Story Time With J-Dub: Episode 7 – “The Sports Education of Caftan Woman”

This installment of Story Time With J-Dub is going to be a bit of a “hybrid.” In the past, these bits have either been about movies, stories tied to movies, or just general tales of from my sojourn through life. Today’s trek through this relatively new series is a big blog burrito chock full of all three ingredients, with an emphasis on the “sojourn through life” part.

That brings us to why we’re all here today. This is my contribution to the celebration of another’s sojourn; The Caftan Woman Blog-A-Thon – Honoring Patricia Nolan-Hall being hosted by Jacqueline at Another Old Movie Blog and Patty at Lady Eve’s Reel Life (you can see all the contributions to this event here).

This is only the third time in the dozen-plus-year history of this blog the I’m writing an “RIP” piece about a non-celebrity figure; and the first for somebody I never actually met in person. But that’s a testament to the power of the blog-o-sphere.

There’s a reason for that. As part of an event honoring Patricia Nolan-Hall and her blog Caftan Woman, there has been much discussion of her efforts supporting other bloggers. As much as that may be true, there’s no better example of that than this very blog.

As impolitic as it may be, Dubsism can be best described by the old Cher song Half-Breed.

My blog…like almost every other blog…is a reflection of interest. In my case, that means a strange blend of worlds whose populations don’t really intersect. Dubsism is an odd hybrid of sports and cinema, as such it lives in a “no-man’s” land. The “lion’s share” of sports fans aren’t devotées of classic cinema, and the inverse is also overwhelmingly true.

As such, both camps are not terribly interested in (or accepting of) something outside of their arenas Regardless, Dubsism really is an exercise of “square peg into round hole;” I’ve never really cared if my interests don’t really have a a typically-defined audience. That explains the occasional dusting of pop-culture types and their never-ending quest for unique content. The composition can be expressed both proportionally and intersectionally by the universal horror of 8^th-grade algebra…the Venn diagram.

For my money, I’d be willing to bet Caftan Woman came to Dubsism somewhere in the union between Classic Cinema and Pop Culture. Sports Analogies Hidden in Classic Movies is the signature series representing that melding. While it existed before I ever discovered the film blog community or the phenomenon known as the blog-a-thon, it certainly served as the route of entry into both. That came in the form of my contribution to a William Holden blog-a-thon hosted By The Wonderful World Of Cinema, The Flapper Dame, and Love Letters To Old Hollywood.

Obviously, what I was offering was very different from anything anybody had seen, but from the jump, Caftan Woman embraced it. As the saying goes, her first comment was a “preview of coming attractions.”

From that day forward, she was a regular commenter. With precious few exceptions, there was theme to her quips; the first being y usually were along the lines of “I was never a sports fan, but…” That started with my theory of Van Johnson as “Hollywood’s Back-Up Quarterback.”

Well, not only did Caftan woman “get it,” but it was becoming clear there was a connection between her “getting it” and more and more film bloggers doing the same. That only continued with my exploration of the connection between Joseph Cotten and the National football League strike of 2011.

She might have been the first to say it, but she certainly wasn’t the last. You could do a “deep dive” on just about any installment in the “Sports Analogies” series, and the odds are better than not you will see a comment along the lines of “your analogy made me understand (topic) about sports.” One of the more popular examples was the connection between “character” actors in a movie and the offensive linemen on a football team.

But it didn’t stop with football, and it wasn’t limited to movie plots. I wasn’t sure how a straight-up comparison between a movie legend and the most-feared baseball slugger of the 1960s would be received, but once it had the “Caftan Woman Seal of Approval,” I knew I’d (cliché alert) hit my own home run with the movie bloggers.

But the pièce de résistance comes at the end of every installment…and it was one of Caftan Woman’s favorite features. Every episode of Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies caps off with the “Moral of the Story.” Her affinity for those started with a trip to the “old” movie theater for a screening of King Solomon’s Mines.

Of course, these are just examples. She may be gone, but as long as this blog exists, her words…and more importantly her spirit…will live on. Well, Caftan Woman…a.k.a Paddy Lee…a.k.a. Patricia Nolan-Hall…there’s a reason why the “moral” from a piece about the passing of legendary football coach John Madden was dedicated to you as well. She may not have known about sports, but in the blog world, she changed the game.

But after all that, I still the haven’t mentioned the most obvious example Caftan Woman’s legacy….you’re reading this.

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You can see all the episodes of “Story Time” here.

Check out Dubsism’s Movies and Blog-A-Thons page for a full schedule of projects past, present, and future!

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