Slouch Hats, Bush Hats, Big Game Hunters, and Explorers

The hat makes the adventurer and although it’s a slouch hat, historically wearers of the slouch hat are no slouch and number among explorers, military men, adventurers, and rogues.  They are worn in the tropics and in the desert, in the deepest jungle and on the veldt; bush hats are de rigor wear only second to the pith helmet in the genre of high adventure.

The slouch hat goes back centuries to the late 1500s, with a brim that went from large to huge.  Eventually these hats had one to three pin ups making a bicorn and a tricorn respectively.  But in this little essay, we will talk about those hats that have either only one side or no side pinned up.  Traditionally they are made of felt from a blend of fibers of wool to beaver fur, although some extra light weight hats are made of cotton cloth or canvass, some with heavy stitching to make a stiffener. 

A slouch hat is a soft hat that is not highly stiffened or having an internal frame to keep its structure.  A slouch hat is soft enough to be reshaped easily.   Versatile, easy to carry, they give good head cover and the wide brim keep off sun and rain.  It won’t crush like a pith helmet and can be packed away easily.  It has a chinstrap to hold on in wind and the hat can be pushed back off the head and hang down the back with the strap holding it on.  You really can’t ask for a more useful, forgiving and simple to store hat.

The Australian/New Zealand military hat has one side pinned up so that a rifle can be carried on the shoulder.  Although that might have been the case previously, slouch hats with one side pinned up have become traditionally associated with military and paramilitary forces.  Even stiffened hats such as the Hardee or Jeff Davis hat of American Civil War fame had the side pinned up, although that hat was stiffened and not a slouch hat.  Although both sides in the conflict wore slouch hats, Confederates were generally depicted as wearing slouch hats in writing and depictions of the time.

British military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Big game hunters in film use animal pelts like leopard for tiger as a hatband.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Traditionally, the American southwest is associated cowboy hats, which are a form of slouch hat, although many of the later forms make it hard to tell its origin.  The slouch hat became so ubiquitous that it often goes unnoticed.  The great thing is that the slouch hat can be worn anywhere for that rugged outdoor look and its clean lines and simple upkeep makes it proper headgear for men and women alike.  Made of felt or canvass, stiffened slightly or crusher style they remain with us both as an icon of times gone by and a useful piece of practical headgear.

Consider adding a slouch hat to your costuming collection or just for wear while camping, hiking or big game hunting.  As always buy quality hats, which will give you years of wear and don’t overlook thrift shops and eBay as sources for headgear and costuming items.

UPDATE: I have a new hat/helmet post -- Mr. Pratt’s Gun Hat or How to Be Fashionable But Deadly in the Trenches   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2017/05/mr-pratts-gun-hat-or-how-to-be.html

                                    CoastConFan


Other of my posts that might be of interest on hats and costuming in general:  
 

Classic fedora http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/07/fedora-hat-of-intrigue-and-danger.html

Pith helmets http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/pith-helmets-sun-helmets-and-sola.html

Trench coats  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/05/brief-history-of-trench-coats.html

Steampunk and body armor   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/09/armor-steampunk-style-short-history-of.html

The Logical Vampire – A brief overview on removing these pests

I like vampire movies, but you know … you have to wonder sometimes.

There are several theories about vampires, depending on the culture you reference.  Vampirism is associated with the rising dead, that is to say, the undead such as ghouls and zombies.   They are a type of living dead or animated corpses – not as a dull a conversationalist as let’s, say a zombie, but still they are of the dead.

 The classic western culture vampire of literature is fairly modern, dating to only the 1820s although the folk stories go back farther, they don’t enter into mainstream literature.  It’s no accident that vampire stories became common in Western Europe in the Romantic Era and remained highly popular for 150 years given a great boost by the Victorians with their love of romanticism and exoticism.  Vampirism as a cultural, folk, and literature phenomena is pretty well documented, so I won’t belabor the reader with a rehash.

With modern western, gothic vampires. I will be dealing here with the typical evil spirit type, which can coalesce into different forms such as a human, a bat, and a wolf.  They drink blood to sustain themselves and are pretty much invulnerable to most physical attacks, except in a few circumstances.  Sounds tough doesn’t it, but in the right circumstances you can win.

