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LIFESTYLES
Blacks
make
mark in
mystery
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. PAUL - Thirty years ago,
Paula L. Woods would sneak
Chester Himes' mysteries out of
her father's bookshelf.
“When my parents left the
house, Fd read those books with
racy covers,” Woods told at the
first-ever Black Mystery
Writers Symposium.
So, when Woods read a news
paper article many years later
describing Walter Mosley as
“the first successful African-
American crime writer,” she
knew it wasn’t true.
Woods said she was so both
ered by inaccuracies about the
history of black mystery writing
that she wrote “Spooks, Spies
and Private Eyes: Black
Mystery, Crime and Suspense
Fiction of the 20th Century.”
“The phenomenal contribution
of black mystery writers is that
they bring the culture into the
novel at the very beginning,”
Woods told the symposium
Thui’sday.
"Genre fiction gets dissed as
not being serious literature. My
own investigation shows that
black mystery fiction gives us a
window on our politics, identity,
mores.”
Among writers to whom the
symposium paid homage were
Rudolph Fisher (1897-1934) and
Himes (1909-1984). Himes
spent seven years in prison and
wrote 13 books.
John McCluskey, chairman of
Afro-American Studies at
Indiana University, talked
about Fisher and Himes as fore
fathers of black mystery fiction.
Both men, he said, wrote out of
a common African-American
tradition that combines folk
tales, poetry and humor.
McCluskey remembered buy
ing Himes’ paperbacks for 95
cents at the bus depot in
Columbus, Ohio, when he was
^young. “I liked this Himes guy.
fHis stories were short, never a
^dull moment. I liked the tough-
• ness and range of what he was
trying to do.”
Woods said blacks write more
•private-eye novels than police
j “procedurals,” mysteries that
focus on methods used by police
and detectives.
I “This is an interesting reflec-
i tion of the African-American’s
relationship to the criminal-jus
tice system. We write as an out
sider,” she said.
The symposium was part of
the four-day Bouchercon World
Mystery Convention, which con
cludes Sunday.
Hat more than crowning glory
By Jeri Young
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Hats have become African
American women’s crowning
glory.
“You must be try
ing to get God’s eye
in that hat,” is one
of the most often
heard phrase for the
thousands of
millinery-sporting
African American
women.
Although today’s
more relaxed styles
has women choosing
elegantly casual
attire for church,
traditionalists still
reach into round hat
boxes for accessories
they know will
make an outfit per
fect.
“When I was a
child, it was
unheard of to go to
church without a hat,” says
Lori Scott, merchandising
manager for E Style, a catalog
created specifically for African
American women by Johnson
Publishing and Spiegel.
African America’s love affair
with colorful hats as acces
sories can he documented to
the days
of slav
ery. The
simple
straw
field
hats
that pro-
t e c t e d
women
from the
magical
ly trans-
formed
into
Sunday
go-to-
meeting
fi n e ry
by plac
ing a
single
flower in
the
brim.
Head
* a g s
became
turbans
when
fancy
knots replaced simple ones.
“African American women
have unique hat looks,” says
Sandra Ford. “Rhinestones,
feathers, you name it. It
makes our hats unique.”
Ford, senior buyer for
Essence By Mail and pro
fessed hat aficionado, cites
three popular styles in ladies’
'X-'i/
«*4
PHOTO /CHARLES CLARKSON
hats: the watteau, roller, both
large hats with upturned
brims and the gardener, a
coolie or garden style hat.
Each style is large, brimmed
and of course, easily embell
ished.
“Hats are not just plain or
clear,” she says. “Hats have to
have a little umph. They are
primarily more embellished to
be more prominent for African
Americans.”
Hats are for wearing to
church and social functions
primarily, she adds. And there
is no such thing as an ugly
hat.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call any hat
ugly,” Ford says. “Some might
be somewhat garish to some
one who is more conservative.
Some people don’t like the
pads and rhinestone and all
those things.”
The important thing, accord-
See HATS on page 10A
Halloween comes in with a big bang
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPRINGVILLE, Iowa -
jMuch is as it should be in
!autumn at popular
;Armstrong’s Pumpkin Patch
just south of town. Pumpkins,
■squash and gourds. Hayrack
[rides. A petting zoo. The
[attractive new metal building,
[no doubt, is sheltering
[machinery at the ready to
[bring in the harvest.
( But appearances can
[deceive.
I Dare to enter and you
[descend into a labyrinth of
[dark passages. Walls rattle,
‘bodies drop, near-lifelike man-
I nequins of The Predator, The
'Alien, Pumpkinhead,
(“Independence Day” aliens
[and 30 other chilling crea-
[tures loom around every cor
oner. Smoke thickens. Strobes
iflash. Mannequins come to
[life.
