Weekend Event - watches

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I wish it was less blurry

Comments

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Best I can do ya.

http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y359/Fun2goFish/Catalog%20snips/ScreenShot2012-12-24at114450AM.png~original

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. It's better than it was - at least can read some of it. I always love the language of the old ads.

“Separated by a Common Language”

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

“Do you have to wait your turn in the stag line to get a dance with your own daughter?”

That phrase would bounce right off most people of that daughter's age today.  It shouldn't be difficult to figure out what it probably means (at least I hope not), but if you asked them about her “dance card” they'd be totally nonplussed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Dance_card.jpg

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

BUT you really have to know the culture to recognize that Sis (#4) is unmarried. This is why her watch is from her brother, not her husband - and her hair is down, covering the nape of her neck, as is the daughter's, for the same reason.  Many cultures thus distinguish married women from unmarried, and we did also up until the 1960s.

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about the hair. I know that you wear a flower behind a different ear if you are married or not. Makes sense.

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Here's another case in point, that I saw just yesterday:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8615/16699908492_e66b9a0879_k.jpg

Observe mother and daughter.  We today see the effect as matronly, with the negative connotations that implies, but they saw it as socially appropriate:  She's a wife and mother now, an adult, and must look the part.

There used to be quite exact dress codes in this country - what you are is how you dress is who you are, whether you're a college kid or country folk or urban professional or whatever.  It wasn't seen as repressive, then, it was just the way things were.

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

And I, for one, am damn glad I can wear what I what pretty much when I feel like it these days and not worry about sending the appropriate (or not) messages. Guess they need something to do since they didn't have computers, cell phones or a host of other electronic devices to eat up their spare time.

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

That's more accurate than you may realize. “The role of boredom in human affairs is seldom perceived,” is very close to a quote from John Lennon, I believe.. (… Yah.  Well, the wording might vary somewhat.)  Looking at any pre-electronic culture, you can see it in everything from cuisine to party games to social punctilio.  Do you play bridge?  What about whist?  Do you know anyone who does?  Those are two of the most absurdly, insanely, pointlessly complicated card games ever invented…  but on long winter nights when there's not a sound but the ticking of the mantel clock, no radio, no TV, no Internet and the whole family is ready to knife each other - it gives them something to occupy their attention.  So does music, played at home. So do elaborate party games. So does gossip.

But as for fashion - and its constraints - well, it's a question of priorities.  Who decided that 'gangsta' fashion involved droopy-pants and boxers and baseball hats with gold foil sticker turned at ridiculous angles?  Yet it's an absolute uniform.  So was the zoot suit.  Conform or be cast out.

Which is what any “social convention” is about, really.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/db/68/00/db68008be556f33ea7552aeafe8543ae.jpg

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Ah, here's what I was thinking of as I wrote that:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3488/4058899107_9e44faa052_o.jpg

Note how 'Jed Clampett' there in the middle row is wearing a plaid shirt (!) and coat with no handkerchief. While Joe College is the only one with a bow tie. And so on. [And that driver is total overload:  Does he moonlight as a hotel doorman or something?  Why ever in the world - ]

Any of these people could dress like any of the others…  but they wouldn't be comfortable doing so.  (And if some bearded beatnik in jeans and sandals tried to ride, the driver might not let him board the bus!)

Re: “Separated by a Common Language”

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I will have to ask one of the younger actresses or actors at work if they know what a stag line is.