Boot up

Image from Flickr.

I’ve seen a lot of women wearing the most beautiful boots lately. As I’ve said often, it’s a trend I heartily approve of.  For sheer versatility, as well as making a dramatic, sophisticated statement, a good pair of classic tall leather boots in brown or black, with or without heels, is one of the best investments around. If I may say so without presuming to know the fairer gender’s business, they should be in every gal’s wardrobe—particularly those of a preppy bent.

Image from the 1979 Mary Baldwin College Bluestocking.

Like preppy style itself, boots are always with us, but sometimes they’re more important than others.  The late 1970s were one of those times.  While the popular designs and heel configurations of the period ran the gamut from east coast equestrian to more counterculture- and western-inspired themes, all but the most extreme examples were easily imagined in the company of cowlnecks, fair isle sweaters, wool skirts, and the multitude of other chunky, layered looks influenced by the 68-degree-thermostat zeitgeist of the period—even if today, some of the more ornate variations seem cringe-worthy.

To illustrate this, below is a wonderful selection of seventies-era boot advertising I found while trolling the web for period artifacts last weekend.

1977.

Another 1977 specimen. Note the conspicuous absence of spike heels and ridiculously pointy toes. 

1978.  I love the model's blazer, but there's really no explaining that third foot.

Dispatches from the ancients

Although of limited informational utility, this 1973 set I lucked into a couple years ago is a wonderful time capsule.

Yesterday a friend of mine was lamenting the fact that her son, who just turned 8, will never know what an encyclopedia is. As a tech refusenik and information professional, I feel her pain.  Like the typewriter and the rotary telephone, the encyclopedia has become an object of ridicule, the kind of “single-use device” that 21st-century natives and their complicit forbears circle around like schoolyard bullies to point and laugh at, and if need be, exterminate. Not coincidentally, it also represents a departed age in which we still subscribed to the middle-class notion that trustworthy arbiters of truth existed--an “elitist” concept which we can no longer stomach in an era where it’s socially acceptable to throw a temper tantrum until somebody tells you what you want to hear.

Fortunately in my line of work, reminders of better days abound, at least for the time being--particularly in the spring and fall when our Friends of the Library organization holds its semi-annual used book sale. Not just a flea market of library remainders, analog treasures from far and wide perennially turn up at this event, as donations pour in year-round from the community's rooted-out closets and basements. Making space on the library's shelves and in our storage areas is the name of this game, and because of the sheer volume of material the Friends handle, as well as limited interest in certain volumes, many vintage books in mint condition are even given away.

These “Year Book” supplements to the World Book Encyclopedia, which I rescued from the freebie bins this week, are one such example. Over-40s of a certain background will recall these handsomely-bound, lavishly-illustrated annuals, which recapped the major events of the previous year in a condensed encyclopedia-style format, with special sections front and back highlighting important figures in the news and noteworthy trends in society. For reasons that should be obvious to the regular readers of this blog, it seemed particularly appropriate to share some highlights from the 1981 volume, which recall some of the more striking images of 1980.

Talking of the arbiters of truth...

The arbiters of style, meanwhile, were enjoying a rare moment of sanity...

 

...as demonstrated by this beautifully-attired architecture student.



Nice girls loved club collars, cozy sweaters, and their dogs.

Even boomer moms decided they liked the preppy look, once the back-to-the-land thing didn't work out.

I never got to have a girlfriend who wore fair isle and oxfords, but I did get the Merlin game for Christmas that year.

Of course, the transition from the 70s to the 80s wasn't all fun and games. It had its share of disasters...

...but also a few miracles.



Simplicity

I haven't seen the film, but I think this still of Julia Ormond from The Music Never Stopped, set in the mid-80s, is swoony.

Staunton, Virginia: 1976

Happy scenes from the Mary Baldwin College Bluestocking...

What...no Tab, ladies?

The Wide Wale cooks!

I’ve been trying to get out of a rut in the kitchen. This past weekend, I escaped the blahs with this hearty beef stew, adapted from Elle Krieger’s Comfort Food Fix.

            1 pound of lean stew beef, cut to size

            1 russet potato, diced

            1 carrot, chopped

            1 medium onion, chopped

            1 box of frozen peas

            1 cup of dry red wine

            2 cups of beef broth

            ¾ cup of flour

            ¼ teaspoon salt

            ¼ teaspoon black pepper

            ¼ teaspoon paprika

            2 tablespoons of tomato paste

            3 tablespoons of olive oil

Place flour, salt, pepper, and paprika in sealable plastic bag. Add beef and shake well until meat is fully coated. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large saucepan. Add beef and cook until brown on all sides. Remove beef, add 1 tablespoon of oil, and sautee onions until golden. Stir in tomato paste. Add wine and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about three minutes. Add beef broth and return to boil, then reduce heat to low. Stir in beef, potatoes, and carrots, then cover pot and simmer on low heat for about 80 minutes. Add peas and cook an additional 5-10 minutes.

Do you think Ina Garten needs a sidekick? Not only do I cook, I pop my collars and drive a snooty car too.

Are you in the house...alone?

Recently I’ve begun to take an unexpected interest in slasher films of the 1970s and early 80s. Before you recoil with horror and dismay, bear in mind that we’re talking about a genre which primarily featured teenagers and college students as its main characters. Consequently, many of these movies are filled with preppy eye candy that holds its own against anything in St. Elmo’s Fire or Making the Grade, not to mention interesting cars and period rock music. Remember Jamie Lee Curtis with long hair, dressed in a V-neck pullover, button-down shirt, bell-bottom jeans, and chunky, stacked-heel clogs, riding in her friend’s tacky Monte Carlo with Blue Oyster Cult on the radio in Halloween?  Or the cozy cowlneck-and-corduroy style of Betsy Baker in The Evil Dead?  Yummy.

So as you might imagine, I was intrigued, to say the least, when this DVD crossed my desk at the office last week.

The House of the Devil is the story of a college sophomore who takes a suspicious babysitting gig to earn money for the first month’s rent of an off-campus apartment. Although originally released in 2009, the container blurbs and review excerpts promise a return to the conventions of classic 80s horror, and in its themes, slow pace, and general mood, the film does not disappoint. Not only is it written and shot in a period style; it also, not coincidentally, is set against a period backdrop.

Forget The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants--tucking your shirt in and wearing a belt is cool. So are rotary phones.

Some directors, particularly one as young as Ti West, might be tempted to go completely over-the-top with cartoonish 1980s pop-culture references when creating a movie like this. But to his credit, he resists the obvious, rendering the costumes and surroundings in a more subtle, realistic palette which is more reminiscent of my own recollections. The heroine, played by the fetching Jocelin Donahue, is never seen in anything trendier than a Swatch watch, which pairs perfectly with a plaid oxford shirt and jeans ensemble that could have been worn by any of my high school classmates. Furthermore, her best friend drives a Volvo sedan, and Dee Wallace is a delight in her bit part as the friendly, Mercedes-owning WASP landlord.

Be forewarned that in spite of the movie’s drawn-out buildup, the payoff is alarming, and not for the faint of heart. And that goes double for the scene where our preppy babysitter hooks her Walkman to her belt and starts dancing around the house to the strains of the Fixx’s “One Thing Leads To Another.” If there are guys out there whose tastes are anything like mine, I can only say that it borders on being a religious experience.