Era Immersion Living

[LizzieMaine]

Having killed some time reading much of the Chrismans' blog, I think one thing that might help Sarah, especially, is to simply develop a sense of humor about it all. She approaches the whole thing with the absolute zeal of the convert, but learning how to kid around with the curiosity-seekers and annoying "what are you dressed up for?" types would do much to defuse the tension she seems to keep experiencing.

I'm speaking from long experience here -- she's been doing her thing for five years, but I've been doing mine for most of my life -- and trust me, if she doesn't learn to defuse the hostile reactions thru humor, she's going to have a very difficult time of it. When someone asks me what I'm dressed up for and I simply look around in an exaggerated way as if to see who they're talking to because it couldn't possibly be me, that always makes the questioner laugh and is far better than any kind of supercilious reply or hostile response could ever be. There's a time to be tough, and there's a time to just laugh things off and just go on about your business.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And meanwhile, a very perceptive critic at Time throws the side-eye at the side-eyers.

 

[Fading Fast]

Having killed some time reading much of the Chrismans' blog, I think one thing that might help Sarah, especially, is to simply develop a sense of humor about it all. She approaches the whole thing with the absolute zeal of the convert, but learning how to kid around with the curiosity-seekers and annoying "what are you dressed up for?" types would do much to defuse the tension she seems to keep experiencing.

I'm speaking from long experience here -- she's been doing her thing for five years, but I've been doing mine for most of my life -- and trust me, if she doesn't learn to defuse the hostile reactions thru humor, she's going to have a very difficult time of it. When someone asks me what I'm dressed up for and I simply look around in an exaggerated way as if to see who they're talking to because it couldn't possibly be me, that always makes the questioner laugh and is far better than any kind of supercilious reply or hostile response could ever be. There's a time to be tough, and there's a time to just laugh things off and just go on about your business.

This is great advice in general. A lot of times, and for whatever reason, people are annoyed by other people and a little sense of humor, a little just letting it go, a little "even though this person is wrong, I'll give them a little space to be wrong in before escalating it" can help.

I rarely return things, but most of the time it is fine - the store clerk checks the item / receipt and gives the refund. But once in awhile, the clerk gets a bit defensive right off the bat - "do you have a receipt [even if it is in my hand], did you use the product the right way, etc. [I know how to use cheese, but not with mold on it - I think to myself]."

I could respond in kind - after all, the store has a return policy and I'm following it, but I normally do something to defuse it by saying - in a friendly voice - things like, "you must get a lot of people trying to pull stuff over on you," or even, "I completely understand if I'm not eligible for refund [even though I am and can always argue the point later]." Almost every time, this changes the entire tone and tenor of the conversation. My guess is the clerk probably had a couple of aggressive customers before me or was just having a bad day and I was bearing the brunt of it. Once they see you are not a jerk, all is good.

Is it fair that I have to do this - maybe not, but give a little first and most of the time it works out. My example is not a great analogy to Lizzie's point, but, I think, in the same spirit: even if the other person is initially wrong, sometimes, a little gesture, a little un-called-for decency can make it all work out and the person who was being a jerk becomes pretty nice. Not always, but a lot of the time it works - and is always, IMHO, worth the shot at first.

 

[ChiTownScion]

A sense of humor is essential and it even makes the passion for the past more fun.

Nothing like stopping for a bite in a restaurant after a Civil War reenactment and having someone ask, "Why are you dressed like that?" I usually reply, "Our religion requires that we dress this way. We're Militant Amish."

One of my friends does an excellent Abraham Lincoln impression. The plate on his minivan reads, "IM ABE." One morning about 5:45 he pulled up to the window at Micky D's to pay for his breakfast. He handed the young lady a five and remarked, "That's me on the bill. " Half asleep, she looks up...and her eyes became saucers as she looked at him in his frockcoat, stovepipe hat in the passenger seat. Then he remarked, "I live in Illinois... although I have a Gettysburg address..."

 

[blakegriplingph]

@LizzieMaine/@ChiTownScion - This, pretty much this. I'd say they should definitely develop a tongue-in-cheek approach to things rather than view their life as serious business all the time. Even a method actor has to break character at times, if you get my drift.

