Listening to the Vampire Weekend song A-Punk is usually a pretty fun experience for me, but who knew it would contain such a wonderful nugget of wisdom? I'm referring to this line from the chorus:
Look outside at the raincoats coming, say "oh."
I should mention that I have no idea what the song is about (stealing some asshole's ring?), and in the interest of full disclosure, this blog post is not really about the song. It's about the idea Vampire Weekend seems to be communicating in that line.
I've had an atypically hard day today. I won't get into it, because that wouldn't be saying "oh." All the same, I have very little patience at the moment, particularly for artificial padding to make a simple thought into an overwrought writerly mess, so I'll get to the point: there's a common way of thinking that suggests people should face the adversity in their lives by smiling at it, welcoming it, and finding the positive side of it. I can't say I don't admire the can-do spirit that aims to make lemonade out of sour sour lemons, but I think it goes too far when it tries to turn shit into ice cream. Optimism is one thing, but denial is quite another. It's amazing that clarification is required, but indeed, bad things are bad, no two ways about it. Still, grousing through life is no way to live, so what's a man to do? Say "oh," that's what.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting that the answer to life's scrapes and bruises is an extra-thick layer of callous. What I am suggesting is a bit of perspective and a bit of acceptance. Yes, people are wearing raincoats, which means it's going to rain. Shall we match the rain with our own facial precipitation? Shall we sing in the rain like a fucking maniac, laughing our way right into pneumonia? Nothing so dramatic. Just go outside as you have in more pleasant weather. Walk the same route you always walk, and turn your face up to the sky as you tend to do. When the first droplet of rain hits you in the cheek or left eyelid, you will not need to react: you knew it was coming. What's more, you know there will be many more to follow. You can feel secure in the knowledge that you spared yourself the double indignity of being wet and angry, and that when it rains again, you may not even feel it. Of course, it's still acceptable to get mad when it rains shit instead of water, but that hardly ever happens.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Culottes Vs. Pantaloons
For many years, a question has burned in my mind: When did the switch over from knee breaches to long pants happen? And why? Who was the first guy to show up to the social event of the season wearing long pants and subsequently scandalizing the gentry? Conversely, who was the first guy to show up wearing knee breaches, illiciting the snickers and stares of the fashionistas wearing long pants?
Last night I went to a bar where a band called Les Sans Culottes was playing. I didn't actually get in, because by the time I had the cover-money in my hand, the place had filled to capacity; that's a story for another time, or maybe never. What really interested me was their name: as stupid as this sounds, it reminded me of Funky Phantom. Here's a refresher:
And in case you need more:
Wikipedia - The Funky Phantom
I have to admit that I didn't become aware of this character until his appearance on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. A regular character posed this question:
"I'm seeing a hat, a cravat, and what are those, sans-culottes? So I gots to know: what make you think you're so funky?"
The answer came in the form of a hip-hop video featuring dancing bitches, a horse-drawn carriage with hydraulics and phat rimzz, Antonin Scalia and Pat Buchanan. Hilariously current! In any case, back to the pants. Despite clearly being a member of the aristocracy of the late 18th century, Funky Phantom chooses to wear long pants; perhaps this is an element of his funkiness. But when you consider the main group that wore sans-culottes, it becomes clear that pants were more than just a fashion statement; they were also a political statement.
Of course I realize that the writers of Birdman were only trying to write an outrageous joke featuring an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon character and recognizable contemporary political figures (sad that Scalia can be called a political figure, since politics should theoretically never come into play in the Supreme Court); nonetheless, they may have stumbled into a very loaded set of circumstances. If you took a look at the wikipedia article on Sans-Culottes, you have seen that it was a term coined by the French aristocracy for peasants and the working class who did not wear the fashionable knee-breeches of the higher classes. It makes sense: the lower leg was usually covered by knee stockings and a set of buckled shoes, which would be terribly inefficient to wear during intense physical labor. The stockings would run and tear, whereas long pants would cover the leg adequately from brambles in the field or falling sparks or other detritus in factories. So now that that's clear, back to Funky Phantom. Since his aforementioned tricorner hat and cravat make it clear that he was a member of the aristocracy (he put similar articles of clothing on his fucking cat, for Christ's sake) why would he choose to buck the fashion of the time and wear long pants?
You may or may not know this, but Funky Phantom became trapped in his house during the revolutionary war and was not released until a group of kids not unlike the Scooby Doo gang stumbled into his home and freed him. In the Birdman video, he is clearly down with Scalia and Pat Buchanan. Do you see where I'm going with this? Funky Phantom is George W. Bush! The long pants are part of his populist affectation, but when the war came knocking on his door, he promptly turned tail and ran, letting the people he hoped to identify with do the dirty work. Granted, there was no Republican Party yet, so he was probably a Federalist with proto-republican leanings.
So we have a partial answer: long pants were introduced by the working class, not as a fashion statement, but out of necessity. Cartoon ghosts with heavy political prescience aside though, the working class cannot account for the switchover in the upper classes. Typically the upper classes try to hang on to the earmarks of their lives of leisure, and since knee-breeches are so laden with delicacy, refinement, and inefficiency (read "decadence"), it's difficult to reconcile the plummet in popularity the would experience in the coming years.
