How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? (17 page)
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Authors: David Feldman
Why
Do Scotsmen Wear Kilts? And Why Didn’t Men in Surrounding Areas Wear Kilts?
Entire books have been written about the history of the kilt, so the first part of this question is hardly imponderable. Our reader’s focus is on why this strange garment was a mainstay in the Highlands of Scotland and not in the rest of Scotland or surrounding countries.
Although we are most likely today to see a Scot in a kilt, inside or outside Scotland, only in a parade or on a formal occasion, its initial popularity was based on practical rather than ceremonial or aesthetic considerations. Although the contemporary kilt resembles a skirt, early kilts covered not only the waist to knee region of the body but the upper torso as well. Essentially, the earliest kilts were huge blankets, which were wrapped around the body several times and draped over the shoulder. This one garment served as blanket, sleeping bag, cloak, and trousers.
The geography of the Highlands of Scotland was no doubt responsible for the kilt’s longevity. The Highlands are mountainous and damp, with innumerable streams and rivers. Anyone traversing the countryside in long pants and shoes would quickly be wearing wet long pants and wet shoes. The kilt saved the wearer from continually rolling up his pants. By rearranging the kilt, he could shield himself from the cold and wind. Perhaps most importantly, shepherds could leave their home base for months at a time wearing one garment and no “extra” clothes. As kilts were constructed out of elements easily obtainable in the Highlands (wool from the omnipresent sheep, and the plaid prints from native vegetable dyes), even the poorest of Highlanders could afford one. And the poor wore the kilt the most: According to Steward MacBreachan, a Scottish historian, performer, and demonstrator of Highland games and ancient Scottish culture, the kilt was of special importance to those who had to spend most or all of the day outdoors. More affluent Highlanders could switch from kilts to pants once they returned home from a day’s work.
We had a long talk with Philip Smith, Ph.D., one of thirteen fellows of the Scottish Tartan Society worldwide and an author of several books about Scotland. He informed us that kilts, or their equivalents, were worn in many parts of Europe in the ancient world. The Scottish kilt is not too different from the garb of the ancient Romans and the Portuguese.
Smith feels that the widespread use of the horse in other countries eventually led to the abandonment of kiltlike clothing. For rather obvious anatomical reasons, kilts and horse riding are, let us say, an uncomfortable fit for men.
After an unsuccessful Jacobean uprising in 1745, the English Prohibition Act of 1746 (more commonly known as the “Dress Act”) banned the wearing of both the kilt and any tartan material by anyone except the Highlands regiment. Ironically, the prohibition is probably responsible for our current association of Scotsmen with kilts. Scotsmen kept their kilts during the ban and wore them surreptitiously at closed gatherings. Along with the tartan, which identifies the clan of the wearer, the kilt became a symbol of Scottish pride.
As Scotsmen needed the blanketlike garment less and less for practical reasons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the kilt, if anything, gained in significance as a way for Scotland to carve its psychic independence from England. If proof of this were necessary, we need only point to the wearing of kilts in ceremonial occasions by Scotsmen from the south, who never wore them in the eighteenth century.
Submitted by Yvonne Martino of La Verne, California
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Why
Are the Muppets Left-Handed?
Our sharp-eyed correspondent, Jena Mori, first noticed that all the Muppet musicians seem to be left-handed, and then realized that just about all of the Muppets’ complicated movements were done with their left hands. We went to the folks at Jim Henson Productions for the answer to Jena’s conundrum and were lucky enough to get an expert answer right from the frog’s mouth, so to speak.
Steve Whitmire has been a Muppet performer for fifteen years, and currently “is” Kermit The Frog. Steve performs Wembley Fraggle and Sprocket the Dog from “Fraggle Rock,” as well as Rizzo the Rat, Bean Bunny, and numerous lesser-known Muppets. He also performs Robbie and B.P. Richfield on “Dinosaurs” and has worked on all of the Muppet movies.
Since we don’t often have the opportunity to speak with Muppet performers, we imposed on Steve to answer in interview form.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Steve, why are Muppets left-handed?
S
TEVE
: Because most puppeteers are right-handed.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Huh?
