Who will you kiss tonight? By Belle Byrd
QuailBellMagazine.com Party like it's 2012? How about party like it's 1912? Or 1812? Okay. Never mind. Neither of those were very good years. Just embrace 2012. It's the future and that means change. For nostalgic types like QB's flock of fledglings (i.e., YOU, dear readers), it's important to not only acknowledge change but even look forward to it on occasion. Tonight you're starting a new life or at least a new chapter of your old one. Dream about who you'll kiss at midnight. Maybe you already know the answer. Maybe the answer will end up surprising you. Look for fairies in the fireworks. They're the whole reason you get to enjoy the show.Sip or guzzle that champagne--it's your choice. After all, December 31st only comes once per annum. Just remember that if you choose to get drunk, you better take after your favorite drunk in history. Dance around in your par-tay dress or read until the clock strikes...ZZZ. NO, wait! Celebrate tonight however you wish. All we ask is that you DON'T, DON'T, DON'T fall asleep before midnight.Cross your heart, sure to die--and if you die, you better submit an amazing ghost story to Quail Bell Magazine.That is all, my darling Quail Bell(e)s! Happy New Year!
A Worldly NYE By Julie DiNisio
QuailBellMagazine.com Celebrating New Year’s Eve in America is a pretty standard affair. If you’re a broke-as-hell college student, you might spend the night drinking cheep beer and ringing in the event in a crappy apartment. If you’re in a more sophisticated social group, you might have a dinner party and toast midnight with some champagne. Or something. I’m not in one of those, so I can’t really speak from experience. But other countries have way more fun! Like…
• Scotland. Here, the Scots call the holiday Hogmanay and traditionally bring their friends whiskey and lumps of coal. The city of Edinburgh holds a four day long festival, culminating in a rowdy street party complete with fireworks.
• Australia. Many major cities in Australia also celebrate New Year’s Eve with fireworks. Interestingly, Sydney’s fireworks show is themed and timed to music.
• Brazil. Not surprisingly, Brazilians know how to celebrate the momentous occasion. Families get together to drink and eat, notably grapes and lentils, a custom associated with the holiday. To work off the good eats in Sao Paulo, the Saint Silvester Marathon is held.
• Italy. Many Italians also eat lentils on New Year’s Eve, or Capodanno as they call it. Ritually, some may wear red underwear for luck and they often “donate” unwanted clothes and items by dropping them out of their windows and onto the street.
• Iceland. The Icelandic enjoy some good-natured humor on New Year’s by airing a comedy show on TV which effectively “roasts” prominent citizens and celebrities. They also hold bonfires with live music and food.
Princess-y New Year's Eve By Jade Miller
QuailBellMagazine.com
For a truly fabulous New Year's Eve, it can't be a plain old Saturday night where you dress in your third favorite dress and go out to the bars you always hit. This needs to be a spectacular whirl-a-gig of fun, parties, sequins and champagne. This needs to be something out of a fairy tale.
Start the night off right with an outfit that's tight on top, perhaps a corset to show off your ample assets, and loose, with plenty of flow - be it slacks or skirt, on the bottom. You'll look like a fairy tale princess with almost no effort at all. Let's not forget the heels! Stilettos make every girl feel like they've got a hidden Evil Queen side, just the attitude needed to fend off the Prince Charmings trying to give you a kiss at midnight.
For the hair, think soft waves cascading down your back. A simple bun with some small pieces of hair to look just this side of deconstructed - Cinderella would have had that one down easy. If you've got short hair, go either super slicked down ala Emma Watson or add some mousse and spike it up, adding some oomph!
Finally, embrace the casual ease of the Rockabilly style combined with classic fairy princess. Heavy emphasis on ruby red lips and light make-up on the eyes, maybe a slight cat eye swoop if you're feeling sassy, which I bet you are, Quail Bell(e).
With these few tips, your New Years Eve will not only feel just like a fairy tale, but it'll set the stage for a truly fantastic 2012.
Horror Film: A Movement By Helen Georgia Stoddard
QuailBellMagazine.com
Alright fledglings, here's a little history lesson into the weirdness of horror films. Put on your scholar feathers and start reading:
1890s-1930s As World War I continued, Europeans sought a fresh artistic outlook on life, and ended up following through with it in the forms of cinema, architecture, and painting--especially in northern and central Europe. Thus, the Expressionist movement began with a bang.