 

[tonyb]

...

Nothing like stopping for a bite in a restaurant after a Civil War reenactment and having someone ask, "Why are you dressed like that?" I usually reply, "Our religion requires that we dress this way. We're Militant Amish."

...

Q: What goes "Cloppity-clop, bang-bang; cloppity clop, bang-bang"?

A: An Amish drive-by shooting.

 

[ingineer]

No matter how we dress, we all have to go to market

 

[AmateisGal]

I think that has been a large part of the criticism/snark lobbed at this couple - that they take it so seriously. And I agree that having a sense of humor about it all would help them a great deal.

 

[AmateisGal]

And meanwhile, a very perceptive critic at Time throws the side-eye at the side-eyers.

This was excellent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And, indeed, a sense of humor is very authentically Victorian -- they had everyone from Artemus Ward to Charles Dickens to Mark Twain to Gilbert and Sullivan to Oscar Wilde. Victorians liked to laugh, and did so at every opportunity.

 

[blakegriplingph]

And, indeed, a sense of humor is very authentically Victorian -- they had everyone from Artemus Ward to Charles Dickens to Mark Twain to Gilbert and Sullivan to Oscar Wilde. Victorians liked to laugh, and did so at every opportunity.

Indeed. Mixing a bit of anachronistic humour shouldn't hurt if they do so on occasion.

 

[Stearmen]

No matter how we dress, we all have to go to market

That reminds me of the lady who a few years back, showed up for jury duty wearing a Star Fleet uniform. The judge was mad, but she pointed out, she always dressed like that! Can't remember if she was dismissed or not?

 

[Edward]

I think for someone born in 1875, before the telephone and the electric light, who was an adult when powered flight and automobiles became a reality, who was moving into middle age when broadcasting was invented, and who lived long enough to look into a glowing box in their living room and see a human being set foot on the moon, the course of the world over their lifetime must've seemed absolutely inconceivable.

True... my Great-grandfather, the only great-grandparent of mine who lived into my lifetime, was born in 1889, and died in 1986. It's hard to comprehend the level of change he experienced as an adult.

Just from the way the wind blows in the Powder Room, I'd agree that there are far more men obsessed over the stitch-counting, zipper-measuring details of "vintage" than women. Most of the gals in the PR seem to be far more interested in the practical aspects of the Era itself, and while they might wear the clothes, they don't fetishize them.

This certainly bears out in my experience. I think in part it's got to do with the fact that there just isn't the level of surviving vintage and repro available for men that there is for women. There are decent repro places for the ladies where you can buy a capsule wardrobe for half the price of one suit for a man. That's not all of it, though. There is something about the male psyche that does fixate on detail for detail's sake. Anyone who has observed male and female record collectors will have seenv all the differences.

Here's my thing, though: what is so wrong with pulling certain aspects from the past into your present life that you enjoy? What is so wrong with wanting to live as a Victorian couple in every way that you can?

The basic philophy behind The Chap has a lot to be said for it - "modernity in moderaion", or , as founder Gustav Temple once put it: "It's about keeping what was good about the past, without the bloodsports and the bigotry". Absolutely nothing wrong at all with retaining the good and shucking out the bad - on the proviso, I think, that we're realistic that that's what we're doing. TBH, though, I've never been offended/i] by folks with a rosy view of the past, born of naivity. Rather them than the type who specifically mourn the less savoury elements of the past - "I wish I lived in the forties before women and ethnics got uppity". There's an element of the latter in the 'vintage scene' in the UK, though thankfully they are very much a minority.

You can't win an argument with people like that, so it's not worth bothering to try. I've pointed out to such people that a great many Americans in the Era fought long and hard against the oppressive conditions of the time -- the Civil Rights and women's movements of the fifties and sixties were direct outgrowths of the radical movements of the thirties -- and it's their memory that I honor, not the memory of the oppressors and the plutocrats that they fought. But they're usually so busy congratulating themselves on their own enlightenment, and their heads are usually so far up their own backsides, that they can't hear a word I say. So the best thing to do is to call to mind my dear old 1940s International Longshoremen's Union member aunt, and, as she herself would have done, tell them they can kiss my ***.

