Thank God we don’t have to dress like this today. I don’t need 2 servants to put my clothes on. It is enough to have a waiter or waitress when I go out for dinner.
Favorite comment I’ve seen today:
Seth Mandel “It’s not a recession unless it’s from the Recession region of France otherwise it’s just sparkling misery”
Apropos of Tudor costume, just a few days ago I came across Waldemar Januszczak’s hour-long documentary on “Holbein: Eye of the Tudors”: Januszczak makes the interesting argument that our ongoing fascination with the Tudors is a byproduct of Hans Holbein’s skill in portraying them. Yes, it’s a long art history presentation, but Januszczak weaves in a great deal of information about the sixteenth century in western Europe (not just Tudor England)– so even if no one would want to bring back the ornate court dress that Holbein’s privileged sitters wore, we can appreciate the artist’s insights into the people– and the era– he portrayed:
Coincidentally watched that night before last PA+Cat, it having popped unbidden onto the YouTube homepage. Good stuff l thought.
Thank God we don’t have to dress like this today. I don’t need 2 servants to put my clothes on. It is enough to have a waiter or waitress when I go out for dinner.
A friend of mine is a co-owner operator of a few restaurants. A couple years ago they went to self-service with an electronic beeper when the order is ready. Part of that compassionate “living wage” movement.
expat:
This is what royalty wore. For common folk it was simpler.
Let’s see now…
Gutting the military.
Trashing the Constitution.
Using the DOJ as “his” own private GRU.
Torpedoing the energy sector.
Tearing down the border.
Torching the dollar.
Destroying education (at all levels).
Dismantling the family.
Uprooting society.
Making Fentanyl as available as M ‘n Ms
Undermining trust in…EVERY SPHERE and INSTITUTION.
Actively promoting despair and desperation—financial, medical, spiritual, you name it.
LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Etc…..
Wow! Quite a list of achievements. (No scare quotes here—I DO MEAN ACHIEVEMENTS.)
“Biden” can be awfully proud of “his” achievements…awfully proud…and there’s a great many more to come, with the agricultural sector currently in “his” gun sights, as the WTF is starting to tighten the screws, Holland and Canada leading the way into the psychedelic/kaleidoscopic future…with no food and no fuel.)
Here’s “…David Stockman’s on the future of the energy sector:
“…The All-Out Commitment To Destroy Fossil Fuels”— https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/david-stockman-all-out-commitment-destroy-fossil-fuels-will-it-succeed
Key graf (of many):
“…What’s really in play here is the all-out commitment of the Biden Administration to destroy the fossil fuel industry in the name of preventing a climate catastrophe that is pure fiction….”
To be sure, it should be clear by now that it’s NOT ONLY the fossil fuel industry that “Biden” aims to destroy….
One of the chain Tex-Mex restaurants in my area went to partial capacity dining because of staff shortage. Large restaurant . Now they have a robot , about three foot tall, that escorts you to your assigned seating. It stops in front of the table. The menus are on its head. When you remove them, it rolls back to the entrance area for the next customer. A hostess uses a device to tell it which table to take the next guest.
TommyJay and jon baker– If you haven’t yet read it, City Journal just posted a fine rant about the use of QR codes in restaurants: “Before Covid, a restaurant-goer would first encounter a host before being greeted at the table by a waiter. While restaurants are micro-economies unto themselves, the waiter serves as the primary representative. . . . In today’s digital system, however, diners are directed to train their smartphone cameras on a link to a digital menu and make selections via the web. This exacerbates our regrettable retreat from social life. Already battered by two years of masking, the practice of manners and of ordinary social interaction has been degraded further. . . . And the intercession [interposition?– ed.] of the smartphone itself into the dining ritual is destructive. Ordering each course requires the diner to redirect his attention to the mobile device. The QR service system all but guarantees that the phone will remain at a patron’s fingertips throughout the meal.”
I encountered my first “in-your-face” QR code at a restaurant just a few weeks ago. It was a huge one embedded in the table top.
