Think that Johnny Depp and Walter White are the only cool people to wear hats? Don’t you believe it. Back when he was young enough to be stylin’ it — in his college days – the Up Fronter routinely sported a chapeau. My big favorites then were a gray Stetson and a blond straw hat.
Kashia Spears of Bespoke Hat Co.
Hats of all sorts are now being sold at the new Bespoke Hat Co., located at 725 Ryan St. (inside Salon Lindsay; Bespoke is right at the front of the building).
Owner Kashia Spears sells hats by the Goorin Brothers, who’ve had their family business in operation since 1895, and have two big stores in N.O.
Spears has quite a few styles on display, and they’re for men, women and children. Right now she has premium straw, felt, canvas (ideal for walking in the sun) and other styles. Spears says Goorin hats in general provide “a really classic look.”
Warmer styles will come before winter.
Why did Spears want to sell hats downtown? “I love hats,” she says. “I own a lot of hats. I wanted to do something different for Lake Charles.” What she means in particular by “different” is that Bespoke carries hats in a variety of sizes. You’re not just stuck with the hat on display.
Bespoke can easily give you a custom hatband of leather or suede trim, ribbon, feathers or rope. (If you want to go the feathers route, the selection is generous; ostrich is definitely an option.)
Bespoke has been in business since March. Spears says it’s “going well.”
She says men and women sometimes have different objectives in hat buying. Women are often concerned about protection from the sun. Men are more fashion-minded. Often, men have already put together an outfit for an upscale event such as Derby for Dollars or Rouge et Blanc and want a hat that will match.
It’s never too early or too late to start stylin’ with hats. I’ve seen a canvas number at Bespoke that I’m putting on my wish list. I still haven’t decided what to do about the feather.
Latest Pop-Up Museum
The Up Fronter is sending out another call to long-time residents, urging them to gather up their historical memorabilia and bring it by the Central Library at 301 W. Claude St.
The library is continuing its Pop-up Museums in celebration of Lake Charles’ 150th anniversary.
The topic for the July 17 museum is sports and outdoors. So, if you have historical photos, game programs, athletic jerseys — you name it; find it, pack it up and bring it to the library. You’ll be able to see all the community’s contributions from 11 am-1 pm. (Of course, all your goods go back to you when the museum wraps up.) Need to know more? Call 721-7116.
Beaded Curtains: Back With A Vengeance
Starting on June 11, the museum will host an exhibit by Swiss Artist Pipilotti Rist, born in 1962.
MFAH says it will present two of Rist’s “grand-scale immersive exhibitions.” That’s sort of a long phrase for what most of us call “installations” (or what some high-falutin’ critics call “environments”). At any rate, with works of this type, an entire, huge gallery is taken up with a single big work of art.
Rist’s Houston installation “Pixel Forest” features “thousands of hanging LED lights,” each of which is activated by a video signal. Depending on the signals they get, the lights can change appearance in rapid-fire speed or in slow waves. Behind the strings of hanging lights are big screens with video patterns that look like giant screen savers. I assume these patterns are always changing also.
These hanging strings of LED lights remind me of the “doors” and curtains made of strings of beads that I often walked through in the 1970s. Houston tells us Rist came into her own in the mid-1980s. In fact, her installations look a lot like those Kenny Scharf made at that time in New York. Scharf was heavily influenced by ‘60s and ‘70s kitsch (such as bead curtains). He combined his kitsch and pop influences and goofy cartoon humor with such visual technology as neon, dayglo paint and video.
Scharf’s work was fun (even hilarious), and Rist’s installations — she will have two in the Houston gallery — are meant to be fun to look at. The museum has even put pillows on the floor so people can relax as they take in all the visual changes.
This sounds like a world of color that really is wonderful.
You can see it all at your leisure at the Caroline Wiess Law Building at 1001 Bissonnet in Houston’s Museum District through Sept. 17. The building is closed on Mondays; otherwise it opens at 10 am, except on Sunday, when doors open at 12:15. Need to know more? Call 713-639-7300.
So How Do The Dems Waste Time?
“La House is not starting until the afternoon so Repub members can play golf with lobbyists for Elephant Stomp fundraiser.” That message was Tweeted by Advocate reporter Tyler Bridges on Monday, May 22.