Vampires do have vulnerabilities such as being destroyed by the light of day and they must sleep during the day in their native soil far away from light.  Secrecy is an important part of being a vampire.  The first part of the secret is that vampires exist at all; the second part is finding their vulnerabilities and then the physical location of their lair and resting place.  Really, once you identify vampire activity, know how and when to kill them, you pretty much got the problem licked.  Knowledge is strength, but just hope the vampire doesn’t know you are on to him/her and it tires to nip you in the bud before you begin.  An enraged vampire will backtrack his trail and entrap a vampire killer.

Locals and minions may thwart your inquiries through fear and domination by the vampire as well as getting substantial payback from the vampire for helping its enemies.  It’s kind of  like squealing on the Mafia, you know there is going to be payback, so expect a lot of reluctance and possible misdirection.  Also, since vampires can cloud people’s mind, there might be people who can’t give you information because they just can’t remember.  You know, “These aren’t the droids you are looking for”, gambit.  Trying to get clues from a frightened or mesmerized populace might land you in the middle of a mob who doesn’t want the status quo upset, so even victims might not want your help for fear of making it worse.

Presuming you have a classic gothic vampire, you are pretty safe in the sun, but if you have an ultra-modern vampire, the kind that just glitters, you might have a problem.  Generally though, the sun is your friend.  Also mirrors are useful because a vampire doesn’t throw a reflection and possibly an image in a camera.  Mirrors and photos make pretty good vampire detectors, but the problem is that you are probably standing with a vampire just a few feet behind you!  This is not a good to be in position at all. 

A note on vampire kits:  if you approach assembling a vampire killing kit in scope of a very specialized exorcism and eradication kits, then you might get something like the kits seen on the web.  In such a situation, the components would be highly charged religious items such as relics or items that have been deeply and powerfully consecrated as well as mundane tools.   Getting your hands on special religious items might be a campaign on its own.  Keep in mind that in Dracula, Bram Stoker's book, Van Helsing, assembled his kit on the spot and tossed it all into a hand bag for transport to the site.  He didn’t have a pre-made kit available. 

 

Religiously charged items will repel vampires such as a cross, a blessed host & etc.  They will stop and turn vampires, provided you have the right culture or religion.  You have to wonder, however, if the vampire was from another religion, how effective some holy implements would be in that case.  It’s like the old joke, “Oy vey, have you got the wrong vampire”* shtick.  This could get very dicey if you don’t know the religious affiliation of a vampire.  Even worse, how do you kill/turn an atheist vampire -- with a copy or Darwin or Nietzsche?  Hopefully I haven’t offended anybody, I’m just thinking out loud, so to speak.

Ok, so you found the vampire’s lair, evaded traps, got away from minions and now stand in the center of the maze.  The vampire is asleep/dormant in his/her coffin, lying native soil, powerless – it’s time to stake him out.  Various lore suggests the best possible wood and these vary, but frankly anything that pierces the heart and remains there will work.  This is classic vampire staking at it’s finest.  So you hammer in the stake and maybe get some shrieking action and flailing as the body disintegrates.  So maybe it doesn’t turn into a foul wisp and you have a more corporeal vampire than you expected.  That probably means you have to cut off the head, move it to the feet and stuff garlic in its mouth.  A few crosses strewn about and some other holy items and you probably have it beat.

But I don’t understand why the intrepid vampire hunters just don’t finish the job on one of these corporeal jobs and just drag the staked stiff out into the sunlight for a bit of the old ultraviolet to do its job and fry that baby up!  Nah, by this time the credits are rolling and that vampire looks kind of heavy, so never mind.  Amateurs for sure; no doubt a movie sequel is going to be spawned due to this sloppy inaction.  Maybe I am being too logical after all.

The other possibility is to lure the vampire out into the sun either by keeping him up after bedtime or making an opening in a room to let in sunlight.  That scenario requires a lot of luck, timing and a really, really mad vampire who looses track of time.  In that case, give me a sleeping vampire every time.

So game on, my intrepid adventurers whether it be RPGs or LARPs and smite those blood suckers … do it logically, but just pay no attention to physical mass conversions during morphs and energy transfer and other things like physics.  Thinking too hard gets in the way of the fun and too much logic can rain on your parade.

