He looked on the lake, a swan glided by

[sovay]

I have been dedicating myself to recuperative and totally non-productive activities: I sat out in the sun, I read Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun (2020) and W. Bolingbroke Johnson's The Widening Stain (1941) and a selection of The Big Book of Reel Murders: Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (2019), I saw my parents, I did impromptu astronomy, I baked a peach crumble with cherries. I slept ten hours last night, which means I have no idea if I'll sleep at all tonight, but it was a nice change of pace. I am feeling bitter about streaming services and missing the range and accessibility of libraries. Have some links.

1. Courtesy of handful_ofdust: British Pathé's "Waistcoat Club aka Waistcoats for Women" (1955). The narrator is a bit of a twerp, but the waistcoats of all genders are pretty sweet. "Jon Pertwee has a collection dating back three hundred years." I would expect nothing less of a Time Lord who owned an opera cape. Peter Cushing, by contrast, is obviously some kind of Element. thisbluespirit, is Palladium taken? I thought of Titanium first, but then I liked the scholar-association with Athene better. It is silvery, rare, and untarnishing.

2. I had never heard of The Duke (2020) before this review by the Guardian, but: "In an earlier era, the role of Kempton would have been played by Denholm Elliott or Alastair Sim." JUST STREAM IT SOMEWHERE I CAN SEE IT AND TAKE MY MONEY OKAY.

3. I am much less likely to see Hope Gap (2019), even though I enjoyed this interview with the writer-director and all three principals. I was especially struck by Josh O'Connor's comments about vulnerability and Bill Nighy's about gender.

4. Courtesy of silveradept: Amanda E. Herbert, "Treble Hearted': Queer Intimacies in Early Modern Britain." tl;dr seventeenth-century triad with a pair of siblings and a marriage as the hinge: "Constance and Katherine's own descriptions of the bonds that all three people shared make it clear that the marriage between Herbert and Katherine was not a coverup or a sham; rather, the three wrote of their bond as tripartite."

5. This is just a very nice post about pockets: "I made some trousers with unusual pockets, and I think they're good."

Comments

[anna_wing]

Thank you for that post about pockets, it's a really good idea! Something that a pickpocket wouldn't be expecting either. I have an ankle skirt that has its pockets at the hem, entry from the top, which is surprisingly convenient when one is sitting down.

One of the few things I miss about living in New York was being able to buy summer fruit by the kilo at the Union Square greenmarket. In most places that I've lived since, buying enough peaches for a peach crumble (or cherries!) would cost more than the week's groceries.

[cyphomandra]

Your links are (as always!) a delight and while I do feel a vague inclination towards watching things, mostly now I just really want a pair of those trousers.

[sovay]

Thank you for that post about pockets, it's a really good idea!

You're welcome! It hadn't occurred to me and I loved the diagram.

Something that a pickpocket wouldn't be expecting either.

I bet it is a lot harder to unobtrusively burgle someone's knee.

I have an ankle skirt that has its pockets at the hem, entry from the top, which is surprisingly convenient when one is sitting down.

That's clever and I don't think I've ever seen it in the wild. Do you have photos?

[thistleingrey]

I think Reason may soon try Race to the Sun, unless she bounces immediately (I rarely know whether she'll bounce; she's enjoyed a different writer's RRP title, so I'm slowly sourcing some of the others). Yay for recuperative sitting in the sun.

[sovay]

Your links are (as always!) a delight and while I do feel a vague inclination towards watching things, mostly now I just really want a pair of those trousers.

Thank you!

I happen to like having pockets I can shove my hands into, but it is also true that by preference I keep wallet/keys/phone in my jackets (and my phone is tiny by modern standards, so it will in fact fit into a back jeans pocket without jabbing me in the kidneys or exploding when I sit down).

[sovay]

I think Reason may soon try Race to the Sun, unless she bounces immediately (I rarely know whether she'll bounce; she's enjoyed a different writer's RRP title, so I'm slowly sourcing some of the others).

I enjoyed it; as an introduction to the mythology it is relatively straightforward, but the kids are fine protagonists, I liked the realization of the mythological figures, and I loved Roanhorse's Spider Woman.

Yay for recuperative sitting in the sun.

Thank you!

[thisbluespirit]

"Jon Pertwee has a collection dating back three hundred years." I would expect nothing less of a Time Lord who owned an opera cape.

