November 07, 2010

The Blessing of a Good Skirt.
posted by homunculus 13 years ago
  • ...style will never preclude adventure, and sometimes the burden of gender and civilization is on your side. Not so sure about the second part.
  • Dervla Murphy ... This Irish nurse launched her travel career in 1963, completing a solo bicycle tour through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, and describing it in her first book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle. Since then, she has written more than 20 books chronicling her journeys through India, Nepal, Baltistan, Laos, the Balkans and several African countries, many by bike. You’ll find an homage to Murphy in the current New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea, in which authors Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin recount, with awe, Murphy’s early ’70s trip through Pakistan’s forbidding Indus Gorge. She did it in the dead of winter, on horseback, with her 5-year-old daughter in tow. Intrepid doesn’t do it justice. (from Worldhum) More here
  • I liked the scene in The Piano wherein the lady and her kids camp out in the rain under her big Victorian skirt!
  • I don't think we should skirt the issue, we should ad-dress it directly and girdle it, not keeping it brief, cutting it short or cutting it any slack. We may work up a sweat and end up panting, but if we sock it to it and keep stocking up on supplies, it'll fit us to a T.
  • *suspects foop has a vested interest in the subject, to boot*
  • Mary Mary all unwary must ye stride through the jungle all forlorn? don't set your foot where ye cannot see lest ye fall in a hole that's lined with thorn
  • Mary Kingsley, dressed in a skirt fell in a hole that was dug in the dirt. There were spikes in the hole, now isn't that rum? But the skirt was quite thick and protected her bum.
  • After composing, I'm much too exhausted to run after foop, but when I catch him, I'm will divest him of his weapuns.
  • Ladies fashion - especially in other periods - is not something I know much about, but the results of Googling indicate Victorian walking skirts were usually lined. Petticoats or underskirts seem to have been worn also. Hard to believe Victorians were so inhibited back then as to wear heavy clothing in the tropics, but many records of severe prickly heat attest to the practice. every lady every lass should keep on adding lots of padding in order to cover her venturesome ass Not a common Victorian sentiment, perhaps, but certainly practical under the circumstances.
  • I look forward to seeing this in the next J. Peterman catalogue.