S
TEVE
: Imagine standing with your right hand in the air. You are wearing a hand puppet that fits down to approximately your elbow. Now imagine that a television camera is raised to six feet off the floor and is pointing at everything above your head. You are watching what the camera sees on a television monitor on the floor in front of you. Your right hand is in the head of the character. If you want to move the puppet’s arms, you reach up in front of your face and grasp one or both of the two wire rods that hang from the puppet’s wrists. You have to make sure that your head is low enough to clear the camera frame, so you’ll probably have to shift your weight to your left as you duck your head to the left.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Why do you duck to your left instead of your right?
S
TEVE
: The right hand is stretching as high to the right as possible because that is most comfortable. When the right hand stretches up, the left side automatically hunches down a bit. It’s easier for me to duck my head to the left; otherwise, I’d be ducking my head under my right arm.
I
MPONDERABLES
: If your right hand is controlling the head of the puppet, how are you controlling its arms?
S
TEVE
: You reach up in front of your face and grasp one or both of the two wire rods that hang from the puppet’s wrists. You’d be able to have general control of both arms with your left hand. If you needed to do some bit of action that is more specific, you’d likely use the puppet’s left arm.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Aha, we’re now at the crux of our Imponderable. But since you are controlling both of the puppet’s arms with
your
left hand, why does it matter which of the
puppet’s
hands you control?
S
TEVE
: Right-handed people tend to have more dexterity and stamina in their right hand and arm, so it goes into the head of the puppet. It is an ergonomic choice more than anything. If the puppeteer is right-handed, it is the more coordinated arm and hand, and it is usually best for it to be in the head. The left arm of the puppeteer is just below the puppet’s left arm, so making the left hand of the puppet its dominant hand seems like the natural choice.
I
MPONDERABLES
: You are implying that a Muppet performer concentrates much more on the head of a character than its arms.
S
TEVE
: The attention of the audience is generally focused on the puppet’s face and, more specifically, its eyes. That’s part of the appeal of the Muppets—they seem to be looking at whatever they are focused on, whether it is a prop, another character, or the home audience via the camera. The arms are somewhat secondary, although if they are performed badly, say, with arms dangling, they can attract unwanted attention.
Eye contact, and life within the face, is always the first priority in bringing our characters to life: simple head moves and gestures, accurate lip sync, etc., mimic human or animal movement. We keep all of the movement of the characters to the minimum needed to give them the life we want. There shouldn’t be any movement without a purpose.
I
MPONDERABLES
: But some of the Muppets’ movements seem awfully complicated. How can you control intricate movements with your “wrong” (i.e., left) hand manipulating two rods?
S
TEVE
: If there is specific action that requires precision that would draw our attention away from the head for too long, we will often have another puppeteer handle the right, and occasionally both, hands.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Couldn’t it get tricky having two people manipulate the same puppet?
S
TEVE
: It can. Having one performer manipulating the head and left hand and another the right hand of the puppet can help. This method allows the puppeteer on the head to do any action with the left hand if it needs to come in contact with the face, or the puppet’s right hand.
However, when Jim Henson did the Swedish Chef, he worked only the head, and it was usually Frank Oz in
both
hands. One reason for this was that the Chef’s hands were actually human hands and needed to match. Another reason was that Jim and Frank loved to do difficult and silly things like that. Frank’s goal was to break the china on the back wall each time they did a bit and the Chef threw something over his shoulder during his opening song. We would all take bets. I think he only did it [successfully] once or twice.
I
MPONDERABLES
: So this answers the question reader Robin R. Bolan asked about why some Muppets don’t seem to have wires: The answer is that sometimes they don’t.
S
TEVE
: Right. These types of puppets are good for handling props because the puppeteer can simply pick things up. In this case, a second puppeteer
always
does the right hand of the character, because the lead performer is completely tied up with the head and left hand.
I
MPONDERABLES
: Sounds like it’s easier to be green than a Muppet performer.
S
TEVE
: I always liken what we do to being an air traffic controller, because there is so much to concentrate on while we are performing. Not only are we manipulating the puppet’s mouth, body movements, and arms, we are doing the voice, remembering dialogue, watching a television screen (we never look at the puppet—only the screen), and tripping over cables, set pieces, and five other puppeteers who are doing the same thing we are.
It’s a wonder we ever get anything done considering how truly complex it really is. Fortunately, and for good reason, the audience only sees what goes on up there above us.
Submitted by Jena Mori of Los Angeles, California. Thanks also to Robin R. Bolan of McLean, Virginia
.
It’s happened to most of you. You leave the house for the beach. You forget the sunscreen. Oh well, you think,
I won’t stay out in the sun too long
.