In cinema, German Expressionism was born, reaching its peak in Berlin in the 1920s. Some of the first Expressionist films are largely known for their geometric, nonrealistic sets, with themes of madness, insanity and torture being the norm. One of the most influential German Expressionist films of the horror film movement is Robert Wiene's 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," known for its extreme geometric set and plot twist. However, the overly nonrealistic Expressionist films were only popular for a short period until the German Expressionist movement simply died (Dickos). Yet Expressionism was integrated in newer genres, like Horror and Film Noir. The horror film movement was highly influenced by German Expressionism for several reasons. First, the themes of madness, insanity, and overall torture were mimicked. In horror films, however, these themes were intensified. Early horror films were based on gothic, known tales, first written in plays or novels. Prominent characters included Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Werewolf or Wolfman, and King Kong, all are whom are still popularized in today's cinema.
'Reinvented as a Metallica Roadie' By Starling Root
QuailBellMagazine.com Punk may be dead in a physical here and now type of way, but the Internet promises that punk shall live forever. Likewise, Disney will never die. Both--despite age, despite clichés, despite hater blogs--are heroes of nostalgia.
AbsolutePunk.com assures us, with its bleeding heart logo, that “[punk] music mends broken hearts.” On the site, thousands come together to listen to and discuss punk rock. Punk.com leads you into a very corporate wonderland of fashion punk, full of pricey fishnets, animal hats, and boots. Myriad other websites—from PunkNews.org to Interpunk.com to PunkRock.org—entice punks and punk wannabes with “ultimate” this and “absolute” that. Because it's not punk without '80s hyperbole.
Googling Disney, as of today at least, yields about 867,000,000 results. There's even an unofficial website for potential Disney vacation-goers (AllEars.net). There are so many Disney-related websites, as a matter of fact, that INTERCOT has created a “definitive guide...to Disney on the Internet.” That's right: Somebody has to help you navigate through all the online Disney.
Besides their evident immortality, punk and Disney share something else in common. Meredith Woerner of io9.com, “a daily publication that covers science, science fiction, and the future,” has brought punk and Disney to an ironic Internet intersection. Woerner has given Ariel, Alice, Belle, and other dainty Disney types punk make-overs. Think pink hair and piercings and black T-shirts. Posted on December 12th, these make-overs come just in time for New Year's. 2012 will be that much darker for these Disney dames (Mayan apocalypse aside.)
Woerner's three sentence intro to the pictures begins, “What if your favorite Disney Princesses sang about the heavy-metal merits of Rammstein and neck tatts, instead of little towns and quiet villages?” What a tantalizing question indeed.
Well, it ain't over yet! By Paisley Hibou
QuailBellMagazine.com Did you know? If you lived in Victorian England, you wouldn't dream of tossing out your Christmas tree before January 6th. Removing your tree before Twelfth Night was considered bad luck!
You wouldn't want to upset Prince Albert, either. The German-born monarch popularized the German tradition of putting up a yuletide tree after he married Queen Victoria in 1841. Christmas trees at Windsor Candle featured many wax candles and, of course, presents beneath each tree.
So in the spirit of a Victorian Christmas, why don't you keep that conifer shining bright a few days longer? "On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree..."
Historic Hotspot: Savannah, GA By Julie DiNisio
QuailBellMagazine.com The holidays are about over (at least the significant ones, New Years just fails to impress me when compared to Thanksgiving and Christmas), and for many readers, the cold is starting to feel less cheery and more chapping. What can a Quail Bell(e) do but ruffle up her feathers and hermit herself in the house? Migrating down South to get some culture is always an option, and Savannah, Georgia does not fail as an historic hotspot. Granted, Georgia isn’t known for its balmy winter weather, but right now Savannah is roughly sixty degrees, the makings of a comparative heat wave if you’re stuck in, say, New York.
Savannah is a petite, character-filled city that was founded in 1733 by James Oglesthorpe, a British social reformer intent on giving debtors a second chance through settling in America. It became a royal colony less than twenty years later and acted as Georgia’s capital for a while.
This genteel city is home to the South’s first public art museum, the Telfair Museum of Art, which was founded in 1886 by a prominent citizen Mary Telfair. Since, buildings have been added to the original, and the museum itself plays host to a substantial collection of European and African-American works of art. Further proving its affinity to embrace all forms of culture, Savannah also celebrates First African Baptist Church, the (arguably) oldest African church in North America which played a large part in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War.
