I like your curmudgeonly facts.
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I don’t hate them. I think they’re risible and hypocritical, with a very limited and highly romanticized understanding of what Victorian life was actually like.
I maintain that the Gardens, being privately owned, have every right to refuse inappropriately dressed visitors, and what’s more, that they have the right to define what constitutes appropriate dress. They could even limit their patronage to people dressed in correct Victorian garb if they wanted to (although they wouldn’t make much money).
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Real coke, for sure!
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You’ll never understand me, mom and dad!
‘why are you dressed like it’s halloween?
You look so absurd, you look so obscene’
O, why can’t I live a life for me?
Why should I take the abuse that’s served?
Why can’t they see they’re just like me it’s
The same, it’s the same in the whole wide world
Well I let their teeny minds think that they’re
Dealing with someone who is over the brink and
I dress this way just to keep them at bay
Cos halloween is everyday it’s everyday o,
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Indeed they do. They even have the right to make all children wear dunce caps. “Right to” and “ought to” aren’t the same thing, though.
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Nor am I, as I wasn’t intending to blow anybody’s, just recounting a little of the stuff I discovered when I was reading this up for some work on Victorian morality, many years ago.
However, if you think I shouldn’t be posting it, just let me know and I’ll endeavour to avoid that sort of thing in future.
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Butchart Gardens is in the suburbs near Victoria, BC. I don’t think the Amish get out there very much.
(While there are Amish communities in Canada, as far as I know there’s no Amish presence in BC)
ETA: Yes, I realize this was intended as a thought experiment
ETA 2: I’ve been to Butchart Gardens and it’s pretty amazing. Given the atmosphere there, I’d find a group in Victorian getup to be charming – not distracting or taking away from the experience. Victoria already has quite the Olde British vibe to it already.
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As the Victorians were extremely proud of their technical and material progress, I actually think they’re wrong: people like Babbage, Tennyson, Huxley, Dodgson, Darwin, would, I am sure, have been enthusiastic users of the mobile phone and probably Twitter. Those were the days when in London and Cambridge (and possibly the Other Place too, I don’t know) there were something like 5 postal deliveries a day, so two academics in the same town could have an exchange of views within the course of a day.
Inventions like anaesthesia were rapidly taken up, with Queen Victoria being involved.
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First thing I thought was “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag” - RuPaul
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Loin cloths, togas, heck - even bellbottoms and corduroy jackets are now seen as “costumes” (70’s or 80’s costume parties, etc) even though they were the clothing of their period… I think the term is “period clothing.”
When you are out of that “period” then you get into the costume zone. If your clothing is described as “I’m dress as someone from the (insert time period here)” then you are wearing a costume.
Note - some clothing styles are timeless. Black evening dresses have been around for ever (20’s flappers) and even tuxedos (maybe not the top hat).
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Churchill’s parents ran into a bit of trouble with this sort of frolicking, although I think it was of the key party sort. Public accusations of a dalliance with a royal got Dad banished to Ireland for a while, and he eventually succumbed to syphilis. Victorians of the finest kind.
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They went to Victoria. Fun is forbidden in Victoria.
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Well, if US Marines were to visit the Butchart gardens in full war costume a lot more has gone wrong than some foolish dress policy, since the gardens in question are in Canada.
At which point we’ll all be wearing shock collars and spending an hour each morning in enforced Trump adoration or something, so wear whatever hat makes you happy I suppose.
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The US has got involved in silly wars around islands near that border before…
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A flaneur, eh? Interesting word.
Apparently, the feminine form is Flâneuse
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I live in Philadelphia, where we have a market that has a lot of Amish vendors. I was standing outside passing the time of day with one of the merchants yesterday, who was standing outside, with his cell phone and smoking a cigarette, waiting for a truck to unload a delivery. We were discussing the upcoming football season. The Amish are generally regular people with a wicked sense of humor, so if you get a chance, get to know one or two.
To see their side imagine you are out in your backyard, in sweatpants relaxing, and a group of tourists pulls up in your driveway and begins to take pictures because you look so quaint.
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Well… the Way Back Machine prior to March 30, 2016 does not have that reference about period pieces/costumes on their Rates webpage - Between November 18th, 2015 and March 4th, 2016 the Garden Etiquette was added to that section.
While the Main Webpage has linked the Garden Etiquette PDF between July 10th and the 17th, 2016.
July 10th: https://web.archive.org/web/20160710064016/http://www.butchartgardens.com/
July 17th: https://web.archive.org/web/20160717032056/http://www.butchartgardens.com/
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Victoria High (greater) Quality is a considerable improvement, once the novelty of Zarvox wears off.
I’m with the Gardens on this one. People can be mistaken for employees. There was a guy at Disneyworld that got ejected because he was dressed like Lincoln and started posing with people for photographs.
If you saw these people, it would be entirely reasonable to think they’re costumed employees.
But the thing that really makes me side with the Garden was they just asked the lady to remove her hat…yes…just take off the hat. And she refused.
Heck they even payed for a taxi to take them home.
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