On hats
Cloths are wings. Koreans apparently say this often. And I am not Korean often enough.
That there be a semiotic language to our vestibular culture seems impossible to rail against. I think of my father. Where others might signal their membership to some greater pluralism through the color of their tie, the pattern of their sari, the depth of their cleavage (though it is disturbing enough to think of my father doing any one of these things) his choice of national costume is the hat.
After one makes the obvious leap from hat to allegiances, my father appears as either a renaissance man or a treachery. But since he is Korean, I wonder if it would be a choice to you at all.
Charles Mingus was my first love. I remember sitting on the floor of my college dorm room, arrested by that feeling young boys learn to either fear or abuse as musical curiosity landed on Good Bye Pork Pie Hat. The title alone ought to have deterred me from attaching interest, as its precise meaning (if there is even such a thing) evades me entirely to this day. Yet listening to the standard now, those early still elusive barely perceived pieties of mine must have become at-least known to me with that feeling. The one which for me, begins as a tickle, a brush against the back of my arms, one that gently but in a rush and all too fast darts up to and crashes at my temples. A pink electricity that makes me frow and contort my face and body to the shape of the music or the feeling; does the distinction even matter, I wonder.
Penn, Colts, Cleveland, Penn Dad
At one point: CMS, Old Navy
In middle school, hats became a ruthless battle ground of institutional paternalism and young insubordination. Hockey players in particular coveted the let-my-hat-do-the-talking-just-try-and-take-it-away-from-me-dr-mccormick mode of politic. More interesting: They sought not just to flaunt their affiliation through their headwear, but wear it as an emblazoned symbol of athletic prowess as well. The logic is beyond me, but their arguments went something like this:
1) hats = swag
2) swag = flow (long hair)
3) flow = athletic prowess.
Or was it the other way around? In any case, sportsmanship had something to do with how you dressed. Not one of these boys were Korean.
You weren’t allowed to wear hats inside buildings without threat of confiscation. It was apparently neither scholarly nor gentleman-like to do so. Boys would as such, with rather impressive espionage I might add, wear their hats inside covertly and swiftly remove them if danger ever approached. There I see some athleticism, with the speed of their reflexes and what not. Even the endurance to hold onto a flag that sits on what appears from this distance, tiny and asinine, is Herculean I suppose. But from over here, I wonder are Korean men gentle? I am not a scholar.
I refuse to believe I saw anything about my father in you when you said wearing silly hats kept you sane. I was a manic. ::for you:: Wheres my hat?
“A large hat is tall and me and all custard whole.” Gertrude Stein
It was a gift. Bright white with an embroidered yellow chick at the brow. Yellow stains have since bled from the crown of the hat as months of wearing it through montreal summers, DC internships, italian classes with Jason will do. It has become sort of a filthy record of place, temperature, and bodily temperament if you will. I wore it a lot this week because I thought it paired well with my new ensemble of spring order cloths. The left tree outside is in bloom. Why this became the object of such protracted scrutiny and jokes on a lesson about primary, secondary sources and methodology was completely baffling. Dont take it personally Mohammed. We speculated it might have something to do with the student conditioning by teachers snapping, “take off your hat!” “Take off you hood!”
Whereas in some-places the hat announces capacity (“She wears many hats in the organization”) elsewhere and depending on the blackness of your skin, such garbs become a sort of disguise and beguile. If hats can say not just what you are (a fan, a father, an athlete) but also who (black, disrespectful, up to no good) then where is the hat that will being me back to you?
How was cira green? Sunny