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Several things came to my mind at one time, so here's a confused notion which was sparked by BelM's hippie post. I was interested in an article in the last Smithsonian Magazine about old cars still running in Cuba. This reminded my wife, who reminded me, of what we enjoyed very much 2 years ago when we were on vacation in Mexico, in the state of Quintana Roo, which is in Yucatan. Everywhere you went you saw those old VW vans which were so beloved of certain alternative-lifestyle types in the '60s. Complete with slogans and bumper stickers and the original paint jobs, now, alas, very faded.
Those vans, and the old Buicks and Pontiacs etc. in Havana, are little preserved parts of the past. Preserved, as a dear malapropistic lady of my acquaintance says, like a fly in aspic.
Not counting artifical creations like Colonial Williamsburg, do any of you know of other flies in aspic? One that occurs to me is the buggies and electricity-free farms of the Amish in Lancaster County PA and elsewhere.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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you mean like my house with its double hung windows with sashweights? or the apartment in my childhood with a dumbwaiter?
several thread have got me thinking about words for technology that is obsolete. Station to station long distance calls, or telegrams or even turntable and vinyl records.
darning eggs, or sheets hems to middle, turned collars, or even a boarding house reach are becoming so archic to be obscure phrases. pehaps, someone can throw some ideas, words or phrases over the transom.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear BYB: the word aspic is a bit interesting, being related to the color of an asp, a small venomous snake. Whoever chose the name to apply to something edible could easily have picked a term more palatable. And a fly in aspic suggests something even less appetizing. As a somewhat more appealing simile, why not a fly in amber? The only thing wrong with that is it would mean preservation for thousands if not millions of years. I see vehicles here in LA that are almost fifty years old.
It would not surprise me to find that they had been stolen when new for sale in South America and then used to transport an immigrant. Cars last better where there is no salt on the roads. I knew it would be egregiously bad manners to inquire how many times the odometer had reset, though I would very much like to know the answer. It is probable that those cars have had a dozen different owners, so that the present owner would not know the true total mileage. They will make a thesis subject for some urban archaeologist.
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Carpal Tunnel
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While living in Mexico from 1975-1985, I used or owned many "flies in aspic". I washed clothes on a rock in the river. I also used a portable washboard and zinc tub, a cement washboard stand with a refillable tank attached to one side, or sometimes between two stationary washboards. This is a very common accessory to most back porches or patios. Then, I got a wringer washer. A Wahoo moment. Silence please. The automatic washer has my vote as the most important invention in this galaxy. I also had various ways of heating water for bathing, starting, of course, with the galvenized bucket on the woodstove, progressing to the wood-burning water heater, the electric shower head(woe be to them with a bad grounding!)and culminating in the ubiquitous gas water heater. The kerosene lantern is also an important purchase as the electricity situation in Mexico can be doubtful. When it departs, it is generally gone for days. One misguided "modern landlord" installed an electric stove in a house we rented. I ended up cooking by campfire a lot. I also lived at one time in a town in the "quinta fregada" meaning BFN in Spanish. We had no electricity or running water. Thank God my brother-in-law came with us and took charge of carrying water from the river. I could go on and on. Adventure being my middle name has a basis in fact 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oddly enough, Canada is a repository for old American one-cent pieces. People spent (and spend) them here and they are not taken out of circulation because the mint won't take 'em and not many collectors really want them because they are not Canadian.
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Dear consuelo: I'll bet a vacuum cleaner was a close second choice after the washer. I still remember the horrible job of beating rugs on a line out doors. And I still remember how wonderful it was to get a refrigerator, so that milk didn't get sour on the second day. The big galvanized icebox became a repository for woolens and furred coats. And how often do you see a man today with a handkerchief in his coat breast pocket? Or a handkerchief anywhere else? And neckties are a stupid anachronism.I've got a million of them.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Rugs? What rugs? Nothin but smooth, almost glassy, cement or ceramic tiles on the floor. Cucarachas are bad enough without supplying them with something else to hide in. Nope, you gotta make them suckers skate!  Here in Michigan,though, I would hate not having a vacuum cleaner, but I would hate it even worse to have to wash my clothes in the Kalamazoo River in the dead of winter.
