Jack Sparrow “Not Gay”, Asserts Ectodad
Posted by Eliza Gauger
I receive regular literary, historical, and artistic treatises via email from my father, better known to Ectomo as Mogo the Mugger, bandit commentator and most vocal proponent of the opinion that Brownlee and I should both get a life.
Dad has this to say about dandy pirates, both Hollywood and historical:
[…] Lately, I’ve been coming across so many pictures having to do with fortunate or unfortunate clothing.
Meet Sir Thomas Urquhart, Scottish gentleman and adventurer of the mid 1600s, the golden age of piracy. I call him to witness my case that Jack Sparrow’s mannerisms in Pirates of the Caribbean were not ‘gay.’
Sir Thomas had many friends and was said to be kind, vain, imaginative, a lover of new words and strange marvels, pure-heartedly dedicated to causes. His 1653 translation of Rabelais into English (sample: “.my dainty feedle darling, my genteel dilly-mission.”), may still be our best.
Sir Thomas left us this full-length portrait of himself by a second-rate engraver. I love second-rate artists. They show us better the pop culture of their times than do the great painters (like Van Dyke, Rembrandt, etc.).
Now to the illustration: I bet Sir Thomas commissioned it himself. Lucky for us, he left off his jacket so we can see his suit. That’s it on the pedestal; it cost a fortune, it can damn well be in the engraving! Note the pose, the impossibly turned out feet, the elegant wrist on the hip, the way he accepts a wreath ‘for Armes and Artes’ from the goddess. I can just see him sashay through the door of his cell in the Tower when Cromwell let him out. Sir Thomas is said to have died of a fit of laughter when he heard of the Restoration of Charles II.?
Categories: Pirates, Fashion
Posted at 11:30 pm on October 8, 2007
6 Comments -
I miss the days when art had writing on it.
This fellow reminds me of a tale from Gulf War One, about a Marine. Fellow reminded most folks of Felix Unger, did Tai Chi every morning, had a special blend of teas shipped from home. Everything he did perplexed the rest of his company. One day, he strolled in, with the crew from an Iraqi artillery emplacement. He had taken it with just his sidearm.
When asked why he’d done it alone, he responded ” I didn’t want to trouble anyone.”
Comment by Pat — October 9, 2007 @ 2:02 am
Weird, is it me or does Hugh Jackman (of X-Men’s Wolverine fame, The Prestige) seem to look like this guy? I wonder if we’ll have another dainty pirate movie in the making?
Epheros Aldor - Apostle of Cale
Comment by Epheros Aldor — October 9, 2007 @ 3:17 am
Pat, that’s an outstanding anecdote. Lawrence of Kuwait.
Comment by Eliza Gauger — October 9, 2007 @ 7:25 am
One of the things I loved about the army and the Vietnam War was that occasionally you would meet someone like that.
Comment by Mogo the mmoMugger — October 9, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
Dang it, I forgot to add a few more anecdotes about Sir Thomas. He was knighted by Charles I for his services in several battles.
In his youth, Sir Thomas and his brother were troubled by their father’s careless generosity with the family fortune. In 1636 the two were charged with imprisoning dad in an upper chamber of the castle known as the Inner Dortour. But as the imprisonment lasted only from Monday to Friday afternoon, the court dismissed their case.
‘Of the size of the castle it was said that two threshers could have plied their flails within the huge chimney of the kitchen, and that in the great hall a hundred men had exercised with pikes.’ I love this stuff.
Regardless of family problems, Thomas did the Grand Tour of Europe a century ahead of everyone else. He claimed he spoke European languages like a native, and in conversation he always vaunted ‘greatness of the Scots against every other nationality.’
See the businesslike rapier? It’s hidden behind his leg; you can only see its tip and a portion of the guard. No blackguard may offer Sir Thomas affront and expect to go without reprimand.
Comment by Mogo the mmoMugger — October 9, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
[…] Not that there’s anything wrong with that, me hearties, but if ye wants the real bilge, the down-low, the scuttlebutt, have a shuftie over at ectoplasmosis. […]
Pingback by Jack Sparrow “Not Gay” | Never Sea Land — October 17, 2007 @ 8:47 pm