I’ve been walking even more than usual lately including some touristy trails. Lot’s of foreign languages, but you do see many with their faces stuck in their phones. Still much less than half thankfully.
Today’s bleeding and lede-ing story is about a British tourist in Greece who was a passenger on a charter helicopter and was carefully led away from the copter upon landing by the help. He then decides that he needs to speak to someone still on the helicopter and, face buried in his phone, walks right into the spinning blades. No more dopamine hits for him.
PA+CAT, I ran into the QR menu about a year ago while visiting Universal Studios with my daughter and her BF who works there. I could get the code to scan but then the web page wouldn’t pop up. After the 4th attempt I called a waitress over and told her, in my grumpy old man voice, to give me “a damn real menu!”. She actually laughed and said, that a lot of people hate this QR menu. Don’t see quite as much of them now, but if I do I immediately tell a worker to get me a real menu. One place we frequent a lot has the drink menu on QR, I refuse to use it and make the waitress recite the beers for me.
I know…old man syndrome…tired of all the BS.
Lovely lady. A gentleman appreciates the effort, and will… should reciprocate, in context.
Neo,
Even today Elizabeth and Kate wear normal clothes. There is probably a servant that gets things out and helps them dress,, but it is nothing like the Tudor dressing.
Even fashion designers spend more energy dressing Hollywood types than royalty or even the very wealthy. Most people today want to look normal.
expat:
Of course, fashion has changed in general. But still another thing that has utterly changed is the power of the British monarchy and monarchy in general. Today’s British royal family are ceremonial figureheads, whereas the Tudors had tremendous power in a society in which they also needed to be seen as very very different from ordinary people. Their clothing was meant to show that difference, and royals (not just the king and queen, but their courtiers as well) were required to look like royalty and nothing like commoners.
However, commoners also wore a lot of layers.
These days the royals often wear Barbour coats. They are nice coats and a bit pricey, but are popular with ordinary people as well. The coats look classy without being ostentatious and wear well.
I love mine.
_________________________________________
15 Photos of Kate Middleton, Princess Diana, and More Royals Rocking Barbour
The British heritage brand is one of just a handful of companies to hold three royal warrants.
Neo says (regarding the difference in rank between the Tudors and their subjects), “Royals (not just the king and queen, but their courtiers as well) were required to look like royalty and nothing like commoners. However, commoners also wore a lot of layers.”
It looks as if class distinctions in dress are now passé, while pronominal distinctions are everything in setting the woke elite apart from and above us ordinary schnooks. Here’s the Vice President of the United States introducing herself at some kind of meeting: “I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” Then everyone else sitting around the table does likewise (videos at the link):
Interesting that no one called her out for using the w-word rather than “birthing person.” As for me, I am PA Cat, my pronouns are “cat” and “catself,” and I am an adult domestic shorthair housecat sitting at the computer wearing a grey tuxedo. And planning to hork up a hairball the next time I have to listen to anything Kamala says.
WaPo report that a DC grand jury is investigating Trump. Ham sandwich and indictment to follow.
Sorta on-topic with the Tudors and open-thread in general…i.e. Shakespeare and my bucket list.
Tonight I’m watching Branagh’s “Henry V.” and it’s tremendous. Shakespeare and Branagh. I can’t believe how jam-packed with drama this drama is.
It’s like Shakespeare invented drama or something.
I’m hardly the one to say. Who knows who got there first? But I can sure see a family resemblance going from Shakespeare in his time to today’s UK and America.
Next up: Olivier’s “Henry V.” (1944).
It’s never too late to appreciate your culture.
… Branagh’s “Henry V.” and it’s tremendous.
Love that “St. Crispin’s day” speech.
I was recently watching the Wuthering Heights starring Timothy Dalton. I had seen it when I was 13 or so and was mightily impressed. But adolescent sensibilities and lack of maturity definitely color things differently. Dalton certainly has an intensity. That production is a little odd in that they seemed to have stripped out some things that may have improved the continuity, but also diluted the amount of drama.