Melinda Deslatte elaborated on Bridges’ comments by Tweeting “golf this morning, party tonight.” She could also have written, “legislate on Doomsday.”
Fake News
1. The power at the Hoover Dam is generated not by water, but by 6,600 genetically modified miniature cheetahs who run on treadmills in exchange for melon slices (reported by the New York Times Racing News).
2. On Sept. 1, the White House of the United States will be moved to Macau, China, which is known as “The Las Vegas of Asia.” An anonymous source told USA Today-Cat Fancy that the new location will give “beltway insiders the large-scale casino opportunities they have never had.”
3. Conservatives are being shanghaied by the thousands by liberals who are smuggling them to Indonesia where they work in dangerously overheated sweatshops to make flip-flops for export to the U.S. (reported by The Washington Post And Textile Examiner).
4. The long urban myth that the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is so boring no one would ever go to it willingly has been resolved. The Chicago PD recently announced that the museum has long been the site of a giant bordello that is used to fund a vast voter fraud operation taking place throughout the United States. The CPD said it had yet to determine whether there was any ordinance prohibiting the running of a brothel in a science museum. (Source: The Chicago Tribune And Upholstery Bulletin.)
5. On the TV program Inside Cosplay Edition, members of a group calling itself America Watch stated that square dancing cults are the biggest threat facing the nation today. “The cultists have finally figured out that if they go with Satan, they’re going to jail,” said America Watch’s Bill Spitter. “So they’ve looked for the groups least likely to attract attention. We now estimate that a charismatic cult leader has infiltrated more than 80 percent of the square dancing groups in this country.”
A video on the scourge of square dance cults showed a police raid of a cult called the Des Moines Square Dance 7 Bone Drapes. In a 200,000-square-foot warehouse, police found 200 crates of bootlegged DVDs of the movie Frozen, 300 crates of Thai knock-offs of Black Camo Air Jordan XX8s, a “massive” hydroponic marijuana grow operation, a laptop whose hard-drive contained the hacked recipe for Monster Energy Gronk and a curtained area that appeared to be the site of cult activities.
“The time to act is now,” said Spitter. “If you learn of the existence of a square dancing cult — or even if you just see people square dancing – call 1-800-ILOVEPIE immediately!”
Wait … What Did You Say You Named Me?
The Social Security Administration recently announced the most popular baby names in Louisiana for 2016. The top five boys’ and girls’ names for 2016 in Louisiana were:
Boys: Girls:
Liam Ava
Noah Olivia
Mason Emma
Elijah Amelia
William Harper
With the exception of Harper, I don’t think many of these baby names have made their way to Southwest Louisiana. Emma and Olivia are such sophisticated and dignified names. I definitely haven’t met any babies with these monikers. (If you do happen to have a baby with one of these names, I’ll take your word for it. Please don’t bring the young one to the office. Truth to tell, I really am not a big one for baby-meeting. And far from being fluent in the Goo Goo Ga Ga language, I’ve failed every pop quiz I’ve ever had in it.)
I’ve compiled a list that much more accurately reflects the sorts of baby names used in SWLA than the list from the Social Security Office. I double-checked with the people who gave the names to make sure they’re all spelled correctly. Here we go:
Sydnee, Dacota, Brittaney, Taylin, Sarahlee, Shonna, Kalem, Abi, Bobbye, Bonni, Hayley, Kaylee and Raylee. (Only one of those names is in Microsoft’s spell check.)
I can’t for the life of me figure out why no one has yet come up with the name Leelee. And from that name, it would be an easy jump to Leeley. If I ever have a daughter, I’m naming her Leeleigh Lulabella Dubuffet. (Dubuffet is my birth name.)
I’m the only citizen of Lake Charles who’s never run for elected office here. And it’s a damn good thing, because if I were ever elected, my first act in office would be to introduce a bill levying a stiff fine on anyone who named a child “Trey.” I would also impose stiff fines on anyone who drove a dually without owning a business. And I would try to work out some kind of deal that gave me Judge Dredd-like authority, powers and abilities. It’s been my experience that things go smoothest when they go the way I want them to.
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