What is and isn’t clear.
Just this seems sure:
Halloween isn’t one night of
trick-or-treating anymore.
The Cedar Rapids-area’s
deacon of Halloween fun-mak
ing Chris Smaby has moved
his well-visited Halloween
Yard from his northeast
Cedar Rapids house to the
new farm building at the
Armstrong pumpkin farm.
Welcome to Nightmare
Manor.
The plan is during a five-
week run each autumn to set
the farm equipment outside
and move the haunted house
in.
Smaby, who has invested
$30,000 over the years in a
troupe of creatures like no
other around, says he’s moved
to the country- to better let
lowans revel in the season.
He estimates 7,000 people
toured his yard and house last
year. All the investment and
all the work for just four
hours on Halloween night
stopped making sense, he
says.
But he thinks he has learned
this lesson: lowans have an
appetite for Halloween that
can stretch to five week.s and
that will lead them to pay $5 a
person for a chance Smaby
can scare them.
“People buy fright,” he says.
Americans, Smaby main
tains, spend more on
Halloween for treats, cos
tumes, parties, decorations
than on any other holiday but
Christmas. It’s appropriate,
he adds, that the Halloween
season should stretch over
weeks.
“I’m on a little crusade here
to give Halloween its due.”
Smaby, a karate teacher and
self-defense instructor at the
Linn County Sheriff's
Department, is something of a
historian of horror and
Halloween. His wife, Diane, is
as well.
He says the first haunted
house in the United States
was opened in 1985 In the
years since, parents in some
communities have grown less
eager to send their children
house to house trick-or-treat
ing, and have organized
Halloween parties in schools
and churches that can
promise safety.
Smaby and pumpkin farm
owners Gene and Chris
Armstrong see the haunted
house as another step in
expanding the ways to make
Halloween a fun, family time.
The Armstrongs estimate
that 40,000 to 50,000 people
visited their pumpkin farm
last year.
Jumpers
hit it big
for fall
By Francine Fames
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Geoffrey Beene is eternally
optimistic about jumpsuits as
a wardrobe necessity.
Through more than 30 years
of designing them, he has
believed that they would
someday supplant classics
such as the little black dress
and evening wear.
“I’ve always said the jump
suit will be the ball gown of
the next century,” Beene says,
“and I still think so.”
Isaac Mizrahi also champi
ons the sleek, modern silhou
ette which he calls “a dress
with legs.” But for most
designers, the jumpsuit comes
and goes.
This season it’s flying high.
Bloomingdale's catalog calls it
the “statement for fall.” And
Mizrahi says it’s “just the sex
iest thing in the world to
wear. You put one on, brush
your hair and you’re out the
door. It's an incredibly futuris
tic thing.”
Futuristic, indeed.
Jumpsuits, quick dressing for
paratroopers during World
War II, took off again in 1971
when the movie “A Clockwork
Orange” marked them as
space-age attire.
Now for fall, men as well as
women are caught up in the
fashion mostly for weekend
and evening — as designers
adopt looks from the industri
al and high-tech worlds.
Jack Herschlag in New
York, executive director of the
National Association of Men's
Sportswear Buyers Inc., offers
this assessment for
menswear:
“Tommy Hilfiger is doing a
lot of metallics and reflective
fabrics, Donna Karan is work
ing off of an industrial look,
and Robert Freda takes a
basic style that could be an
old aviator’s jumpsuit and
makes it forward fashion with
an industrial jacket over it.”
Beene likes them for women
because any single piece of
clothing “saves time and effort
and thought.” And he likes the
comfort factor.
“I recently went to a benefit,
and Fred Hayman’s wife had
one on,” Beene said. “I noticed
she danced with greater ease
than anyone else on the floor.”
Then he added: “If you look
at dancers when they’re
rehearsing, they don’t wear
skirts, they wear leotards.
They’re so great for movement
and comfort.”
Beene works with wool,
alpaca and silk, fashioned into
stretch jersey which, he says,
permits greater movement. A
black or navy wool jersey
jumpsuit with no waist,
straight legs and long kimono
sleeves is $1,750.
A Mizrahi favorite this sea
son is a strapless white wool
and silk jumpsuit with corset
bodice and straight leg, about
$1,155 suggested retail.
New York designer Gemma
Kahng says the jumpsuit is
important for evening
“because everyone seems to be
dressing a little less formally.
If you wear an evening jump
suit, you look more modern
than in a long gown. And you
can still be accepted as for
mally dressed.”
“Because it’s so simple, you
could wear it on the slopes
under a ski parka,” Golden
says. “Or dress it up with a
black square-toed boot and a
scarf at the neck and wear it
downtown for drinks and din
ner. It’s real easy.”