Category Archives: Fashion, music, politics, sports

Politics, music, and fashion

Fashion, music, politics, sports

[July 6, 1962] Enjoy Being A Girl? (Gender and Possibilities in the 1960s)

Leave a comment

[The rush of modern technologies has created whole new industries, one result of which has been the breaking down of traditional barriers, as Ms. Lucas will illustrate…]


by Victoria Lucas

As a child I learned that there were expectations.  Not so much rules.  I don't remember being taught rules except for rules of grammar or other school subjects, including physical education class.  Those Expectations determined What You Did, Who You Were, and other facets of one's life including Who You Know.

My encounters with Expectations came to a head on two occasions that I remember in my childhood, one when I was somewhere between 6 and 8, and one when I was 12.  When I was 6, maybe 7, I remember sliding out of bed on the way to getting up and, with my head touching the floor but my legs still on the bed, having the epiphany that I was responsible for my own actions–not my parents or anyone else.  Obviously it took me some time to work out the ramifications of this, but I had the basic concept, anyway.

When I was 12, I discovered that I was A Girl. 

This hit me like a heavy blow.  Suddenly lots of things were excluded from my future.  Girls didn't do science or compose music.  Girls were nurses, assistants, secretaries, and so on, but not generally People of Importance unless they were actresses.  Even then they were inferior to Actors, and people didn't really take them seriously.  I had never heard of Hedy Lamarr, and I don't remember knowing anything about Eleanor Roosevelt or any of the women who have been resurrected from European
culture as having had something to do with their own futures.

As a teenager I ran into the Girl thing again when my high-school counselor specifically delimited my career choices: secretary, wife and mother, waitress, teacher, or nurse.  That was it.  I had to choose among those.  Since I had no boy friends, couldn't remember a food order even after I myself had made it, and was squeamish about blood, that left secretary and teacher.  I kind of held onto "teacher" for awhile since there was nothing I could do about it till I finished college.  So I took secretarial courses, sacrificing a third year of my beloved Latin to be sure I could get a Job after high school.  A Career?  Now that was something totally unknown.  Mostly those were Men things.  I haven’t got the hang of those yet.

I was never given the results of the intelligence test I took when I was in school.  I don't think anyone paid any attention to it (possibly the Girl thing, but it never occurred to me it might be a “Spic” thing too, given my name.) I tended to be a Teacher's Pet, but that wasn't an advantage.  Socially it was a bad disadvantage, and it took getting through a few grades to latch onto that concept.  So I accepted my father's preference of a nickname ("Vicki" for "Victoria"), learned to be very vague about answers to any question like "So how'd you do on that test?" and was careful to be ready to expound on anything we had to have read before class. 

This gave me the reputation in high school for being happy to explain anything to anybody in the minutes before class started so they could rush it onto paper and onto the teacher's desk, making homework out of it.  And the further nickname "Encyclopedia."  Classmates would tackle me on the way to class, and I would move slowly to the classroom door followed by people asking me to regurgitate the day’s book report or lesson.  So I was trying to avoid other peoples' Expectations – for instance, being smart made one Stuck Up. 

I tried to go to parties, but my Expectations that these would be rational and enjoyable events were ruined the first time someone drove me to a drunken high school shindig.  I think I went to two parties
during high school and regretted going to both of them, not because anything bad happened, but because I realized I didn't know what Fun was, and I was terrified of the driving my rides exhibited.

My idea of Fun, as it turns out, has a lot to do with foreign movies (including British "Carry On" comedies) and some few American ones, along with reading, writing, research, and intellectual company.  Also with interesting music, and my idea of "interesting music" turns out to be very strange.  Last summer at Stanford I took an Introduction to Music course to round out my summer units. 

Sitting at the back of the practice theater in the basement of Dinkelspiel, I would nod off to the strains of Beethoven or others of the (to me) boring 20th-Century Canon—which was mainly what was being taught.  I should explain, since like as not the “20th-Century Canon” will not be a term with which most people are familiar.  It refers to the works in Western culture that are considered to be worth teaching.  In music it refers to what people call “Classical Music”– the “three Bs,” Bach, Beethoven & Brahms, but also the rest of the “important” male composers who made European music from about 1600.  From the time I began to occupy my own piece of the house (built for my uncle and aunt before they left) I played records, starting with my mother’s 78s and finishing with all the ones in the public library—over and over.  I knew all the stuff in the course.  I just was having it organized and analyzed for me.

But, as the last thing he did in the class, the instructor introduced "tape music" to us by telling us that it was the latest thing, putting a tape recorder on a chair in the middle of the stage, starting it up, and walking off.  Now, I know what a tape recorder is.  Here’s the little portable number I used to do sound for Bob Hammond’s “Solitaire” and “Bon Voyage” and Robinson Jeffers’s “Cretan Woman” at the Playbox Theatre.  It only weighs 25 lb.

My friend and mentor Barney Childs wrote the incidental music for those.  But this …

As I sat listening, the music spilled out of the machine and over the apron, into the orchestra pit.  Since music has no gravity, only levity, it went UP the aisle stairs all the way to me in the back and swirled around my ankles before it receded.