                                                                            CoastConFan

    In this same series of blog entries, see also:

The Werewolf Paradigm  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2011/03/werewolf-paradigm-fun-vs-rationality.html

And the Logical Zombie  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2011/11/logical-zombie.html

Also my previous post on a custom made Hourglass Vampire Hunting Kit  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2013/01/hourglass-vampire-hunting-kit.html

The truth about those Vampire Hunting Kits, appropriately named:  Vampire Hunting Kits Debunked, June 17, 2014

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2014/06/vampire-hunting-kits-debunked-props.html  

    Some additional links of interest on the subject::

Vampire skeletons  http://news.discovery.com/history/vampire-skeletons-120606.html

Check out the extensive bibliography at the end of the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire

Skeptics dictionary about vampires http://www.skepdic.com/vampires.html

An interesting show about vampirism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Dead

    Project Gutenberg free digital download of famous vampire stories:

download Dracula  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345

download Varney the Vampire  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14833

download Carmilla  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007 

    *movie quote, The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

You want fries with that stake?

Hourglass Vampire Hunting Kit

  A stealthy vampire hunting kit for the secret hunter.            

Last December, I saw an image on The Steampunk Empire, a social site for people sharing an interest in all things steampunk:  literature, props, costume, history, RPGs, and the like.  The item was a novel hidden vampire hunting kit housed and disguised as an operational hourglass.  I emailed the maker, Artimas Ward for information and received a narrative about making the item along with some photos for this blog.  Many thanks to Master Ward and his ingenious workshop.

 
Imagine having a secret vampire hunting kit that can look like a common object but which can be quickly disassembled to stake out a vampire quick and simple.  The shape of this is one is simply unique!  What follows is Mr Ward’s explanation about how this unusual piece came to be with some construction comments.




"I started it with a find at Michael’s Art and Crafts, (I work there and have a lot of creative ideas looking at all the crafts) and saw that the glass hourglass was on final sale, wanting it to make a steam punk timepiece, so I bought it."

"When I got it home I set it aside and was gonna let inspiration find me later, I didn't have to wait long when I got a idea at 4 am, a week later! I had teak bowls and set to work on building my Vampire hour glass, my father has a nice Carpenter shop and I got good advice on setting the glad in and how to set the drilled holes (hardest part) an Setting the two stakes and handle in place, and leather hinges, you seen what I got, now still have to put in the equipment and such to supply it."

"The hourglass kit has all typical vampire hunting equipment, mirror, stakes, hammer, salt, considerate earth, nails, communion wafers, compass, holy water & holy oil, matches, and a cross.  The stakes and handle of the hammer are stored on the sides of the hourglass and the equipment as stored in the ends in compartments."

A Word of Warning

You know the drill:  hunt the vampire in the crypts just like Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  The bonanza of “authentic” vampire hunting kits have hit new highs in sales.  The real truth is that there are no vampire hunting kits much older than 20 years or so, although some components in the better put together kits might date to the middle or late Victorian Era.  Yep they are bogus, despite the hype and nonsense being bandied around the blogosphere.  A few credulous museums purchased kits and now they are claiming they knew they were fake all along.  If you recall in Dracula, Van Helsing threw together some items ad hoc into a grip and drug it down to the tombs.  Even Van Helsing didn’t have an existing kit; one had to be assembled on the spot.  See also Propnomicon's blog posts for more information:   

 

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2009/08/35000-vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2008/11/1809-vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2011/04/vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2010/04/deluxe-vampire-hunting-kit.html

                                                                                                                    CoastConFan

UPDATE: 

Vampire Hunting Kits Debunked, June 17, 2014

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2014/06/vampire-hunting-kits-debunked-props.html  

See also my blog post:   The Logical Vampire – A brief overviewon removing these pests

WARGAMES AND MINIATURE FUN ON THE COAST

The Gulf Coast Gamer’s Club hosts monthly gaming meets.

Here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, gaming runs deep.  In fact, our local SF convention CoastCon, has always had a strong gaming contingent from the start, some 35 years ago.  The Gulf Coast Gamer’s Club holds a game day every month, with an open format and often hosts tournaments.   

This December saw a Warhammer 40,000 tournament hosted, bringing colorful science fiction miniatures to the civic center.  Generally, there are a variety of board games and role playing games routinely played at the facility and there is plenty of room to run most any game you would want.  The next Game Day will be held on 5 January, 2013.

The Gulf Coast Gamer’s Club meets monthly at the Gautier Civic Center.  Link for the schedule and map.  I have posted a few photos of the gaming action this past December at the gaming club.  Please come by if you are in the neighborhood, everybody is welcome and you need not belong to the club to play.
                                                                                                             CoastConFan

Lou Zocchi a noted game
designer often appears
on Game Day.

