Scott and Rene Carpenter

NASA, it seems, used to have a WHOLE LOTTA STYLE going on. I recently came across these photos from the Mercury 7 space mission (1959) and was blown away by how much they look like Astronaut Barbie. It got me on quite "the tear", if you will. I hope you'll bear with me as I derail from my clothes posts and cookbook scans into the (Walt Disney Presents voice) "worrrrrrrld of late 1950's/early 1960's spaaaaaaace travel".




When Babu bought me the recent re-issue (right) of the 1965 doll (left) as an anniversary present, I was, one, totally happy about his excellent choice and two, surprised to notice that Barbie's hair had been re-styled à la Mai Britt. I kind of like the entirely falsely colored, bubble style cut in the original, but ah well. In spite of the coiffure change, the designers did retain the original costume design, and my doll even came with a helmet and tiny American flag. Totally great. So. I thought, "Wow. Look how sharp Barbie is in her zippered boots, her plastic bucket helmet, her shiny utility onesie. So stylized. So retrofuturistic!" What I did not know was how close this costume resembles the actual suits our astronauts wore into space. I'm familiar with the NASA logo, which has always looked like a gorgeous hood ornament, but really hadn't ever inspected an actual NASA crew photo from back in the day. Usually, when I would see this kind of suit, a good looking actor or maybe a chimpanzee in a tiny scaled version would be in it. The real deal is actually pretty impressive. These men from Mercury 7 might actually look better than Barbie in their outfits! Please note the silver jump boots, and oddly ranger-ish Sam Browne belt. I love it.



As you would expect from a space-obsessed, Kennedy era America, the late fifties' public was curious as all get out to know what the pioneering spacemen of 1959 looked like. What were their families like? Where did they live? Life magazine obliged its readers with not one but two covers featuring the most glamorous of the husbands and wives of the Mercury space program, Scott and Rene Carpenter (above and below), and I obliged myself to unscrupulously use their online archive and cull each and every photo I could find from those two articles. That said:

Dig. That. Couch.






Project Mercury (1959-1963) was the first manned flight to orbit the Earth. Thirty-four year old Scott Carpenter and wife Rene (rhymes with "lean") became one of the more popular faces of that mission, for reasons you can see in the photos-- they were young, photogenic, and very All-American. Not to mention SHARP dressers... see Mrs. Carpenter's yellow slacks and pink and black print blouse, and Mr. Carpenter's Eames-ish print tie in an otherwise staid official photo. Mr. Carpenter was the fourth American in space, and the second American to orbit the earth. When you think of what a small, handful of people have made it out into Captain Kirk's final frontier, it's really a special kind of neat.



Cheescake-ish shot of the whole group in the initial training program on some kind of beach, possibly in some part of their training? How SHORT men's swimshorts were back then! I await the day men's swimshorts return to their Magnum PI level length . Briefer shorts just...look so much better to me. Alll those knees! Also note that many of the guys are wearing little rubber ankle-length galoshes, and are carrying snorkeling gear. Our man Carpenter is in the plaid shorts at the front and far right... with hands-down the best abs in the bunch, he looks like a perfect 60's Ken doll.




This set of photos feature the men of Mercury in civilian dress, and their wives in the same. The color and tone of these photos remind me of reclaimed slides I keep seeing people posts on their personal sites, just too bright, too perfect clarity. I love how similar everyone looks-- living in an age today that rejects homogeny at all costs, it's kind of neat looking back to see six out of seven men wearing the same shoes (the guy on the far left is a fashion trailblazer, wearing grey suede shoes AND grey slacks) and seven out of seven women sporting similarly shaped short hair and practically matching red lipstick. Even out of uniform, you could be in "uniform". Click on either photo (or any of these posted in this article, or any posted in any of my blogs for that matter) and get a better look at their duds. How high those waistlines, men... how high those waistlines.

You can see in particularly the photo above and the one that succeeds it just below this paragraph how Rene Carpenter distinguished herself from the group: while all the wives are pleasant looking, she's the only one with platinum blonde hair. While all the other women are wearing pretty, solid colored, high-neck-ish dresses, it's Rene Carpenter again in the red-flower print wiggle dress. She already looks like a star.