I haven't been the same since.  Neither have my Expectations.  This time, the only thing that being A Girl has to do with it is that I don’t even remember whether the composer was male or female.  It didn’t matter.  Whoever it was spent perhaps hundreds of hours recording, rerecording, treating recorded sounds, whether music or any sound, as material to be distorted, slowed down, twanged and edited with the same little razor-blade kit that I use, then rerecorded onto a final reel of tape that would bear all the machinations of the composer.  This was new. 

It was a hallucinatory hopestorm that drove that music up the aisle.  There is still room for the new, even if it’s female.  Even if it’s me.

No comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 2, 1962] War and… more War (What's new in gaming: 1962)

9 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

When we think of the word "invention," the big-ticket items come to mind: rockets, nuclear reactors, jet planes, penicillin, nylon.  But innovation happens in all fields.  Take entertainment, for example.  A hundred years ago, music could only be heard live.  Now we have phonographs, wire recordings, tape cassettes.  A century past, and plays were strictly a live event.  In the present, we can enjoy television and films, too. 

Board games have evolved tremendously in the last century.  From the old standards of chess, checkers and backgammon, the rise of the boxed game has provided a profusion of diversions.  You've probably played some of the more famous ones like Scrabble, Monopoly, or Cluedo.  These are abstract games, fairly divorced from reality (though Monopoly's property names are taken from real streets in Atlantic City).

Now, imagine there was a type of game that immersed you right in the action, putting you in the role of a general or a President.  There is a new class of games that simulate historical conflict (which I covered a couple of years ago) called "wargames."  They put you in the seat of a battle leader, pitting your strategic wits against an adversary.  Unlike Chess (which is the spiritual granddaddy of the field), the units at your disposal represent actual divisions and brigades.

Well, sort of.  There is a wide range.  Take Stratego, for instance.  This new game from Milton Bradley is unlike any I've played before in that you have no idea how the enemy's forces are deployed.  Both sides start with forty units of varying strength.  At the top is your Field Marshal; at the bottom, your fleet-of-foot Scouts.  In between, you've got a descending array of officers, from the General to a horde of Sergeants.  Each unit has a number attached to it, and they can defeat any piece with a higher value (for instance, the Lieutenant, rank 6, is defeated by the Captain, rank 5, or the Major, rank 4, and so on).  In addition, there are immobile bombs, that destroy all attackers save the Miner (rank 8), and there is the Spy, which can destroy the Marshal, but only on the offense. 

The goal is to take the others' flag – but where is it?  It's a fun, chess-like game that will take about 30-40 minutes.  I must report that I was ignominiously defeated in my first game by The Young Traveler.

At the other end of the scale is just-released Waterloo, from the company that has become virtually synonomous with wargames: Avalon Hill.  Waterloo is an elaborate rendition of Napoleon's last campaign, his desperate attempt to defeat the Allied armies in detail in the fields of Belgium.  The actual units that fought on those late spring days of 1815 are represented with cardboard chits with combat strengths and movement factors printed upon then.

Unlike as in chess or checkers, the map is the actual battlefield overlaid with an ingenious hex grid that allows movement in all directions.  Rivers and forests hinder movement; slopes and rivers affect combat.  Battle is engaged when units become adjacent, whereupon a die is rolled and the "Combat Results Table" (CRT) referred to.  Fights at even or even two-to-one odds are chancy affairs.  Success is only reasonably likely at three-to-one, and that chance is drastically increased if you can cut off the enemy's avenue of retreat.

The combination of the CRT and terrain make Waterloo a fascinating and taut game of maneuver.  As the Allies, you try to take defensible positions while you wait for reinforcements to arrive in time for you to take on the superior French forces before they reach the road to Brussels.  As the French, you try to use your initially superior numbers and your fast-moving cavalry to defeat the Allies piecemeal.

It's highly immersive, but the time commitment may be more than you're used to – plan on spending five hours locked in mortal, 19th Century combat.  Best accompanied by a glass of brandy and some period-appropriate records from the Vanguard Bach Guild collection. 

My wife and I are still knee-deep in our first game.  I'll be sure to let you know how the conflict ends when it happens.  Perhaps the First Empire will survive beyond The Hundred Days following Napoleon I's return from Elban exile…

9 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[May 19, 1962] I Sing the Future Electric (Fashion for the Future)

3 Comments


by Gwyn Conaway

I have noticed trends swinging wildly these past few months. Shapes, colors, and patterns that we’ve rarely seen in the past are appearing in advertisements and our favorite magazines. We are in a transition phase, ladies and gentlemen.

Behind us, the Golden Age of the fifties is rosy and romantic, a time of economic surplus and increasing leisure. I see this past decade as the slow climb of a roller coaster. With John Glenn’s successful Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight just months behind us, I realize now that his success marks the top of the roller coaster’s first hill. We’re now looking down at a twisting, speeding track. It’s the sixties, and I can tell it’s going to be a wild ride.