Apocalypse Kits – It’s Not Just About Zombies, Maya, and Alien Attacks

Avoid being a post-disaster casualty by being a little prepared and having some common sense.

 I follow a practical blog called The 72 Hour Kit, which was created under the concept that in the case of a natural disaster and the like, that it would take about 72 hours for emergency help to arrive and that you must be self-sufficient for that time.  He went further to create not only home kits, but car kits and personal walk-around kits for urban travel, hiking and the like.  It’s all very practical and levelheaded.  Most of these kit contents are common items available everywhere and might be necessary for immediate survival up to 72 hours.  This isn’t hard-core survivalist junk, it’s just common sense.

UPDATE August 2014 -- The blog I mentioned above, The 72 Hour Kit, hasn't posted in two years, so it's a bad sign that the zombies got him after all.  But take cheer, there are many more practical preparedness sites out there. 

 Along that line and with all the babbling about imminent zombie apocalypse, Mayan apocalypse, nature rebelling, tidal waves, Planet X striking our Earth, and the like has gotten me thinking a bit.  Mind you, I survived Hurricane Camille, Hurricane Katrina along with a number of smaller hurricanes over the years.  I have also gotten to enjoy a wild fire, sand storms, earth quakes and 20 years in the military as well as a few urban riots and the like, but at least learned a bit along the way.  Needless to say, I do have stuff set aside for expected emergencies such as hurricanes, extended power outages, Cthulhu rising from the sea, and that sort of stuff.  Anybody living along the Gulf Coast with any sense has evacuation routs set up, extra food and water during hurricane season as well as tools and repair materials for a month or two of living in difficult situations.  Been there done that.

 Now on to fun-filled fantasy.  Back in the mid 1970s we did a lot of role playing games and set up some that were vaguely reality based.  For example we started a campaign with only the items that you personally own.  Let’s say a crank professor friend from the university of ours has a time travel machine and wants us to go back for a few minutes into the past.  Well you take a few goodies for maybe a day’s lark back into time and guess what … you don’t get picked up.  Uh, oh, and all you have is the junk in your back pack.  Honesty here is important for game play to make sure that the players would actually have all the stuff that they would put in their back pack, which would be their emergency kit.  Hey, all you brought was a case of Twinkies and a stuffed bear?  

 Along with that scenario was a zombie scenario based in our own town.  To narrow it down, everybody made it to the closed mall and hope they locked out all the zombies, maybe.  In any case, we used the local mall, which we were all familiar with as the source of what might be found.  The fun part was that everybody knew exactly what was in the food court, in the Sears hardware department and the like, so there was no need to dig up a supplement.  We had lots of fun potting zombies there in the mall in the 1970s.  It was a simple game to set up and the context was one that everybody got. You guessed it, we used the paradigm of Dawn of the Dead (1978) as out lead-in.  We got started in no time and had a great few evenings role playing, while using local terrain and the local mall for a background.  Next time you need a cheap, fast, and easy scenario, just pull that one out folks!  You could narrow the scope down a bit and just do a single house in Night of the Living Dead (1968) style, but if you are going to have a zombie apocalypse, have a big one! 

Anyway, seriously folks, catastrophe can happen in an instant from a 30 car pile up, to a toxic spill from a truck or train, to a power plant going up, not to mention tsunami, ice storms, hurricanes and the like.  Try to have your self together a little at least.  In all the cases where I was in a major hurricane or earthquake, etc, everybody pulled together and strangers helped strangers.  But you just can’t sit back and expect everybody else to help you, try to do a little yourself.

For those of you interested in zombies, can view my earlier blog entry called The Logical Zombie.

                                                                   CoastConFan

Additional useful links:

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com/

http://www.hurricane.com/hurricane-supply-kit.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/05/survival-kit-natural-disaster_n_2078505.html

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/aug/25/what-your-hurricane-prepardeness-kit/

http://www.cctexas.com/?fuseaction=main.view&page=779

http://ajax72.blogspot.com/

-------------------------------------
UPDATE 14 DECEMBER 2012 -- Today NASA was so sure that the world wouldn't end that they released a new video on YouTube today (seven days before) called "Sciencecasts, Why the World Didn't End Yesterday", scheduled the day after the so called "Mayan Apocalypse".  NASA didn't explain why there was an early release, maybe they wanted to put in their two cents before it all ended.  Anyway, click on the link to see a rather limp video with mediocre computer generated narration voice (so bad it had to have subtitles) -- give me H.A.L. anytime. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3o9udHJZxk

Just put on your tinfoil hat and hope for the best.
                                                                                                  CoastConFan

A Christmas List of Books 2012

A mere suggestion of possible reads for those of you who want something different, stimulating, and would probably want to pass on to others to read.

