Crinoline!
September 1st, 2011
While I was stitching away on my petticoat seams tonight (they’re all done, and the hem — which is masquerading as the first tuck — is pinned in), I found this picture in the Met Museum’s collection database.
It’s dated 1840s, and boy is it a beauty! As I prepare to put my new cage crinoline together, I’m also eager to make a recreation cloth crinoline. Sadly, real crinoline — from the French word crin, a reference to the horsehair that provides its characteristic stiffness — is no longer available. But I am always on the hunt for a reasonable substitute.
Now at least I know what the finished product should look like.
Whew!
August 31st, 2011
What a week. And it’s only Tuesday…
I feel just like this painting (Flaming June, by Lord Frederic Leighton) looks — warm and sleepy and ready to curl up on a divan somewhere.
As you may have gathered from recent posts, I’ve lately been helping to arrange a monumental series of photo shoots for artist Hal Hirshorn (which will be shown in an upcoming exhibit that I am curating). The final shoot was today, in the New York City Marble Cemetery. Here’s a sneak peak, as posted on an East Village blog, with snapshots taken by some folks who just happened to be wandering past while Hal was shooting.
Then tonight, after standing around all day in the hot sun, wearing 19th-century mourning clothes, I ran over to the Hudson Park Library to supervise a lecture about the restoration going on at the Merchant’s House Museum, given by one of the City’s architectural conservators.
Last evening, we had a meeting of the New York Nineteenth Century Society. Everyone was encouraged to bring something to show and tell, so I dragged my cello to Madame X (our de facto clubhouse) and led everyone in singing “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls.” It was a grand moment, despite my very limited musicianship. Other impressive offerings included Cherry Bounce, a Bartitsu demonstration, an embroidered Regency gown, a Victorian inspired jacket, a Puccini aria, to name a few.
I made this a while ago, and am sharing it now to give you an idea of what you missed. Picture 15 slightly tipsy people singing along in the back garden of a “vampire bordello” themed SoHo bar…
Let’s see, what else? I’ve nearly finished my crocheted edging. And I’ve starting hand-sewing the tucked petticoat to which it will soon be attached. I recently finished The Mayor of Casterbridge, and am now working on The Last Chronicle of Barset. Not sure what I’ll pick up next, but a good friend assures me that Jude the Obscure is among Hardy’s best, and by far the most depressing. Which is really saying something, if you ask me!
Well I think that’s about it, at least for things that would be likely to interest you. Hopefully I’ll settle back into a normal routine soon, and start sharing some less frenetic posts.
I’d Like to See This…
August 30th, 2011
Sometimes, when I’m looking through old books online (what did we do before Google Books??), I run across a tidbit that is completely unrelated to my search, but too wonderful to be passed up. Here’s one of my all-time favorites, just discovered while browsing for embroidered “inserting” patterns.
The only remedy known, which is sure of completely ridding infested vegetation of all the Aphides upon it, is the smoke of tobacco. But unfortunately this can only be resorted to in the case of rose bushes and other low shrubs or small trees. For enclosing a shrub to be operated upon, gardeners abroad use a large box, a hogshead, or a kind of small tent humorously described some time since by Prof. Ijndley, under the name of a “Parapetticoat,”—made by sewing the upper end of a worn-out but entire petticoat to the outer edge of an opened parasol that has been thrown aside, any holes in its cover being first mended, and a staff six feet long securely tied to its handle. The petticoat being then raised up in folds to the parasol, the staff is inserted into the ground under the centre of the infested shrub, and the petticoat is drawn down to surround and inclose all of the foliage of the shrub. The interior is then filled densely with tobacco smoke for the space of five or ten minutes, or long enough to insure the fumes penetrating every curl, plait and crevice of the foliage. The apparatus is hereupon removed and the foliage immediately washed with lukewarm water from a large syringe, else it too would be liable to be destroyed. This utterly exterminates the Aphis from the shrub, every insect being suffocated and dropping from the plant, so that “unnumbered corses strew the fatal plain.”
— Salem, N.Y., 1855
I would truly love to see this in action. Please.
An Aphid
I Prefer Pygmalion
August 29th, 2011
We recently watched the 1938 British film adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play, starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Pygmalion is my second favorite by Shaw, coming just after Caesar and Cleopatra and just ahead of The Devil’s Disciple in my humble estimation. And I owned a copy of the film on VHS as a child. I think my mother bought it to distract me from Gone with the Wind…
Anyway, seeing Pygmalion again kindled a desire to see My Fair Lady — or at least Hollywood’s 1964 version with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, reprising his Broadway role, originally delivered opposite Julie Andrews. I had the Broadway soundtrack on cassette, and later on LP, so have great affection for the score. Who doesn’t love Lerner & Loewe? But I must say, the film didn’t impress me in the least as I crocheted through all 170 minutes of it last weekend.
Compared to the soaring voice of Julie Andrews, Marni Nixon falls sadly flat. And the chemistry between Hepburn and Harrison is completely lacklustre. Even the edited dialogue is disappointing, after the refreshingly faithful 1938 film script. And where was that sparkling Shavian delivery that distinguishes Howard and Hiller’s exchanges? Every scene in the musical seems a beat or two behind.
By far though, the most horrifying aspect of My Fair Lady is the Edwardian decor, as imagined by 1964. That wallpaper! That upholstered sofa!
If you’re wondering how much better Pygmalion did on the same count, there’s no comparison. The film was translated seamlessly to the 1930s.
Flood on the Floss
August 28th, 2011
With hurricane Irene dominating every local media outlet, flooding is very much on our minds here in Greenwich Village. Which reminds me of my favorite (so far) literary flood, from the dramatic final volume of George Elliot’s The Mill on the Floss.
“At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about her knees and feet: it was water flowing under her. She started up: the stream was flowing under the door that led into the passage. She was not bewildered for an instant— she knew it was the flood! . . .
“And without a moment’s shudder of fear, she plunged through the water, which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill, and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and protruding through the window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand. . .
“She was floating in smooth water now—perhaps far on the over-flooded fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her whereabout—that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot towards which all her anxieties tended. . .
“For the first time Maggie’s heart began to beat in an agony of dread. She sat helpless—dimly conscious that she was being floated along—more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was transient: it passed away before the oncoming warehouses of St Ogg’s: she had passed the mouth of the Ripple, then: now, she must use all her skill and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of the current.”
What? You’re frustrated because I’ve left so much out — including the startling conclusion to Maggie’s boat ride? Well I guess you’ll just have to get a copy of the book and read it for yourself!
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