A recent episode of The Twilight Zone entitled ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ sparked my clarity on the subject of fashions heading our way these next several years.  It was the show’s one-hundredth episode, written by Ray Bradbury. A widowed father fears that his children don’t have the motherly guidance they need, and so purchases a made-to-order robot grandmother to care for them. Although his eldest daughter, Anne, is angry that her real mother died, she eventually sees Grandmother as a part of the family. Once the children have grown up, Grandmother returns to her manufacturer to be disassembled and await the next family.

This particular episode struck me in a way others have not. The costume design, which complements the script beautifully, communicates a future in fashion and popular mindset that is both exciting and chilling. It speaks of our scientific euphoria, but also our fears in embracing such an utopia.

Our optimism toward science and the future is evident in the costumes. The entire main cast wears grid-like stripes, plaids, and other formulaic patterns rather than organic motifs such as florals. Only when the children grow up and truly see Grandmother as a family member, do these regimented patterns disappear.


(From left to right) Karen, Anne, and Tom discuss purchasing a robot grandmother.

Note the siblings in the photograph above. Karen and Tom wear windowpane and plaid, respectively. Anne, the most hesitant of the three to adopt the ideas in their Modern Science magazine, wears bows on her dress, but even these organic motifs are arranged in a grid.

I opened my copies of Montgomery Ward from 1959 and this year’s most recent issue of Lana Lobell for comparison. Just two and a half years ago, young women wore romantically arranged florals that took up the entire cloth. This year, however, we see the same motifs separated into sparse patterns and parallel lines.


The Montgomery Ward versus the Lana Lobell fashions of the past few years. This subtle change in pattern arrangement marks the beginning of a new era.

One could say this is simply an evolution of aesthetic; reinventing established symbols for the next era. However, I postulate that this shift is indicative of a larger change coming our way. Younger generations have begun to protect themselves against a larger, more dangerous world. Where before our florals were a ‘garden’ upon the cloth, now they’re sparsely placed single blooms. We’re stepping away from such romanticism in favor of arming ourselves with both excitement and fear of the future.

Let us return to the episode to explore this more technologically-driven aesthetic. The company Fascimile offers the children many physical options for creating their perfect caregiver. Unquestionably the most provocative scene of the story, I was struck by the realization that we no longer romanticize a balance of leisure, work, and home in the way of the fifties. Rather, we view our lives and bodies as the canvas of modernism. We are beginning to package ourselves as a certain model of person.


These ensembles are decorated in this year’s latest floral motifs and stripes. The Fascimile salesman offers a wide selection of parts to build your perfect caregiver. From eye color to hair style, fashion to height, voice to sturdiness, the choice is yours!

In fact, the renewed popularity of square patterns, such as windowpane and plaid, can be definitively linked to the way in which our workplaces and homes are changing. As computing systems become more pervasive, the rooms in which we work become more ‘square’ as well. Offices and homes are becoming sleek, plastic, metallic, rubberized.

In ‘I Sing the Body Electric,’ we can see this relationship emerging. Perhaps the most interesting ensemble of the episode is the dress Grandmother wears during the climax of the story. It’s vertical lines trapped in neat horizontal rows reminded me immediately of the first integrated circuit created by Jack Kilby in 1958. These circuits, I’m told, are now being used in large computing machines, such as the IBM 7030. The IBM 7030 also arranges its various compartments in rows of vertical towers.


Grandmother’s dress compared to the IBM 7030 (top) and Kilby’s circuit (bottom). Note that even Grandmother’s belt maintains the horizontal rows of vertical lines.

But couldn’t this be a pattern only within this episode of The Twilight Zone? I asked myself the same question. I perused my fashion magazines and became excited. Women’s accessories, coats, purses, and clothing are all following this same pattern of evolution when we compare the fashions of just a few years ago to our current season:

While this hat from 1960 (left) is sweeping and sweet, the current fashion of 1962 (right) feels more like a helmet to protect the wearer from the outside world. This is another symbol that both showcases our fear of nuclear war, and our excitement for the future.

Christian Dior swings from a return to the Watteau back, the most romantic of all French Rococo 18th century women’s silhouettes in 1959 (left) to experimenting with the human body as geometric shape in one of his most recent designs of this year (right).

Christian Dior’s 1962 collection continues to push the boundaries of shape. This ensemble mirrors the silhouette of the Mercury-Atlas 6 right down to the flat-top hat. The luscious shine of the coat suggests sleek and minimalist will reign supreme in the coming years.

—

Ray Bradbury’s one-hundredth episode of The Twilight Zone did not disappoint. ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ took me on a whirlwind of a ride. His masterful screenplay helped me see the mouthwatering potential for change in the latter half of our decade. What will more scientific advancement do to our fashion? Will we wear flight suits instead of dresses? Helmets instead of hats? Will we integrate with computing machines in the far future so that we too can be made-to-order?

Young men and women may think they’re buying simple clothes, but in reality, they’re arming themselves for an unpredictable yet invigorating future. They’re setting aside romance in favor of progress.

But who’s to say modeling themselves after computing machines and space capsules isn’t a sort of romance of its own?