Here's a typically effusive description of her from Time magazine: "BLONDE, bronzed, deep-dimpled, green-eyed and shapely. Rene Carpenter, 34, is by anyone's standard a dish. She is also self-possessed and wise. Wearing a navy blue skirt and white middy blouse, and carrying a red scarf in her hand, she stepped before newsmen at Cape Canaveral after her husband's space voyage was over. Said she: 'I was dry-eyed the whole day. I'm not a brooding person by nature.'"


A 1969 article in Cosmopolitan magazine (I've been addicted to reading the bound copies in the stacks-- Helen Gurley Brown foreverrrrrrrrrr....) had a particularly nice picture of her, especially considering she was in her forties at the time but-looking-not-a-day-over-thirty, with long blonde hair and a short, short mini dress, and a pretty, piquant look on her unlined face. The accompanying copy was saying something about her not giving up the super short hemline any time soon, Washington wags and fashion trends be damned, and that just because she was a very famous service man's wife, she could also be a popular hostess and gadabout town? God love her. Go tell it on the mountain, Rene Carpenter.




Scott Carpenter also went on to spend the longest (a record 30 days) period of time in SEALAB, an US Navy-created underwater habit where "in addition to physiological testing, divers tested new tools, methods of salvage, and an electrically heated drysuit". I am amazed that there is a real life inspiration for both the television show Sealab 2020 and its at-times searingly funny parody series Sealab 2021. I am even more amazed that the men of the real life Sealab had a dolphin named "Tuffy" to "ferry them supplies from the surface". I read that today. In that article. The number of times I have told people about that one line of that one article will probably be in the dozens by dinnertime. The line between reality and fiction is so blurry.




Speaking of! Wait...is that...why, it's Barbara Streisand in a pose with Carpenter! Yes, he was that kind of famous. Check Streisand's mildly irridescent, striped mod pullover, her hair, eyeliner, and mile-long nails. Take notes, so you can quiz me on my identical appearance tomorrow, as I want to copy EVERYTHING about this look. On the right, you can see close-up that the space suits look to be made of the same material as shiny air conditioning ducts. The orange around the collar is a neat kind of emphasis for the neckline, though I'm sure it has some practical purpose, and as said earlier, that NASA patch is totally great. I wonder how hard it would be to make a similar outfit for Halloween? Babu would make a great astronaut in theory.







Rene Carpenter went on to have her own morning television show segment (I think it was local to Boston?) and a weekly column in the women's section of her local newspaper. She was also on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show twice, but the tapes have been lost. The Carpenters divorced in 1972, but both are still alive today. In Scott Carpenter's case, that makes him one of TWO survivors of the original "Astronaut Group 1". The other is John Glenn. So cool. These pictures just make me want to read all about Mid Century Modern....space travel! I might have to have a peek at Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff again-- I got through three chapters before I had to return the book to the school library on a one-day substituting job. Second time's a charm!

Postscript: It is my sincere wish, that if Babu DID become an astronaut, we could let our kid play with his flight helmet including ventilator tube. I looked at the photos above twice before I realized the sweet little guy in rolled Levis, Chucks, and a striped shirt IS WEARING A FLIPPIN FLIGHT HELMET. The luckiest kid. Not to mention making a heckuva fashion statement. What a great photo.

1962 Time magazine blurb on Rene Carpenter

Search "Scott and Rene Carpenter" on Google Books and you should turn up the Sept, 21, 1959 article she wrote titled "There Are No Dark Feelings".

People magazine 1975 blurb on Rene Carpenter

A lot of the images from this post were borrowed from a space enthusiasts' message board HERE , which Rene and Scott's daughter KC frequents. On this occasion, she actually helped a contributor get in touch with her mother! The wonder of the internet never ceases.

The Clothes Off My Back (3)

Gale storms, maelstroms, and blizzarding aside, I'm still playing the "tights" card every day this week. You can't take my office-workwear freedom, cold weather! There's supposed to be more of a wintry mix falling over poor, formerly sunny Tennessee today and tomorrow... but that doesn't keep me from wearing my favorite late winter dresses, and hang 'em all. This week, I've already worn two dresses I'm pretty nuts about, so I reluctantly stepped in front of the camera again to show off the goods.

