Oh, what difference does it make? Why is a woman with children wearing a traditional white wedding dress in the first place? If you're going to stage a wedding long after the birth/adoption of 6 children and wear the white dress, why not goof on its inappropriateness and comment comically on how you've messed with the old convention that somehow you still want in on anyway?
By they way, "amok" comes from the Malay "amoq," which means "engaging furiously in battle, attacking with desperate resolution, rushing in a state of frenzy to the commission of indiscriminate murder... Applied to any animal in a state of vicious rage." (OED, no link available.)
To "to run amok" is "to run viciously, mad, frenzied for blood" or, figurative, "wild or wildly, headlong or heedlessly."
Talking about taxes and slavery, Henry David Thoreau used the expression in "Walden" (1854):
One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok" against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok" against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released the next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in season to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill. I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse himself with the few books on my table, or the curious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had of a supper.
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I thought it was lovely. It looked like only the very long veil was embroidered, the dress itself was simple and looked great.
But, then I wear Crazy Loom bracelets made lovingly for me by my daughter pretty regularly.
I'm sorry, but anybody who actually cares needs to get their nose out of other people's business and get a life.
I don't particularly care for either of them, but if you are getting married at that age, because the kids wanted you to, then I think it's lovely that they let the kids have some illusion of control.
Although this cracked me up in the article:
not to mention exotic animals such as zebras and lions, no doubt spotted on one of their parents’ charitable trips.
Or they saw them at the zoo. Even my smallish city has zebras and lions, ny post!
My thoughts about the wedding dress are pretty much my thoughts about same-sex marriage.
The NY Post writer doesn't like kids
It looks covered in tattoos, and is strangely appropriate.
I can't decide about "parenting run amok." On the one hand, I think, of course, parenting is an all in profession. On the other hand, I think helicopter parents, the kind who won't let their darling go on a sleep over because the other child's father might be a pedo.
I don't have a problem with the kids doodles on the wedding dress. Actually kind of cute.
My quibble is that the kids are even there for the wedding.
Isn't the wedding supposed to come before the kids?
I went and looked up Jolie and her kids in Wikipedia. She does a lot of good work for kids in 3rd world countries. For that, I will forgive her pretty much anything.
John Henry
Over at Funny or Die you can read what the kids wrote.
The post takes off from a tabloid writer's unpromising comment about a celebrity wedding dress, then morphs into a discussion of the etymology of 'amok', and ends with a nice little snippet from Walden "talking about taxes and slavery."
Such are the pleasures of a ramble down the meandering byways of the Althousian landscape.
I thought the dress was sweet. The two got married because that's what the children wanted. They didn't have a big blow-out wedding with five hundred guests. They kept it small and centered around the kids and it was probably the kids that wanted her in a white dress.. It kind of made me like the both of them..
I thought it was cute, and in keeping with the theme that the wedding was primarily for their children.
John said...I went and looked up Jolie and her kids in Wikipedia. She does a lot of good work for kids in 3rd world countries. For that, I will forgive her pretty much anything.
John Henry
That's one thing I'll give to Angelina Jolie--she takes her causes seriously. It's not just a photo shoot dreamt up by her PR Manager.
BTW, I'm pretty sure all the kids are adopted.
I have been rereading Walden this summer, and I remember this from a few days ago. HDTh is a beautiful writer. Much food for thought and life.
When I first saw the back of the dress I thought she had let the kids draw on it with Sharpies, but then I read the article and saw that it was actually embroidered by the maker. I thought it was a very sweet idea and a lovely dress.
NY Post writer jealous because Brangelina is better at life than they are.
I can imagine her kids thinking "why do I have to do this stupid embroidery for that stupid dress." I can also imagine them thinking it was fun and cool to do this. I just hope the kids really did it and it wasn't outsourced. The whole outfit looks suspiciously good.
Much less boring than your average wedding dress. Or dress generally.
Someone may want to tell Angelina and Brad that two people of the same sex still can't get married in Louisiana.
As per a Federal Judge ruling:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/louisiana-marriage-ban-is-constitutional-federal-judge-rules?utm_term=ybhdfy#2509cat
I like the headline, do they call it a marriage ban when a father can't marry his daughter? When a father can't marry all of his daughters?
Exactly.
Does this mean Angelina and Brad need to get divorced now?
Much less boring than your average wedding dress.
It's surprising how un-old our wedding traditions are. The white gown, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, the procession, the music borrowed from Wagner and Mendelssohn -- this is all late Victorian.
Before Victoria there's hardly even a depiction of a wedding, a notable exception being artistic renderings concerning the nuptials of Orpheus and Eurydice, and that's only because Eurydice get's killed before the close of the feast.
Crank the clock back to the 18th century, the age of Absolutist opulence, and we note that even royal weddings aren't as elaborate as the dog and pony shows the bride's family must stage today for even a bourgeois hitching. The bride didn't wear white to symbolize her chastity. If they were concerned at all about the brides virginity they'd have her examined. They did have wedding feasts, but there were no rehearsal dinners nor bachelor parties nor bridal showers. The wedding itself was a brief yet solemn religious rite with the celebrant priest as the central figure. Today's weddings, even those conducted in holier-than-thou mega churches, lack solemnity. Instead they've got pizzazz, which may be one reason why the huge sums daddy has to pay do not seem to buy permanence.
Amok. They have this word in the Philippine language, and it means just the same as in Malay, to attack with ferocious determination in a manner heedless of one's own life. So how does one deal with amok? One draws and fires his Colt M1911 .45 caliber automatic pistol. Literally.
It seem that at the of the turn of the 19th century the United States was having trouble with Islamic fanatics in Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines. These jihadists were members of the Moro tribe. To prepare for battle, the Moro would bind their limbs with leather, take narcotics, and use religious ritual to gain an altered state of consciousness. The drugs and the ecstasy made them insensible to pain, while the bindings reduced their vulnerability to blood loss. Thus prepared the Moro tribesmen would run amok against United States troops armed with the standard issue weapons of the day, the Karg-Jorgensen rifle and the Colt .38 revolver. The Colt pistol proved practically worthless again the Moro. Reports came back to Washington of Moros shot repeatedly at close range by the .38 caliber pistol who continued to charge and to inflict casualties.
These reports induced the War Department to seek a replacement service pistol with stopping power, the ability to knock an amok enemy off his feet. With this requirement in mind John Browning redesigned his .38 caliber self-loading pistol to fire a heavier .45 caliber bullet. The resultant weapon had the stopping power the Army sought, and was officially adopted in 1911.
The trouble with the Moro jihadis occurred in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Almost exactly a century before we were also in conflict with Islam, the Shores of Tripoli and all that. Am I seeing a pattern?
Charming concept, beautifully executed by the Versace atelier from Jolie's collection of refrigerator art by her kids.
Skinner has, by association, left me with a distaste for Walden. Illogical, but there it is.
Murray: Why isn't Gloria wearing white?
Felix: Murray, Gloria is the mother of two children.
Murray: Oh. I guess its hard to keep things clean with kids around.
-- The Odd Couple, "Felix Remarries" (1975)
By they way, "amok" comes from the Malay "amoq,"
Not so far from the Viking "berserk", and the definitions of indiscriminate rage are pretty close. They'd go well in a poem.
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