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure his costume was his own doing, really, too.

Peter Cushing, by contrast, is obviously some kind of Element. [personal profile] thisbluespirit, is Palladium taken? I thought of Titanium first, but then I liked the scholar-association with Athene better. It is silvery, rare, and untarnishing.

I haven't done either of them! And I hadn't thought of Peter Cushing, but I'm sure he would. (I tend to rank film stars as entirely out of my fantasy casting budget, I am now realising. Which is kind of appropriate for proper S&S casting, but still a bit ridiculous. Noo, I can't, the budget of tuppence wouldn't stand for it!!")

[selkie]

Ye olde poly V is really charming, down to the orthography. I appreciated it both academically and, you know, as a Life Tidbit.

[asakiyume]

Hurray for the 10 hours sleep! If only, as they're always talking about in science, it can be a repeatable--preferably night over night and not once every three months.

*Loved* the article on pockets; thank you! I thought the final design was great. I was a little amused that his sketched human, for showing the area where pockets can be within reach of the hands, was male, but I guess despite his noting that lack of pockets is especially a female problem, what he really was stressing--the whole reason for his developing the new prototype--was that current pockets (when they exist) are bad for everyone.

[asakiyume]

I bet it is a lot harder to unobtrusively burgle someone's knee.

This is a hilarious image. Now I'm imagining thieves developing little hooks at the end of a flexible pole or something ... and yet even those seem hard to deploy without someone noticing.

[ashlyme]

Aaargh, I need waistcoats again! There are so many in the video I wouldn't mind sporting. Particularly that red velvet one. Chuck in the long gloves too. Peter Cushing would make an excellent Element; another Technician, perhaps?

*pops some money on top of yours* I'll have my DVD of The Duke in the post now, please.

[ashlyme]

Have a few more tuppennies; this needs to happen!

[ashlyme]

Yeah, warmed the cockles, that story.

[sartorias]

Thanks for the link on the queer intimacies.

[moon_custafer]

I’m sure mid-19th-century Gangs of New York crooks could not only have managed it, but would have had a special technical name for the practice: “shinbone-fishing” or something like that.

[moon_custafer]

Morecambe and Wise or had Cushing on once, and thereafter had a running gag where he’d show up once a season still trying to get paid for his appearance.

[moon_custafer]

It did leave me wondering whether Walter, Constance’s husband, had any idea.

[thisbluespirit]

A cunning plan, really! *takes note*

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! I will put it in the imaginary budget tin and use it wisely. XD

[asakiyume]

Love it! Gonna have to try illustrating it.

[moon_custafer]

The Waistcoat Club film made me realize that on women, waistcoats *can* pretty much double as those semi-formal evening halter-tops that were popular in the 1950s, and now I want to try that, though I can’t see any cocktail parties in my immediate future, alas.

[ashlyme]

There's some old money in there too. I doubt Mr Cushing will mind too much. Great icon!

[sovay]

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure his costume was his own doing, really, too.

I would entirely believe it.

I haven't done either of them! And I hadn't thought of Peter Cushing, but I'm sure he would.

I formally request Peter Cushing as Palladium, then. He's wearing an Elemental ensemble if ever I've seen one. Besides, in 1955 he was still doing far more television than film—most of which didn't even make it to the stage of being recorded for later burnination—so the budget might stretch just far enough!

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, request noted! XD I'm not really that strict about the casting, don't worry, but it just amused me because my brain kind of went !!! can we afford him?? XD

[sovay]

and thereafter had a running gag where he’d show up once a season still trying to get paid for his appearance.

At the point in time when I was falling headlong into Peter Cushing, someone had thoughtfully strung all of those appearances together on YouTube, so that I could watch the entire run of the gag and its beautiful payoff. I hope it's still up. That's the sort of thing YouTube is for.

[sovay]

Ye olde poly V is really charming, down to the orthography. I appreciated it both academically and, you know, as a Life Tidbit.

I thought you would like to know about it! I certainly did.

[sovay]

It did leave me wondering whether Walter, Constance’s husband, had any idea.

I couldn't tell at all. There was the quotation from early in Katherine and Constance's relationship: "my dearest brother, I must beg of you not to discourse to any other what you know passes betwine Mrs. Thimelby and me; for no creature, but your selfe who knowes all my hart, dare I reveale any of this to, least exceptience be taken." But I also feel like after twenty years, a person notices something?