I don't romanticize the Era at all -- I'm well aware of its shortcomings, and in fact I find those flaws more fascinating than the snappy clothes and the snazzy cars, because they reveal that, in any Era, there are decent people who are willing to put their lives on the line for what's right. The activists of the Era didn't write blogs or sign Choose.org petitions, or sit around stroking their beards in coffeehouses. They fought, and bled, and some of them died for the rights people today take for granted. Are all these beard-stroking snark-artists willing to do the same?

Yes indeed. It never ceases to amaze me how many folks these days are all too ready to overlook such hard-fought battles.

And definitely - too many people too readily make the assumption that everyone in a given era went with the mainstream, or loved things as they were. It's amazing, for instance, how many people in a UK context are wholly ignorant of the level and significance of opposition to the monarchy, and don't realise that republicans actually existed between Cromwell and the Sex Pistols. Just one of very many examples.

Where I struggle with "vintage lifestylers" is when they think they have to buy in, wholesale, to a perceived norm - so they become obsessively monarchist, or swing to a particular political extreme, adopt a very socially conservative outlook, or whatever it is that they perceive to have been "the norm" in their chosen era, as they perceive that to be more authentic than what they otherwise may have done. I've seen it also happen in some cases where folks give up things they really enjoy in order to be more authentic, which seems crazy to me. The real joy of living now is that I can be selective about what I choose to retain of former eras, with the benefit of the more recent should I choose to have that.

One of the most interesting cases I've heard of was a guy in Scotland who was into the Sixties. He decided he would compromise and have internet in the house, but deliberately chose (this was a few years ago - I don't know if it's available as a service any more) to have only dial-up internet. It was slower and not much cheaper than broadband, but he felt it was somehow more authentic, or less of a texhnological intrusion on his sixties lifestyle. Fair enough, personal choice and all that. I just find it facinating, though, hat he was prepared to allow a level of modernity in like that, but not the whole hog, given that what he did want wasn't exactly era-correct (though it woul be interesting to compare it to arpanet connections of that era).

Having killed some time reading much of the Chrismans' blog, I think one thing that might help Sarah, especially, is to simply develop a sense of humor about it all. She approaches the whole thing with the absolute zeal of the convert, but learning how to kid around with the curiosity-seekers and annoying "what are you dressed up for?" types would do much to defuse the tension she seems to keep experiencing.

I'm speaking from long experience here -- she's been doing her thing for five years, but I've been doing mine for most of my life -- and trust me, if she doesn't learn to defuse the hostile reactions thru humor, she's going to have a very difficult time of it. When someone asks me what I'm dressed up for and I simply look around in an exaggerated way as if to see who they're talking to because it couldn't possibly be me, that always makes the questioner laugh and is far better than any kind of supercilious reply or hostile response could ever be. There's a time to be tough, and there's a time to just laugh things off and just go on about your business.

Yes. My experience over the years is that many people will say things that grate (my pet hate is cowboy comments with the fedora), but the vast majority don't mean any ill; they just don't have the same field of reference for wahtever. Usually, even if it's garbled, they are trying to compliment. As to those who do want to insult, the best response is usually to smile and show indifference.

That reminds me of the lady who a few years back, showed up for jury duty wearing a Star Fleet uniform. The judge was mad, but she pointed out, she always dressed like that! Can't remember if she was dismissed or not?

I'd be very surprised if she wasn't dismisssed. She was clearly either a loon if she thought that was appropriate, or faking it to get out of jury duty. Much as I'd love to punish everyone who tries to get out of it by some illegitimate means by keeping them on for a long jury trial, it would hardly be fair on the defendant...

 

[LizzieMaine]

This certainly bears out in my experience. I think in part it's got to do with the fact that there just isn't the level of surviving vintage and repro available for men that there is for women. There are decent repro places for the ladies where you can buy a capsule wardrobe for half the price of one suit for a man. That's not all of it, though. There is something about the male psyche that does fixate on detail for detail's sake. Anyone who has observed male and female record collectors will have seenv all the differences.

