a pillbox with a tailored suit or a cocktail dress? Best worn with an updo.

When hair came in through the love generation, hats went out. Remember, that was the time of the smash musical Hair, which had a very popular catchy song that my sisters and I grooved to as we danced about our bedroom:

“Give me a head of hair, HAIR! long beautiful hair,

shinin’, gleamin’ streamin’ flaxen waxen.

Give me down to there HAIR! shoulder length or longer,

here baby, there momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy,

Hair, hair hair hair hair….

Grow it! Show it! Long as I can grow it my hair….”

I remember there was a local production of the musical Hair here in Port Arthur; as I recall, it was staged at the Theatre at Lakehead University and the lobby was overflowing, jam-packed with hippie-child wannabes like me. I think I used fake I.D. to get in because you had to be of age to watch this show as in its original version it had swearing and nudity and references to drugs and other counterculture anti-establishment scaries.

For sure that night I wore my black-and-white striped hipster stove pipes with the black macramé belt I bought at Black Squirrel at Country Fair Plaza and my cropped pink bubble top.