Category: pants

ghost of the pants


The pants phantasm…a pantasmic apparition.

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the start of my blog, and also a day that has personal significance for me and my pants. I feel like I should have something pithy, or at least witty, to say. I wanted to write something fun or silly or brilliant featuring pants. It’s been ages since I’ve put together a pants list. But instead of writing about pants, I wrote the word pants. In light. Which I have to say is actually fairly fun and silly. It is also luminous, which is at least a synonym of brilliant.¹

I have to keep chugging away at my research to at least maintain the illusion of progress, and there hasn’t been much time in my day or room in my head for blogging or pants. I’m being haunted by the spectre of an abstract submission deadline for a conference, which is looming only 2 weeks away. I had really hoped to have something ready to submit, but it’s looking less and less likely. But I want to keep my momentum, and hopefully I’ll be ready to submit something more substantial to another conference with a spring deadline. And there’s that tiny chance that I can still make the December 1st deadline. A little ghost of a chance.

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¹ I did not edit this photo at all, and I am quite pleased with myself for figuring out how to do this.

the conference pants study: interim results

Background
Yesterday, as I headed off to a conference wearing my black pants, I presented to you the Black Pants Hypothesis, a nascent theory of lower-body-garment-wearing behavior of women attending professional conferences. My expectation was that black pants would be the most frequently observed category of leg-and-bottom-covering clothing at the conference I attended.

Interim results
After two days of conducting research on the garments worn by women at the conference I attended, I have been able to make the following observations:

  1. It is very tricky to try to actually tally rates of black pants wearing while attending and working at a conference, at least without actually making efforts to record such observations and potentially appearing creepy. Methodology was therefore not systematic.
  2. Informal pants counts supported the expectation of high rates of black pants, however an exact measure was not determined. In spotting clusters of women conference attendees, it was not uncommon to see a rate between 1 in 3 and 2 in 5 black pants wearers. Counterexamples were observed, whereby a group of 3 or 4 women were observed of whom none were wearing black pants. However, all observations of groups of 5 or more women included at least 1 wearer of black pants.
  3. Rates of black-pants-wearing were particularly high among women giving oral presentations at the conference. In a sample size of 8 talks presented by women attended by the experimenter, at least 5 of the presenters wore black pants.
  4. Other highly frequently observed bottom-half-covering garments among female conference attendees included jeans and black skirts, with rates of jeans-wearing appearing to be similarly high to rates of black-pants-wearing.
  5. Gray, brown and tan and other neutral-colored pants were fairly frequently observed, with 2 outliers sighted wearing red pants.
  6. There were occasional sightings of non-black skirts or dresses.
  7. There were no observations of shorts, swimwear or nudity.

Discussion
The current study could neither confirm nor disconfirm the hypothesis that black pants are the most frequent bottom-half-covering garment worn by women at professional conferences. While large numbers of black pants were observed, the methodology was flawed such that it was not possible to determine actual rates. Further, the pants wearing behavior of women at professional conferences may be quite variable by both field and geographic region, such that the population of the currently studied conference may not be a representative sample of professional conference attending women as a whole. Pilot survey data were inconclusive, with some women affirming the essentialness of black pants, and others stating the lack of ownership of any black pants. However, correlations of these responses with professional-conference-attending behavior was not determined. Additional data will need to be collected.

Conclusions
I was glad I was wearing my black pants yesterday when I spilled coffee all over them shortly before getting up on stage to introduce presenters.

wearing my conference pants

I mean that literally, actually.

When I tell you I’m wearing my cranky pants, I don’t have a specific garment in my wardrobe that I wear when I’m being cranky. I can be cranky in any of my pants. I can even be cranky when I’m not wearing pants. (On the other hand, I do find it harder to be cranky in my flannel polar bear pajama pants.)

Today, though, is not a day for polar bear pajamas. Since I’ll be working at the conference, I need to look moderately professional. And while I can get away with wearing my cranky pants, I’m also wearing pants that seem to be my conference uniform. Black pants. (Which, now that I think about it, were also part of my uniform back when I did catering as an undergrad, and when I waited tables.) (Not the same black pants, mind you. This pair is relatively new.)