Oh god yes. MALE RECORD COLLECTOR: "Oh wow! An Oakland pressing of Victor 24835! On Z-shellac! And it's the rare second take! Do you realize they only pressed 500 copies of this, and even Frank Driggs didn't have a copy, so they never officially released it on LP, although it did appear on a bootleg Pelican reissue in 1967, catalog number PC-44521, released by mail order only in an exclusive numbered release of 1500 copies, of which I have number 135! FEMALE RECORD COLLECTOR: Nice tune.

Those who deny that there are differences in the male and female brains need only spend half an hour talking to record collectors for proof to the contrary.

And definitely - too many people too readily make the assumption that everyone in a given era went with the mainstream, or loved things as they were. It's amazing, for instance, how many people in a UK context are wholly ignorant of the level and significance of opposition to the monarchy, and don't realise that republicans actually existed between Cromwell and the Sex Pistols. Just one of very many examples.

Where I struggle with "vintage lifestylers" is when they think they have to buy in, wholesale, to a perceived norm - so they become obsessively monarchist, or swing to a particular political extreme, adopt a very socially conservative outlook, or whatever it is that they perceive to have been "the norm" in their chosen era, as they perceive that to be more authentic than what they otherwise may have done.

A lot of Americans think only of the thirties and forties via a seventies-eighties filter -- most what they know of the period was strained thru a specifically revisionist socio-political agenda during that time. I call that the "Waltons Filter," the idea that Americans of the period suffered passively and nobly thru the Depression. That image completely leached out the radicalism of the decade -- the real-life Waltons would have been more likely to join with their fellow townspeople and take up their rifles against the sherrif and the bank to prevent foreclosure on a neighbor's farm than to invite the sherrif in for a slice of pie and a glass of The Recipe.

I'd be very surprised if she wasn't dismisssed. She was clearly either a loon if she thought that was appropriate, or faking it to get out of jury duty. Much as I'd love to punish everyone who tries to get out of it by some illegitimate means by keeping them on for a long jury trial, it would hardly be fair on the defendant...

If I remember that affair right, it was a Starfleet standard-duty uniform, which was clearly inappropriate. Dress uniform is specified for occasions of state.

 

[GHT]

That looks like an amazing experience Edward, if I ever make it across the pond it will be on my list of must-sees.

We have a National Trust that buy up, or are bequeathed, everything from stately homes and castles, to humble homes with history. When you make that trip you might, or might not, be interested in, for example, the humble origins of: The Beatles Childhood Homes.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speaking of a sense of humor, meet The Bindle Brothers.

 

[The Reno Kid]

I like what this couple is doing. Good on 'em. I am somewhat dismayed by the viciousness of some of the attacks on them, however. In my experience, the crowd shouting loudest about tolerance, or diversity, or whatever are the first with the pitchforks when someone fails to hew to the current party line (whatever it is). The Chrismans are pursuing a lifestyle that is obviously very rewarding to them and it's not hurting anyone else. They seem to be willing to put up with the minor harassment one might expect. Sadly, this is just not good enough for the professionally offended among us. I can envision a scene from the cutting room floor of Monty Python or Brazil. Some outraged government bureaucrat shows up at their door and cites them for "failing to accurately portray a 19th-century lifestyle." The judge bangs his gavel and sentences them to a 6-month course of tuberculosis. "Now don't do it again!"

Yeesh!

----------------

Where I struggle with "vintage lifestylers" is when they think they have to buy in, wholesale, to a perceived norm - so they become obsessively monarchist, or swing to a particular political extreme, adopt a very socially conservative outlook, or whatever it is that they perceive to have been "the norm" in their chosen era, as they perceive that to be more authentic than what they otherwise may have done. I've seen it also happen in some cases where folks give up things they really enjoy in order to be more authentic, which seems crazy to me. The real joy of living now is that I can be selective about what I choose to retain of former eras, with the benefit of the more recent should I choose to have that.