The Olivier-Oberon version of Wuthering Heights is the obvious definitive version, and I have seen that one, but not recently.
TommyJay:
Here’s my take on the Olivier/Oberon “Wuthering Heights.” Over the years since I wrote it, and with all blog transfer to a new format, a couple of the photos have disappeared, though. I notice that post was written in early 2006, before I could transfer YouTube videos to the blog.
I finished Branagh’s “Henry V” and am still wowed by it.
The funny thought I had was that Shakespeare was very Spielbergian (as in “Indiana Jones”).
Of course, the direction of time is wrong for such a claim. Spielberg could only be influenced by Shakespeare, not visa-versa. I would argue, certainly Spielberg was influenced by Shakespeare, directly and indirectly.
Perhaps you agree; perhaps not.
In any event Kenneth Branagh, as a film director, was influenced by Spielberg and all of Spielberg’s predecessors particularly Disney, so in that sense the film I watched was influenced by Spielberg.
OMG! The swelling chorus of “Pro Nobis” towards the end was classic Hollywood.
But the film wasn’t over yet. Then we have the wonderful screwball comedy combo of the very English Harry and the very French Katharine, reconciling their nations and publicly falling in love.
This Shakespeare guy is killing me.
Oh, and there was finally getting the joke, “Kiss Me, Kate,” which included:
_________________________
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
Did you ever see the Zefferilli “Romeo and Juliet”? Purists criticize it because there were some cuts to move the pace along, but I love it.
>Did you ever see the Zefferilli “Romeo and Juliet”?
In high school we went on a field trip to see the movie. The projectionist put his hand in front of the projector when Olivia Hussey went topless. I guess it was OK because she was underage, but so were we.
Can’t recall disliking any Shakespeare I was ever exposed to.
neo:
Like Wesson, I saw Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” on a high school field trip. I enjoyed it. I watched it again when I got a VCR in the 80s.
Shakespeare wrote five-act plays. The embroidery he added to the main plot was considerable, e.g. Henry’s love relationship with Katharine. I can understand a film director cutting some of that to fit a play into a two hour movie. I wonder at the attention span Shakespeare’s audiences had.
Zeffirelli’s “Hamlet” (with Mel Gibson) cut much of that too and I understood. His “Hamlet” was 134 minutes. Branagh’s complete “Hamlet” was over fours long! I’m glad we have both.
Z.’s “Romeo and Juliet” is on my bucket list to see again.
Our high school played the Zeffirelli “Romeo and Juliet” in the auditorium for all the English classes. I don’t remember any topless scene, so maybe it was a special educational edition. Just having them in bed together was racy for the time and place (sixties in a small-town).
My teacher was one of my mother’s own HS chums (as were a lot of others; couldn’t get away with much in class!) and saw it again several time. Mom asked why she kept going back, and she said, “I kept thinking – maybe this time it will end differently.”
Sometimes the theme music comes back to visit me – such a beautiful score.
My parents also had a set of recordings of the major plays in just audio versions – we listened to them frequently, but it was nice to see sets and costumes!
PS to huxley > our HS also did “Kiss Me, Kate” – and I loved the Shakespeare song!
AesopSpouse and I also worked on several college productions of Shakespeare’s plays – our “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was particularly “authentic” as two of the English professors played Nick Bottom and Francis Flute.
Somewhat later, we were in a community theater production as Theseus and Hippolyta; one of our sons played a rustic (Snug the Joiner), and another played one of the young men – I never remember which one.
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Thank God we don’t have to dress like this today. I don’t need 2 servants to put my clothes on. It is enough to have a waiter or waitress when I go out for dinner.
