Thursday 23 January 2014

Games People Play

The school year has just started.  While we know a fair bit about what goes on in the classroom, what is of interest to me is what goes on in the schoolyard.  Given that most of us believe that children today spend most of their time in front of a screen - I think it's time to return to the schoolyard.  What is going on there?

Games ar a reflection of the culture in which they are created:  different countries have different games (see below).  I've divided them into to main categories - the ones that cost nothing and ones that needed some money ie for equipment.   Also it depends upon the spread and cost of technology (ie I'm assuming different games are shared today);  money (items that cost more obviously will cause a problem  I don't remember the older students teaching us and so I have no idea how th rules were passed on. Games you had to learn turn taking, rules, coordination and memorising a complex set of rules. No doubt games were enouraged because not only do the keep students busy, the teach many valuable lessons and burn up excess energy.  Weather was not generally a factor in Queensland but obviously for other countries more indoor games were preferred.

Similarly space plays a role.  We've all seen American basketball/school yards, but other schools have basketball courts AND a playground part. 

First my experience of schoolyards comes from a while ago - we had milk delivered and most of the yards were pretty bleak - cement was the preferred material.  Hence we had many skinned knees.  The standard was the monkey bars, a round about and a slippery slide.  And that was it.

I tended to play with the girls - after grade 4 there were no boys - and our games were rather feminine in that there was little hitting.  Most of them involve some type of co operation.  Team sports were fairly rare and we preferred games with about 4/5 people.  They were  usually energetic.

Equipment

We skipped rope,  Some of the rhymes were very complicated.  But nothing like the convoluted skipping I have witnesseed in American school yards.  I had not idea there were international skipping championships.  And boy are some of them fantastic--see this video of the Hungary team.  These are no kids -- the women bounced in places we didn't.  Clearly the sport has become more professionalised: they wear co ordinated outfits, have special music and complicated routines. (There have been teams competing on America's Got Talent).  And it's sexier and showier.  The world's best skipper clearly has a professionally made video.  Little did we realise we were keeping 'fit'- it was just something we did to fill in lunchtimes.  (Ya gotta love Michelle Obama showing how to keep fit).




Elastics.  We swiped some elastic from mum's sewing kit.  Tied it into a loop.  Put around two girls legs and went through a series of increasingly difficult "jumping" tasks.  I loved elastics and was good at it.  This video gives you an idea of how it was played.  It is called "rubber" in Czech Rep and Chinese Jump Rope and French Skipping - why the specific nationality names I have no idea.  The image comes from this webpage.

Aussie Jacks
Less energetic was jacks.  Jacks were brightly coloured plastic lamb 'knuckles' that were scooped into the hand.  Australia has a different st of rules to those in other places.  My own knuckles were scrapped for years on end.  As I remember this was a solitary game.
US Jacks

Also some of us had pickup sticks.  But usually too much trouble to bring to school, The USA game and materials are different.  In Ireland it's called gobs and played with pebbles.  For more variations click here.

Marbles - was generally a boy's game.  Though girls did play.  Marbles were kept in a cloth drawstring bag.  Swapping was part of the game.  Great for hand eye coordination  Some marbles were more sought after for some reason the words "tiger's eye", taw and shooter stick in my mind.

We played with yo-yos.  Remember when the Coke Cola guy came around and showed tricks.  Now this KID is the world champion

Hula Hoop.  Ususally we didn't take these to school. 

Ball/wall games.  I cannot remember if it had a specific name but I bounced a ball on a wall and caught it -- again there was an increasing level of difficulty  I know there was clapping and turning around.  I remember bouncing the ball on the house's back wall much to mum's annoyance.  When the Super Ball was 'invented' - wow it really changed the game-smaller and faster you had to keep up.  Great hand=eye coordination.  Tunnel Ball;  Unders and Overs - if we were allowed to play with the school's ball

Footsie - Skip Ball - Lemon Twist - Leg-a-roo - Bell Hop  - Jingle Jangle - Skip-It????   The photo is not like the one I had.- the one I had was made of hard plastic (and smaller) it could really bruise up your ankles and it was made of a type of skipping rope.  The myriad of names reflect different versions.  Some had bells (Americn show offs).  And later ones had counters so you knew how many times you'd skipped -- we counted in my day.  No wonder we were fit. 

While these games required equipment it was realitvely cheap and reflected the current craze ie yo yo or hula hoops.  There was little jealousy as they weren't worth much and didn't break.  I had the same set of knuckles for years.  I liked getting new sets and laughed at the printed rules.