I submit to you that black pants are the single most common garment worn by women at professional conferences. This weekend, I will be on the lookout to test this hypothesis. I will attempt to take some rough quantitative measures. I predict that the rate of black pants will be greater than that of other categories of leg-and-rear-covering garment among females attending this conference.

What about you? Can you support my hypothesis? If you are a woman, and you attend professional conferences, do you wear (at least with greater frequency than your other categories of garment) black pants?

The Unbearable Tightness of Pants

Conflict.
Betrayal.
Angst.

Pants.

The Pants Institute proudly presents the Pants Cinema Film Festival: Masterpieces of Pants Drama.

Here are some of the films on the schedule:

    The Unbearable Tightness of Pants: A young woman feels increasingly uncomfortable in her pants, while her husband seems unable to keep his own pants on.

    What’s Eating Gilbert’s Pants: A young man is disturbed to realize that clothes moths have gradually overtaken his family’s closets.

    My Own Private Pants: Two misfit young men in misfitting pants embark on a journey to find pants that fit them more comfortably.

    The Last Pants of Disco: A pair of young women struggle to adapt to the changing pants fashions at the start of the 80s, and must bid their bellbottoms goodbye.

    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Pants: When a man picks up his clothing from the drycleaners, he finds the pants that are returned to him to be hauntingly familiar, yet he can’t remember ever wearing them.

    The Remains of the Pants: An aging butler reflects on his life of service, and notices how threadbare his trousers have become.

    Pants in Translation: A young American woman visits Tokyo, and is unhappy to find that she can’t find the Japanese word for “pants” in her phrase book.

    The Pants Hereafter: A town struggles to cope with the gap left by the closing of a prominent pants retailer.

    Pants Labyrinth: A young girl tries on magic pants to escape the dark realities of her family life.

    Pants of a Lesser God: Not all pants are made the same. See label for care instructions.

    Pretty in Pants: A teenage girl runs into conflict when she announces that she wants to wear tuxedo pants to her high school prom.

    Edward Scissorpants: I can’t even go there. Ouch.

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I’ve been keeping these pants packed up for ages, and it seems a fine time to air them out.

Borrowed Pants: Selected Texts from the Pants Archives

From my place in the seat of the Pants Institute, I am on occasion privileged to receive interesting pockets of Pants Knowledge from fellow Pants Scholars from the wider Pants World.

PoetTraveler of Reaching for my pen… recently left the following gem of Pants Lore in the comments of my about page, an article which surely deserves your clothes attention.¹

The quest for perfect Pants is a longstanding one. Many have searched for the ideal symbol of this emblematic icon. There has been much coverage on the subject. Some academics argue that perfection is impossible. Others say not so, it’s all down to genes.

Indeed, the great pants-philosopher, Levy of Denim, produced a schematic that took Plato’s theory of Forms further . For Levy, Pants was all about form. His addendum to Plato’s idea was not a re-butt-al, figuratively speaking. He postulated that Form clings to genes and to this day one of most widely used expressions in the field contains both a noun and an adjective incorporated in the effusive expression “I’m panting for more”.

– Excerpt from “Pantalonia – The Path of Bottomless Knowledge” –

After a brief discussion of the Text, he also shared the following:

Some dissidents – notably Diogenes of Sinope were critical of Levy of Denim’s association with Plato’s ideas. He accused Levy of being inelastic in his coverage, of dressing part of the Form concept in such a way so that it became an inelastic pro-position. Levy of Denim was noted for labeling his ideas carefully and when Diogene’s criticisms reached him he was said to have sighed and murmured “That Diogenes is not exactly a barrel of laughs” The ancient greek translation is inaccurate because of ambiguity in this context and another meaning could be “He’s not getting me over a barrel”, but there is no collective agreement on this possible alternative meaning and in any case Denim of Levy was, at that time, apparently happily married to Levytica, a seamstressed lady from Syracuse.

I expect you will agree that briefs of this fashion are a tight fit for the body of Pants Knowledge assembled in the Pants Institute, and should be stored in the venerable drawers of the Pants Bureau Archives.

This message was approved by the Ministry of Pants.

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¹This pun was also borrowed from PoetTraveler.²
²Even more Pants material can be sewn, or um, seen here, as well as more of our off the cuff³ exchange.
³…or on the fly, as it were.

