From JaniceG: Hatpin! Self defense! Hatpins as self defense tools!
“When attacked from behind, she grasps a hatpin. Turning quickly, she is able to strike a fatal blow in the face.”
This would be a good addition to steampunk. We don't need more googles. We need BIG ASS HATPINS holding on the fascinators, which themselves could double as ninja stars.
No, don't thank me, I'll be here all day. Me and my bottle of narcotic cough syrup.
Another link!
Somewhere in the last few days, I was tweeted this link. I have no idea where the origin is, so if it was you, you are totally awesome and made of all winsome things.
Have a look at what happens when REM song titles are made into book titles and sorted by genre. It's hilarious fun.
The “erotica” and “memoir” sections alone made me snort laugh.
Re: REM songs/book titles—As a children’s bookseller, that section in particular made me laugh so hard. I can just picture the illustrations for Eric Carle’s “Swan Swan Hummingbird.”
Looks like I need to read thisParrot & Company. I’ve read MacGrath before, but in hit or miss he’s mainly miss. This, however, sounds redeeming.
Oh yeah, and get well, Sarah.
Wow! Hatpin defense! Loved it. Maybe we all should start wearing those big hats again? I also found the title of books funny. Who would ever have thought of using song titles? I think it is a funny idea, especially if the title didn’t have anything to do with the content.
1995 Free to Fight compilation of punk songs and self-defense manifesto has a girl telling a story about her grandmother on the bus back in the day, when men would pinch the ladies they would stab them with hatpins. I loved it. I wanted to start wearing “church hats” just so I could stab unruly boys…
OMG! NEW TEST LEPER! Am Now shrieking with laughter and soon to be ejected forcibly from the library!
Re hatpins: See “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”. Pervert pinchers beware.
And Sarah, feel better!
The memoir titles made me oh, so happy!
Thanks, y’all. I’m so glad you found the REM titles as scream-funny as I did!!
A relative of mine knew a woman, back in the 1940s, who carried a hatpin in her purse—I’m not sure “carried” is the right word. “Was armed with” might be more accurate. In either case, the hat pin was sticking out from the purse. This provided her with adequate space, and often a seat, on the NYC subway at rush hour.
I always thought that was rather a good idea.
I know that I have read a mystery where a hat pin was the murder weapon. I think it was poisoned. I can see many hours of trying to remember the rest in my future.
Agatha Christie? Georgette Heyer?
Henofthewoods: I think you’re thinking of The Odd Job by Charlotte McLeod. (I know I was.) And a special shout out to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn too! I loved the thing about carrying the hatpin and HOPING to have a chance to use it…and then never getting the opportunity.
Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime has one story with a stabbing with a hatpin . . . and I’m pretty sure another short story of hers (The Tape-Measure Murder) had a needle involved.
Gail Carriger’s Soulless has the heroine kill a vampire with a wooden hairpin in the first chapter.
According to my grandma, back in the early days of professional wrestling, when she was a girl, there was a woman called Hat Pin something or another (Mary, maybe?) who would interrupt all of Gorgeous George’s matches and stab his opponents with hat pins so George could win. She was allegedly a fan of George and definitely not a paid performer. I love everything about that conceit and feel it could only improve the WWE.
Thanks for this great share.
One of the Gaslight Mysteries by Victoria Thompson has this weapon.
Back in the ‘60’s, my mom would carry an antique hat pin as her measure for self defense. It was left over from my grandma who was an older parent and still needed hat pins for when she was a young girl. Hat pins went out of fashion way too quick!
I actually played the lead in a one-act play once, where I murdered my husband with a hatpin to the heart.
New Test Leper, by Stephen R. Donaldson made me snort-laugh my lunch.
And I so want to write a hatpin duel between my heroine and my hero’s ex. Nothing like a Victorian Steampunk catfight.
I am obviously a Philistine. There were way too many authors in the Fiction/Literature section that I didn’t know.
There actually is a memoir called Automatic for the People, with every chapter vaguely focused on a different song from the album. It’s by Matthue Roth, who also wrote Never Mind the Goldbergs, which is a great book. default7820 {“method”:“validate”,“params”:[],“id”:1,“jsonrpc”:“2.0”}
Absent poison, how exactly would you kill someone with a hatpin by hitting them in the *face*? In the jugular, yes. Maybe directly into the eye (but even that’s not guaranteed to kill). A hatpin is narrow. You could cause a fair bit of pain, but a fatal injury? Would take some hard work.
Tony Randall used to go on the Johnny Carson show and sing old English music hall-type ditties. I remember him doing one about “Young ladies, don’t go out without your hatpins.” Anyone remember any song like that?
Fall on Me!! Too funny.