I can't say I have a real answer, but I do have a theory. There is only one class that mixes attributes of the lowest among the working class and some of the highest strata of the aristocracy: the military class. Around the turn of the century, the United States was still in the midst of military birth-pangs, and in France, there was total social upheaval. Lesson from the Guerilla-style Revolutionary war must have taught the militias of the time of the disadvantages of wearing sheer stockings into battle, and indeed, early military uniforms show long-pant early adopters could be found in the ranks of the military.
I wish I had more to say on the subject. I still wonder about the first man to be laughed at for wearing knee-breeches in a roomful of snooty sans-culotte wearers. I wonder how present this question was in the mind of the creators of Funky Phantom. I wonder how the band Les Sans-Culotte sounds, and if they're aware of the wry nod to fashion, politics, and populism in history their name represents. Most of all, though, I wonder when the short-pant-and stocking combo will come roaring back, and whether any of us will be ready for it. Word to your mother.
Last night I went to a bar where a band called Les Sans Culottes was playing. I didn't actually get in, because by the time I had the cover-money in my hand, the place had filled to capacity; that's a story for another time, or maybe never. What really interested me was their name: as stupid as this sounds, it reminded me of Funky Phantom. Here's a refresher:
And in case you need more:
Wikipedia - The Funky Phantom
I have to admit that I didn't become aware of this character until his appearance on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. A regular character posed this question:
"I'm seeing a hat, a cravat, and what are those, sans-culottes? So I gots to know: what make you think you're so funky?"
The answer came in the form of a hip-hop video featuring dancing bitches, a horse-drawn carriage with hydraulics and phat rimzz, Antonin Scalia and Pat Buchanan. Hilariously current! In any case, back to the pants. Despite clearly being a member of the aristocracy of the late 18th century, Funky Phantom chooses to wear long pants; perhaps this is an element of his funkiness. But when you consider the main group that wore sans-culottes, it becomes clear that pants were more than just a fashion statement; they were also a political statement.
Of course I realize that the writers of Birdman were only trying to write an outrageous joke featuring an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon character and recognizable contemporary political figures (sad that Scalia can be called a political figure, since politics should theoretically never come into play in the Supreme Court); nonetheless, they may have stumbled into a very loaded set of circumstances. If you took a look at the wikipedia article on Sans-Culottes, you have seen that it was a term coined by the French aristocracy for peasants and the working class who did not wear the fashionable knee-breeches of the higher classes. It makes sense: the lower leg was usually covered by knee stockings and a set of buckled shoes, which would be terribly inefficient to wear during intense physical labor. The stockings would run and tear, whereas long pants would cover the leg adequately from brambles in the field or falling sparks or other detritus in factories. So now that that's clear, back to Funky Phantom. Since his aforementioned tricorner hat and cravat make it clear that he was a member of the aristocracy (he put similar articles of clothing on his fucking cat, for Christ's sake) why would he choose to buck the fashion of the time and wear long pants?
You may or may not know this, but Funky Phantom became trapped in his house during the revolutionary war and was not released until a group of kids not unlike the Scooby Doo gang stumbled into his home and freed him. In the Birdman video, he is clearly down with Scalia and Pat Buchanan. Do you see where I'm going with this? Funky Phantom is George W. Bush! The long pants are part of his populist affectation, but when the war came knocking on his door, he promptly turned tail and ran, letting the people he hoped to identify with do the dirty work. Granted, there was no Republican Party yet, so he was probably a Federalist with proto-republican leanings.
So we have a partial answer: long pants were introduced by the working class, not as a fashion statement, but out of necessity. Cartoon ghosts with heavy political prescience aside though, the working class cannot account for the switchover in the upper classes. Typically the upper classes try to hang on to the earmarks of their lives of leisure, and since knee-breeches are so laden with delicacy, refinement, and inefficiency (read "decadence"), it's difficult to reconcile the plummet in popularity the would experience in the coming years.
I can't say I have a real answer, but I do have a theory. There is only one class that mixes attributes of the lowest among the working class and some of the highest strata of the aristocracy: the military class. Around the turn of the century, the United States was still in the midst of military birth-pangs, and in France, there was total social upheaval. Lesson from the Guerilla-style Revolutionary war must have taught the militias of the time of the disadvantages of wearing sheer stockings into battle, and indeed, early military uniforms show long-pant early adopters could be found in the ranks of the military.
I wish I had more to say on the subject. I still wonder about the first man to be laughed at for wearing knee-breeches in a roomful of snooty sans-culotte wearers. I wonder how present this question was in the mind of the creators of Funky Phantom. I wonder how the band Les Sans-Culotte sounds, and if they're aware of the wry nod to fashion, politics, and populism in history their name represents. Most of all, though, I wonder when the short-pant-and stocking combo will come roaring back, and whether any of us will be ready for it. Word to your mother.
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