Hobbies, Past times, and Other Pursuits of the Extraordinary

Friends, let us be frank, working is for the proletariat. Toiling away under the authority of authority just to collect a measly pittance dispersed from a grimy government office is no way for a self-respecting individual to behave. In our youth, we have the opportunity to create and drive business, and once we have acquired enough hired help, we should cease working as soon as possible. Having amassed fortunes, property, respect, cadres of sweethearts and admirers, and the proper airs, the only thing left is the cultivation of a civilized hobby or hobbies to discuss with your associates and assist you in whiling away the hours in as relaxed and luxurious a manner as one can. Determining which past time or hobby to take up is not a matter to be taken lightly, for while in the simple mind of the blue collar worker, such pursuits are trivial at best, they are in fact, quite serious.

For an individual to reach the ultimate status of “hobbyist,” one has to be entirely devoted to mastering a variety of particular skills in a variety of specialties, thus becoming an exemplar in your chosen field or fields. (It should be noted that a true hobbyist is a connoisseur of a broad spectrum of leisure activities, not just a devotee of a singular field of concentration.) I have included a list of acceptable avocations that can be used in combination to secure one’s place as an avid antiquarian.

A brief compilation of acceptable hobbies:

1. Bee keeping
2. Falconry
3. Sailing
4. Big game hunting
5. Whittling
6. Treasure hunting
7. Chess playing
8. Betting (horse races only)
9. Alchemy
10. Theorem development
11. Bird watching
12. Florticulture
13. Alcoholism
14. Theatre criticism
15. Landscape painting
16. Lotharioism
17. Stamp and/or coin collecting
18. Aviation
19. Penning one’s autobiography
20. Archaeology

Leaving the work force in order to pursue a life of adventure, discovery, creation, and contemplation is not only a matter of civility, it is really a matter of personal fitness. It should come as no surprise that the working classes are responsible for the majority of uprisings, riots, protests, and other ugly blights on enlightened society. Work is inherently oppressive! In limited quantities, work is a necessary aspect of even the most privileged life in some respect or another, but to live to work? Depressive, disheartening, numbing, and preposterous. Such a life of protraction is befitting of criminals alone. Our greatest playwrights, poets, painters, scientists, explorers, and men of letters did not toil away at menial tasks, wasting their precious brain power and time in factories and behind desks.

The point is this, my friends; Leave your blue collars to the former denizens of Australia.

Terribly Sorry

We at Fancy Fancy hope that our prolonged absence hasn’t been particularly distressing to any of our readers, but it’s quite difficult to type while manning a boat in a regatta or holding binoculars while on safari, as we were on our most recent holiday. Thanks awfully for your understanding.

Best regards,

Your Fancy Fancy editors-at-large

Libation of the week: The Robber Baron

There are few things in life more luxurious than going on a good mid-afternoon drunk. Let us cool our heels and toast to the good time guys and gals that told Prohibition to take a hike, paving the way for this boozy post-meridian relaxation.

The Robber Baron

1 3/4 ounce vodka (the highest shelf)
1/2 ounce Midori melon liquor
3/4 ounce lime juice
1 ounce simple syrup
8-10 mint leaves
sprig of mint
club soda
crisp one hundred dollar bill

Remove top hat and gloves. In a pilsner glass, muddle the mint leaves, one hundred dollar bill, lime juice, and simple syrup. Fill the glass with ice and add vodka and Midori. Top with club soda and garnish with a wedge of lemon. Replace top hat.

(With many thanks to The Campbell Apartment, bastion of resplendent consumption.)

The Garden: Nature Perfected

As the weather warms and thoughts of winter are carried away by zephyrs of faeries breath, life awakes once again and color erupts from the earth. Daffodils, crocuses, and tulips, harbingers of Spring and its abundant glory, begin to show their faces everywhere you turn. Curbsides begin to look like bouquets, alleyways, sidewalks, driveways and lawns are suddenly bespeckled with purples and yellows as if some botanical Jackson Pollack ran amok in our neighborhoods and parks. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has wantonly scattered her bounty throughout our lands, paying no mind to color theory or landscape design. For an omniscient being, her thoughtlessness is truly appalling.


Enter The Garden; humanity’s wildly successful solution to Nature. Nature would have us believe that abominations like “wild flowers,” “creeping vines,” “trees,” and “shrubs” have their place in a civilized society in their unadulterated forms, allowed to grow and creep and pollenate at will without any regard for such a society’s aesthetic codes. Should humanity have been allowed to grow and creep and pollenate at will without Nature’s intervention (see Natural Selection and Darwinism), we would be a bigger mess than we are already. With that in mind, it is clear that human intervention against Nature’s philistinism became a necessity in the minds of our earliest gardeners, whose forward thinking was our salvation.

