(Roughly) Daily

The musical director Busby Berkeley’s attention to authenticity and detail was the stuff of legend.  Berkeley was reportedly accosted by his production accountant one day on the set:  “$2,000 for silk underwear for the girls!  Mr. B, no one can see it, no one will know that they’re wearing silk underwear!”  To which the director replied, “Not so– the girls will know…”

Surely it was this same impulse to quality that moved the City Council of Brooksville, Florida (about 45 miles north of Tampa, not too far from where you’re marooned correspondent is typing this) to pass a dress code for city employees insisting that:

* underwear is now required;
* employees must use deodorant;
* no halter tops or Spandex at work;
* no skirts worn “below the waistline”;
* no other clothing that may be “distracting, offensive or revealing”;
* only ears may be visibly pierced; and, perhaps most disturbingly,
* all cuts or wounds must now be covered.

See Lowering the Bar for the full story.

As we rethink our vacation itineraries, we might recall that it was on this date in 1633 that the Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo Galilei to recant his scientific view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe. Galileo is said to have muttered “Eppur si muove!” (“Yet, still, it moves!”).

Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition