?? Who are you, Ted Polhemus? - Natur och Kultur

??InterviewQuest interviewed one of the authors of Hot Bodies – Cool Styles, Ted Polhemus.Who are you, Ted Polhemus?1. Who are you?Ted Polhemus – born USA 1947, have lived in UK since 1969. I studiedanthropology and, while a free-lance writer and not an academic, mygoal has been to use an anthropological framework for understandingdress and body decoration.2. What can you say about your text?I’ve dealt with the same subject over many years but always coming at itin a slightly different way. In this book as a whole I’m trying to take onthe broad but I think very important subject of why we and our earliestancestors decorate and modify our bodies.3. What piece of advice would you give to an aspiring writer?Having been struggling with trying to make a living from writing formore than 30 years (it actually is harder today than when I started) Isometimes wish that I had developed a skill which I could fall back onto make money when necessary. If you think you will write some stuff tomake your living and then write some more creative stuff in your sparetime you may find that you never get around to the creative stuff. My ideais that if you were a plumber or a computer programmer by day that onthe weekend you might be more in the mood for the writing. But I can’tactually say as I’ve never had a ‘real’ job.4. Where do you usually find inspiration?For me the great inspiration is walking down the street and seeingsomeone (an ‘ordinary’ person, not someone who works in fashion) whohas used their own creativity and their own nerve to look amazing. Bythe way, I’ve been trying for some time to put together a website (www.worldstylefile.com) to celebrate such ‘street’ creativity. Not sure how longI can keep this going but if someone from Sweden wants to check thisout and to show off their own style in this they could contact me via mywebsite (www.tedpolhemus.com).5. What books or texts can you recommend to teenagers?I think it’s silly for teenagers to stick to reading ‘teen’ books. Stretchyourself – maybe you don’t understand everything but then I’m 61 and Idon’t understand everything either when I read. For this subject try HotBodies Cool Styles (I hate the title by the way. It was supposed to be calledThe Decorated Ape but the publishers changed it at the last moment.Which do you prefer?) or another book of mine called Style Surfing. Mybook Streetstyle is soon to be republished in an updated version from anew publisher.6. What books have had the most impact in your life?Strangely, perhaps, although I write mostly non-fiction, it is fiction (andeven more so cinema and music) which has had the most impact on me.7. What would you like your readers to remember about your text?I’m trying to figure out things like, for example, why body decorationslike tattooing and piercing (once almost unseen) have become sopopular, acceptable and even mainstream. It would be nice to thinkQuest B Engelska B © Författarna och Natur & Kultur1

??InterviewQuest interviewed one of the authors of Hot Bodies – Cool Styles, Ted Polhemus.that a read of mine might take away such a question and, perhaps,if contemplating such a body decoration for themselves would askthemselves questions about why they want to do this.8. What advice would you give to an eighteen-year-old?With regard specifically to the subjects of tattooing and piercing:although I have always been full of praise for such permanentdecorations in traditional, tribal societies – certainly one can admirethat this can be true art – I have to think that if I had gone out andgotten a tattoo when I was 18 that it is very unlikely that I would behappy with it today. I’m a liberal sort of person but occasionally when Isee teenagers getting some really stupid tattoos I think that maybe thereshould be a law that only people over 60 can get a tattoo.9. In ten days time your reader will think back to your story. What doyou think they will remember?I hope they will remember my friend Betti’s sound advice about gettinga tattoo or a piercing.10. What are you reading at the moment? What made you choosethis?I am writing a book to be called My Generation about the significanceof the baby boom generation and am specifically researching thehistory of rock & roll.Quest B Engelska B © Författarna och Natur & Kultur2