3 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[May 02, 1962] A Good Lie (Letter Column #2)

4 Comments

[Our penpal is back, this time with a highly topical story…]

Dear Editor:

How nice that you've published my letter, with Barney's picture!  Geez, I shouldn't have sent my picture–just wanted you to know which one I was of all the people I'm sure you talked to.  Anyway, I thought of something I didn't write about in my first letter to you.  (Thanks for sending some back issues of your publication.) I see that you are aware that there is something going on in Indochina that involves the US (March 31, 1961), but now, a year later, yes, it is clear that we as a nation are involved in war, but are just being sort of secretive about it. 

Last summer I participated in my first demonstration.  It was a "lie-in."

I wouldn't have gotten involved, but I heard through my boyfriend Leon that it was happening and he invited me.  He has been keeping me up to date on Indochina, and when I can listen to the radio (public radio) I know that he is right.  The US is this year pouring in "advisers" and maybe even regular troops.  The Christian Science Monitor is keeping tabs on what is going on over there, and it isn't pretty.

So I decided to go demonstrate against sending US troops, with Leon, and we arrived after classes with blankets, his sleeping bag, and warm clothing (even summer nights can be cold here.) There weren't many of us, and I didn't know the others, but everybody was friendly.  There was plenty of room on the Administration lawn, even though it is small, for us all to lie down without getting into anyone else's space.  I was surprised to see that someone had invented a new symbol.  They had painted it on cardboard and it occupied a place on the lawn close to the walkway for passersby, who were vocally invited to join us.


from David McReynolds

It's an anti-war sign that consists of two semaphore signals, one for "N," and one for "D," standing for "Nuclear" and "Disarmament," with a circle around them.  So "nuclear disarmament" is broadened to all weapons and war.  Funny looking sign, but I think you'll see more of it.

I think Leon and I shared his sleeping bag, since the only blanket I had wasn't adequate.  (Of course nothing could happen between us with everybody around us awake for much of the night.  It was too cold, anyway.) In the morning, we were covered with dew.

Thanks for your forum.  Please keep an ear or eye out for this Indochina War stuff.  I'm sure I'm missing something.

Vicki

[The government won't tell how many troops are in South Vietnam since the Geneva Accords that ended the French-Indochinese War restrict the US to 685 troops.  Estimates have the number at 6000, climbing to 9000 by the end of summer.  We are involved in what the papers describe as a "hot war." 

This is bigger than Lebanon, could be as big as Korea before it's over.]

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 5, 1962] Pen Pals (Letter Column #1)

Leave a comment

[The great debate of any magazine (fan or professional) is whether or not to include a letter column.  Obviously, I append reader comments to the article which they reference, but sometimes I get letters of a more general nature.  Since I imagine my readers would like to know their fellow fen, I'm publishing a recently received postcard, this from a charming young lady I met at Condor…]

Dear Mr. Marcus:

It was great to see you in San Diego.  The convention was an eye-opener as, to date, I have had little experience with science fiction.  I'm grateful to have the Journey to curate suggested material for me to dive into!

I thought I'd bring you up to date on where I've been since the con. I'm mostly stuck here at Stanford, where I'm about to get my BA (in English Literature, class of… '62?) – if I ever get done with all these papers & exams & work for the soil mechanics & foundation engineering firm I do evenings & weekends.

Of course, to pay the tuition and room & board, I also take in ironing, do tutoring, deliver newspapers, etc., and they helped me get a student loan. It's been a real eye-opener to go to school here. Now I know what "scholarship" means. At the University of Arizona, from which I transferred last year, I did have some great learning experiences, but nothing as rich as this.

Not that I didn't have some great experiences at UA, meeting an English Professor who is an avante-garde composer (Barney Childs), and since I worked in the Fine Arts College I went to most concerts & saw the harpsichord played for the first time (double keyboard!) & heard Barney's music played. (I admit, I have a crush on him — see the enclosed photo.) And then I've been to San Francisco & seen jazz trumpeter Miles Davis & a lot of other stuff.


Barney Childs

I'll be returning, as promised, to Tucson this summer. My mother can't afford to come to commencement here, so I'll just be going home as soon as possible, and back to work in the Drama Department shortly after that. I will miss Stanford, but I look forward to seeing folks in Tucson again. I've been lucky to transfer to Stanford. Fortunately they have a need-blind policy & helped me get the loan and jobs.

I don't usually get to San Diego since I have to drive through Bakersfield, by a convoluted path, to your Highway 80 at El Centro — a long trip!  But I might have to make an exception in the event of another great convention.

Best wishes and thanks to you & your family for a lovely column full of good stuff.

Vicki


(my "Activity Ticket" from the University of Arizona in 1960)

[I'd love to hear from the rest of you out in this gloriously modern year of 1962.  Please feel free to send me your letters.  Tell me about the sf you love, the TV you're watching, your struggles at school or in the workplace.  Your words just might find their way to the Galactic Journey lettercol (especially if your initials are JBK…)]

No comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[Mar. 17, 1962]  Our Knights in Shining Armor (Have Space Suit, Will Travel)

4 Comments

[The Journey's "Fashion Columnist" returns with a timely piece on the latest advancement in sartorial science…]


by Gwyn Conaway

Last month, on February 20th, 1962, John Glenn became the second American to leave behind our earthly constraints for the majesty of space.

