Are We Not Men?

After hours of eyestraining research I have come to the conclusion that the Dutch forefathers were actually the pioneers of the New Wave movement. After searching for a photo that best illustrates the diversity of traditional Dutch headgear, I found the East Yorkshire Motor Services Brass Band to be the perfect models (and entertaining if you look closely at the photo). You can see why the antique samplers have every hat shape conceivable - from cap-like affairs to top hats to modified fezes to ...

The energy dome - The ziggurat hat. Now who would have seen that coming 150 years ago! You already saw them on my little olympians, but were distracted by the Larry Fine hairdo. So go back and read the Races of Man post, this time looking carefully at all the hats.

Ah, and here we are now on the Dutch Beast, immortalizing (in an Ozymandias way at best) a 1980's icon. I only put two guys from the band on (you can pick which two - without their instruments they all kind of looked alike). So how many of you have had to explain the recent "Swiffer" commercial to your kids, who missed out that decade? 1980 is NOT dead. In case you wanted a stroll down that memory lane or didn't know yourself: Whip It Good.

In my googling, I came across the 1997 book by Ben Roughton "Ministry of Silly Hats". It has nothing to do with Devo hats or the Dutch, but I noted it was published by The Wine Press. So I leave you with this quote from one of my favorite movies:

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.