Sporrans, Lice and Endorphins
Claire Tracy Art presented this week’s Blazer of Glory, a historical moment of fashion and … gosh, what will we call it this week? I’m going to call it, “outside Pubes”.
So Geoffrey, have you heard of the sporran?
The sporran?
Isn’t that the hairy thing that hangs between as Scotland legs?
It hangs on the outside of the kilt, but in the pubic region.
It used to be made, I think, of baby seals because those Scots weren’t the kindest of souls when it came to seals.
Well, you’ve got to have a good source of hairy things. And the seal provides.
The sporran was a variation of the medieval purse, but was also meant to display the virility of one’s manhood by having a big hairy “bush” on the outside of your clothing. So, not only were you able to raise up your kilt, as we saw in Braveheart, and show the dirty filthy English your loins in an act of rebellion, you could also wear your pubes on the outside.
So the sporran is this week’s Blazer of Glory.
Which leads into a story about Robby Burns and my favorite topic, my Scottish grandma.
So in this age of social distancing, I have had a poem stuck in my head all week and it is called To A Louse by Robby Burns, which is Scotland’ favorite poem now.
Do you know who Robbie Burns is?
I think he’s Scotland’s favorite poet.
Yep, that’s correct.
I grew up in Canberra, Australia every year, celebrating Burns Day where some Aussie bogans would put on kilts and then hack at a haggis with some swords. Then we would get to eat some and it. It was horrible, but I felt very proud to be part of this strange, mysterious culture that in the height of summer would get up, in their kilts, drink a lot and eat some sheep stomach stuffed with offal.
Did the Louse come into those celebrations?
Well, my grandmother used to be able to recite beautifully, which I think is a bit of a lost art.
Growing up, I was forced to learn poems and recite them off by heart, the only one I can still recall to mind is Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, but I do have here, a copy of To A Louse and the reason I think it’s interesting in these times is the final verse.
That talks about how we should see ourselves in others. Now, I’m horrified on public transport about being around other people, and I look at other commuters and I think to myself, “you’re not social distancing.” And then I think of this poem.
Poor Robbie Burns. He’s sitting in church, and he sees a louse on this woman’s bonnet in front of him and writes a poem to it. The language is just fantastic so I will read from the poem, I’m not going to read the whole thing, but I’ll read out a few sections.
It starts when he’s so close to this woman and he can see her head …
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gawze and lace;
Tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn’d, by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.
And he’s just lamenting about how this louse is going to jump out and get him and get the congregation.
And at the end he says.
O Jenny dinna toss your head,
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie’s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!
That final verse is my favorite one. It’s the one that I try and remember when I’m feeling a little judgmental of those around me and their lack of social distancing.
My apologies for butchering Robby Burns there, but what that translate as translates as roughly is or would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us?
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n Devotion!
So there’s Jenny with her fancy bonnet on, thinking she is just the Belle of the town, the best dressed woman in the congregation at church, but she’s got louse on her head and if only she could but see herself as others do.
So there’s a complement to this week’s Scots Blazer of Glory. The Sporran and the Louse.
I love the image of the Louse ready to leap on another body and Robby Burns begging, begging it not to, and begging Jenny not to toss her head and shower the congregation, including his good self, with her Louse.
The idea of things living parasitically honors, somehow revolting, is it not?
Well, in the age of COVID where we imagine every other person as a walking infectious biohazard, this idea from way back in the 18th century when they didn’t have the same understanding of infection that we do now in our modern, post COVID age and were just repelled by the things that are communicable between humans, like lice.
A friend of mine has been listening to us on Fashion by Dad and sent me a link about where dust comes from. And of course the most of the dust in our home is actually pieces of human skin. It’s us. Or the bed mites that live on our skin and their droppings.
So, there’s an entire biological process going on as we decay and the parasitic creatures that clean up after us process all of that biomass.
Actually, I think dust comes from three things.
A whole bunch of pollutants including micro plastics. There are so many plastics in the detritus of modern life that archaeologists will refer to this time as the plasticine, the age of the plastic. Well not plasticine, the moulding clay, but an era named after the thin layer of plastic stretching right across the globe. When they dig down in future centuries they will be able to identify what was the 21st century by the plastic. So that’s one thing.
Then, there’s us the human shedding waste. Your biomass and mite droppings I guess.
And then finally there’s a nicer one.
I like to think it’s stars. Stardust, cosmic dust. There is a cosmic dust raining, raining down on us.
There’s an interesting fact about lice that I’m not sure you are aware of. There are a couple of different species of lice, head lice and pubic lice. And the interesting thing is that our pubic lice but not our head lice are genetically the same as gorilla lice. So think about that, while you gaze upon the wonder of your cosmic dust.
Well, and this is another interesting fact in a weird little segue from Lice and gorillas. When gorillas groom each other and get rid of nits and lice an Endorphin is released into their brain.
An endorphin is like an opiate. It’s an addictive substance, so that’s why they keep grooming each other. Having known a few wonderful hairdressers in my life, I think I think they’re getting the same opiate ’cause they can’t stop touching people’s hair.
And why we go to the hairdresser. To have that attention, and to have that opiate released, to be groomed. I’m sure that’s why we reveal our innermost secrets.
It’s so interesting that we’ve started with being horrified about the closeness that we share with each other and the way that diseases or lice can transfer to from body to body but at the same time we crave that connection and we need that social touch and that, in a time of CoViD, is something really difficult to find.
Triple Z, where we produce inner glow.
