Friday, July 18, 2008

Tights

TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall's belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as "modesty." The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts themselves recovered. This is an epoch of renaissances, and there is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.

2008 Update:  A professional informality incorporated into the uniform of dancers, "consultants," spouses and pharmaceutical representatives after hours.

15 comments:

Jim said...

Tights: My mother taught me that the tights go down as the mites go up. I think it was Mom?
..
Still first?
..

Logophile said...

Jim,
I thought it was something about tights and lights, or lack thereof.

Anyway, after hours it ALLLL about the stockings, isn't it?

Al said...

Tights: 1. A way of advertising the unmentionable; 2. For the overgrown, Underoos.

mireille said...

hmmm tell us more about the pharmaceutical rep *rests chin on hands, waiting for good story* xoxo

javajazz said...

i prefer to use my rampant
imagination...
you slay me, mr humour.
of all the suits you could have picked,
a pharmaceutical rep...yeee!

(i love a man in tights...)

Anonymous said...

BIERCE DISAPPEARANCE MYSTERY SOLVED!

Honolulu, July 18th, 2008 (WAP). A chance find in local hospital records, unearthed during conversion of an early 20th-century medical center into luxury condominiums, may have discovered the final resting place of the American satirical writer Ambrose Bierce - on Oahu.

"The record, dated April 23, 1914, is from an unnamed doctor recording the death of a John Doe who had been brought into the medical center from Waikiki Beach", said researcher Tipur Soot, a historian at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "The cause of death is given as 'apoplexy', exacerbated by what appeared to be old, and imperfectly healed, bullet damage to the head, and by the clothes he was wearing - a woolen, full-length Victorian-style bathing suit. A witness statement appended to the record said 'Subject stepped onto the beach, was confronted by a young lady in a string bikini, and collapsed instantly.' In his death throes, the record states, he spoke only one word, repeated several times, which the attending physician could not decide whether it was 'Bierce' or 'beer' or 'be[autiful]."

"It looks", said Soot, "that Ambrose Bierce gave Pancho Villa and everyone else the slip in early 1914 and decided to visit Hawaii, only to be done in by his Victorian sensibilities - he was famously averse even to tights, never mind string bikinis."

Because Bierce did not have any identification on him when he died, it is unlikely that his gravesite, if there was one, will ever be located.

===

What was that you were saying about "consultants", Dawg?

Anonymous said...

Brings to mind Ray Stevens.

Enjoy.

TLP said...

Tights: one of the last legs of a good defense.

Male ballet dancers supposedly wear tights, but I swear they just paint their skin. Not much left to the imagination.

Mistress Anna said...

Tights. LOL, sorry this word just makes me giggle. Thanks for the giggle.

Cooper said...

tights:
Shoes much match them if one is heavy, one must never judge a man by his tights, and tights should never be loose.

Jim said...

OK, it really was to differentiate between stalactites and stalagmites.

Tites go down at the mites go up.

Doug, I have trouble with left and right too. I am slightly dyslectic.
..

tsduff said...

When I was a young member of "Leslie's Lovely Little Lavandar Leotard Ladies League" acrobatics troupe, we wore purple tights. Men in tights sometimes make me laugh.

My word verifier is upleeez.

Anonymous said...

Tights--first thought...some folks just should not be allowed to wear them,2nd...William S,3rd...mel brooks....Peace......answer 18th

Doug The Una said...

Tites are from the top, Jim. Better if it was mom.

Logo, um. I have heard that.

Al, they're still underoos to me.

Mireille, you'll have to ask a doctor. They all have stories about saucy pharmaceutical reps. Ex-cowboy administrators, much less so.

And they love each other, JJ.

Amoeba, why didn't I think to look in Hawai'i. Great scoop.

Quilly, I knew just which song that would be.

TLP, bless them. Just make sure it's a sneeze.

My pleasure, Mistress. Good to hear from you.

Cooper, that's why I'm a sweat pants fella.

And I'm every other kind of goof, Jim. I followed you on the tites and mites. Was that wise?

Terry, I noticed you haven't posted any of those pictures.

Brer Bear, Men In Tights. Glad you were there to back us up for leaving that out (other'n JJ.)

Ariel the Thief said...

But whose tights?