Huh? This is internally contradictory. I agree with most of your comments on this thread but this one struck me as odd. It's not okay for others to pick and choose the features they like most about their chosen lifestyle but for you, that same ability to pick and choose represents "the real joy of living now"? Maybe I missed something. Why wouldn't the hypothetical "vintage lifestylers" buy into their own perceptions? Admittedly, these things can be carried to ridiculous extremes but again, if they are enjoying themselves and hurting nobody...

By nature, I'm not especially libertarian in my views, but I think the Chrismans deserve a break, particularly from us. There are a lot of things I like about the '30s. But when ordering up my lifestyle, I think I'll pass on the side orders of polio, bigotry, and poverty.

*end of rant*

 

[Gingerella72]

At the 1939 World's Fair, "The World Of Tomorrow," Westinghouse had a big hit with Electro The Robot -- but they were very careful to show that he was being controlled by a man sitting on the stage giving him orders thru a microphone. Likewise, the many exhibits at other manufacturers' pavillions demonstrating various types of automatic equipment -- the rotary milking machine at the Borden's exhibit, the bread-baking line at the Wonder Bread building, the bottling works at the Coca-Cola exhibit, etc. etc. etc. -- all were very careful to show humans in control of the processes. Even the General Motors Futurama, which in retrospect seems the most dystopic of the "futures" presented at the Fair, with its emphasis on cars and endless highways, never went so far as to propose automated driverless vehicles.

Even the technology criticized most often for its "dehumanization," the Automat cafeterias, were very obviously attended by a human staff. You might have purchased your dish of beans from a compartment in a wall, but you clearly saw an attendant slide that plate of beans into the compartment from the other side, and you had to deal with an attendant when you turned in your dishes.

The fear of being displaced by technology was a very real thing in the Era, especially for the working class, who already had been made to feel disposable by the mass layoffs of the Depression. A typical American from 1939 transported to the present day would be, at first, amazed by the Wonders The Future Hath Wrought -- but that would wear off very quickly and be replaced by shock and fear. "No telephone operators? Self-service store checkouts? Self-driving cars? GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

A lot of people who didn't grow up in the computer age feel the same way. These Victorian folk may be a bit extreme, but they're reflecting a very deep and very honest sense that technology has outstripped the ability of human community to keep up. In that sense they're no different from the back-to-the-landers, the "modern homesteaders," the "Tightwad" movement, or those of us who prefer to stick to a greater or lesser extent with the technologies of the 1930s. The Chrismans may be a bit insufferably twee about it all, but if people would stop mocking them long enough to listen to what they're really saying, they might find that it makes a good bit of sense.

Watch any commercial today for smart phones/tablets/watches and you'll see lots of people. People flocking around a phone to look at photos, laughing, having a bonding experience together....it's almost like the companies are trying to show how this technology brings people together instead of promoting isolation. And I think for the most part that is true (if not as bright and shiny-happy as the commercials).

 

[Burma Schave]

Bigotry is as '30s as apple pie. Stop revising.

 

[tonyb]

You can't win an argument with people like that, so it's not worth bothering to try. I've pointed out to such people that a great many Americans in the Era fought long and hard against the oppressive conditions of the time -- the Civil Rights and women's movements of the fifties and sixties were direct outgrowths of the radical movements of the thirties -- and it's their memory that I honor, not the memory of the oppressors and the plutocrats that they fought. But they're usually so busy congratulating themselves on their own enlightenment, and their heads are usually so far up their own backsides, that they can't hear a word I say. ... The activists of the Era didn't write blogs or sign Choose.org petitions, or sit around stroking their beards in coffeehouses. They fought, and bled, and some of them died for the rights people today take for granted. Are all these beard-stroking snark-artists willing to do the same?

I find far too many "radical" types these days downright oblivious to just how courageous the labor/civil rights/gay rights/etc. organizers and activists of generations past truly were. It's no exaggeration to note that openly advocating for such things could get a person killed. It often cost people their jobs, their housing, their social standing. It was in no way a fashion statement, as so much "activism" is these days.