Girdle Action

I couldn't resist posting this ad from the '42 newspaper about the "scientific aid" that will enable women to be active in defense of their country and the world--don a girdle, i.e. "anatomical support system" (phew! that even sounds like a military weapon!). Note how the ad has been set up to look like a military battle plan pinned up on the wall. Now, I may be needing just such "action" tomorrow as I'm presenting a talk for the Touhu Tildat using my Cheez Whiz posting as a starting point. I'm speaking on Finnish immigrant mothers and daughters growing up in Port Arthur.

My friend, Mervi, found me a pink dress from the '40s to wear with 3 large shiny black buttons, a slick belt, and a full gored skirt. The thing is, I have no idea if the dress will fit. We may have to do a bit of scrounging in some back drawers for something akin to "anatomical support", which nowadays comes in more "modern" styles and more choices ...like underwonder or unitards or belly band underwear (specifically for the "muffin top") or, heaven forbid as the image is frightening! control-top thong

Mervi also found me a big brimmed black hat, a pair of 40s platforms and an old-style black tabletop dial telephone (which I need as I go from talking about Cheez Whiz to moving "to town" and getting our first telephone...). The talks that I do are a bit like performance pieces as I act out parts. I present them half in English, half in Finnish, as half of the audience knows only English, but the other half is most comfortable in Finnish. I've done 2 previous talks like this; one on shopping and consumerism told through female milliners of Port Arthur and through a bevy of hats, and the other on how our houses and furniture changed when Finns migrated and took up middle-class values, leaving the keinu tuoli behind for the Lazyboy chair.

Here's another ad, of a dad/husband going off to work with his white scientifically enriched bread in his lunchbox that I'm posting to give Dianna a good laugh. The ad calls to mind the white fluffy bread that modern science told us was healthier for us than 'real' bread, and that went so well with the plastic cheez we desired. After writing about Cheez Whiz, I found out that, gosh! everyone has a Cheez Whiz story, too! Dianna's dad, for instance, like my isa, brought it home so her and her siblings could feel like they 'belonged,' too.

She confesses to having proudly whipped out her sandwiches at school when they were made with white store bought bread (that they called "bakery bread") rather than the embarrassing! fresh out of the oven wholegrain breads her mom baked! White bread had class connotations. You could have pretensions of being "normal" (that is, middle class) if you ate white bread. And with Cheez Whiz inside? Why, you could pass as any of the fine women who rolled dainty sandwiches up for the I.O.D.E. ! (i.e. Imperial Orders Daughters of the Empire).

1942 speaks from my floor

...back to the Port Arthur Chronicle-Journal from 1942 found under the floorboards of the second floor back room. There were a few days worth on the floor, and it seems that there was both a morning and evening edition--and this is at a time when there were various local and regional newspapers available. From the Chapples department store ad above advertising items to purchase to make Mother happy, it seems that not much has changed in the waist-line department, that is, women, mothers or not were (and are) expected to have minuscule waistlines no matter what. The image of the panties/bloomers is definitely not in congruence with the size of the waist drawn on this "Mother".

"Chapples Stores Limited was founded in 1915 as a family dry goods and ladies fashion store but soon expanded to become Fort William's premier department store with branches in other northwestern Ontario communities. Chapples closed for business in the mid 1970s."

I've listed a few excerpts from ads and articles that I found on just a couple of pages.

-- Under a column called Magistrate’s Court

A motorist paid a $10 fine and costs on a charge of careless driving. Two other motorists were fined $5 and costs each for driving their cars more than 40 miles an hour.

-- Under Announcements

Oil permanent, regular $7.00. Special $3.50. Phone 920 N. Peggy’s Beauty Shop, Nelson Block, opposite Waverley Hotel.

in an ad for Bourke’s Drug Store Ltd.

Free delivery to Fort William and in Port Arthur Providing your total purchase is $1.00 or more

Men, Women Over 40

Feel Weak, Worn, Old?

Want Normal Pep, Vim, Vitality?

Does weak, rundown, exhausted condition make you feel fagged out? Try Ostrex. Contains general tonics, stimulants, often needed after 30 or 40. Supplies iron, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin B1. Helps you get normal pep, vim, vitality. Introductory size Ostrex Tonic Tablets only 35c. For sale at all good drug stores everywhere.