The 00s: The Decade of the Butt Crack

After my last post, in which I declare that I barely noticed an entire decade, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the decade. Because I’m pretty sure I was there.

One thing that stands out in my memory is that I had to change my underwear.

And by that, I mean that I found that styles of underwear that I had been wearing previously no longer worked with new styles of pants.

You know what I’m talking about.

Low rise.

In the early years of the last decade, more and more people were dropping their pants. As the decade progressed, waistlines kept moving lower and lower, such that many feared what depths might be exposed before the trend reached its bottom. Hanging low on the waist, the jeans of this brave new world exposed a large swath of midriff in the front.

And from behind, they showed a lot more behind.

Before you knew it, you couldn’t walk down a city street without seeing hip young things showing off their coin slots.

This was a new dawn rising in the fashion world. Or perhaps a new moon. This was the dawning of the age of butt cleavage.

(Who knew that plumbers would start a fashion trend?)

We may not have seen much progress in many social trends in the last decade. We may not have seen great strides in the arts. What we did see was a lot more ass.

The 50s presented the poodle skirt. The 80s offered legwarmers.

The 00s had the butt crack.

a chance for pants

    Every time I have the chance
    While some may think it’s whack
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Let the kitchen swarm with ants
    Leave the laundry on the rack
    Every time I have the chance

    I give my work a sideways glance
    I may catch a lot of flak
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Humming lines from Safety Dance
    I’ll type away upon my Mac
    Every time I have the chance

    I’ll not read a bad romance
    Nor journal papers in their stack
    I’ll write a post involving pants

    Though others look at me askance
    I swear I’m not on crack
    Every time I have the chance
    I’ll write a post involving pants

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These pants are dedicated, in loving memory, to my friend Elizabeth, whose claim that pants was the funniest word in the English language first introduced me to the humorous powers of pants. Your pants will never be forgotten, dear friend.

The form of this post is a villanelle, a style of poetry, and the assignment of today’s Monday Mission. Please pay a visit to Painted Maypole to see who else has chosen to accept this mission. Painted herself has told me that she has a poem up, also with the theme of pants. (Painted penned a poem of pants.)

Today also marks the third anniversary of this blog. It seemed only fitting that it should wear plenty of pants today.

pb165587

This Week in Pants

The web is abuzz with pants. With so many people writing about pants these days, I’d be letting them down if I didn’t put up a post about it.

I bring to you: This Week¹ in Pants.

First, I’m pleased to report that the “in my pants” music meme is alive and well (and not just in my pants). Dee of On the Curb is the latest to report in:

You, too, can have music in your pants.

And wearing pants elsewhere…

And would you believe that the realm of pants extends even beyond the blogosphere? I scoured the headlines for news of pants around the world. Here are some of the top pants headlines:

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¹ Okay, fine, so many of these posts are older than a week. But “This Fortnight or So in Pants” isn’t nearly as catchy as “This Week in Pants.” I mean, just check out the acronym: TWIP.

A Panthropology 101 Vocabulary Primer

For those of you new to the study of pants, it may be helpful to learn a few key terms commonly used by the field’s top panthropologists. As an exercise, please use one of the following words in a sentence.

    pantipathy: a strong aversion to pants
    pantiquity: bloomers of old
    pantithesis: the opposite of pants
    pantidote: a remedy for really ugly pants
    pantidisestablishmentarianism: a fierce opposition to going shopping for pants
    pantagonize: to cause annoyance by mocking someone’s ugly pants
    pantepenultimate: the pants you wear when you are almost, but not quite, down to your last pair of clean pants.
    pantecedent: the pants you wore yesterday
    pantennae: trouser-shaped appendages atop the head (see also pantlers)
    panterior: the front side of one’s pants
    pantathema: really, really ugly pants
    panthem: a song of pants celebration. PANTS!
    panthology: a collection of short pants
    panthrax: an infectious disease that makes one’s pants fit poorly
    panthropormorphism: ascribing properties of pants to objects or creatures
    pantlers: the horns atop the head of a pantelope
    pantomime: the trousers of a mime
A pair of pantennae.
A pair of pantennae.

This load of pants was for a Monday Mission, hosted by Painted Maypants. This week’s assignment was to write a post in the form of a vocabulary list.