ordeal of the cursed morsel

West’s Encyclopaedia of American Law  would appear to be an interesting book if only I could get my hands on a copy.

“An ancient form of trial required the accused person to submit to a dangerous or painful test on the theory that God would intervene and disclose his or her guilt or innocence.

The ordeal of water was performed by casting the suspect into a pond or river. If the suspect floated to the surface without any action of swimming, she was deemed guilty. If the suspect sank, she was pulled out and pronounced innocent. The hot water ordeal required the accused to plunge his bare arm up to the elbow into boiling water without injury. In the ordeal of the cursed morsel, the suspect swallowed a piece of dry bread with a feather in it. If the suspect did not choke, he was found innocent.”

we’ve had a few choking episodes at the gimcrack. geriatrics who are still feeding themselves often gobble their food. thankfully the heimlich manouvre is not practised at our facility. I once saw it performed on a choking grandmama in a restaurant and her false teeth flew across the room and landed in my friend’s creme brulee. there was a lot of gold in granny’s teeth and my friend was tempted to take them to a pawn shop but a surly waiter wearing double latex gloves intervened.

(I’d love to credit this but I don’t know where it came from)

but to get back to feathers, which have a long history associated with sex. Sally Rand was charged with being lewd, lascivious and degrading to public morals when she performed her famous feather and fan dance at the 1933 World Fair

 

she also performed in a see through bubble ball and hosted a nude ranch at the Golden Gate Exposition. She became famous for her finale, a fan-twirling dance, which she rendered in the buff. But, when challenged in court, she claimed that her audience never saw a thing because “the Rand is faster than the eye.”

This is NOT Sally but the panties DO feature a strategically placed feather

the tennis treatment

recently nursemyra read a most interesting book called The Past of Pastimes (1969) and found out more than anyone ever needed to know about tennis.

image by Namio

Lord Abedare quotes from a French treatise on tennis and rheumatism, written in the 18th century: players should make a broad belt with a napkin and tighten it sufficiently by two knots on the kidneys. This binding will keep the body firmer, strengthen the guts, and uphold the liver against the frequent thrusts and shakes of the players, preventing it from pulling back the diaphragm by its weight, which would make for difficulty in breathing.”

Queen Elizabeth the First, whilst not a player, was an interested spectator at a match between the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester. The latter, we are told….

‘being verie hotte and swetinge took the queen’s napken owte of her hande and wyped his face. The Duke protested that the Earl was too sawcie.”

nursemyra thinks the Earl could take lessons in ’saucy’ from these gals…

competitive streak

in the comments*** section of yesterday’s post daisyfae asked how long the competition would be running for. previous comps have been for one day only but since so many of you are nursing post xmas hangovers (still!) this one has been extended until 6.00 pm monday eastern standard time. no extensions past this time are possible - I know there are legions of fans out there champing at the bit for a copy of Oddly Australian and I don’t want the lucky winner to have to wait too long…..

nursemyra and friends at Centennial Park on Xmas Day

*** comments about your hangovers may be left here. competition entries go with yesterdays post

comstockery and clavicles

In 1915, H L Mencken published an essay  on terms used for the human body.

“I undertook to arrange the parts of the body in 8 classes, beginning with the highly respectable and ending with the unmentionable. Into the highest Class I put the heart, brain, hair and eyes, into Class 2 the collarbone, stomach, liver, arms (excluding elbows), ears etc. Into class 3 the elbows, ankles and teeth (if natural), shoulders, neck etc. and so on. My class 6 included thighs, paunch, esophagus, spleen, pancreas, gallbladder and caecum and there I had to stop for the inmates of classes 7 and 8 could not be listed in print in those days of comstockery.”

the days of prudish Anthony Comstock are long gone so now it’s time for another gimcrack competition. You may enter up to three times but each entry has to be for a different body part. whoever comes up with the best synonym for breast, vulva, penis or testicle will win a copy of Oddly Australian (1984) with runners up receiving whatever else is in my prize stash on judging day.

So knock yourselves out and surprise me………

 

t shirt friday 26.12.2008

I’ve had this t-shirt for about ten years and it’s a little too short in length now that showing one’s belly is no longer a la mode but I can’t bear to part with it.

nursemyra doesn’t smoke marijuana (though I have no great objection to those who do) so it’s worn with a sense of irony. my mother was mortified when I wore it while visiting her in New Mexico in 2001. I’m sure she thought we were all going to be arrested when we stopped at a diner for breakfast one morning and there were cops at the next table……

 

you can click on these if you want to read the fine print

daisyfae is playing along and so is gnukid and Sledpress and just in the nick of time…… renalfailure and CheekofGod

and one more…..TigerEyeSal

throwing a bean into the lion’s mouth

for those of my readers who are not familiar with Boccaccio’s Decameron, it contains a charming tale about a naughty monk seducing an innocent girl by telling her he has a devil attached to him and he can only be redeemed if it’s put safely into hell, which, fortunately, the girl is equipped with.

 

click to enlarge

Alibech grows so fond of putting Rustico’s devil into her hell that she begs the monk to perform this redemptive practice more often than he is capable of.

