Short Shorts in Halifax

For people who live in a touristy beachfront town in Mexico like Playa del Carmen, where it’s common to see people in all places hardly wearing anything at all, it’s difficult to find a place where they can be surprised by the revealing clothing.  This is the case for me and my wife, but on a recent visit to Halifax, we were, indeed, surprised by the shortness of the shorts that women were wearing there.

About two weeks go, my wife and I were parked at Tim Horton’s in Halifax (a very popular doughnut shop chain in Canada) for her to use the washroom.  Just before she came back out to the car, a group of young women walked out of the doughnut shop; I couldn’t help but to notice how incredibly short their shorts were.

When my wife got into the car, she looked over at me and asked, “Did you see those girls?”  She had also noticed.  I don’t suppose too many people – male or female – couldn’t notice.

As we were driving, we came to several conclusions:

• This was not an isolated incident; short shorts are much more common – and shorter - in Halifax than any other place we’d been recently. Out of pure curiosity my wife and I counted as we drove down the street and it seemed that half of all the young women were wearing these really short shorts.
  
• Coming out of Mennonite country, this sight was probably surprising because of its sharp contrast. But …
  
• even in less “modest” parts of Ontario (like Toronto) we were sure we hadn’t seen this many short shorts.  My brother said it was because Halifax is a university town.  But Waterloo is even more of a university town, and I can’t recall seeing ANY short shorts there; I visit the city once a week on average, usually driving right through the university district.
  
• The most important fact is that for the past few years we were living in Playa del Carmen, on a Mexican beach where “modesty” is not an idea that really factors into clothing styles.  Sure, on the beach women wear bikinis, and off the beach clothing is often fairly scanty, I don’t recall seeing shorts as short as the ones in Halifax, or in that frequency.  While you can easily predict the shock of a couple coming out of Mennonite country, clothing really does have to be revealing to shock people coming from a touristy beach town like Playa del Carmen.

I don’t why, but Halifax seems to have a trend towards really short shorts.  The weather most certainly doesn’t justify it; Halifax was no longer hot at this time, and the evenings were actually getting cool, at least by our standards. We’re not sure how they managed not to feel cold.

Martin Luther vs. Desperate Housewives

A few weeks ago, there was a distinct pattern in our home.  After the kids were in bed and asleep by about 8:30, my wife would be watching DVDs of the TV series Desperate Housewives, and I would read about Christianity. My reading is from various sources but focused on a book about the history of Protestantism which features a somewhat menacing picture of Martin Luther on the cover; besides this, when I first started reading the book, she would ask me questions about some themes, which usually lead back to Martin Luther (or sometimes John Calvin).  Hence my wife refered to my reading as “Martin Luther” – for example, when we went to bed, she’d ask me, “So, what does Martin Luther say today?”

 

Our evening activities had thus become a contrast of Desperate Housewives and Martin Luther.  Thinking about this contrast, I’ve come to an important conclusion:

If Desperate Housewives had existed during the 16th Century, the Reformation would not have happened.

 

Here are the reasons why:

1. If Martin Luther had seen the women and men interact in this series, he probably would have been afraid to marry, and would have pointedly decided to remain in good status with the existing church simply to stay within the safe bounds of celibacy, regardless of all the perceived deficiencies of that system.
2. Luther, Calvin and the others could have attacked moral deficiencies of the culture represented in the series rather than those of the medieval church.
3. Those looking for a a place to apply purer forms of Reason could’ve used it to analyse characters and plots, rather than the Holy Scriptures.
4. Viewers would also have realized that grown, educated adults are incapable of “rational” living, thus rejecting the proposal that all are capable to interpret the Bible for themselves, and perhaps even rejecting pure reason as a viable approach to understanding.
5. The Reformers would’ve seen some of the long-term results of “de-sacralization” of the physical world and abandoned their agendas of iconoclasm and re-interpretation of True Presence and the Eucharist (Holy Communion.) 
6. Most importantly, if Luther, Calvin,Zwingli, Grebel and any of the others had seen this series, they simply would’ve become too addicted to spend any time on the agendas of reform, restoration or revolution.  Upon conclusion, they probably would’ve sought out some other T.V. series with similarly addictive qualities to fill their time.  (I find Desperate Housewives draws me in only a little, but the series Rome is much more addictive; most people I know, however, become very addicted to the first series.)

 

So, what would you choose – the Reformation or Desperate Housewives?

A New Direction

Recently, I’ve decided that this blog needs a new direction, or, more correctly, a new title to reflect a new direction it’s already taken.  Two changes have made this necessary:

 

1. I moved back to Canada for half the year, and I hope to do the same next summer.  This means that some of my recent posts have not been directly or even indirectly related to living in Mexico.  Instead of trying to limit what I can write about, I want to expand the focus of this blog to include a more general cultural exchange.

2. As of this week, I cancelled my other blog, called “Imagine,” which focused specifically on my religious experience.  Most of the posts in that blog ended up being about religious-cultural observations anyway, which means they would fit into the new direction this blog has been taking.

 

The task now is to give this blog a new title which reflects the broader range of cultural exchanges I’ve been commenting on – Canada and Mexico, culture and religion, the modern and the non-modern, etc.

 

Any suggestions are welcome.