Tag Archives: 70s

Let’s Make a Hook Rug! ’70s Crafts Are Making A Comeback

Ami AngelowiczJuly 19, 2009 //

I feel really old when I admit this, but when I was a little girl my mom and I used to sit around on the weekends, listen to Moody Blues records, and make hook rugs together. Awww…the death rattle of the ’70s. We are not crafty people—I don’t think either of us has made anything since—but the process was simple. It involving a patterned, plastic board type thingy, some yarn, and a needle-type implement called a latch. Lately, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the hook rug days. But as it turns out, ’70s crafts are becoming ironically cool again thanks to sites like Etsy and Crafster whose tagline is, “No Tea Cozies Without Irony.” Why? I think with all of the technology, there is a part of us that longs for simpler times with tangible things—like hands, yarn, records, and talking face-to-face. I think this year I will put my Crackberry away for an afternoon and do some crafting. Here are some more ’70s crafts that I kind of can’t wait to get my hands on. Keep reading »

It’s Never Too Late To Spawn

SimchaJuly 7, 2008 //

It’s a rare man with super sperm that can impregnate a woman when the two of them are in their seventies. The late conservative Senator Strom Thurmond, fathered a child at 74, comedian Charlie Chaplin helped his wife conceive at 73, and abstract artist Picasso made a baby at 68. And all this was before Viagra! Now science has made things possible for any Tom, Dick, and Harry with in-vitro fertilization. Thanks to IVF, Charam Singh, who is in his mid-70′s, and his 70 year-old wife just gave birth to twins over the weekend in India. Congratulations?! So we get why Angelina Jolie wants to spawn over and over again with Brad Pitt, but why on earth would this woman want to take a loan out to pay all the expensive medical bills, not to mention take her va-jane out of retirement? The Panwars already had two daughters and five grandchildren together, but it wasn’t enough for them. They wanted, and finally got, a male heir to pass their family farm onto. Thanks chauvinism! [BBC via Dlisted]

Keep reading »

Bonk: The Book

SimchaApril 10, 2008 //

Polyester isn’t just a fashion faux pas, it also makes you un-effable, as researcher Mary Roach writes in her new history book Bonk: The Curious Couple of Science and Sex. She has compiled interesting studies from the 19th century up until today, including one from Egypt, which found lab rats in polyester pants had less sex than their cotton-covered counterparts. So while the ’70s were swinging, she actually credits the ’20s flappers for the American sexual revolution. “There were sex manuals at the time that were encouraging women to try being on top,” Roach reminds us. And my how we are now! From Kinsey’s research to Castro’s butt hole, Ms. Roach’s book approaches accounts of sexual experiments with an irreverent, albeit scientific, flair. While she laments that much remains unknown about the physiological ins and outs of sex, Roach took the research into her own, er, hands , nd this book is still sure to teach you a thing or two. [NPR and Amazon] Keep reading »