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September 28, 2008 by Ro.
We spend a Saturday afternoon traipsing around the hills of Mt. Tabor for their annual Victorian House Tour, singing standards and barbershop on front porches and street corners. Ro brightly suggests that this is the perfect time to wear our Victorian outfits, superbly crafted by the fabulous Brenda, so the boys are resplendent in long-sleeved white shirts, vests, and hats and the girls are decked out from top to bottom in layer upon layer of Victorian frou-frou.
Unfortunately, it is misting, drizzling, foggy, and warm. The humidity is 100% and there is no breeze. The boys are melting in their long sleeves, their hats conserving their rapidly rising body heat. The girls have similar issues, compounded by hormones (or lack thereof) and three layers of floor-length skirts that efficiently wick up the rain from street and stairway and render the girls soaked from the knees down. There is some wardrobe-related unhappiness among the members of Moderately Bright Four.
Nonetheless, the homeowners and tourists are delighted with both our appearance and our sound and we make numerous new friends and fans. They ask about our repertoire and our outfits. They are especially fascinated by the girls’ bustles, and rightly so. Ro explains that the dress’s bustle effect is achieved through a complex combination of shirring, cantilevering, hydraulics, and interestingly-placed levers. In actuality there are strings inside the dress that help to gather the bustle into its consummate fullness. These strings cause an inordinate amount of problems when Audrey and Ro try to put on the dresses. If one mistakenly straddles the strings, there is a surprising “thonglike” effect, not Victorian at all, which must immediately be remedied. Or perhaps that is how Audrey is consistently able to hit her flawless high notes.
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