Less than one year after Alan Shepard’s historic suborbital flight on a Redstone rocket, John Glenn ascended to low Earth orbit in his spacecraft, Friendship 7. He circled the Earth three times at speeds upwards of 17,000 miles per hour, and persevered through the crushing force of nearly eight times the force of Earth's gravity Gs at reentry into our atmosphere.

What a time to be alive! We are witness to human history! This is a milestone in a long journey toward chasing the unknown. Never have I been more certain that we are explorers, creatures of adventure. And what better bedfellow to our curiosity than innovation?  For to accomplish his mission, Colonel Glenn required two spacecraft: the bell-shaped Mercury, as well as his formfitting personal capsule – the Mark IV spacesuit.

Our newly beloved Space Age is thanks, in no small part, to a little-known mechanical engineer and designer named Russell Colley at B. F. Goodrich Company. Owing to his career-long devotion to high-altitude pressure suits, Colley has been deemed the Father of the Spacesuit, the First Tailor of the Space Age. Mark my words, his Mark IV spacesuits, with their sleek and futuristic design, will inspire generations of fashion to come.

The Mark IV rides on the coattails of many pressure suits designed by Colley and others over the years. Its evolution is a testament to American doggedness and bears the fruits of the unbridled technological advancements in textiles and garment manufacturing we’ve seen through the past decade.


The Post pressure suit, first flown in 1934. This suit had a skewed visor to favor Wiley Post’s one good eye.

Colley first began his groundbreaking work in 1934 when Wiley Post, the aviator who achieved fame through making the first solo flight around the globe, commissioned him to design the world’s first pressurized suit for high-altitude flight. Later the same year, after two failed designs, Colley built a rubber bladder suit with long underwear and a diver’s helmet on his wife’s sewing machine. This suit launched Wiley Post 50,000 ft into the air and jump-started an evolution over the next thirty years that leads us to our current moment of triumph – the Mark IV spacesuits.


John Glenn being fit for his Mark IV, destined to carry him into orbit last month. What once looked like a diver’s suit has now been transformed into a feat of futuristic design and engineering.

From 1941 to 1954, the David Clark Company designed and built twenty pressure suit models for the U.S. Military.  When David Clark’s funding dried up, B.F. Goodrich, where Colley worked, was offered the contract. Colley himself built seven suits at B.F. Goodrich. They started this contract with the Model H (the 8th letter of the alphabet and their 8th suit design, in case you were wondering). Models H through R were built and tested before the company began the Mark series that would take Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and now John Glenn into space.

By the time B.F. Goodrich won the bid to build their Mark IV spacesuits in 1961, the U.S. Military and NASA had collectively funded more than forty pressure suit designs across three major engineering companies.


The Mercury 7 in a fitting for their Mark IV space suits. Note the sage green option for the suit in the back right.

The Mark IV, in addition to its sleek name, is a marvel to behold, unlike any other piece of flight equipment I’ve ever seen. Each suit is fitted by Colley in Akron, OH, where he attended to each of the Mercury 7 pilots. The gloves alone come in fifteen sizes: five palm sizes, each with short, regular, or long digits. John Glenn had a new feature added to his gloves specifically for his February flight: tiny lights affixed to the tops of each finger so he could read the instrument panels.


John Glenn shows off his finger flashlights. Also visible in this photo are the only two instances of metal bearings in the entire suit: the neck ring and glove attachments.

Space suits have made incredible strides since his Colley's collaboration with Wiley Post more than thirty years ago. When pressurized, these high altitude suits inflate the interior, pushing in on the human body and out on the suit. This provides the pilot with enough atmospheric pressure to stabilize blood flow to the brain and keeping them conscious during difficult maneuvers. However, once these suits are pressurized, mobility becomes extremely limited, and even bending one’s fingers becomes a task of titanic strength.


Astronauts ‘test’ the Mark IV in a light-hearted ball game. Clearly visible along the outer seams of the arms and legs are Colley’s revolutionary elastic pleating to enhance mobility.

The earliest suits were outfitted with heavy metal hinges at the joints for mobility. In a stroke of genius, Colley departed from metal bearings and joints in the Mark series. Rather, he used adjustable cords and pleats to fold the inflated suit at important junctions. While the cords had originally concerned NASA, they proved invaluable in fittings, where Colley was able to replace the lengths of many of these cords with highly-tailored zippers, elastic seams, and pressure pockets for each pilot.


John Glenn’s waffle-weave long underwear can be seen here as he suits up. The waffling occurs across the back, buttocks, thighs, and biceps in reinforced panels.

It’s a daring, romantic choice. I’m sure I’m not the only one who saw John Glenn walk to his shuttle last month and sigh, “Ah, now there is a knight in shining armor!” I wonder how far into the future Russell Colley’s Mark IV will inspire children, artists, and science fiction? How long will the stamp of America’s Mercury 7 linger on the face of space exploration? Decades? Centuries?

Yuri Gagarin may have beat us to space in April of last year, but the cosmonaut’s orange utility suit will not leave such a glimmer in the eyes of our children. The Russians touched the stars first, but Russell Colley has won the hearts of the people of Earth.

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[December 3, 1961] Of Wives and Men (or First Ladies' Fashion)

2 Comments

When I started this endeavor, I never expected to find so many fellow travelers.  Each has provided an unique insight into the worlds of science fiction, comics, science, fandom.  I have tried to balance staying true to my original vision (which is why I promise to keep writing at least a majority of the articles here) with showcasing all of these lovely perspectives. 

A few months ago, I met a remarkable young woman with a keen eye for fashion as well as an uncommon understanding of geopolitics.  The premise of Galactic Journey is that context matters.  This is why I leaven the fiction with nonfiction.  And it's why the Journey now has…a fashion column.  Read on – I think you'll agree that Ms. Conaway is a worthy addition to our constellation of authors…


by Gwyn Conaway

This is a time of change and uncertainty, but we are full to the brim with ambition. We hope for a future of technological mastery. An age of abundance and exploration. We see our society as a beacon of moral and economic high ground. The Reds do too.

You see, I observe the world in patterns of psychology, fear, and desire. I'm a costume designer, and I glean more from fashion trends and wardrobe choices than any newspaper. This shadow of nuclear war hanging over our heads is worrisome, but it seems to me, across the distance of ideology and oceans, that we still dream the same dreams.

“It seemed clear proof that an atom smasher is a poor match for an attractive young lady in a well-fitted blouse.”
The New York Times, Style Show – SRO Soviet Exhibition, NY NY – July 2, 1961

First Lady Jackie Kennedy recently met with Nina Khrushcheva, wife of Nikita Khrushchev, the current Premier of Soviet Russia. While many of my cohorts discussed the new president and the premier’s first encounter in Vienna, I was captured by the meeting of the wives.


Jackie Kennedy and Nina Khrushcheva meet in Vienna, 1961.

Jackie Kennedy wore an elegant black skirt suit, presumably by Coco Chanel. A signature style in her closet, the suit consists of a black silk blouse, a velvet pillbox hat, pencil skirt, and three-button jacket with a three-quarter-length sleeve and delicate lapel. Her pearls are classically understated. She is elegantly reserved, poised for what was sure to be a tense meeting.

What interests me most, however, is the ensemble of Nina Khrushcheva. Her frumpy floral ensemble, designed by Nina Gupalo, is considered a fashion failure around the world. However, what it lacks in style, it makes up for in context.

After World War II, New York quickly overcame Paris as the global leader of fashion. Of course, this means that Russia has spoken out vehemently against the industry. While Americans embrace glamour and beauty, Russian leaders publicly admonish such trends. Instead, they call for art and design that serves the people. In the USSR, utility and function supersede glamour and personal expression these days.

Although Nina Khrushcheva has been an advocate for the fashion industry, her personal style choices have always been dowdy and poorly-composed. Common natural fibres such as cotton and wool combined with boxy tailoring express her loyalty to communist ideals on the global stage.


Madame Khrushcheva invited Christian Dior to Moscow in 1959 for the first fashion show exhibiting Western designers. Here are Dior models in a street show, taken from my old copy of Life Magazine.

This is apparent in an iconic image of former First Lady Pat Nixon and Khrushcheva published on the cover of Life Magazine two years ago on August 10, 1959. Pat Nixon wore a vibrant floral ensemble while her Soviet hosts wore the more utilitarian styles accepted by the Ruskies. What is most compelling about this photograph is not that their respective fashion choices express the ideals of their two nations, but that Nixon’s Russian hostesses appear to be looking in longing at her bold dress and styling.

All three hostesses, Mmes Khrushcheva, Mikoyan, and Kozlov, wear plain-cloth house dresses and skirt suits without jewelry to frame their faces. Much like the communist uniforms of working women and students, their torsos are boxy and loose with minimal darting to shape the bust or waist. Unlike the sweeping pleats of Nixon’s dress, their skirts are straight and simple.


The cover of Life Magazine, August 10 1959

Through this single photograph, the demarcation of both powers’ post-World War ideals is very clear. While all nations limited their consumer goods for the war effort in the 1940s, America and Russia have obviously striven for very different Utopian futures. Pat Nixon’s joyous ensemble expresses America’s newfound abundance; a thriving capitalist economy powered by fast-paced, bold trends conveyed through its loud patterns and colors, the ample use of refined fabrics, and jewelry. Khrushcheva and her comrades, on the other hand, wear the dream of a future that works for the common man, a society of builders rather than consumers, so to speak. Khrushcheva’s fabric, a muted geometric textile, is an homage to this idyllic industrial Russian character.

Now, as I look at Jackie Kennedy and Nina Khrushcheva’s first meeting, I chuckle. Although Khrushchev has worn florals before, this particular ensemble means more. She is not only reaching out to American women through her words of peace and understanding, but also through this Gupalo design. Unlike Khrushcheva’s usual folkish patterns, this floral acts as a bridge across our two nations. By combining an industrial grey and cream palette with an abstract floral pattern, Khrushcheva has extended her hand in a show of unity between the Reds and the West.

Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come in the Kennedy Administration. After all, standing next to every great man is an equally great woman. The distance between ourselves and the Russkies is not insurmountable after all.

