Material Affectation

Doesn't every weirdo need at least one?

I feel that I must start this work by proclaiming that I consider myself to be a writer. I sit down in my big easy chair and type words into a little computer. Soon after those words are published, and some other people pay me for writing them. This has gone on for years, so yeah, by any definition, I’m a writer.

I explain that because I must soften the blow my fellow writers might experience when I further explain that all writers are weirdos. All good writers are weirdos anyway.

It must be that way, for if a writer wasn’t a weirdo, the writer wouldn’t be able to hold a reader’s interest. We, as humans, do love to stare at those weird, out of the ordinary things we encounter. The mundane slips easily past our notice, but the strange, well the strange and weird catches our attention.

So, writers must be weird. That’s just how things work here in our mass of humanity.

Photo by Charanjeet Dhiman on Unsplash

Stephen King wrote:

“Kate’s Borsalino—a kind of fedora, comically large, almost a parody of what the well dressed Esquire man would wear—is a McKay trademark. She wears it to all her events, sweeping it off and making an extravagant bow to acknowledge the preordained storm of applause (plus boos). She was wearing it on the cover of both Ms. and Newsweek.”

That’s from King’s book ‘Never Flinch’ and the character, Kate McKay is a political writer on a book tour around the country.

She’s using the hat as a sort of affectation. As a way to help cement herself in reader’s minds. Perhaps as a businessman early in his career might do with a fancy pen or watch that he can’t really afford.

Writers do this. At least some. King has a solid basis for Kate McKay’s affectation.

Tom Wolfe and his white suits.

Fran Lebowitz with her cowboy boots, blue jeans, and tailored blazers.

Colum McCann with his scarves.

So many others; adopting a clothing accessory, item, or distinctive way of dressing that defines their look, so as to be remembered. To be interesting. For remembrance is important, and that which is interesting is better cemented into memory. When we writers write, we want our readers to remember us and to seek out our work. For what’s a writer without a reader?

For this to work, the thing, no matter what it might be, must be distinctive, and it must be repeated over and over again. George RR Martin wouldn’t have been easily recognized for his goofy fisherman’s cap if he didn’t wear a goofy fisherman’s cap constantly. Just like the fictional Kate McKay with her fine Borsalino.

And in today’s world hats are an easy sartorial trademark to establish. In our modern society the overwhelming number of people either go hatless, or wear some form of baseball cap.

So, if we choose to wear some different sort of hat, we are certainly distinctive.

And isn’t distinctive just a nicer and fancier way of saying weird? And isn’t a touch of weirdness essential within a writer? I certainly think so.

At core, these little affectations, adopted by writers and so many others from all walks of life, are a form of communication. They are meant to communicate something about the person who wears or carries them.

These little trademarks may have been adopted consciously, or subconsciously. Perhaps we are aware of what we are doing when we decide to wear a scarf even in hot weather, perhaps we are not. However it happens doesn’t really matter, I imagine it is at least partially just a part of a normal human impulse to communicate uniqueness in some way.

I also think that these affectations can communicate a sense of place. And that is quite fascinating to me.

Is there any piece of clothing, worn anywhere in the world, that communicates ‘American’ more forcefully than a cowboy hat? Does anything scream ‘Upper Midwest’ more than a distinctive Stormy Kromer cap? And this isn’t just an American phenomenon, those rough wool sewn flat caps and walking hats from Ireland are just as powerfully recognizable.

As for me, I’ve lived all of my life here in Washington State. The vast majority of it on the wet side of the Cascade mountain range. Here we are blessed with the Pacific Ocean, the incredible Salish Sea, plus rivers and lakes in every possible direction. We’ve got a great deal of water, and people spend huge amounts of recreational (and commercial) time on that water.

We are also blessed with massive damp evergreen forests. Vast areas of wilderness in which huge numbers of people work, fish, hunt, hike, and otherwise recreate.

On water or on land, it's really easy if one lives here to get out there.

As things have developed, over time, that’s lead to full brimmed canvas hats. Cotton canvas hats for sailing and boating. Waxed cotton canvas hats for working and exploring in damp shaded forests.

I wonder, is the cotton canvas hat, either unwaxed for sailing in the sun, or waxed for forestry in the rain, a distinctive emblem for this part of the country? In the way a cowboy hat might be for the nation itself, or the Stormy Kromer for the cold upper Midwest? Does that cotton canvas scream ‘Cascadia?’

I don’t know. I think it is probably impossible for me to know. Because I don’t think we can clearly see a particular place’s cultural markers if we live within that place. It’s so much easier to clearly see from the outside.

But I do imagine that if a writer from Cascadia, perhaps most specifically from the wet side of the Cascade range, was looking for a distinctive marker, a sartorial trademark by which one could be known, something to set him or her apart; the cotton canvas hat might be just the ticket.