Early in our crusade, our weapons were crude at best as we relied on field hands and their hoofed counterparts to till the soil and violently disrupt Nature’s ill charted course. Of course, these individuals lacked the intellect and passion for luxury required to truly master Nature, and our path to true glory emerged a bit later, embodied by Le Roi Louis XIV, the true master of Nature. In the employ of the King, Louis Le Vau and a cadre of hired hands transformed unsightly trees and shrubs into elegant and ornate topiaries surrounded by perfectly manicured flower beds, each petal considered and given the appropriate place among its brethren. In order to further punish Nature for its insolence, hedge mazes decorated the landscape, the foliage bearing shrubs that composed them were once and for all under the complete control of a man and his shears. (We will explore hedge mazes and all of their incredibly fancy, secret garden-y glory at a later date.)

Louis’ triumphant victory over that glorified wood nymph Mother Nature instilled lesser mortals with the ability to embrace their superiority as they spend countless hours weeding, pushing lawn mowers, eradicating pests, and generally putting the human back in Nature. Having resoundingly defeated Nature, mankind has gone on to further humiliate its foe by making it its playground. The vanquished, too exhausted from battle to object, has since become a mere backdrop, its trees and flowers pawns in our sun-soaked, iced tea drenched game. Trees, once high and mighty, have been reduced to holding tire swings and supporting hammocks, watching us while away time oh-so luxuriously! Lawns that once held animal life and errant flowers are now brutalized by games of polo and croquet, hooves and mallets gouging holes in the humbled ground, blades of grass a flying, our dominance unquestionable. Only after we enslaved Nature could we see its possibilities.

‘Tis the season to celebrate our ascendency! Procure a fresh pair of gloves for your gardener and set him to work maintaining your symbol of eminence as you settle into an Adirondack chair, have the housekeeper fix you a drink, and sit on the tree-shaded veranda surveying your domain.

A Call To Arms! (The People vs. Casual Friday)

As far as I know, there is nothing casual about the business of business. Split second decision making, buying, selling, trading, complicated arithmetic, sending and receiving memos, keeping your finger on the button, world trade, international finance, diplomatic relations…how can we trust the purveying of our goods, the hedging of our funds, the proper filing of our medical records, to individuals that wear tennis shoes with polyester blend suits and pleated khakis? What happened to the innovators? the robber barons? the brilliant minds and dashingly attired eccentrics that made business business? Has Howard Hughes been all but forgotten? Those free thinkers and their winds of change and ideals and whatnot have been replaced by Casual Friday and all of its horrifying connotations. The cogs of our syndicates and ventures are being turned by the sort of person that can’t even be bothered to put themselves together in the morning. By God, if our workers can’t take themselves seriously, they are certainly not taking their occupations seriously, nor are they taking seriously the current state of affairs. It’s no wonder the current state of business is nothing short of abominable! How can we be surprised that it’s all gone to pot when mediocrity is something to strive for, and a lasseiz-faire attitude toward personal representation and conduct is considered a reward at the end of a “long” work week!

With the introduction of terminology such as “business casual” into the fashion lexicon, why is there a need to specify a particular day as casual? The dowdy messes masquerading as decent people still find themselves operating within the confines of ill conceived dress codes that apparently, every major corporation in the United States has adopted. As the intolerable practice of wearing athletic socks with what passes for dress shoes has become quotidian, how can we possibly think to reward sloppy dress with entire days dedicated to slovenly dress? Employees should look as if they are in their respective offices because they receive pay checks, not federal aid.

I propose that we abolish the concept of Casual Friday and supplement it with Fancy Friday, or Black Tie Friday , or something of the sort. Never again will we see processed cheese stained chinos or questionable synthetics! Instead, we will usher in a new era heralded by a return to the bygone values of class, elegance, gracefulness, and respectability! Once again, we will nurture expression and individuality as we break free from the mind numbing homogeny that is pervading the American office environment! Let us take ourselves seriously! Let us be taken seriously! Let us leave our dorm rooms behind and discover what it means to become functioning members of a civilized society! Let lively discourse replace water cooler chatter!

