Archives for the month of: April, 2006

Blaze Starr Dirty Dishes Gloves

Today, what seemed to be a shameless boingboing plug of useless hipster gear turned out to be oh-so much more.

The pair of "Dirty Dishes" gloves pictured with the post just happend to say "Miss Spontaneous Combustion" above the requisite strumpet. The stalkers curious who've read my about me page might recall that I (though not an outlined pinup on dishwashing gloves) am a sort of a Miss Spontaneous Combustion myself, according to the whimsical votes of high school classmates. But I had never heard of T-H-E Miss Spontaneous Combustion…

Blaze Starr Dirty Dishes Gloves

How did I manage all these years to not find out that Fannie Bell Flemming, aka Blaze Starr, aka Miss Spontaneous Combustion was a fiery, red-headed 50s burlesque star—not just some run-of-the-mill stripper, but a really famous sensation with a namesake movie about her political love affair and her own Wikipedia article (the pinnacle of fame in my book)! According to rotten.com, she even knew JFK quite personally.

Apparently Blaze (heh) was given her name by her first manager, but made it stick by stripping on a burning couch. And she's still naughty—Fannie Bell only retired from stripping at 51 (!) and now owns and manages the same club at which she was once the headline stripper. And she sells jewelry.

Well. The things you can learn from a pair of dirty dishwashing gloves.

shox news

The Italian left's embrace of the Internet has partially been out of necessity: as Berlusconi owns most of the Italian media, views that counter his have been largely absent.

[From a great if:book post about an Italian "open source film" that provides myriad comments on their elections.]

Not to say that the situation here is quite that extreme, but…it's darned close, and for that reason we have sites like daily kos and common dreams—but a video project like the Italians have going on would be miles cooler, and far less alienating for moderates.