| Author |
Message |
Richard Bollard
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:06 am
Post subject: Re: Lawn jockey |
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On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:40:55 GMT, "Pat Durkin" <durkinpa@peoplepc.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"Will" <billrigby@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d36f7597.0411101115.2bb14ff7@posting.google.com...
trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote in message
news:<1gn1dsm.1d7u1xx1ebmv1rN%trio@euronet.nl>...
Will <billrigby@hotmail.com> wrote:
I read your reply (for which many thanks) and was minded to ask why
such an item sould be called a "lawn jockey". That was before I
opened the picture. Here in the UK we (well, not me or mine, but
others) decorate their gardens with gnomes. For the traditional
variety, look here:
http://store1.yimg.com/I/kimmelgnomes_1815_182742
For something a little more à mon goût, try this:
http://www.bifrost.com.au/hosting/gnomes/
Ah. At last. Gnomes with hats colored other than red, (although later on
the page the reversion occurs).
By some strange coincidence, two of my immediate neighbors have such
red-capped gnomes. One figure is a two-fer. Both have the figures on the
steps to their stoops.
Lo-cal radio was wondering about the apparent absence of female garden |
gnomes. My immediate thought was "how do they know the gnomes are*not*
female"? Perhaps they are being a bit anthropocentric when they assume
that a critter with a beard must be male. Nobody gets to see gnome
genetalia (except maybe other gnomes).
Gnomes, being elemental earth spirits, probably don't have gender
anyway.
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra, Australia
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:06 am
Post subject: Re: Lawn jockey |
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:56:23 GMT, "John Varela"
<OLDlamps@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:53:59 UTC, "Don A. Gilmore" <eromlignodNOSPM@kc.rr.com
wrote:
"Don Phillipson" <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote in message
news:AJskd.85$Su4.1025@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
"Will" <billrigby@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d36f7597.0411100317.3577e030@posting.google.com...
While reading Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" I came across the term
"lawn jockey". At the time, I took it to mean a menial who sat
bestride a sit-on lawn-mower.
Am I right?
No: think garden gnome. The lawn jockey
(formerly usually Negro) about two feet high
is the single most common figurative lawn
ornament found in the USA.
Don't forget the reflective ball and accompanying concrete Jesus.
That's called a "gazing ball".
Don't St. Francises outnumber Jesuses?
|
You want to see statuary? Come to Florida and drive through the
Hispanic neighborhoods. One in three houses has a grotto in the yard.
Mary's popular, and so's Jesus. I went by one house recently with the
entire side of the house painted a sky-blue color for a background,
and a six-foot high mural of Jesus with bleeding hands. |
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Richard Bollard
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:07 am
Post subject: Re: Lawn jockey |
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:09:02 GMT,
richardbDELETETHIS@amt.canberra.edu.au (Richard Bollard) wrote:
| Quote: | Nobody gets to see gnome
genetalia (except maybe other gnomes).
|
Or genitalia or powergenitalia either.
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra, Australia
------------ And now a word from our sponsor ------------------
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 2:06 pm
Post subject: Re: Lawn jockey |
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:09:02 GMT, richardbDELETETHIS@amt.canberra.edu.au
(Richard Bollard) wrote:
| Quote: | Lo-cal radio was wondering about the apparent absence of female garden
gnomes. My immediate thought was "how do they know the gnomes are*not*
female"? Perhaps they are being a bit anthropocentric when they assume
that a critter with a beard must be male. Nobody gets to see gnome
genetalia (except maybe other gnomes).
|
Oy!
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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John Varela
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 6:02 am
Post subject: Re: Lawn jockey |
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 03:15:15 UTC, Tony Cooper <tony_cooper213@earthlink.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:56:23 GMT, "John Varela"
OLDlamps@earthlink.net> wrote:
Don't St. Francises outnumber Jesuses?
You want to see statuary? Come to Florida and drive through the
Hispanic neighborhoods. One in three houses has a grotto in the yard.
Mary's popular, and so's Jesus. I went by one house recently with the
entire side of the house painted a sky-blue color for a background,
and a six-foot high mural of Jesus with bleeding hands.
|
Well, around my neck of the Washington suburbs Jesuses and Marys are rare.
The Italian-American woman next door has a small St. Francis, which is OK.
The Italian-Italian guy on the other side has several tacky pseudoclassical
statues left over from the decor of a restaurant he used to own. Not OK.
When I meet someone at a neighborhood party I identify myself as living next
door to the statues and the big German Shepherd, which always elicits a
sympathetic nod.
In far upstate New York and also in Nova Scotia (some years ago) there were
great numbers of colorful plywood butterflies affixed to houses, and really
tacky cutout figures of fat people bending over tending the flowerbeds.
I haven't seen a plywood Mexican with a donkey cart in some time.
Along US 40 in South Jersey there is a lawn decorated with gallon milk jugs
full of colored water forming, among other things, an American flag.
http://fortuna.home.pipeline.com/cafe-compendium/jugs.htm
A few years ago on a trip to Pennsylvania Dutch country at Christmas time we
saw our first Moravian Stars. We liked them so much that we bought one. Now
I have to go way up on a ladder every year to hang the thing, and then go up
again a few weeks later to take it down.
--
John Varela
(Trade "OLD" lamps for "NEW" for email.)
I apologize for munging the address but the spam was too much. |
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