Category Archives: Thing-a-day (Feb)

Thing-a-day 18: Beginning of the End

So sighs a friend of mine upon discovering this page from LIFE Magazine in 1938:

It was quoted extensively in an “on this date” piece in the Lock Haven (Penn.) Express, in 1967:

1-Piece Swim Suit Hit Shore 30 Years Ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Amid dire predictions of moral perdition, the topless bathing suit bit American beaches just thirty years ago this month. The furor was not to be believed. The city fathers of Atlantic City, N.J., home of the Miss America contest, said they would never tolerate such an obscenity on their strands. Across the country there were outraged howls. Bare bosoms? Belly buttons? And worse, Hairy bosoms and stomachs? Because the guardians of public morals were talking about men swimming in just trunks.

Until 1937, the men of America had been swimming in one- piece or two-piece knit bathing suits with more material above the belt than below. Most of the trunk parts had skirts over them, moreover. Like the topless fad for females, the mens’ craze originated on the French Riviera, spread to California and then insinuated its way to the East Coast. Life Magazine commented then that “in the more inhibited East a male costume consisting solely of trunks was, until just recently, cause for arrest on almost all public beaches and raised eyebrows on many a private one.” It wasn’t until the next year that Long Island’s Long Beach allowed men to air their chests and Atlantic City held off until the outbreak of World War

Bathing suit manufacturers complained that there was little chance for originality in design — just plain black knit trunks with a white canvas belt. The next year in its July 18, 1938, issue Life showed pictures with such captions as “trunks do little for faulty posture,” “hairy chests are becoming public,” “trunks should be privately fixed,” and “trunks should be worn high.” Atlantic City, and other hoi* outs, have long since lost their battle: The bathing suit manufacturers have discovered Heeding Madras, boxing trunks, Bermuda shorts, cabana suits and a great many other changes on the black knit trunks they thought were the limit. Will the topless fad for women spread as fast and the objections sound as silly so soon?

Yeah, so, that’s kind of a no on that last thing, although that fad remains popular in Europe and on private beaches of the West Coast — the same places this fad began!

Thing-a-day 17: Sportsball

I guess that’s a basketball.

I am impressed by the athleticism of these women, and I assume they must be dancers of some kind, who would be accustomed to some pretty fancy footwork in heels. I couldn’t find source information about this photo, and if you have some, I’d love to know more about it.

Women in the 1930s did wear different shoes for that game (and probably headgear, if any), when they meant business, though.


From the collection at Pics of Then, an individual’s collection of old photos.

 

Thing-a-day 16: Knights and Snails

The British Library posted a wonderful group of images of marginalia featuring knights facing off against snails, almost all from the 14th century.


Knight v Snail II: Battle in the Margins (from the Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, Add MS 49622, f. 193v. More at Knight v Snail.

Got Medieval also touched on this subject some time before, but with fewer illustrations, and at pre-Gébelin Tarot History, Michael Hurst explored it (mainly about halfway down).

Smithsonian also took it up, gathering a couple of these and other references, and Homo Ludditus expanded on the subject, adding a few more. Strange and wonderful.

Thing-a-day 15: Pin-ups

In an online community I’m part of, there has been a slight trend of men posting pictures in stereotypically “feminine” selfie poses. The examples I’ve seen recall the “male super heroes posed like female super heroes” images that have become popular recently. I don’t love this imagery. It can be done with good production values, as in this Ducati shoot (interestingly, the various men wear – with differing degrees of success – the same pair of shoes in all 13 shots):

It can also be done very deliberately and with apparently good intentions, as in this project by photographer Rion Sabean, called “Men-Ups”:


From Men-Ups!

But does anyone believe this kind of project makes progress “reversing the stereotypes created by society, begging the questions; why is it sexual for a female to pose one way, and not sexual for a male?” Worse, does anyone truly not already know “Why is it considered more comical or unsettling for males to act the more socially defined feminine?” (Quotes from Sabean’s project statement.)

The reason these are treated as “comical” or “unsettling” instead of hostile or contemptuous is that the makers tell us they are completely in on it from the beginning – they aren’t just telling one of their classmates on the schoolyard that he “throws like a girl!” and then sneering at him for it. The photos still show parodies of feminine poses, and derive their “comical” or “unsettling” power from the ridiculousness of seeing men in them, especially when they appear to be in drag. They invite us to make fun of femininity but don’t sincerely ask us to question the validity of feminine prescriptions when the object is female. When women are in those poses, it is just as ridiculous, but does anyone come away thinking that? I mean, anyone who didn’t arrive already thinking that?

