Ensconced in velvet. (Later, in denim.)

The first three are not my words. I stole them straight out of George’s mouth. (‘The Label Maker’) http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheLabelMaker.html. The George I’m talking about is Costanza who declares his affinity for velvet in these immortal words: “I would drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable.” This velvety diversion comes to you because of my sudden remembrance of one phase in early childhood when I used to be “ensconced in velvet” – velvet pants of ridiculous hues actually – ludicrous as it sounds to me now. All my life, I’ve been bereft of a sense of personal style or grooming (I wear any – preferably old and therefore comfortable – shirt that comes to hand as soon as I open my ‘wardrobe’ without bothering about matching it with the rest of my apparel), I guess. And that must have been the nadir. Velvet corduroy has always been socially acceptable in the circles I move in and still seems to be. But I remember owning only a couple of velvet corduroy trousers in my youth. Strangely though, I was one of the first guys to take to denim early in life. I’ve never been out of a jean ever since I was around twelve. My love for denim must have grown of my affinity for cowboy comics and lore. (“Hey, hombre. I ain’t about to let this town go to coyotes like yuh. Draw!”) Denim lured me by its comfortable feel. At a wedding sometime back I met an old acquaintance who confirmed my presumption that I was the first one to don denim in my neighbourhood. Whew! http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/05/not-my-best-friends-wedding.html.

Elaine’s exclamation points.

That’s why I enjoy Seinfeld so much. Not for Jerry – who frankly comes across to me as a wimp with a nasal whiny way of speaking (listen carefully to how he says “I know”), albeit a reasonably successful one. Not for George destined to fail for as long as he lives. Not even for the bizarre Kramer. But for the unwittingly insightful Elaine. Among the priceless lessons she taught me is the one on exclamation points. http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheSniffingAccountant.htm. The fact is there’s a surfeit of them in the world. So let us not add to the congestion by using them recklessly and indiscriminately – on the idiot box of all places. The other day, I had the misfortune to be in a room where people were watching a soap called Virasat on a home theatre video screen. Every single time a character mouthed some inanity, the camera used to switch to show the expressionless mug of his or her companion. A sort of a muffled thud (the idiot box equivalent of Elaine’s exclamation point) would then come on the sound track as they cut abruptly to a still closer close-up of whoever was facing the camera. Avantika reminded me that they do it on The Bold and the Beautiful too. I guess Elaine’s logic for her generous sprinkling of exclamation points in her edit of Jake Jarmel’s book (“Well, I felt that the writing lacked certain emotion and intensity.”) is a cousin once removed of the logic soap directors, editors and music directors employ for the kind of sudsy style they adopt. Hype it up! Sock it to them, dude! They’ll just lap it up, boss!