Sep 18, 2008

Three Legs of Man

I was thinking about kilts today, that Scottish anachronism. Yes, I'm witnessing the meltdown of the global financial markets, and I want to talk about FASHION!

Seattle is home to the Utilikilts Co. - devoted to making "Men's Unbifurcated Garments". They're a pretty cool company, and about ten years ago I was "this close" to getting one, even though it was way over my budget (which is closer to Salvation Army chic than I like to admit). I was totally into the idea because a guy wearing a skirt is so counter-culture, and this was like a manly skirt, so rock on! So why didn't I?

Two reasons: 1 - tall guys with wimpy calves do NOT look good in kilts, and 2 - kilts pretty much ruin any chance of showing a basket - so basically, it didn't make me look HOT. There was a brief gay kilt fad back in the 80's, and some guys did look kinda sexy in them, like hairy Catholic high school girls.

Utilikilts mocumercial: Don't Ask

A pair of Scots

Utilikilts sells "freedom" - and they make some good hay out of that. But it's freedom with a smirk, because phallic-shamed Adam can't actually show his phallus in public without risking arrest from the protocol droids. In a way, a tight pair of jeans reveals more freedom than all the kilts in Scotland (the liberation of bondage paradox). Whatever, their heart is in the right place.

The Utilikilts logo is a grunge rock triskelion - a radial pattern of three.

It reminds me of the flag of the Isle of Man: three legs. A man is essentially a three legged beast - two for man and one for Min. Sorta gives "walking with God" a whole new swing. In War of the Worlds, the tripods from Mars invade earth.

Men are from Mars

Tripods in Seattle

3 comments:

Esperanto Grrl said...

Kilts are sexy, no doubt about it. A great way to check out a guy's knees, and their calves. Best way to see a man's legs since the invention of ballet tights.

Some say the Italians are the world's best lovers, but I disagree: it's the Scottish.

Have you ever read a book called "The Atlantis Syndrome?" I was just reading it in my grad psychology studies. Essentially, what the book argued was that the urges of pseudohistorians have commonalities rather similar to a mental disorder.

One of the chief characteristics is the desire to combine every possible factoid or detail to their pet theory. The book was about Atlantis pseudohistorians, but it's easy to see the pattern. Every story, every piece of folklore or underwater phenomenon, was a sign or memory of their bizarre theory.

This urge to "collect facts" is a chief characteristic. It reminds me of that old Matt Groening routine, "The Nation that Controls Magnesium Controls the Universe."

Michael said...

That' why they call us conspiraloons! :-) Gotta go, off to investigate magnesium...

Cheers, Michael

Editor said...

In Fiji the men wear a tailored skirt called a Dress Sulu. When I lived there I took to wearing them, and liked them a lot, although I also had the white, hairy, skinny leg syndrome.

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