First off, moms are awesome.  Especially mine.

Second, if you haven’t seen Firefly, rent it. Buy it.  Amazon.com currently has a set of the complete series for under $13.  You can get it here.  I became a fan of Firefly last year after attending the 10th anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con.  Check out my prior discussions of Firefly and its awesome fans here.

One of the main characters in Firefly is Jayne Cobb.  Jayne is tough.  He has a rifle named Vera.  He’s more good guy than bad guy and over the short series Jayne’s character grew to learn from his mistakes, including the betrayal of his shipmates on the Firefly class vessel called Serenity.  The role of Jayne was played by Adam Baldwin, who also played Colonel John Casey on the NBC TV series Chuck.  Since his first role as a big guy helping a little guy in My Bodyguard, Baldwin has appeared in an incredible variety of productions, usually as the tough guy in charge, from Ordinary People to Full Metal Jacket to Predator 2 to Wyatt Earp to Independence Day to the Serenity movie itself.  On television he’s been in The Cape, From the Earth to the Moon, The Outer Limits, The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, NCIS, Angel, Bones, Castle, and Leverage and voiced characters like Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Superman in animated DC Comics series.

Labeled “The Hero of Canton” (you’ll have to watch the series to learn what that means), Jayne’s most memorable scene in Firefly is an interesting choice by Joss Whedon, delving into the otherwise tough-guy persona of Jayne.  Jayne gets a gift in the mail from his mom.  It’s a stocking cap of orange and red and yellow with a ball at the top–a bit over-the-top as hats go.  It’s exactly the kind of hat that, in the 1970s, would have gotten you beaten up by the neighbor kids.  But in the 21st century knitted hats have become a badge of honor, worn everywhere from high schools to colleges to particular hats with a pop culture theme at comic conventions.  When he sees it he puts it on and says “How’s it sit? Pretty cunning, don’t you think?”  Alan Tudyk’s character Wash says “Man walks down the street in that hat–People know he’s not afraid of anything.”

So after going through a second watching of the series it occurred to me my mom is a knitter extraordinaire and she’s game for anything.  Thanks to Megan at themadhatterknits.com I was able to get the specs sent to her and the next thing you know I have my own Firefly hat.  Awesome!  (Thanks, Mom!) And for folks wanting their own Jayne hat, Megan is the most prolific maker of Firefly hats in the ‘verse so check out her website for one and other pop culture hats she makes by hand and sells there.  The California Browncoats have gone to her for their hats and she’s churned out literally hundreds for Firefly fans.

So when borg.com welcomed new twin nieces this January, we enlisted Mom again–this time to design a much smaller iteration of the Jayne hat.  And the result is just awesome–what better way for two little girls to face the world?  Welcome to the world to our own “heroines of Canton.”

People will know they’re not afraid of anything, and when they are in high school hopefully they won’t look back on us with frowns, but be wearing the grown-up size hats to their first Comic-Con.

If you want to meet Adam Baldwin he’ll be at Planet Comicon April 6-7, 2013.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com