You won't find mamillare at Victoria's Secret.
By QB History Buff
QuailBellMagazine.com  There was no such thing as a Wonder Bra in Roman or Medieval times. You either had the 'oomph' factor or not. Actually, bras as we know them today--in their neon-colored, leopard-printed, lace-fringed selves--didn't exist at all. Many women went au naturale or used much simpler methods of bust support. In his book, The Private Life of the Romans, Harold Whetstone Johnston writes:
"At this period the dress of the matron consisted in general of three articles: the tunica interior, the tunica exterior or stola, and the palla. Beneath the tunica interior there was nothing like the modern brassiere or corset, intended to modify the figure, but a band of soft leather (mamillare) was sometimes passed around the body under the breasts for support (Fig. 146)..."
You can go ahead and try that one at home, but it probably won't be as comfortable as your Hanes Her Way.
Say "Happy New Year"...Anywhere By Jade Miller
QuailBellMagazine.com Whether you're embroidering pillows or B.S.ing your way through a cocktail party (you really did earn that P.h.D. in Linguistic Anthropology), here's how you say "Happy New Year" in a smattering of languages:
Albanian: Gëzuar vitin e ri
Bengali: Subho nababarsho
Burmese: Hnit thit ku mingalar pa
Catalan: Bon any nou
Dutch: Gelukkig Nieuwjaar
French: Bonne année
Frisian: Lokkieh Neijier
Galician: Feliz aninovo
Hebrew: Shana tova
Hindi: Nav varsh ki subhkamna
Italian: Felice anno nuovo
Korean: Seh heh bok mani bat uh seyo
Luxembourgeois: E gudd neit Joër
Mongolian: Shine jiliin bayariin mend hurgeye
Romanian: Uh an nou fericit
Shimaore: Mwaha mwema
Spanish: Feliz año nuevo
Tibetan: Tashi delek
Wolof: Dewenati
Yiddish: A gut yohor
Zulu: Unyaka omusha omuhle
A Latin American Quail, Pretty Much By QB Curator
QuailBellMagazine.com Spotted: An Elegant Crested Tinamou at the Smithsonian National Zoo Washington, D.C. (Strangely it was pecking about the Small Mammal House, not the bird exhibit.) So, no, you're wrong, that's not a quail. Honestly, as a Quail Bell(e), you should know better, but you're forgiven this time. Though you're a folklore and history geek, you may not be a bio geek on top of all that.
Anyway, 47 species of tinamous exist, with their plump selves populating Latin America. Related to the prehistoric ratites, tinamous are one of the world's most ancient birds still bobbing, laying eggs, and flying (but mostly bobbing).
But why is QB really bugging you about these birds? Because the tinamou's kind of a folklore superstar. One species, the Great Tinamou, plays reoccurring roles in South American folk tales. In Incan mythology, the tinamou's referred to as llutu, while in Quechua, the tinamou's known as Yutu. Googling "Tinamou" + "Folklore" doesn't yield as much info as you'd hope, but it's actually more fruitful than Googling the indigenous names. In this case, books are your best bet.
In Paul Richard Steele's and Catherine J. Allen's Handbook of Inca Mythology, for example, the tinamou gets more than one mention. Here's one sample:
"The partridge-like Tinamou, which in Quecha is Yutu, provides an interesting example of how myth combines the earthly characteristics of the animal and the appearance and movement of the celestial dark constellation in the night sky. The Yutu is slow and stupid and if startled starts to fly around aimlessly. In the community of Misminay close to Cuzco, Urton noted that this cumbersome bird is solitary and polygamous, which in human terms is unsociable. Its breeding habits would be unacceptable in the human world because it abandons its children's mother and continues to mate. The breeding season for the Yutu is from July to September, around the time when the first seeds are sown into the ground. The celestial Yutu also appears in the night sky at the beginning of September. Thus the terrestrial bird and the celestial Yutu appear as a threat to the newly planted seeds" (143).
There's also a folk group called Tinamou. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, Tinamou describes themselves as a band "founded upon friendship, passion, and a love for music." They released their newest album, No Compromise, 6 months ago. Like many indie bands, you can learn more about Tinamou and their experimental sound on MySpace, Reverb Nation, and YouTube.
Phew. That's a lot of folk weight for one bumbling little bird to carry. Poor tinamou but lucky you! Now you have a few folk tales to read and folk songs to download. Spread those digital wings, fledglings!
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