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(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Behind-the-Scenes "Bonus Material" to a Previous Blog Post #1: "Big Jeans"

Hold on to your waistbands, because this edition of Behind-the-Scenes is for practically our most recent blog post! The one known as Ready for the BIG JEANS. And as always, I offer you a little "behind-the-scenes tidbit", in re: "Big Jeans":

***SPOILER***Walking and Talking is a 1996 movie featuring Catherine Keener and Anne Heche, about a cat who gets cancer and then dies in a fall from the balcony, or something. This is a minor film for everyone involved, with the possible exception of Kevin Corrigan (as "the Ugly Guy") who delivers a breakthrough, star-making turn. At this point, either you've seen it or you never were going to, so that's not really a spoiler for the film unless you have some insane regard for never learning anything about films you certainly never would have seen. The film is notable, however, for featuring a cat with the greatest cat name ever. That cat's name? Big Jeans. /spoiler

"Big Jeans" is the greatest name for a cat ever. Aww! Poor Big Jeans. Confusingly, however, despite this little "behind-the-scenes" tidbit, my blog post has nothing to do with cats, nor with that movie. It's about the style of clothing article known as "jeans" - a sturdy garment of rugged cotton twill trousers, traditionally dyed a deep blue or indigo, that has stormed the world of men's casual fashion since its introduction by gruff prospectors and laid-back cowboys during the late hum hum sixty hum somethings, and which your grandmother may or may not have inaccurately called "dungarees"! Or possibly, accurately, since the terms may be interchangeable.

For a little background on that, Will Dungaree was a famous Australian backdoorsman in the Outback during the late Australian 1930s, who was notorious for wearing denim jeans at all times, but who - owing to his staunch hatred of his ex-wife "Jean" - always loudly insisted that his pants were not "Jean's." They were "Dungaree's." The term spread to England during the so-called "Australian Invasion" of the 1935s, spurred by the infamous Vegemite Famine of December '34. You can look up the rest on Wikipedia!

By which I mean, you can look up the rest on Wikipedia - you can't look up that part. That's a sweet scoop from me, derived from my privileged sources! You won't find that information elsewhere.

8 comments:

Mel said...

Also a little bit of Australiana historiana you won’t find on the internets is The Great Pronunciation Debate of Nineteen Thirty-Eight. The country is still divided by the dungarees versus dungarees line. Ugly, ugly time from what I’ve heard. Even today our leaders won’t speak publically on it from fear of alienating their constituents. None of them will take a stance, or starnce, as the case may be.

dogimo said...

Which side of the line you on, Mel?

Mel said...

Dungarees.

Just call me Switzerland.

dogimo said...

I say "dung gah REEZE."

But only rarely. Normally I say "jeans."

Mel said...

I go with "denim slacks" when in polite company. Fortunately I rarely am.

dogimo said...

Mel, you create polite company wherever you go, like an aura effect.

Mel said...

Too fucken right! I'm like a veritable pied fucken piper of decorum and good fucken manners!

dogimo said...

It's true, it's true. You really are! And the best thing is, you know the difference. Courtliness, that's what you've got Mel. None of your mere manners.