Above, a 1980's, new wave, shirtwaist dress from Southern Thrift ($3.99) that almost fits like a charm-- I love the way the shoulders, sleeves, and collar fit; I haaaate the way the waist is a few inches too high and loose as a goose. It still comes off pretty well when you add a belt (estate sale, 50 cents) and a necklace (part of an "and earrings" set from an estate sale, silver and turquoise, $6). Also, happening to have your own Enid Collins of Texas bag to cap it off will certainly draw attention away from the proportion shortcomings, and straight to...a little piece of bejeweled goodness. The closest you get to "purse nirvana" this side of heaven...is Enid Collins of Texas.

You'd be smiling, too.

Since I last posted about Enid Collins bags a hundred years ago (click on the link for a time warp back to said ancient epoch, in April), I picked up this number at Music City Thrift for $5. Son of a GUN, can you imagine how excited I was. Hardly used. Near mint condition. Nestled alongside those freebie Clinique bags and some ugly strappy purses... one of my dream purses. This bag, labeled "Gazebo" in the lower left hand corner, is a canvas material lined in off white vinyl with a wood base, which makes for solid goods-carrying. The background is painted or printed, the decorations are jewels and studs of various shapes and sizes...and would you look at the tiny metal bees zzzZZZzzz'ing, two at the right, and one at the left, on either side of the bag. I could have a closetful of these guys and still not be satisfied.



Here's another outfit from this week, an all-in-one forest green, and green and beige plaid, sweater dress combination (Goodwill, $7.99). It's like they read my mind...sweater...dress... sweater PLUS dress. I was digging through the back of the closet for more wintery wear and came across this guy. The collar has an eyehook clasp so that it lays "just so". Heaven. A girl downstairs in circulation yelled from across the room, "You just look like a Christmas-y green apple!" I yelled back, "I caught a look at myself in the mirror a minute ago and I thought, 'Velma!'" Either way, love this dress. Don't know what's going on with my hair. It doesn't seem to know whether it's coming or going, lately...and sometimes it is doing both at once.

I've been digging through my old recipe cards, so I'll probably try and make a post on 1940's Christmas cookery tomorrow, scanner willing. 'Til then!

Sugar an' Spice (1950)

It is cold, people! So cold that on the last 500 feet of my downtown trek to the service entrance of the library, my black tights clad legs, only a few inches of which were visible between boot and coat hem, actually began to sting from exposure. MUST. BUY. MUKLUKS. Obviously the correct course of action. I always tell myself it's not that far to walk, and given my hatred of pants and consequent love of dresses and tights, I always end up shivering on the last frigid gasp of the bipedal portion of my commute. C'est la vie.


The upshot of the outside temperature plummeting precipitiously close to the zero mark in Nashville is the feasability of baking. During the past summer months, I once adamantly refused to let Babu cook a frozen pizza in my house, reacting as if the poor man had brought home enriched uranium in a Kroger sack. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Do you have any idea how hot it is outside? I'm not turning on that oven until December! I MIGHT NEVER TURN IT ON. As it is ALWAYS going to be a hundred blamed degrees in this house!" Bab reluctantly freezer-shelved the pizza and went BACK out for the pre-cooked variety from Little Caesar's. He is a dear, dear man.

Flash forward to the actual month of December, in which the Metro Davidson area has just received a pre-Christmas, snow and ice meterological cocktail that knocked schools out for two days (so far). The green light on the thermostat, denoting "auxilary heat", has been on for at least a week, my electric bill is going to be insane, but by God, at least there can be brownies. I baked up a Duncan Hines batch the other day and took them over to our good friends, the Huberts, house, and it has me thinking about the possibilites of cook, cook, cooking my way to a stasis-maintaining heat. In the next weeks, this blog might be a little cookbook scans heavy, but when was this ever a bad thing?

First up at the bat, for the beginning-est of beginners, I found Sugar an' Spice at an estate sale off Riverside Drive a couple months ago. From the cover, I initially took the title for a coloring book, but it's actually a "Child's First" cooking primer written by Julia Kiene, director of the Westinghouse Home Economics Institute. She dedicates the book, on the first page (below left), to her grandchildren and "ALL Little Ladies and Young Gentlemen who would like to learn more about the Art of Fine Cooking". Ain't that a peach? Ms. Kiene also authored The Betty Furness Westinghouse Cook Book, which, paradoxically enough, is not actually written by Betty Furness, but ostensibly carries her seal of approval. I see the familiar yellow cover of that cookbook at tons of used bookstores and estate sales; it appears to be a classic of the genre. Way to go, Julia Kiene.

What really got my attention in the case of Sugar an' Spice was the red and pink, whimsical illustrations and the kindly tone that accompanied the text in this beginner's cookbook. You can click on any of these scans for a full size example of the page from the text.

The recipe for "Quick Mix Devil's Food Cake" has, as an illustration, two curly tailed devils stirring the mix with their three pronged tridents, and two more beribboned tridents to fill up either margin alongside the instruction! Sinfully decadent!

"Golden Cornstarch Pudding" features a cowpoke, carrying only the object of his recipe and a pick axe, against a background of pack mule and cacti. My favorite part of this entry is in the lower portion of the page to the right. A doodled mom is carrying a hubcab sized medal to a doodled daughter, as the words "Maybe Mother will give you a medal" float alongside the scene. Maybe. But only if you follow the instructions. And Mom's feeling generous. Additionally, where did she get that medal?! Kiene warns, in describing how to measure your cornstarch: "Here's where you really must watch your P's and Q's... if your pudding is too thick, it tastes terrible..." An example of a medal-less pudding situation. Nightmarish.

The "Rangeburgers" illustration repeats the cowboy motif as two little cowkids lasso up a mess of burgers. This recipe comes from "Honolulu... and boys and girls over there love Rangeburgers." Good to know. Another tip: "Peel onion under running water. You won't weep quite so much." The wording is somehow poignant. After my last experience with a terrifically tear-inducing yellow onion from Walmart Neighborhood Market (never again), I appreciate the advice.

To the right, the Hashbrown Potatoes entry boasts one of the best drawings in the book, as a host of ingredients form a jolly chorus line on their way into the skillet. Two, cross-stitch feathered birds confer at the bottom of this and every page with a helpful cooking hint appealingly labeled "secret", intimating that you don't have to peel the potatoes for hashbrown potatoes, but you can if you want to.

More cuteness in the form of a dalmatian and the girl who is trying to feed him a sugar cookie (that is human food, dog! You should not be eating it!) for the sugar cookie recipe. The cookies jump out of the pan, swim across a squiggly sea, and head towards a sugar beach where a star-shaped member of their brethern lies, languid, on the shore. Elsewhere, the sugar cookies have built a ladder and demand equal housing in a cookie jar. Notes from the recipe: "Your arm may get tired but keep at it. Maybe Brother would like to show off his muscle on this job...Add the unbeaten eggs, beating like mad after you add each egg. If the mixture looks like scrumptious whipped cream you can rest a minute." Julia Kiene really had a chance to show her hand at imaginative prose in this book. Holiday suggestions for colored sugar and seasonal shaped items are shared on the second page.

Look! It's Oatmeal Peach Betty and her Peach Head people! The Peach Head people are partying all up and down this recipe, alone and in pairs. On the Mocha and Party icing page, a coffee kettle serves as a carriage, and for some reason there's a giraffe in the mocha cup. Possibly for flavor. The horses and carriageman are a similar mystery. Were there not enough sugar spoon chorines for this illustration?

Hope you are staying warm in this cold snap and that you enjoy the above recipes and illustrations from Sugar an' Spice as much as I did! I'm going to have to try my hand at these basic, but lovingly written, recipes very soon.

Homemaking for Teenagers (1958)

My regular bus driver and Lou Reed's drug dealer have more in common than you would initially think. At 7:50 this morning, the scheduled time for the rapid transit bus to be reaching my stop, I was thinking of the lyrics "He's never early, he's always late-- first thing you learn is that you always gotta wait" and stamping my poor little feet for warmth. Cursing the world. Nineteen degrees, Nashville? Seriously? When the bus did come, I hopped aboard in my twenty layer, Stay-Puft shaped winter clothes, found an unoccupied seat near the middle, and cracked open a delicious slice of 1958 homemaking for the ride into town.

