Alice Beatitude says, hey man, gonna bake a boggle cake
As might be expected, Alice Beatitude, High Priestess of the Zen Cake Happening, did all her baking in full hippy regalia - the appliqued loon pants, the floaty tops with beads and mirrors, and absolutely never an apron - 'Pinnies bring me down, man, y'know?': yet such was her state of harmony with the Cosmic Cake Vibe that she never spilt or splashed anything on her finery.
She and I are boggled by this article in today's Guardian G2 Women's Page (o, truly is August hight the Silly Season):
A new breed of young women is embracing the image of the 1950s housewife, celebrating baking, afternoon tea and knitting. They say their pastime is ironic - even rebellious
We start out with a project that Ms Beatitude might be able to get behind (what with the high woowoo quotient 'n all):
Together with friend Lorraine Williams, aka Fondant Fancy, Shail hosts the Great Cake Escape - part-hobby, part-performance art - which involves the 25-year-olds "releasing" cakes on to the street, to be found by unsuspecting passersby. Targets so far include the pavements of Truro in Cornwall and club nights in London, including SheBop. The cakes carry messages for the befuddled recipients ("Eat Me", "Read This"), along with the address for a MySpace page, where they can register their reaction. "The cupcake is a real symbol of femininity and a camp symbol of a bygone era," says Shail. "People really respond to it and love it."
Except, I am reminded of my objections to the Great Project of Let's All Be Consciously Nice
(Although, unfortunately, few people actually eat the cakes, because they tend to assume that they are poisoned or laced with drugs.)
Quite
But this article contains an awful lot of headbangery, codslappery, and general WTF.
E.g. "Anything which is very personal and behind closed doors and pleasurable for women is subversive these days," she says wryly. I.e. what women's pleasures have always been supposed to be suddenly becomes Yay Rad? I think not, really.
'Frisson of the taboo'? Tonstant Weader says plz can haz sickbag?
And as for this...
There is also an aspect of historical re-creation here, says Shail. "It's about being allowed to be ultra-feminine. I think there is a real beauty about that time [the 1950s] because it's so far removed. I love looking at photographs of my grandma and what she wore at the time."
As someone who grew up during this lovely glamorous period (not), and is rather incensed at its being characterised as something as far away as the Victorians, I should like to slap this individual senseless with a codfish, while she struggles with maintaining a real 1950s wardrobe of clothes that were extremely high maintenance, especially in the days of fewer and less sophisticated washing machines, with the starching, the ironing, etc not to mention the really uncomfortable and constricting underclothes.
I have nothing against women finding pleasure in crafts, but really, claiming that their retro vision of the 50s, of all decades, is some kind of Wimmyn's Mysteriez: a chance to carve out their own space away from men, a place where they can gather to celebrate and enjoy traditionally female crafts (you know, like how to procure your own abortion with that traditional feminine object, the knitting needle, because with the difficulty of obtaining reliable contraception, and the illegality of abortion, you well might need this) - FAIL.