First, the medical community of the 40s (when Dr. Spock first became lord) convinced moms to stop breast-feeding (the not-all-women-are-capable-at-mothering scientism). Women were encouraged to go with 'scientific' bottle-feeding, but then a market had to be created to 'return' babies to a natural state--via science / medicine. "Even the name 'formula' has the aura of science, offered and seen as something better, more modern, and healthier for babies." Here's that 40s scientism in practice:

WARNS MOTHERS OF BOTTLE-FED BABIES

If your baby is bottle-fed, be sure to watch little bowels closely. Mother’s milk is a natural laxative which helps take care of baby’s need. Lacking this, a bottlefed baby often gets fretty, feverish and suffers constipation and upset stomach. Let Baby’s Own Tablets help you keep your baby’s bowels on schedule—sweeten upset stomach—relieve the feverishness and discomfort of teething. No narcotics—no stupefying drugs of any kind. Don’t let your baby suffer—get Baby’s Own Tablets from your druggist today. Only 25c.

Below are some price comparisons:

A.W. Diggins Corner Cumberland and McVicar

Cash and Carry … Pay Less…Live Better (*this subtitle ties in with the article following)

Fresh Lake Superior Trout 2 to4 lbs. each lb. 22c

B.C. Salmon Trout Sliced or piece 2 lb. 39c [this is for 2 lbs!! Today, salmon in TBay today costs $6-8 per pound depending on if its wild or farmed, fresh or frozen]

Fresh Fillets lb. 20c

Wood’s Super Market

240 Arthur St. (Between Post Office, Colonial Theatre)

Shoulder lamb chops –per lb. 30c

Brisket boil –per lb. 14c

Shoulder veal steak—per lb. 30c

~ the next article excerpt is mind-boggling considering the normalization of debt today and the living in debt that is encouraged by governments. George Bush ridiculously told Americans to go SHOPPING after 9/11. Imagine if we too were mandated to pay all debts by the 10th day of the month following purchase as noted below. Clearly, the merchants were the concern in the 40s, as they are today (except today they are not merchants but multinationals & chains). But today banks and credit agencies feed like vampires on personal debt.

* U.S. Tightens Regulations on Buying
Charge Account Rules Are Laid Down by Government for First Time
By Associated Press
Washington. Stiff regulations controlling the installment purchase of nearly every article in common use in the American home were promulgated last night by the Federal Reserve Board which, in addition, decreed that ordinary charge accounts must be paid up relatively quickly.

The charge account rules, first ever issued governing this type of buying, provided that an article must be paid for by the tenth day of the second month following purchase.

Effective at midnight last night, the regulations were issued in compliance with President Roosevelt’s recent request that people pay off their bills and stay out of debt as much as possible…. The new list of articles include all civilian clothing, kitchen articles and dishes, linens, jewelry, accessories, all electrical appliances, umbrellas, baggage, sports equipment, furniture, and yard goods.

Along with Brothers Safely Overseas here are some of the headlines, which gives you a sense of the climate of war:

Gave Their Lives to Trick Nazis

Fort William Pilot Chases Nazi Plane

Canadian Army Train at Lakehead

Reds Force Wedge in Leningrad Front

Stuttgart Hit Again by R.A.F. Raiders

British Cruiser is Sunk in the Arctic

F.W. Man Among Unsung Heroes. PO Schoales Helped Damage Heinkel III in Patrols Over North Sea.

Rabia in my Soul

IN MY SOUL by Rabia

In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,

where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,

where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?

In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church

that dissolve, that
dissolve in

God.

The story of the little girl with a red bird in her throat

A woman, under water, Vellamo. Her story. There. Beneath the waves. She surfaces on occasion. Her face appears like a rock, a stone etched with a map of the world, from space. The lines cross each other in angles, curious. Her lined face peers back at you from water stones worn smooth over centuries. The markings on her face merge in the vanishing point of stone, sky, and spirit.

So. There is the water woman, waiting.

There is also a girl who stands at the shore, watching. She has run through the forest, fleet-footed like a forest creature, a kettu. Her long blonde hair streams behind her in the wind. And on cold winter nights when the deep snow causes her to weave in her path, to slip, slide, straighten and stumble, the tips of her hair strands paint the sky with the Northern Lights and her hair, electric, cackles and snaps in the charge of Ilmatar and Pakkanen.