The above copy of Homemaking for Teenagers (Book 2! Intermediate level!) was first spotted peeking out from a stack of 60's religious tracts at an estate sale off Gallatin Road two weeks ago. The man running the sale was trying to hard sell me a pair of ceramic cast Persian cats; I, not interested in said cats, was nevertheless more than happy to take this and a 20's Meal Planning for Families book off his hands (I think $1 for both of them?), and did.



One full, mostly color illustrated, chapter is devoted to the art of interior design. Be still my beating heart. Things of note-- the knobby texture of the goldenrod sectional and the tiny figural statuettes at the upper left, the faux Picasso blue period and the cobalt, plum, and yellow color scheme at the upper right, the decidedly un-Christmasy muted green and red combination to the lower left. I know these are showroom examples, and actual household snapshots may differ, but I'm always impressed with mid century design's spareness. Estate sales have spoiled me rotten, in the sense that I'm able to buy, even on my limited, mid-twenties single girl income, vast quantities of vintage knickknacks for a microscopic fraction of their original price. Thus, I am compelled to drag home backseats full of Avon bottles, ashtrays, and wall hangings in vast quantities, disregarding the "less is more" with gleeful abandon. Ah well. To each their own. It's nice to see, at least in photographs, that some can use even a modicum of nest-feathering restraint and only put into place a dozen decorative items, instead of a gross.



Speaking of decorative items, I am FASCINATED by the number of primitive art items in these examples. The term sometimes refers to weathered farmhouse kitchen tables; I'm talking about the cave drawings of Lascaux-esque wall art in the very top photo, next to the cover of the text, or the weird, semi-banjo looking musical instrument in the photo to the lower left. Could you just buy these items at Sears back in the day? The caption in the book refers to the aforementioned item as "the old musical instrument"...and this is in no way a singular, bizarre item to have in one's home, laying around? Sure, everybody has a couple of zithers and balalaikas lying around in the attic, why not put them to use? I do relish the idea of walking into the art department of Sears circa 1962, sidling past the "pricy" Vincent Price Collection, and ordering a knockoff cave painting in my choice of frames.

Additionally, to the right-- I love shuffleboards on rec room floors. It would be like having a crusie ship's deck in your own basement. Maybe someday I'll live in a house with a basement and make an attempt at one, they seem tops.



The last group of items from the textbook that I'd like to address is posted below from a section on "good taste in furniture".



And I quote: "Can you tell at a glance which of the two davenports shown above is in good taste?...If you are not sure, you might say to yourself, 'Which davenport would I rather see in my living room day after day?' Certainly you would tire of the one with the awkward shape and bulging curves...This type of design, which some would call 'cute' or 'different', should be avoided. It is neither beautiful nor truly useful."

OUCH, PEOPLE. The authoresses' scathing indictment of the second davenport's "stylelessness" (which goes on for several more sentences, which I have spared you) is wro-o-o-o-o-ong. Well, maybe not entirely wrong, but good night, which of these would people rather have in their homes today? The former, in a pretty, knobby textured turquoise, similar to the goldenrod colored one at the beginning of this post, might do all right at an estate sale. But the second one? In a nice cherry red? Shut the door, buddy. You are not getting any kind of deal on that guy, he's collectible. And you can see why! Where the women's complaint of design might have been valid to a contemporary audience, you won't see any vintage collectors levying similar criticisms to what seems like a fun, kitsch, NEW idea of a design. I can see where the course is trying to protect its student from being stuck with an ultra-50's couch that has to last one for more than the three or four years in the 50's in which that style is ACTUALLY the living edge of home furnishings, but honestly, I think it the design far outpaces its contemporaries or successors. If you love a style, you should ride it out.



Ditto on the chairs above. The text stresses "usefulness" and "classic lines"... but when a woman buys shoes, are they always oxford laceups? Or do you need a few pairs ankle straps wedges that make no sense on a practicality level, but gee they're knockouts. I think the same should apply to furniture choice. Otherwise, we would all have office furniture for our homes.



I'm not even going to tell you which of the above lamps is my favorite. Is that a man painted on the side of the lamp? IS THAT A MAN...? I love to think about what colors each of these will be.

Anyway, that's all I took away from the book in a lunch hour and a bus ride here... I'll update you on more ways to make your 1958 household the most efficient and harmonious household it can be, as I delve further into the chapters. Go ahead, click on any of the pictures above for a larger, more generous view of these rooms and schemes.