[sovay]

Hurray for the 10 hours sleep! If only, as they're always talking about in science, it can be a repeatable--preferably night over night and not once every three months.

Thank you! I slept nine hours last night. I had weird, partial nightmares involving Nazis and the decay or destruction of my grandparents' house, which was both unsubtle and un-ideal, but I did sleep!

I was a little amused that his sketched human, for showing the area where pockets can be within reach of the hands, was male, but I guess despite his noting that lack of pockets is especially a female problem, what he really was stressing--the whole reason for his developing the new prototype--was that current pockets (when they exist) are bad for everyone.

That was illuminating to me: I had assumed men's clothes still had functional pockets. But I wouldn't wear skinny jeans no matter which side of the aisle I bought them on, so I am unfamiliar with their ways.

[sovay]

Particularly that red velvet one. Chuck in the long gloves too.

Photographs, photographs, please. You'd be a knockout.

Peter Cushing would make an excellent Element; another Technician, perhaps?

Yes! The scholar-soldier, always.

I'll have my DVD of The Duke in the post now, please.

I like the way you think.

[sovay]

Thanks for the link on the queer intimacies.

You're welcome!

[sovay]

The Waistcoat Club film made me realize that on women, waistcoats *can* pretty much double as those semi-formal evening halter-tops that were popular in the 1950s, and now I want to try that, though I can’t see any cocktail parties in my immediate future, alas.

I commiserate on the absence of cocktail parties. If you try it at home, I would love to see the results.

[gwynnega]

RE: the Waistcoat Club, I'd never seen such a young Jean Marsh before! If I'd been asked to design the Platonic ideal of a waistcoat club, I would have included Peter Cushing and Jon Pertwee, so this clip was amazingly gratifying.

[moon_custafer]

I suppose he may well have been wrapped up in some affair of his own?

[sovay]

RE: the Waistcoat Club, I'd never seen such a young Jean Marsh before!

I, living under a rock, had no idea she'd been partnered with Jon Pertwee.

(I appear to have seen her in an uncredited part in Alberto Cavalcanti's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947), but since I didn't notice or remember, I don't think it counts.)

If I'd been asked to design the Platonic ideal of a waistcoat club, I would have included Peter Cushing and Jon Pertwee, so this clip was amazingly gratifying.

I'm so glad!

[sovay]

I suppose he may well have been wrapped up in some affair of his own?

Maybe they just didn't leave a paper trail.

[sovay]

I'm not really that strict about the casting, don't worry, but it just amused me because my brain kind of went !!! can we afford him??

I hadn't noticed until you mentioned it that you'd been casting from TV and I'm charmed.

[thistleingrey]

the kids are fine protagonists, I liked the realization of the mythological figures, and I loved Roanhorse's Spider Woman.

Good to know! (As long as Reason doesn't stop with any particular introduction to a mythology, I think it will be okay.)

[anna_wing]

I've never got round to putting photos on the internet, so no, but if you imagine a loose A-line skirt that goes down to the ankle, with a wide outside turn-up hem, stitched down a couple of times front and back to make pockets, that's it. Japanese, of course.If I wanted to make them really secure I'd put in snaps or velcro or buttons, but for small flattish things they've really rather handy.

[rosefox]

Via brithistorian and rydra_wong, I just wanted to make sure you saw these photo galleries of Congolese dandies and queer Africans.

[sovay]

I just wanted to make sure you saw these photo galleries of Congolese dandies and queer Africans.

Thank you. I had not seen either and I appreciate both very much.

[rosefox]

Then I'm delighted to have shared them with you!

[sovay]

Then I'm delighted to have shared them with you!

Nice things are always appreciated!

(I feel like I have been seeing more articles about La Sape lately and I'm not sure what changed, but it is a subculture that absolutely deserves international admiration; that kind of dedication to dandyism should be admired from space.)

[thisbluespirit]

Well, it amuses me to try and find people who actually could have been in it who seem right, and given the amount of telly of the period I've collected, it means I have screen caps to hand! But I've never really been strict about it; it's just a sort of mix of practical thing and private joke. People from modern things stole their way in anyway and some I took deliberately, especially to keep things more diverse than old telly isn't.

[brigdh]

Oh, that 'Treble Hearted' post was fascinating; thank you for sharing!

I really wish I could buy some jeans with that new pocket location right now.