s u n s e t p o s t c a r d s

“the tradition dates back to 1912, when jim crow was the law of the land in the south. it all started in new orleans’ red-light district, which itself was divided along racial lines. the storyville area, where the sex industry was legal, was for white customers; black customers had to go a few blocks away where prostitution was illegal, but allowed. …between these two red-light districts, there was a kind of rivalry. one year the women in the black district heard that their counterparts in storyville were going to dress up for mardi gras; they decided they needed to come up with some good costumes to compete.

“and they said, ‘let’s just be baby dolls because that’s what the men call us. they call us baby dolls, and let’s be red hot,’ ” vaz says. 

calling a woman “baby” had just made its way into the popular lexicon, with songs like “pretty baby” written by new orleans native tony jackson. there was, however, something subversive about black sex workers dressing this way.

“at that time, baby dolls were very rare and very hard to get,” vaz says. “so it had all that double meaning in it because african-american women weren’t considered precious and doll-like.”

just the fact that these prostitutes were masking and going out into the street at all was a big deal. women just did not do that then. and as sex workers, these women were already taboo. vaz says they just kept piling on by appropriating males behaviors like smoking cigars and flinging money at the men.

“if you went to touch their garter, they would hurt you,” she says. 

the baby dolls carried walking sticks they would use in their dances, as well as to defend themselves. it was about fun, vaz says, but it was a kind of laughter to keep from crying.

“at that time … residential segregation was practiced, job discrimination was practiced [and] women didn’t have the right to vote,” she says. “the one way that they could make a statement was through their dance and their dress and their song. it’s when you’ve exhausted all your legal remedies that you have to use the culture to make a statement and express yourself.”

- the ‘baby dolls’ of mardi gras: a fun tradition with a serious side, by tina antolini on npr.com 

“i am your shower curtain and i am watching you. i surround you. i shield you and i like you. i like to see the water touch you, travel down upon you, searching, falling away from you. i like to see you lather. i like to see you rinse. i like to see you thinking your thoughts with your eyes closed. i do not like to hear you hum. i do not like to hear you sing. i like you quiet. i like you thinking, silently, your lips moving, your eyes closed tight. i like your fingers, your wrists, your toes. i like your shins, your knees. i like the way the water funnels between your legs and cascades down, turning in corkscrews. i like it when you like yourself. when you give a moment to your thighs. when you give a moment to the back of your neck, to the inner fold of your arm. take a moment. give yourself time. take the soap and make circles on your flesh. make slow circles on your flesh. make long elliptical shapes upon your beautiful flesh. your beautiful flesh today. tomorrow your flesh will be different. it will be older. appreciate it now. your flesh is a miracle. you started from nothing, from an egg too small to see. then a relentless multiplication of cells, each one a miracle, each one a preposterous happening. and from this ridiculous profusion now you are you. you are a giant and water is falling upon you and you are cleaning yourself because you are beautiful. please don’t think about anything else. i know i said i like to see you think but that, i realize now, is not true. i don’t want to see you think. i only want the elliptical touching of your flesh. throw your mind away and enjoy your wet flesh. thrill in your existence. your persistence. the fact that you can be here, under this falling water. this, as much as any other reason, is why you are here, why you exist. to enjoy this. to feel this. it is good enough. it is good enough to justify everything else.”
- dave eggers, as printed on a shower curtain for the thing quarterly, issue 16

“at that period in my life, i had no personal defenses. i felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. i felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and i couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. or to be happy. but the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.”
- joni mitchell, regarding the blue album, speaking to cameron crowe, billboard magazine 1979