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Goodness Helen, I could think of thousands given some time. Just off the top of my head, first as regards clothes:
- Men's seersucker suits, worn with spectator shoes
- Men's Fedora hats, once ubiquitous, even at a ballgame, where 3-piece suits and ties were also worn
- Men tipping their Fedora to a lady, or standing in the street with the hat off to converse with a lady
- Men in white tie and tails at the opera
- Men getting married in a cutaway with striped trousers, ascot tie and double-breasted grey waistcoat, boiled white shirt with picadilly collar, grey top hat (I wore this at my wedding)
Medical:
- smallpox vaccinations which left you with a scar as big as a nickel on your arm
- cod liver oil
- 1 week in the hospital after having tonsils out, or post partum; 2 weeks after appendectomy; more than 2 weeks for other major surgery, such as gall bladder, amputation, etc.
Everyday tools, equipment, etc:
- eggbeaters
- stove lifters
- button hooks
- carpet beaters
- mechanical lawnmowers (i.e., no engine)
- the parlor
- the piano, usually upright, in the parlor
- canvas awnings and a swing on the porch
- straight razors and their strops
- double-edged safety razors and their blades
Enough for one go.
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Pooh-Bah
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>Men getting married in a cutaway with striped trousers, ascot tie and double-breasted grey waistcoat, boiled white shirt with picadilly collar, grey top hat (I wore this at my wedding) I suppose weddings are one of those times when people chose to step back in time (or not), so are invitably flies in aspic. If your post refers to the wearing of a morning suit (with tails), waistcoat, wing collared shirt and top hat, then you'd probably consider a lot of present day English and Welsh weddings to be flies in aspic, following much the same style (evening wear doesn't tend to be worn because weddings tend to be in the daytime in a church or registery office, rarely in a private house). http://www.weddingguide.co.uk/grooms/forthegroomwear.aspYou may also consider the fact that the wedding cake is usually a fruit cake to be another fly in aspic! Maybe old fashioned weddings remain popular because the weather, rarely makes the wearing of thick heavy morning suits too uncomfortable. In Scottish formal weddings the men wear kilts - my neigbour set off in a classic car for his daughter's wedding a few days ago, he easily upstaged the women members of his party. "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is the definitive formal wedding catalogue. By the way I wonder why I never see the word "tuxedo" used here for a black jacket (it may be used for a formal white jacket), it tends to be described as a "dinner jacket" or "dress suit" and the invitation to a formal event would specify "black tie". Similarly, the term "maid of honour" is out of my parent's generation, I've never heard it mentioned here amongst any of my agegroup, although it seems to be still used in the USA. The other thing that I have never come across here, is wedding (or baby for that matter) "showers" - they sound wet and uncomfortable to me. I wonder how far back they date? Mind you, the web is full of wedding suppliers. I found some great ideas for more up-to-date weddings for anyone getting married later this month, you still have time!  : http://www.wednet.com/questions/engage13.asp
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Carpal Tunnel
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Good heavens, Jo--look what I found, going link to link in your site. I read the Halloween Wedding story, and got curious about the author, Kathryn A. Laity. She's a prof. of medieval studies at the U. of Connecticut, and look what she did her dissertation on:
Local Heroes: The Sociolinguistic Context for the Development of Vernacular Saints' Lives in Old Irish, Old Norse and Old English.
This dissertation investigates the particular case of the vernacular lives of three native saints, Brigit, Óláf and Guþlac, within the context of the heroic and literary traditions of Ireland, Scandinavia and England during the Middle Ages. It scrutinizes where these portrayals lie on a continuum between the competing traditions that affect their formulation: the widely-disseminated, influential Latin vitae and the popular epics of the vernacular literary heroes and mythical figures. It focuses on these particular saints' lives because they embody the different tensions—and the creative resolutions—between these competing traditions in very different ways: Brigit as the reformulation of a pagan deity; Óláf as the land-hungry Viking king; and Guþlac as the quintessential Anglo-Saxon warrior.
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