Pālule maikaʻi

The aloha shirt, also known as the Hawaiian shirt. Where, I wondered, did it come from?

There's an answer. Apparently a certain mania for Hawaiian things had already hit the mainland by World War I, decades before Hawaii became a state. Ukuleles were a popular instrument through to the end of the 1920s, at least. And the shirt became a craze over the next decade, during the Great Depression. 

Fads are fads, though, and usually burn themselves out pretty quickly. The ubiquitous 20s image of college men wearing raccoon coats to the football game had become a period piece by the start of the 40s. But I have a few aloha shirts, or at least light button-down short sleeved shirts with printed designs that evoke the tropics. So do a number of people with a considerably more credible claim to being cool. So how did this particular fad last? Well, there's the comfort factor, but the truth is you just never know.

#couplegoals

Did you know that Edward Lear wrote a sequel to The Owl and the Pussy-cat in which the cat dies? By falling out of a tree, of all things? The Victorians, man. Or something that happened in his life.

This animated rendition of the original is kinda nice. I like the crumpled paper figures of the main characters.

...all at once

These worlds were soon joined by others – there was Earth-3, an evil mirror universe where all "our" superheroes had supervillainous counterparts and Lex Luthor was the only superhero, Earth X (originally intended as Earth [swastika] before a last-minute change) where the Nazis had won and the superheroes were fighting in an ongoing resistance... and when DC bought up other companies, like Charlton Comics or the characters from Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel line, their stories were claimed to have occurred on other earths in the multiverse too.

This also allowed DC to do stories that they could never do with the main versions of the characters – Superman could get married, or Batman die, and it would be the "real" Superman or Batman, in fact the original ones who had been in the very first stories about those characters, but it would still not disrupt the status of the characters in their own comics.

And this state of affairs lasted for about twenty years, until DC made the mistake so many entertainment companies make. They started listening to the complaints of fans.

While there are a few not-unexpected wokeisms, this blog post presents a good overview of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the twelve issue "maxiseries" from 1985-86 that DC used to wrap up their multiverse and start what they hoped would be a cohesive new single universe. That includes an explanation of why there was a multiverse in the first place, which is an interesting chain of events in itself.

In a way, Crisis marked a fall from grace, the beginning of the end despite it's being a good comic story in itself. This has little to do with the presence or absence of multiple universes. As Hickey notes, DC would eventually bring back the idea of the Multiverse. Marvel would, in time, openly start doing multiverse stories as well. It's a durable concept.

No, the problem is that it taught both major comics companies that permacrisis was the way to go. If you could draw in new readers―or at least maximize the readership you already have―by doing an extended crossover that Will Change Everything, then there's no reason to not be doing that all the time. Or at least that seems to be the thinking of editors and publishers. The result is that eventually, pretty much no one is allowed to tell any other kind of story. Which can get pretty wearing after a while.

Bling

Interesting. A pendant from about 15,000 years ago, identified by great British geologist as being made from a wolf or badger tooth, has been reidentified as belonging to a seal. The seal obviously came to a hard fate. But there's still some nice craftsmanship apparent. 

The Magdalenian, still part of the Paleolithic Era, had an apparent burst of creativity, leading to some beautiful artifacts that are still in existence. Of course the British Isles would have felt very different at the time from what they are now. The population, however dense or sparse it might be, spoke no language we'd even vaguely recognize. It would be fascinating to see firsthand what daily life was like for these people.

Escape attempts

Today, disappearing seems virtually impossible. This, I think, is what accounts for our renewed fascination with it. We are burdened with our search histories and purchase histories and data stats that constitute our profile, to then be lumped and farmed out and sold to the highest bidder. Disappearing means disconnecting―unimaginable yet totally captivating. Precisely because it has become less feasible, that deep urge to be anonymous, or even to be someone else, exists ever more powerfully within us. The desire to disappear doesn't go away just because times change and technology strangles us. That we cannot fulfill the urge as easily is perhaps the greatest tragedy.

That's from Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood. The act it studies certainly isn't for everyone. While most of us have parts of our life we might like to walk away from, faking your death means walking away from all of it, which is a less appealing proposition for most. A loved one who knows that you're still out there might be squeezed for information on where you are. Still, some have attempted it, and it seems likely that some have succeeded. 

There's a broader fascination with people who break or at least tweak the rules. How could there not be? Every day brings more evidence that we're not the ones making the rules. Did you choose the law that all new cars have to have surveillance equipment and kill switches? Probably not, but if you buy a new car, it will certainly affect you.

Of course as more of these new cars are built, the old kind that only you could drive look better all the time. One skill that could become valuable in the next few years is the ability to shut off or better yet spoof these detectors so that they don't know what you you're doing at all hours of day and night. 

Ach, was für ein Star!

Earlier this evening, I was talking to someone about Chinese checkers. It wasn't really the main topic, but it came up. Which got me wondering about Chinese checkers and its history.

As it turns out, the game actually comes from Germany. America imported it in the 1920s. As it happened, there was something of a vogue for Chinese things at the time. And the star theming could convincingly be portrayed as Asian. But the actual origin of the game had nothing to do with China. Go figure.

Pick your poison

There was a gradual cultural change among metal and hard rock musicians and fans.

At one time, the subculture set itself apart visually by having long hair. They weren't the only people―specifically, the only men―to have long hair, of course. But it was notable that metaloids almost always did wear their hair long, regardless of whether it was in fashion that year or not.

At some point tattoos replaced long hair as the primary visual marker. Again, it's not like only a particular subculture has tattoos. But there's a certain kind of design that's endemic to metal/hard rock people.

With the former, rockstars eventually had to start wearing wigs or admit that they could no longer grow their hair that long―or in some cases, at all. With the latter, once in advanced age you may find yourself with arms that look like Denny's placemats colored by a toddler with no muscle control. If it sounds like I'm making fun, I'm really not. Self-presentation is tricky for all of us.

Oh, and if you're interested, there's a new webpage that's handy for days when the Archive Today sites are out of commission.