Gregory O'Brien
Gregory O’Brien is an independent writer, painter, literary critic and art curator with many books of poetry, fiction, essays and commentary to his name. Recent projects include the poetry collections Citizen of Santiago (Trapeze, 2013) and Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (Auckland University Press, 2012); and the art books Hanly (Ron Sang Publications, 2012), A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy (AUP, 2011) and Euan Macleod (Piper Press, 2010). With David Craig and Haru Sameshima, he co-authored His Own Steam: The Work of Barry Brickell (AUP, 2013).
O’Brien comments: ‘Somewhere along the way I started entertaining the notion that, while the population of the planet is increasing dramatically, the number of serious hats in the world never changes. More recently, I decided that I would start wearing a hat as soon as my father’s hat-wearing days were over—I would be his stand-in or replacement.
‘About a year ago, my elderly parents moved from Auckland to Wellington and, on account of the turbulent air currents of Lyall Bay, my father replaced his porkpie hat with a flat-topped, aerodynamically viable cheese-cutter—a cap. I was aware that my time had come. A few months later, I was in Santiago de Chile, installing the exhibition Kermadec—Art Across the Pacific at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo. Painter John Reynolds alerted me to the fact that one of the world’s truly great hat shops was just down the road from where we were staying: Donde Golpea el Monito is located on a busy corner of Avenue 21 De Mayo—the street-name of which marks the day on which the past glories of the Chilean Navy are commemorated. (I was particularly pleased with this street address as May 21 also happens to be Jenny’s and my wedding anniversary, as well as the birthdate of my distant, late relative, the poet Eileen Duggan.) Over the past century, the shop has been frequented by international film-stars, intellectuals, writers (the hat-savvy Pablo Neruda was a regular) as well as, no doubt, dictators and freedom fighters.
‘The shop’s name translates as “when the monkey strikes”—alluding to the mechanical monkey/bell-hop located in the shopwindow. Supposedly the first robot to reach South America, the straight-armed figure has been tapping its cane against the window-glass since 1922 (an enactment can be found on the store’s website).
‘With its polished wooden floor and counters, its massive gilded mirror, and its shopwindow crammed with fedoras, porkpies and sombreros (punctuated by the occasional poncho), Donde Golpea el Monito is a cathedral to the hat. A fourth generation hatter, the salesman placed one hand under my chin as he installed each hat on my head. It was like receiving holy communion.
‘The poem “sombrereria” (hat shop) is narrated by the noble and serious-faced hat-salesman I met at Donde Golpea el Monito. When we spent an hour together last May he spoke no English at all, but now, in the poem, he does.’