Favorite comment I’ve seen today:
Seth Mandel “It’s not a recession unless it’s from the Recession region of France otherwise it’s just sparkling misery”
Apropos of Tudor costume, just a few days ago I came across Waldemar Januszczak’s hour-long documentary on “Holbein: Eye of the Tudors”: Januszczak makes the interesting argument that our ongoing fascination with the Tudors is a byproduct of Hans Holbein’s skill in portraying them. Yes, it’s a long art history presentation, but Januszczak weaves in a great deal of information about the sixteenth century in western Europe (not just Tudor England)– so even if no one would want to bring back the ornate court dress that Holbein’s privileged sitters wore, we can appreciate the artist’s insights into the people– and the era– he portrayed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWGvPjNPo1U&ab_channel=Perspective
Coincidentally watched that night before last PA+Cat, it having popped unbidden onto the YouTube homepage. Good stuff l thought.
Thank God we don’t have to dress like this today. I don’t need 2 servants to put my clothes on. It is enough to have a waiter or waitress when I go out for dinner.
A friend of mine is a co-owner operator of a few restaurants. A couple years ago they went to self-service with an electronic beeper when the order is ready. Part of that compassionate “living wage” movement.
expat:
This is what royalty wore. For common folk it was simpler.
Yikes
https://thepostmillennial.com/fda-warns-of-brain-swelling-and-permanent-vision-loss-found-in-children-taking-puberty-blockers
Yep
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2022/07/25/investigation-the-biden-administration-is-crawling-with-conspiracy-theorists-n1615210
But that us the objective
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/24/how-to-erode-the-worlds-greatest-military/
Let’s see now…
Gutting the military.
Trashing the Constitution.
Using the DOJ as “his” own private GRU.
Torpedoing the energy sector.
Tearing down the border.
Torching the dollar.
Destroying education (at all levels).
Dismantling the family.
Uprooting society.
Making Fentanyl as available as M ‘n Ms
Undermining trust in…EVERY SPHERE and INSTITUTION.
Actively promoting despair and desperation—financial, medical, spiritual, you name it.
LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Etc…..
Wow! Quite a list of achievements. (No scare quotes here—I DO MEAN ACHIEVEMENTS.)
“Biden” can be awfully proud of “his” achievements…awfully proud…and there’s a great many more to come, with the agricultural sector currently in “his” gun sights, as the WTF is starting to tighten the screws, Holland and Canada leading the way into the psychedelic/kaleidoscopic future…with no food and no fuel.)
Here’s “…David Stockman’s on the future of the energy sector:
“…The All-Out Commitment To Destroy Fossil Fuels”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/david-stockman-all-out-commitment-destroy-fossil-fuels-will-it-succeed
Key graf (of many):
“…What’s really in play here is the all-out commitment of the Biden Administration to destroy the fossil fuel industry in the name of preventing a climate catastrophe that is pure fiction….”
To be sure, it should be clear by now that it’s NOT ONLY the fossil fuel industry that “Biden” aims to destroy….
One of the chain Tex-Mex restaurants in my area went to partial capacity dining because of staff shortage. Large restaurant . Now they have a robot , about three foot tall, that escorts you to your assigned seating. It stops in front of the table. The menus are on its head. When you remove them, it rolls back to the entrance area for the next customer. A hostess uses a device to tell it which table to take the next guest.
Um, er, watch out for that robot….
https://www.timesofisrael.com/chess-playing-robot-turns-violent-mid-match-breaks-kids-finger/
(IOW, probably a good idea to order whatever comes recommended…)
I second Zenman. That is genuinely clever.
TommyJay and jon baker– If you haven’t yet read it, City Journal just posted a fine rant about the use of QR codes in restaurants: “Before Covid, a restaurant-goer would first encounter a host before being greeted at the table by a waiter. While restaurants are micro-economies unto themselves, the waiter serves as the primary representative. . . . In today’s digital system, however, diners are directed to train their smartphone cameras on a link to a digital menu and make selections via the web. This exacerbates our regrettable retreat from social life. Already battered by two years of masking, the practice of manners and of ordinary social interaction has been degraded further. . . . And the intercession [interposition?– ed.] of the smartphone itself into the dining ritual is destructive. Ordering each course requires the diner to redirect his attention to the mobile device. The QR service system all but guarantees that the phone will remain at a patron’s fingertips throughout the meal.”
https://www.city-journal.org/against-restaurant-qr-codes
I encountered my first “in-your-face” QR code at a restaurant just a few weeks ago. It was a huge one embedded in the table top.