No Equipment


Handclapping games.  Very popular when very young.  Surprisingly it didn't end up in a slapping match.
What's the Time Mr Wolf.
Hide and SeekFarmer in the Dell
Ring a Ring a Rosy
Oranges and Lemons
Statues.  Sounds boring but you simply swung somone and they had to freeze.
Red Rover is a 19th century game that spread from the UK to the rest of the world.  I remember it well. 

But the most imaginative games were the ones we played and made up as we went.  I remember a game we called Nations...it was a version of gang up tiggy - but everyone had the name of a nation. 

Obviously the games increase in difficulty as you grow up--start with hand clapping, dangling on the jungle gym, hopscotch and moved to elastics and team sports.  The younger games involved rhymes (Farmer in the Dell etc) and thus were good for rote learning and improving speech skills.  But there are clearly unrelated to anything in our "real" lives ie as suburban Brisbane kids -- I didn't even know what a dell is/was.  Similarly Oranges and Lemons....I knew it was about London but that's about it.  What's the time teaches sorta time skills;  handclapping good for coordination and play;  statues - turn taking.  Fairness was always a big part of these games ie not cheating. 

Other Countries
  • Conkers, British Bulldog, Please Mr Crocodile  in the UK
  • Dodgeball, Two Square, Basketball, Trading Cards in the USA 


Tuesday 21 January 2014

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.




If you, like me, are taking refuge from Brisbane’s hot January in a movie theatre, chances are you have been to see American Hustle.  Who can forget the extended opening sequence with an unrecognisable Christian Bale fixing his hair?  It will become a classic opener if only for its painstaking depiction of one of the most pervasive hairstyles – the comb over.  I am sure I am not the only woman who groaned at this scene…for us, we live in the hope that the comb over will one day die.  Men -  the comb over doesn’t fool anyone;  despite this, it continues to find favour.  In fact, American Hustle has apparently given the comb over some respectability – NOOOOOO.  

So what does men’s hair have to do with popular culture?  Believe it or not, hair is a marker not only of biology but also of politics, religion, wealth and fashion. 

Politics.  Hair loss in men is nothing new.  Sculptors have given us depictions of Julius Caesar with his brushed his hair forward BUT Julius Caesar was, apparently, completely bald.  The fact that most of Caesar’s statues have him with a “rim” of hair reflects that history really is written by the victors.  Why did sculptors feel it necessary to give one of the world’s greatest military leaders hair?  Certainly it can’t be ability – there’s no link between hair and capability surely.  Masculinity?  More likely.  

(BTW - 2,000 years (or so) later Caesar’s style was taken up by celebs such as George Clooney and Justin Timberlake – but they didn’t need to cover up.  The claims about Caesar’s hair were reported in Journal of the American Tonsorial Anthropological Association-but I’ve been unable to locate such a journal and the name sounds a little suspicious to me).


Sampson and Delilah.   After disclosing valuable military secrets to Delilah, she cut Sampson’s while he was asleep – thus breaking both his cultural vow (not to cut his hair).  His short hair was a visual signifier that he had been sapped of physical and psychological strength.

Other political greats with less than average hair include Ghandi—whose shaved head was clearly a statement of simplicity. And of quiet strength and determination-okay that’s my reading.  There are several websites dedicated to great bald leaders. 

Strength.  The other end of the comb over spectrum – the better end – is the bald end.  These are the men who dare to shave it all off.  Once upon a time, bald men were scary people.  But since about 1990, the chrome dome has morphed from scariness to strength and researchers found that a bald head has become synonymous with "masculinity, strength, dominance and leadership potential."  Where’re your hairy statues now Caesar?   


This shouldn’t surprise us as it was only a few years beforehand that super short haircuts – were also signs of strength and manliness – I’m thinking of the crew cut of the American Marines. The Ivy League crew cut has a complex meaning – the name came from the “crews” of the university rowing teams of the 1920s/1930s (Harvard, Princeton etc); it differentiated them from the long hair football players (worn long for protection).   Later the style was worn by ‘clean cut’ business executives.  This hair style later reappeared as the buzz cut and was influenced by the action movies of the late 1980s when the body beautiful became married to the sweaty heroes of patriotic American films. Note that a body hair also seemed to disappear at the same time. The buzz cut was uniform, practical and linked to the armed forces.  Rappers reinvented the buzz cut in the 1990s as the hi-top fade (Schooly D and Doug E Fresh).   Simon Cowell even had one once.  Shudder.