Gentlemen, introduce yourselves to your local tailor, and by no means ask him to add a single pleat to your pants. Bring back the bowtie, pairs of suspenders, well proportioned collars, and proper overcoats. Dust off the monk straps, iron the ascots, and fold the pocket squares. Shave your faces and trim your moustaches. Do not make a statement with your hair, make it with a valise, briefcase, or attache made from the hide of an animal someone has taken great pains to hunt. It should appear that at any moment, you could propose an idea so brilliant that it would result in the procurement of wealth rivaling the that of John D. Rockefeller (who, as a sidenote, would never have been caught dead in a pair of Sketchers, had they existed in the 1850’s).

Ladies, really, get yourselves together. Eliminate stretch fabrics from everything except undergarments and hosiery. (An aside regarding hose: wear them. Your office cubicle is not a beach cabana for God’s sake.) Synthetic fabrics are to be reserved for parachutes, umbrellas, protective garments such a bullet proof vests, and weather balloons. Any suit, skirt, suit, or pair of ill-fitting black or black pinstriped pants composed of man-made materials is to be discarded immediately. These items can be replaced by tailored garments of wool, wool blends (wool and cotton, wool and silk, etc.), any form of cotton, silk, or linen. (Linen must be lined with a fabric possessing the sort of opacity that linen itself does not, otherwise, limit your linen garments to beach over-ups and other seaside applications.) Bring back dresses that you must zip yourself into, slips and petticoats, full skirts, kitten heels, ballet flats, cashmere cardigans, supportive undergarments, tactful and well executed applications of ribbons, lace, and ornate buttons. By no means should athletic footwear ever be paired with professional attire, nor should coats and jackets intended for hiking and other decidedly masculine past times.

Together we can reclaim our Fridays and put them toward the betterment of mankind! Put on your thinking fedoras and clochés, and become forces to be reckoned with. Become representatives of class, of dignity, of magnates and tycoons in the making. Free your employers from the pockets of Big Khaki and show business that you mean business. As another Casual Friday comes to a close, look to the past to pave the road to the future, and in seven days’ time, be the one to stand up and show your unkempt colleges who, in fact, is boss.

*I welcome and encourage photographic submissions of Fancy Friday ensembles, outfits, and get-ups. Only you can fight Casual Fridays.

The Top Ten Fanciest Crimes

Taken from the upcoming book “Fanciness: A History” by Matthew E. Leonard

(In order of frequency of occurrence)

1. Grave robbing
2. Treason
3. Impostoring
4. Poaching
5. Needless sentimentality
6. High treason
7. False astronomy
8. Counter-thwarting
9. Federal beguilement
10. Murderment

I would like to add the following as runners-up:

1. Counterfeiting
2. Highway robbery
3. Bootlegging
4. Espionage
5. Forgery
6. Jewel/art thievery
7. Piracy

Interestingly enough. the previous entries directly correspond to a tentative list of the top ten fanciest occupations.

(In no particular order)

1. Robber baron
2. Jewel/art thief
3. Spy (international)
4. Archaeologist (see Grave Robber)
5. Alchemist
6. Big game hunter
7. Profiteer
8. Dilettante
9. Food critic
10. Impostor

*11. Mastermind

More often than not, we seem to find that activities that some consider to be unsavory or “criminal,” if you will, are in fact some of the most desired occupations on the globe.  But of course they are! Rife with danger, intrigue, and mystery, the perpetrators of these acts are the sorts of individuals we can only dream of becoming ourselves.  The sort that commands attention but can quietly disappear in a room.  The sort that dare us to know them.  The sort that dare us to love them.

Phrases such as “he stole my heart!” exist for dashing crooks that tiptoe through the shadows, cloaked in subterfuge and expertly tailored suits, wooing us with their well manicured facades and tobacco smells, all the while trussing us up in sweet, sweet lies. He keeps the hearts he steals in velvet lined cases, thrown in haphazardly amongst sacks of uncut diamonds and forged documents, aliases, and gold dubloons.  Oho! What company your heart now keeps! Packed in trunks, hidden in valises, smuggled overseas your heart can now go where you alone could never take it.  In rare moments of introspection, your heart’s hijacker studies it with a loupe, turning it over in his hands, a quiet smile crossing his lips as he realizes the value of his take before he quietly slips it back into the false bottom of his suitcase and has a steward fetch him a stiff drink.

Luckily for you, the heart is a perennial of sorts, and before long, a new one will begin to grow in the chasm in your chest, hoping to one day be snatched away in the night by the criminal of your dreams.