My friend had mentioned to Gabby in an email that I was doing a blog about a guy who had a fez collection. Gabby couldn’t let that pass. He put together a quick collection of fez-wearing figurines and mailed it to us.
Along with the figurines, Gabby sent a short review of the use of the fez by fraternal organizations, real and in one case fictional.
Many fraternal organizations are known for wearing fezzes.
Shriners are often depicted wearing a red fez; the headgear became official for the Shriners in 1872.
International Order of Alhambra wear a white fez.
Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm members wear a black fez.
Knights of Peter Claver wear a blue fez.
The Ancient Mystic Order of Samaritans wear various colors of fezzes, based upon rank.
The Knights of Khorassan wear a navy blue fez. T
The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World wear various colors of fezzes, based upon rank.
The Loyal Order of Moose’s second degree body, the Moose Legion, wear a purple fez.
In the Laurel and Hardy film Sons of the Desert members of the fictional organization of the same name wear fezzes.
Gabby opined that the Laurel and Hardy fictional headgear was far more stylish than the Raccoon Lodge headgear on The Jackie Gleason Show.
As for the figurines – Gabby spent a week in Denver while Young Emily spoke at the Society for Ethnomusicology conference. He did what he does – he walked Larimer Street imagining it as Neal Cassady knew it as a boy and then he hit every junk shop/thrift shop/second-hand shop/pawn shop he could find buying up fez figurines. This is what he sent us:
This was clearly the most expensive piece that Gabby bought. He prides himself in not paying a lot for most of what he buys, but when he sees something like this he loosens the purse strings a bit.
Many of the figurines he found were fez-wearing monkeys.
When my friend and I receive Gabby’s unsolicited collections in the mail, we display the entire collection in the hall leading to his quarters. When another collection arrives, out goes the one that’s there. We allow ourselves one piece each to keep – the rest go to friends who make lamps or deal kitsch. I’m inclined to go for the lamp pull chain here, simply because of space. My friend is smitten with the bookend as an accent to this Danish modern motif. We’ll see.
What does he think of Gabby’s Denver collection of fez figurines?