The girl wears blue and red. The girl is alone. She is looking for someone, searching for something. She has left a warm home, a small dark tupa. If she had stayed in the comfort of sure warmth and the routine of chores she will be drowned by the waves that she has failed to see. Covered by the earth that she has failed to dig through for the mukulat, the small seed potatoes she placed in the hill for protection last Fall.

She would be lulled by the sounds of domesticity. Forget to hear the screams and shouts that lure from birch trees, keepers of the stories of those who failed to write down or tell their silent words. If she stays home, if she stays safe and warm, she will not be bitten by the frost, wrapped in the icy embrace of winter, chilled by the icy touch of Louhi, the Corpse Bride of the North, who pokes her long bony finger through the forest floor. Louhi, the owl woman, whose black eye peers out of the suo. Whose gap-toothed smile catches you at the river. Louhi, whose hair strands, coated in ice, dangle from the edge of old houses.

Far from home, the girl chases long shadows in the snow, knowing not where they lead. She is looking for the next blueberry patch, the one on the other side of the ridge cushioned in moss knee-high to the step, filled with rotting trunks and nettings of branches and twigs that grab at her legs to hold her back.

An almost impassable cliff face stops her momentarily. She balances, poised on the edge, looking out at a triple vista: Sky. Forest. Lake. Air. Earth. Water.

She is looking for the fire that burns in her heart. She is running towards the flames that stream from her head, the fire that uncoils in her mouth, the fire that lives like a bound spiral at the base of her spine. The fire that burns, two embers, one in each eye, a third ember glowing like a lump of coal between her eyes, lighting her path. Her glamour, glowing.

The fire is the red of the bird beating its wings in her throat, spreading its velvet cape over her heart and lungs, threads of which weave through her bloodstream, ribboning snakelike, undulating unimpeded in the waters by the rock that rises to open the way to the other side, to the roots of the tree that connects the living and the dead. The stone, curiously marked, opens the way to the path of souls, the Linnunrata, that touches down to earth on Kekri, while she stands at the shore of the lake, waiting.

tupa ~ the central room of an old-style rural Finnish home
mukulat ~ Pohjanmaan murre / dialect for children / kids
suo ~ swamp
Linnunrata ~ the Milky Way

a hummingbird of hope

A little hummingbird has been buzzing in the back of my mind for about a week, flitting in suddenly and unexpectedly when I'm doing something else, reminding me. Then I think, yes, I should write out my hummingbird story.

But it's a hard one to tell. I was reminded of it when I came across an AP photo last night of a man who had sunk to his knees in despair. He was clutching his head in his hands. His breath seems to be caught. Friends and family are trying to comfort him; they too look distressed, as if some wound beyond words is grappling with their hearts.

When I try to explain some of what is happening in Gaza and what are the facts of Palestinian peoples' lives, I ask the well-meaning folks here who want to sort out the confusion of what they are fed in their daily newspapers and tv news, to look out at the Sleeping Giant Peninsula. Yes, to our beautiful Nanabijou.

Imagine 1.4 million people living on it. Gaza Strip is only a tad larger than Sibley Peninsula. Gaza is 25 m. long; Sibley is 24 m. long. Gaza varies from 4- 7.5 m in width; Sibley is 6 miles wide). I ask them to imagine that the people on it are not allowed to leave unless they have a permit issued by ...well, someone like us. Who are free to come and go as we wish. Who know nothing of how they live except for what our politicians tell us, from years of misinformation in newspapers, from uninformed neighbours or colleagues at work who find easy comfort in easy dichotomies, and from history books that have been re-written. I guess Canada's First Nations peoples know all about this kind of mythicizing, about history that excludes what really happened -- and what continues to go on.

I ask them to imagine that those people have been left there for 60 years under military occupation. That 1 million of them are refugees and dependent on the UN and other agencies. That currently they are without electricity, and have been for a few weeks. That they are waiting for the world to wake up and help them.

I read this recently but I can't remember where:

I am but one.
But I am one.
I can't do everything.
But I can do something.

The following clip is not new, but it's not dated, either. The same story keeps repeating, as we are all witness to these last few days. (The Window into Palestine blog has up-to-the-minute news outside corporate corridors. Even Dr. Mona El-Fara has managed to write her thoughts down amid her frenzied work of tending to the wounded and dying.)

I listen to Sami Yusuf a lot these days. His music is healing. His voice is like a hummingbird entering your heart.