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[September 3, 1961] Musical interlude

6 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Galactic Journey is all about spotlighting the exotic, from science fiction to the Space Race.  Sometimes, the far out stuff can be found right here on Earth.  I'm talking about music, man.  Music.

Music is a weird thing.  Unlike evolution in animals, which scientists believe is a smooth, unbroken process, music seems to evolve in sudden spurts.  A genre will be born, flourish, and then become overripe.  That's when another will spawn out of nowhere and supplant the old one.

For instance, in the 30s and 40s, popular music was all about Big Band Jazz.  Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, they all peaked pre-War and kept us dancing while our boys (and ladies) went to fight the Axis.  After the War, that music evolved into a syrupy, schmaltzy mess.  By 1954, the radio was almost unlistenable, filled as it was with crooning and orchestras. 

Unless you tuned into the Black stations.  There, a fusion of Western and Blues called "Rock n' Roll" was catching fire.  The Crows and Chuck Berry were joined by White performers like Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, Elvis Presley.  All of a sudden, music was alive again.  The late 50s, right around the time I started this column, were an exciting time for listening.

(Don't get me wrong — Jazz was and is still a thing.  Coltrane, Gillespie, Brubeck…just look at the recent popularity of Take Five, for instance.  But it's for hipsters and hepcats, not for the hoi polloi.)

This may be a purely subjective view, but the 60s seem to mark another transition period for popular music.  It seems to be floundering, torn between the classic (and now stale) riffs of the last decade and…something else.  Of course, one rarely knows how a revolution will work itself out until its over, but there are a couple of movements might be indicative of where things are going.

On the one hand, you've got The Miracles with last year's popular tune, Shop Around, and The Marvelettes with their brand new hit, Please Mr. Postman.  These acts show off the Motown Records sound, a Detroit based mix of Pop and Rhythm and Blues.  You can add Bobby Lewis to that list: his Tossing and Turning was probably the hit of this year, and while he now lives in New York, he started his music career in Detroit.  To my ears, the music these acts produce sounds fresh, and it may well become the emblematic sound of the '60s.

On the other hand, you've got instrumental music — what people are calling "Surf Guitar."  If you're not familiar with surfing, it's wave-riding done on a long, flat board.  The Hawaiians made it popular, and it's become an overnight craze here on California's coasts.  A certain kind of music has become identified with it, a lyric-less, guitar-intensive sound. 

Big acts include Link Wray, The Ramrods, and The Ventures.  On the other side of the pond, Cliff Richard and his Shadows have refined the genre to a high art.  Dig their hit single, Apache, in particular.  And don't forget the Swedish Spotnicks!

Surf music is a big departure from the rock of the '50s.  The simple riffs are gone, as are, for the most part, variations on the 12-bar blues (God, may I never hear them again…) In their place are throbbingly energetic, almost raucous tunes.  These songs aren't vehicles for words — they are raw emotion, displays of real musical prowess.

I saw a prime example of one of these guitar masters last night, a local talent who still hasn't cut his first single.  Dick Dale lit up a Vista stage with traditional and original songs, all sizzling with his instrumental virtuosity.  The man is fab. 

Maybe instrumental guitar won't be the "in thing" for the decade.  It probably requires too much skill, and the audience may be too limited (coastal types).  But man alive, I'm sure digging the scene.  I hope it lasts a good while, at least!

Next up…  a report from Worldcon on this year's Hugos!  Will they match my Galactic Stars for 1960?

6 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports, Science / Space Race

[August 15, 1961] SEVEN DAYS OF CHANGE (August's UK report)

4 Comments


by Ashley Pollard

The month of August started with cool weather after a warm spring, which is disappointing for those of us who love to get out in the summer sun and lie on the beach. It is the time when the British newspapers are full of light-weight, fun stories in what is known over here as the 'silly season.'

Such fripperies were ended quite suddenly with an array of news from behind the iron curtain, starting with the announcement of Russia’s second manned spaceflight on Monday the 7th of August.

While America has launched two sub-orbital flights in response to Yuri Gagarin’s conquest of space, they have yet to orbit the Earth. Now the Russians surge ahead, upping the excitement in the race to the moon by launching their second cosmonaut Gherman Stepanovich Titov. His call sign was Eagle, I imagine to emphasize his soaring over the world. But perhaps it’s also a poke at the Americans, who have failed to orbit the world with their Mercury capsule.

So, after staying in space for a just over a day, Pilot Cosmonaut Titov is now a Hero of the Soviet Union. During his flight he orbited the world seventeen times, during which time he slept, shot ten minutes of film, and completed various other tasks he had been assigned — proving that men can work in space. Not only that, but at age twenty-six he’s the youngest man in space, too.

For me, Titov’s mission was not just a success for the Russians but the furthering of the dream of travel in space for all mankind. But, I have to ask, how long will it be until the Russians send a woman into space? Perhaps this is a chance for the Americans to get one step ahead of their rivals.

Sadly, Titov's flight was the only good piece of news inspired by the Communists this month. Seven days after Titov’s flight, the Russians upped the ante in the Cold War when Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced the Russians were going to build a wall around Berlin. This rather puts a dampener on things, taking us back to the unpleasantness that started in 1948 when they cut-off access to Berlin by land.