I can’t help feeling like we’re going about this the wrong way with these “mash-up” photos. If our desire is to question the prescriptions, why not simply do that — step up and produce images that set aside the window-dressing of those stereotyped images and take aim squarely at their goal: typically showing women as sexy and sexually available (vs typically showing men as subjects, actors, takers of control — and of course of women).

For example, take this sexy librarian:


From Men of the Stacks, a calendar featuring male librarians.

The power of the Men of the Stacks calendar lies in the simple fact that while the images have sexual appeal, they are not parodies of feminine styling or poses, nor are they especially stereotypically masculine, for that matter (yet without the smooth, “small” styling that makes even bearded men look slight and child-like in the Men-Ups!, adding another, troubling dimension to their ambivalence). Zack, above, features in the sexiest photo, the most overtly sexual, and it’s just plain gorgeous. It helps that he has a fairly pretty face, but his body is thoroughly masculine, and his pose, while not the typical stilted, symmetrical stance that men often adopt in candid photos, isn’t the demeaning, “presenting” angle that invites the viewer to laugh at Manigale and Men-Ups!

In discussions about this subject within fandom, I see women make comments praising what I’ve described as parody treatments as “cathartic,” welcome after “dealing with this shit” — referring to the way female characters are often treated, particularly in “fan service” (using deliberately sexual objectification to titillate [male] fans). I understand, and I find these images interesting and link-worthy myself, but women also participate directly in perpetuating the stereotypes that support sexist, prescriptive representation. How could we not, raised as we are in a society in which it is utterly endemic and often provides the shape of what constitutes “attractive” to the people among whom we seek our romantic partners? I completely understand the “turnabout is fair play” desire here, and I hope it is but one small step in a larger journey for women of meaningfully rejecting the prescriptions for feminine posing.

We may have a lot of ideas about “what [straight] boys like,” and boys may say a lot of things, but at the end of the day, a lot of boys mainly just like girls. We have power to create opportunities for ourselves — with our phones and social media accounts — to shift the representation of women, while staying in touch with what makes us feel attractive. I would love to see a different mix of poses diffuse out among the countless self-portraits that flood the social networks. Not women posing in stereotypically masculine ways (although that has cathartic value as well), but women posing more naturally, more simply, less apologetically, less tentatively. Women just dropping the “wide-eyed, slack-jawed” softcore porn faces that decades of unironic pin-ups have left us with, and looking like they are at home as the subjects of their photos, instead of a little baffled by the props that surround them.

Thing-a-day 12: Bench Progress

Posting to my blog every day for the month of February is only one commitment I made this month. The other is do a cycle of 5/3/1, a weightlifting program developed by Jim Wendler. There are several programming volumes for 5/3/1, which you can have calculated for you at a wonderful site called Strength Standards, whose front page asks you a few questions and predicts your 1-rep-max weights for the 4 major barbell lifts: bench press, deadlift, squat, and overhead press.

I’m doing the lightest volume of 5/3/1 – just 6 sets of each of the main lifts, each on separate days. I enjoy strength training, and I’d like to have a total of over 500 lb (that’s the total of your max in bench press, deadlift, and squat). I’m close, at around 450, but I’m in no hurry. I am more of an endurance athlete by inclination, and hitting each major lift once a week is plenty for me. I am finishing Week 2 of this 5/3/1 cycle, and it suits my goals perfectly right now.


I took this photo in the Arboretum in Seattle in 2008.

Right after I graduated from college, I started going to a gym, looking to gain weight, and when the trainer asked me my blue-sky goal – something I’d always imagined but never thought I’d be able to do – I said “I want to bench press my weight.” We got me there – on a technicality. I benched my starting weight once, for 1 rep. (The real success was that I’d gained almost 20 healthy pounds.) Then I gave up the bench press.

Over 20 years later, I’ve taken it up again. There are other lifts that interest me more, and for more than 6 months, I just didn’t bother with it at all, because I could do other lifts at home but didn’t have a bench. But I got a new rack and bench last fall, and I’ve been pretty consistently benching once a week.

The 5/3/1 programming is based on percentages of your theoretical maxes, and it’s been telling me my bench is higher than my last test (in October, at 102.5 lb). So tonight I tested it again. And I benched 110. So close to that 120! But my strength is much less brittle now, and I know I’m going to blow right past it this time.

Thing-a-day 11: Medieval E-cards

 

Valentine’s day is this week, and while sites like someecards have the cynical market locked up, you might be looking for something a little sweeter to share this year. How about this image?

13. (ff. 21v-22r): Calendar pages for April; a full-page miniature (f. 21v) of a man and a woman courting, standing next to a fountain in an aristocratic garden, with, in the border below, men playing a game with a bat and ball….

From Add MS 24098.

Well, OK, that’s not the most romantic way to put it, but the point is: it’s a couple courting. More in their “Love” section.

Thing-a-day 10: The Smith Machine

I don’t have much use for the Smith Machine. I pretty much only do triathlon sports, rowing, and big compound movements, and the Smith Machine doesn’t permit the appropriate ranges of motion for bench press, deadlift, squats, or overhead press. I’m always a little puzzled when I see one in a gym, because they are expensive, they take up a LOT of space, and the terrible experience they offer for big compound movements is not even close to justified by ‘safety’ claims.

At the end of the day, the Smith Machine is a resistance machine, and that’s why it doesn’t have much to offer people who are mainly interested in strength in context of balance and stabilization (including outdoor athletes such as myself). But there’s a whole world of people who love isolation and carefully controlled ranges of motion: bodybuilders.

Advanced and intermediate trainees only. You need to understand how to use the Smith machine correctly to derive the maximum benefit. Beginners should focus on learning basic barbell and dumbbell movement patterns and developing a strong base.

No feelers. For those who can’t “feel” a muscle working, the Smith machine is an excellent way to overcome that. The fixed plan[e] of motion allows you to really focus on the intended muscle without having to worry about balance and others factors.

From Why I Love the Smith Machine, by John Meadows.

He gives examples and sample workouts for ways to work the Smith Machine into a hypertrophy routine. Jack LaLanne invented it to be used within a regimen that included free weights (which Meadows also recommends), as a training device for novice lifters and not, it is said, with the intent of emphasizing focused mass gain. I don’t really know the merits of his argument, but my gut comes down with Meadows on this one – not for new lifters, and valuable mainly to a fairly narrow niche. If you are new to lifting, you are far better off grooving movements and dialing in form with weight as light as it takes for you to handle the safety aspect with balance and stabilization working in concert.

I belonged to a climbing gym that had a Smith Machine, and it was used regularly – people tested bench weights on it (I’ve done that myself), but mostly it was used as a rack for various kind of pullups, chinups, rows, and hanging abs work. A pretty good intersection with the (surprisingly sensible) advice in the last minute of this foul-mouthed video:

So there you have it – two carefully thought out (that video is better thought out than you think, I promise) approaches to getting value out of a Smith Machine. Something to arm yourself with in case – may it never happen – you are trapped in a gym with nothing else.

Thing-a-day 9: Protection

The Art of Manliness really likes pictures of sailors with women for some reason. Or maybe it’s just that they like black and white pictures from the 1950s and before, and the best ones have sailors in them. They just seem like such fun. Even if they have an iron grip on your elbow.

I’m sympathetic — I like them, too. I never had any particular thing for sailors in the way some women do, but I grew up in Puget Sound, where there are (or at least were) lots of Navy bases, and sailors were both common and highly visible. And the late teens and early 20s are the time that people decide whether that life is for them. Sailors, a little more than the other services, seem both present and absent; any branch can have long deployments, but sailors may spend half or more of their careers “at sea” — now there’s a freighted phrase, or at least an assignment that offers no family housing options. There is also an odd tension in the sight of a Navy enlisted uniform, at once clearly that of an adult and yet also historically a choice for clothing children.


1881 portrait by Benedetti & Boccalini, London.
Queen Victoria helped create a fashion for this style of dress for children by dressing her sons in clothing modeled after Navy enlistees, partly for family reasons but also to create a class-crossing sense of esprit de corps with the nation while celebrating the greatest navy of the era.

I suppose one can’t help but recall the classic joke:

“When I grow up I want to be a sailor!”
“Sorry, dear, you can’t do both.”

Of course our men — and women — in uniform are not children (even though they might enlist as teens), and they do difficult jobs that many (most?) people are unsuited to do. We dress our children in such ways not because sailors are children (although they may remain in close touch with their childlike enthusiasms — a good quality), but because we have aspirations for our children, for them to grow up to be able to do difficult, honorable things, to emerge from under our protection to take on responsibility for others.