I’ve been walking even more than usual lately including some touristy trails. Lot’s of foreign languages, but you do see many with their faces stuck in their phones. Still much less than half thankfully.
Today’s bleeding and lede-ing story is about a British tourist in Greece who was a passenger on a charter helicopter and was carefully led away from the copter upon landing by the help. He then decides that he needs to speak to someone still on the helicopter and, face buried in his phone, walks right into the spinning blades. No more dopamine hits for him.
PA+CAT, I ran into the QR menu about a year ago while visiting Universal Studios with my daughter and her BF who works there. I could get the code to scan but then the web page wouldn’t pop up. After the 4th attempt I called a waitress over and told her, in my grumpy old man voice, to give me “a damn real menu!”. She actually laughed and said, that a lot of people hate this QR menu. Don’t see quite as much of them now, but if I do I immediately tell a worker to get me a real menu. One place we frequent a lot has the drink menu on QR, I refuse to use it and make the waitress recite the beers for me.
I know…old man syndrome…tired of all the BS.
Lovely lady. A gentleman appreciates the effort, and will… should reciprocate, in context.
Neo,
Even today Elizabeth and Kate wear normal clothes. There is probably a servant that gets things out and helps them dress,, but it is nothing like the Tudor dressing.
Even fashion designers spend more energy dressing Hollywood types than royalty or even the very wealthy. Most people today want to look normal.
expat:
Of course, fashion has changed in general. But still another thing that has utterly changed is the power of the British monarchy and monarchy in general. Today’s British royal family are ceremonial figureheads, whereas the Tudors had tremendous power in a society in which they also needed to be seen as very very different from ordinary people. Their clothing was meant to show that difference, and royals (not just the king and queen, but their courtiers as well) were required to look like royalty and nothing like commoners.
However, commoners also wore a lot of layers.
These days the royals often wear Barbour coats. They are nice coats and a bit pricey, but are popular with ordinary people as well. The coats look classy without being ostentatious and wear well.
I love mine.
_________________________________________
15 Photos of Kate Middleton, Princess Diana, and More Royals Rocking Barbour
The British heritage brand is one of just a handful of companies to hold three royal warrants.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/g32379892/meghan-markle-queen-elizabeth-royal-family-barbour-photos/
Neo says (regarding the difference in rank between the Tudors and their subjects), “Royals (not just the king and queen, but their courtiers as well) were required to look like royalty and nothing like commoners. However, commoners also wore a lot of layers.”
It looks as if class distinctions in dress are now passé, while pronominal distinctions are everything in setting the woke elite apart from and above us ordinary schnooks. Here’s the Vice President of the United States introducing herself at some kind of meeting: “I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” Then everyone else sitting around the table does likewise (videos at the link):
https://notthebee.com/article/i-am-kamala-harris-my-pronouns-are-she-and-her-and-i-am-a-woman-sitting-at-the-table-wearing-a-blue-suit
Interesting that no one called her out for using the w-word rather than “birthing person.” As for me, I am PA Cat, my pronouns are “cat” and “catself,” and I am an adult domestic shorthair housecat sitting at the computer wearing a grey tuxedo. And planning to hork up a hairball the next time I have to listen to anything Kamala says.
WaPo report that a DC grand jury is investigating Trump. Ham sandwich and indictment to follow.
Sorta on-topic with the Tudors and open-thread in general…i.e. Shakespeare and my bucket list.
Tonight I’m watching Branagh’s “Henry V.” and it’s tremendous. Shakespeare and Branagh. I can’t believe how jam-packed with drama this drama is.
It’s like Shakespeare invented drama or something.
I’m hardly the one to say. Who knows who got there first? But I can sure see a family resemblance going from Shakespeare in his time to today’s UK and America.
Next up: Olivier’s “Henry V.” (1944).
It’s never too late to appreciate your culture.