 

click to enlarge

“So he satisfied her demands on a few occasions, but so seldom that it was like throwing a bean into a lion’s mouth.”

She eventually tells the ladies of the village that she is not serving God as often as she would wish and they laugh sympathetically, assuring her when she marries her fiancee (Neerbale) all will be well.

the story ends with this quote…

“and so, all you young ladies who are in need of god’s grace, learn to stuff the devil back into hell, for that is highly acceptable to him and pleasing to both parties, and much good may arise and proceed from it.”

be naked for jesus

In the 15th century, the Picards in Flanders worshipped while naked and they revered the human body. Before them, the Adamites in Bohemia, not only went about naked to symbolise the innocence of Adam, but practised free love in order to liberate the flesh. They taught that nakedness was essential to real purity.

nursemyra thought that Christian sects like these no longer existed but she was wrong. Naturist Christians would appear to be flourishing, with a website full of information as well as a few interesting polls.

nursemyra’s favourite naked Christian

there are many rites, both christian and pagan, that involve nudity. the alleviation of barrenness in women is often magically helped by nakedness. In India, a barren woman wishing to make herself fertile, would remove her clothes and circle a fig tree 108 times, wrapping it around with a cotton thread. In East Prussia women sowed peas naked to stimulate the vine to produce abundantly.

In the Philippines, members of a certain tribe performed an interesting ritual aimed at protecting a woman in labour. It was the duty of her husband to climb onto the roof naked, brandishing a sword and shield at the sky. Down below, naked friends would stage a mock fight to distract and frighten any evil spirits that might be lurking about with intent to harm the mother and her newborn. Perhaps Lizza could tell us if this is still in vogue…

blind (not drunk) in the bottle shop

nursemyra does many things at the gimcrack, some of which are in her job description and some of which aren’t. one of the “extras” I do is drive a couple of my favourite patients to the bank every fortnight. we don’t have eftpos facilities and these two have no other way of accessing their drinking money “comfort funds”. Neither of them are classed as At Risk of Wandering  so it’s no big deal.

except that today I lost them.

After Little Tui and Drak completed their banking I left them sitting on a bench at the shopping centre while I stood in line at the post office for stamps.

(Here’s some free medical advice from the nurse. Don’t buy stamps in December, especially if the people in front of you in the queue notice your hospital employee identification tag when the smelly drunk person in front of them faints. But that’s a whole other story.)

by the time I got back to the bench, Drak and Little Tui had disappeared. I wasn’t unduly worried because even though Drak is sight impaired, Little Tui knows her way around town and they both had enough money for a cab back to the Gimcrack. Still, I thought I should at least pretend to look for them, so I asked around.

“Um… I’m looking for a blind Transylvanian and a Maori dwarf who were sitting on that bench 20 minutes ago”

 

(image of Darling Dagmar found here)

It’s ok folks, I found them at the local bottle-o, stocking up on xmas cheer. But the next time we need stamps I’ll just order them online…..

tired of being humbugged?

Professor Jean Civiale had quite a way with words when it came to promoting his Urethral Crayons for the cure of spermatorrhoea

The Vital Fluid: What it Is, What it Does, and How it is allowed to Drain Away, Weakening, Emasculating and Dementing the Vicious and the Careless. Diurnal (daily) Emissions. Nocturnal (nightly) Emissions. Impalpable Oozings. Losses in the Urine. Losses while at Stool. Mistaken Gleet.

At the first symptom of Sexual Decay or Nervous Exhaustion, the person thus affected should have his urine carefully and thoroughly analyzed by some competent person.

Civiale considered himself to be one such competent person. He painted a horrifying picture of what lay ahead for chronic masturbators

Oozing of a glairy fluid under excitement and imaginings, Formation of Evil Pictures in the Mind, Mental Hebetude, Stringiness and Softening of the Testicles, Sensation of the Bowels Falling Out, Weight on the brain, ringing in the ears, pains in the head, nervous twitchings of the eyelids, The erector muscles become paralyzed, and the organ remains inactive at the call of the will followed by convulsions, coma and death.

exact size and shape of insertable crayon

all these symptoms could be controlled, of course, by a once daily insertion of his famous melting crayons. Professor Civiale also had other strings to his bow. His Elastic Self Adjusting Cradle and Compressor could permanently and painlessly cure twisted scrotal veins, otherwise known as variococeles.

Such a perfect and practical combination is to be found in the Elastic self-adjusting and adjustable Cradle and Compressor, which has succeeded in curing many apparently hopeless cases.

Attached to the metallic shoulder is the Elastic, Glove-Fitting, Self-Adjusting Testicle-Cradle, by means of which not only are the testicles perfectly supported and rested, but by the sheet-rubber lining and the elastic tie bands, a constant, easy and perfectly painless elastic pressure is kept up on the dilated and sagging veins, which are thereby emptied of their unhealthy and stagnated blood and allowed to regain their tone, strength and contractility.

aren’t you glad you live in the 21st century?

corset friday 19/12/2008

ok so this is not a corset but it’s summer over here now and damn hot today so it’s nursie and a snowman. because it’s xmas dammit…..