The first signs of action after the announcement was the erection of a barbed wire fence. But this is now being followed by workers building a wall, which seems to me to be a physical manifestation of the cultural divide between free-market capitalism and Russian state controlled centralized planned economy.

Beyond the very real fear I share with everyone regarding the threat of atomic destruction, I must also say that I find Premier Khrushchev’s escalation of tensions between East and West a tantrum tedious beyond belief. I truly doubt that human nature allows for nation states to function as communes that share resources for the good of all. If this act shows us anything it serves only to illuminate the cracks in the Russian Cold War polemic against the West. It's not as if the new Wall has been erected to keep West Germans from fleeing into East Germany.

More to the point, doesn't Khrushchev know this is the silly season? There is only so much heaviness we can stand during the summer!  As for now, despite the disappointingly cool weather, at least we still have a beach to look-visit, ice-cream to eat (we British eat ice-cream even during our cold summers), and once Khruschev has had his fun, hopefully we can return to reading stories of cats stuck up trees being rescued by the nice men from the fire brigade.

And accounts of space shots: as a science fiction fan, I find those an acceptable break from the fluff of the silly season…

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 10, 1961] A Fair Deal for the Fairer Sex (Women, politics, and The Andy Griffith Show)

2 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

A woman on the City Council?  Say it ain't so!

It's not news that there just aren't a lot of women in politics these days.  Universal suffrage is now 40 years old, but women comprise just 18 out of 437 members of the House of Representatives and 2 of 100 Senators – about 4% and 2%, respectively.  For most of us, that's not an alarming statistic.  That's just the way it's always been.  But for some of us (including this columnist), equal representation can't come soon enough.  After all, when women make up half the population but only 4% of the government, that's a crisis of almost Revolutionary proportions.

I'm not the only one taking a stand, but sometimes support for the cause comes from the unlikeliest of places.

I watch a lot of television, maybe too much.  There's plenty of dross in this "vast wasteland" behind the screen of the idiot box, but there's also gold.  To wit: The Twilight Zone, Route 66, and, surprisingly, The Andy Griffith Show.

I didn't expect much when I started watching this strange little slice-of-life program set somewhere in the southern Appalachians.  It's a broad comedy on the face of it, with Sheriff Andy Griffith's drawl and wide smile and Deputy Barney Fife's pretentious bumbling, but after a few episodes, it became clear that the comedic elements are a sugar coating for deep thoughtfulness.

The other night, I happened to catch a summer rerun from early in the series, back when Griffth's stuttering yokelish portrayal was at its least subtle.  It opens on a picnic where Elinor Walker, the town's new pharmacist (and Andy's recently acquired sweetheart) articulates her disappointment that there are no women running for city council.  Andy slights her concern, noting that the position is called "Councilman," and it'd be silly if a woman held that title.

Ellie, no timid soul, is emboldened rather than discouraged by Griffith's disparagement.  In short order, she acquires the 100 petition signatures needed to put her on the ballot, the first provided by none other than Griffith's own Deputy Fife (speaking of unlikely support)!  The affronted men of Mayberry, North Carolina attempt to stop Ellie's candidacy through supra-political means, refusing the women access to charge accounts at local businesses.  This tactic backfires when the women stop cooking, washing, ironing, and mending (and presumably work a little Lysistrata action in there, too).

The episode's climax begins with a rally downtown.  The women (and a few supporting men) wave signs and shout "We want Ellie!"  Most of the men jeer.  Upset at the strife her running has caused, Ellie visits the Griffith home and tells him, “You won,” and that she will withdraw her candidacy because, “It's just not worth it…when I decided to run I had no intention of starting a Civil War in Mayberry.”

Young Opie Griffith, steeped in his father's latest comments, cheers, "We won, we beat them females!  We kept them in their place.  Us menfolks don't want women running our town, do we, Pa?"

It's a powerful moment that sharply drives home the effect of Andy's ill-considered words.  Ashamed at the example he's set, instead of accepting Ellie's surrender, he heads to the rally in support.  Addressing the assembly, he notes significantly: "We men are against a woman running for council."  The men cheer and applaud, but the sheriff continues, "The woman in this case being Ellie Walker.  Now we're against her because she's a woman.  But, now, when you try to think of any other reason, you kind of draw a blank."

This proves the shot that deflates the balloon, the men acknowledging the point.  Ellie wins the election – how could she not with all the women and many of the men backing her? 

Now, if you're from one of the more progressive parts of the nation that happens to have women in government, you might think the whole problem silly and overblown, the events of the episode a caricature.  But think about the 96% of the country without female representation.  Remember that, in Alabama, women aren't even allowed to serve on a jury!  It's not the situation in The Andy Griffith Show that's implausible — it's the happy ending.

So let's applaud Andy Griffith for showcasing the bias against women in government, and then let's keep working to overcome it, so that one day, some little girl who saw Ellie Walker win a seat on the Mayberry City Council might be inspired to run for Representative or Senator or, dare I say, even President of the United States. 

It's an outcome worth the long fight, even if it takes half a century.

 

2 Comments Leave A Comment