… Branagh’s “Henry V.” and it’s tremendous.
Love that “St. Crispin’s day” speech.
I was recently watching the Wuthering Heights starring Timothy Dalton. I had seen it when I was 13 or so and was mightily impressed. But adolescent sensibilities and lack of maturity definitely color things differently. Dalton certainly has an intensity. That production is a little odd in that they seemed to have stripped out some things that may have improved the continuity, but also diluted the amount of drama.
The Olivier-Oberon version of Wuthering Heights is the obvious definitive version, and I have seen that one, but not recently.
TommyJay:
Here’s my take on the Olivier/Oberon “Wuthering Heights.” Over the years since I wrote it, and with all blog transfer to a new format, a couple of the photos have disappeared, though. I notice that post was written in early 2006, before I could transfer YouTube videos to the blog.
I finished Branagh’s “Henry V” and am still wowed by it.
The funny thought I had was that Shakespeare was very Spielbergian (as in “Indiana Jones”).
Of course, the direction of time is wrong for such a claim. Spielberg could only be influenced by Shakespeare, not visa-versa. I would argue, certainly Spielberg was influenced by Shakespeare, directly and indirectly.
Perhaps you agree; perhaps not.
In any event Kenneth Branagh, as a film director, was influenced by Spielberg and all of Spielberg’s predecessors particularly Disney, so in that sense the film I watched was influenced by Spielberg.
OMG! The swelling chorus of “Pro Nobis” towards the end was classic Hollywood.
But the film wasn’t over yet. Then we have the wonderful screwball comedy combo of the very English Harry and the very French Katharine, reconciling their nations and publicly falling in love.
This Shakespeare guy is killing me.
Oh, and there was finally getting the joke, “Kiss Me, Kate,” which included:
_________________________
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
–“Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (Kiss Me, Kate! – 1953)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPduoU826ew
_________________________
O brave old world!
huxley:
Did you ever see the Zefferilli “Romeo and Juliet”? Purists criticize it because there were some cuts to move the pace along, but I love it.
>Did you ever see the Zefferilli “Romeo and Juliet”?
In high school we went on a field trip to see the movie. The projectionist put his hand in front of the projector when Olivia Hussey went topless. I guess it was OK because she was underage, but so were we.
Can’t recall disliking any Shakespeare I was ever exposed to.
neo:
Like Wesson, I saw Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” on a high school field trip. I enjoyed it. I watched it again when I got a VCR in the 80s.
Shakespeare wrote five-act plays. The embroidery he added to the main plot was considerable, e.g. Henry’s love relationship with Katharine. I can understand a film director cutting some of that to fit a play into a two hour movie. I wonder at the attention span Shakespeare’s audiences had.
Zeffirelli’s “Hamlet” (with Mel Gibson) cut much of that too and I understood. His “Hamlet” was 134 minutes. Branagh’s complete “Hamlet” was over fours long! I’m glad we have both.
Z.’s “Romeo and Juliet” is on my bucket list to see again.
Our high school played the Zeffirelli “Romeo and Juliet” in the auditorium for all the English classes. I don’t remember any topless scene, so maybe it was a special educational edition. Just having them in bed together was racy for the time and place (sixties in a small-town).
My teacher was one of my mother’s own HS chums (as were a lot of others; couldn’t get away with much in class!) and saw it again several time. Mom asked why she kept going back, and she said, “I kept thinking – maybe this time it will end differently.”
Sometimes the theme music comes back to visit me – such a beautiful score.
My parents also had a set of recordings of the major plays in just audio versions – we listened to them frequently, but it was nice to see sets and costumes!
PS to huxley > our HS also did “Kiss Me, Kate” – and I loved the Shakespeare song!
AesopSpouse and I also worked on several college productions of Shakespeare’s plays – our “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was particularly “authentic” as two of the English professors played Nick Bottom and Francis Flute.
Somewhat later, we were in a community theater production as Theseus and Hippolyta; one of our sons played a rustic (Snug the Joiner), and another played one of the young men – I never remember which one.