Two ideas slammed into each other this morning while I was doodling around on the internet; a recent post from the blog of Propnomicon decrying the low level of immersive detective games and the same morning, turned up an old post on io9 about the Ten Science Fiction Novels You Pretend to Have Read.  Actually I had already read 7 of the 10 and might read two additional on the list.

This has lead me to make a list of books as possible Christmas presents for those who are a bit more advance than the average and while needing a bit of a challenge, don’t want to be beat over the head with an overblown pompous, “must read” book that is never finished and is laced with punishment in every page.  You know, like a Pynchon book, Finnegan’s Wake, Dhalgren, and other books that cry out for courageous souls to cry out, “Hey look, the king ain’t got no clothes”.

Instead I created an eclectic list, off the top off my head, of books that:  (1) I have read, (2) enjoyed, (3) found stimulating, (4) would want to read again and, (5) recommend to others.  I tried to keep the list short and books that should be available commonly.  These aren’t trophy books with names dropped to impress your friends, they are good reads.  Not all of them are science fiction or fantasy and one of them isn’t even fiction, but all are readable, challenging, and worth the time.  They are a group of off-the-beaten-path books and authors, that I have enjoyed over the years and think you will also.

Here are eleven authors with books that I have recommended in no particular order, with myself manfully trying to recommend only one book or per author, but failing miserably in a few cases.

Collected Fictions, (1999) Jorge Luis Borges

Foucault’s Pendulum, (1989 in English) Umberto Eco

Winter’s Tale, (1983) Mark Helprin

Dictionary of the Khazars, (1988 in English) Milorad Pavic

Little, Big, (1981) John Crowley

The King in Yellow, (1895) Robert W. Chambers

A Canticle for Leibowitz, (1950) Walter J. Miller, Jr.

Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Colciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, Citadel of the Autarch  – (written between 1980-1983) all part of the four part Book of the New Sun Series by Gene Wolfe.  I might also suggest the ghost story Peace (1976)

Breaking the Maya Code, (1992) Michael D. Coe

My Name is Red (1998) Orhan Pamuk, also recommend The Black Book (1994) and sequel The New Life (1997)

The King’s Indian: Stories and Tales (1974), John Gardner, he also wrote the better known books, Grendel and The Sunlight Dialogs, all well worth the read

A Wild Sheep Chase (1990), Haruki Murakami, also recommended are:  Dance, Dance, Dance, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995), Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World (1985), and Kafka On The Shore (2002)

So endeth my list as I am going to quit while I am still ahead.  These quirky, unusual, and insightful tales I recommend as good reads and I make no apologies for any time wasted, tired eyes or lost nights’ sleep.  As for myself, I am going to get a copy of Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson to read and maybe I’ll add it to my recommended list for next year.

                                                                                                    CoastConFan

INDIANA JONES PROP SALE – The Holy Grail of Props Sold

Christistie’s had a prop sale this past Thursday, 29 November 2012 that would make a prop collector pass out. 

I have always loved movie props and couldn’t afford to get into the action when Forrest Ackerman’s magnificent collection of classic movie props were auctioned off a few years back.  Up until now, I had thought that sale was the ultimate “cat’s meow” of collecting, until now.

 

In the Christie’s auction catalogue of Pop Culture on pages 68 and 69 were several movie props that were calculated to make movie fans and prop collectors pass out with envy.  They had on auction Indiana Jones’ whip from Raiders of the Lost Ark!  If that wasn’t enough, they also had items from The Last Crusade such as the grail diary and the holy grail.  These are some of the most beloved Indy props around.  About the only few things they didn’t have was Indy’s hat, jacket, and map case.  As for me, I am waiting for the Raider’s prop of the ark of the covenant to show up at auction.

 

   

The prices realized were $32,000 for the whip $30,000 grail diary prop $19,000 for the holy grail prop.  I follow prop making sites and prop collecting sites such as Propnomicon and even seen a few well made grail diaries and the like but to own the original screen used prop … priceless.

                             CoastConFan