GR translation: hair smocks

Tue Apr 12 02:46:10 UTC 2022

I see your point. The specific reference to "hair smocks" still feels a bit
strange, but I have no idea if this was a common item back in the 19th
century.

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 10:06 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I’m not following your logic.  Forgive me if I have misunderstood you.
>
> 1.  A hair smock is not the same thing as a hair shirt.
>
> 2.  A smock is a protective cover-garment used to keep a person clean
> while doing a job that is inherently messy (such as gardening).
>
> 3.  A hair shirt was an under-garment used in medieval times purposely
> made of irritating material so that a person in ritual penance would be
> uncomfortable.
>
> 4.  It makes no sense, as far as I can see, to think Pynchon was alluding
> to a hair shirt when he wrote “hair smock.”  If you can’t connect the two
> different things by anything in the text, Pynchon probably didn’t want you
> to.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 9:52 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure if any penance is involved, but if it is, it doesn't appear
>> to be related to the rooftop garden.
>>
>> From the poem I quoted, it seems the phrase could be used to refer to a
>> hair shirt. Why would Corydon Throsp wear them, we have no way to know. But
>> it doesn't seem any weirder than my initial guess.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 11:05 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> If you are going to make a leap to claim that Pynchon is referencing a
>>> “hair shirt” when he uses “hair smock,” I think it is incumbent to have a
>>> rationale other than a desire to impart something “literary” onto it.
>>>
>>> “A hair shirt is a shirt made of rough uncomfortable cloth which some
>>> religious people used to wear to punish themselves. countable noun. If you
>>> say that someone is wearing a hair shirt, you mean that they are trying
>>> to punish themselves to show they are sorry for something they have done
>>> .”
>>>
>>>
>>> I can’t think of any kind of penance that makes sense,  in regards to
>>> the roof top garden.
>>>
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 10:30 PM Mike Jing <
>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Given the context, this seems to be more likely. I did find the exact
>>>> phrase in a 17th century English poem by Richard Lovelace, Her Muffe:
>>>>
>>>> Nor could your ten white nuns so sin,
>>>> That you should thus pennance them in,
>>>> Each in her coarse hair smock of discipline.
>>>>
>>>> So it's probably some kind of garment made of coarse cloth.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 5:33 AM Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > It's a play on 'hair shirt' and a popular image of the
>>>> Pre-Raphaelites:
>>>> >
>>>> > A self-imposed punishment or penance. The term comes from *the
>>>> medieval
>>>> > practice of doing penance by wearing a shirt made of coarse haircloth
>>>> (made
>>>> > from horsehair and wool)*, mentioned from the thirteenth century on in
>>>> > numerous sources, including Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (The Second
>>>> Nun's
>>>> > Tale).
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> http://preraphaelitepaintings.blogspot.com/2011/12/william-morris-in-smock.html
>>>> >
>>>> > Smocks became popular again in 60s/70s rural hippie culture, as did
>>>> the
>>>> > 'cultivation' of pharamceuticals!
>>>> >
>>>> > cheers
>>>> > Mike
>>>> > On 10/04/2022 02:43, Mike Jing wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > V5.20-26, P5.35-41   Bloat is one of the co-tenants of the place, a
>>>> > maisonette erected last century, not far from the Chelsea Embankment,
>>>> by
>>>> > Corydon Throsp, an acquaintance of the Rossettis’ who wore hair
>>>> smocks and
>>>> > liked to cultivate pharmaceutical plants up on the roof (a tradition
>>>> young
>>>> > Osbie Feel has lately revived), a few of them hardy enough to survive
>>>> fogs
>>>> > and frosts, but most returning, as fragments of peculiar alkaloids, to
>>>> > rooftop earth, . . .
>>>> >
>>>> > What's a "hair smock" exactly? Is it a smock you wear when you are
>>>> having a
>>>> > haircut?
>>>> > --
>>>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
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>>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>> --
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>>>>
>>>