Summary: 

short back and sides came to be associated with practicality, conservatism, sporty hard men

 long hair for the romantic, non-traditional, aristocratic “soft” blokes


Personal (Political) Ideology
The long hair of the 1960s and 1970s came to represent a free flowing ideals of the hippies.  Long hair was the visual representation of the divide between the uptight short hair of the armed forces personnel and those make love not war guys.  It was also a marker of the differences between the office worker and executives of huge corporations that destroyed nature and the keep-the-planet hippy movement.



Roundhead
And this was not the first time hair has been such an obvious marker of different beliefs.  Think of the roundheads and the cavaliers.  In the British Civil War, the puritans’ immensely unflattering style (short cropped, close to their heads) mirrored their simplistic approach to life and was a direct refutation of the king’s elaborate lifestyle.The Royalists’ long ringlets (often wigs) showed their support for the king. 
 


 The roundhead hairstyle has morphed  represent simplicity in extreme – think Three Stooges and Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. 




Money
Hair is expensive.  The cost of elaborate styling means one has the time and the tools/personnel to achieve the right look.  Consider wigs.  Wigs are especially expensive – the more elaborate the wig, the wealthier you are and of course they are immensely impractical.  The wig is the symbol of conspicuous consumption—they are unnecessary.  Unless you are a balding king that is – Louis XIV is reputed to have been the first king to don a wig to cover his incipient baldness. He hired 28 wigmakers and soon was sporting some pretty long locks.  Charles the II followed suit—to cover his greyness. Soon everyone who was anyone was wearing a wig (except for the busy working man of course) and then came THE hair product of the 18th century: powder. While we mainly remember the WHITE wigs, powder also came in various colours – violent, blue and pink. Wigs might have become a fashion statement BUT they had their roots in hygiene / health:  most especially the spread of syphilis and hair lice.  One of the symptoms of syphilis is hair loss and a wig covered this loss and therefore covered the disease;  it was easier to shave your head and wear a peruke rather than to deal with the daily irritation of lice.

So perhaps you thought wigs had gone out of fashion?  Today in Asia men buy wigs that mimic their favourite   These are used in cosplay or worn on weekends because the styles are too “contemporary” for the work environment – or because they cover the baldness – come to think of it I don’t remember seeing that many bald Japanese men.   
popstars.

And of course men’s wigs lead us to the toupee – I’m presuming the cost of a good one is exorbitant and that it requires considerable effort and skill to make it “natural” and to sustain washing and an active lifestyle.  The yesteryear of the bad toupee seems to be long gone. The classic is Bill Hunter's blonde piece in Strictly Ballroom (1992).  In fact, Strictly Ballroom is a testament to men's hair styles - comb over, toupee and quiffed. 



Some Hair Fashions We’d Rather Forget

1.  The Mullett – a style that has it all – short in the front and long in the back.  Billy Ray Cyrus killed it for the mainstream – the style has become synonymous with rednecks and working class..why?  For the balding
man there is the fading glory -- nothing on top but loads behind.  It's a close second to the comb over.


2.  The Male Perm – thanks again American Hustle for reminding us.  Part solidarity with African Americans?  It was adopted as a political statement?  Or maybe just another fad?  The fact that the guy in American Hustle was doing his AT HOME – reminds us of the cost of elaborate hair dos.

3.  Also related is the jhericurl – Samuel S Jackson in Pulp Fiction.  Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson were devotees at some stage. Greasy looking and never good looking.

4.  The Rat Tail – who invented that?  A modified mullet – usually seen on Dog the Bounty Hunter and football stars.  Stop it we say.

5.  Corn Rows - Just don't work. Unless you're  Bo Derek. 

6.  Dreadlocks - only for Rastafarians really. 

7.  Afro - another perm gone mad fashion.

8.   The Comb Over.   There are so many on the net...I have up choosing the "best" one.   However kudos to Donald Trump who continues to sport a magnificent one.





Back to the Comb Over

The comb over has been assisted in recent years by hair products that "cover" the balding pate.

When I lived in the USA, I (and many others) were vastly amused by spray paint for the head. Yep it was paint – in a can – something that people (not just men I presume) literally sprayed on their head to cover the offending spot.  It was back in the 1990s and sold on those long infomercials. Today these ads are still around - but on YouTube.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GeF7A05zQ8).    In fact when you search on youtube there are dozens of pretend-hair products search "spray on hair for men".   A more recent improvement have been hair fibres - they are sprayed over thinning hair and some people swear by them. If you're a fan of Two and a Half Men you might remember this
Here’s a website with many of the options.

Yes, balding can be seen as embarrassing for people, men in particular, and no matter how many studies link baldness with virility, many men still seek to cover a changing hairline.  But of all of these camouflages - please men, the comb over is not one of them.  Be brave, go the full Monty..