Each year, Cordarounds celebrates the Southern Gentlemanly arts and sciences with the issue of limited edition seersucker trousers and fine, porch-worthy tales. Today, we proudly release blue stripe seersuckers along with the story of one, P. Orpheus Butterfox, the world's first Dixienaut.

 

P. Orpheux Butterfox / Beauregard P. Delacroix / Austindale Crockett / O. Rutherford Picking

SWAMPOPOLIS, Mississippi -- As dawn broke yesterday over a landscape of cotton fields and gently swaying pine trees, what seemed like the entire population of Giblets County had begun gathering on the town square. The object of their attention was local aristocrat P. Orpheus Butterfox, who was preparing to fulfill his lifelong ambition: to reach outer space.

Medically discharged from NASA's human spaceflight program in the early1960s for a chronic case of julep-elbow, this now-legendary torch-bearer for the gentlemanly arts decided that the only way he was going to get into space was to get there himself. Armed with legendary Butterfox stubbornness and an engineering degree from the University of Mississippi, he proceeded to eschew a lucrative position in the family molasses business and spend the next four decades planning his interstellar journey.

"It is indeed a pleasure of the highest sort, that I may greet you in these moments before I journey to the heavens in my most wondrous and stately star-craft,” said Butterfox, 68, pointing to the gleaming mahogany rocket ship standing in a nearby magnolia grove -- a  rocket ship he had spent years painstakingly carving by hand. "With the companionship of my loyal blue tick hound and a picnic basket containing the very finest fried chickens and other delectable victuals prepared so lovingly by the Daughters of the Confederacy, my time in outer space shall be as relaxing as a gentle night of yarn-spinnin’ and whiskey-sippin' upon my porch!"

According to Swampopolis Mission Control, the Butterfox rocket ship was nearly fully provisioned and ready to launch, with final shipments of freeze-dried snuff and Templeton's Gold Star Mustache Wax due to arrive by nightfall. Workers could be seen running to and fro as they made final launch preparations, which included ensuring that the distinguished Southern gentleman’s trusty Winchester shotgun had been thoroughly cleaned and loaded, lest the alien life forms he expects to encounter "prove themselves to be of an ornery disposition."


The air in Swampopolis was suffused by the pleasant aroma of burning hickory wood, which fuels the Butterfox rocket. The fire must be constantly stoked, both to produce enough vertical thrust to escape the Earth’s atmosphere as well as to provide a warm and inviting environment for Butterfox to peruse the many leather-bound volumes in his onboard library.


Another unique feature of this spacecraft is its specially designed heat shield, which is made entirely of Cordarounds seersucker material. "As I return to Earth from my heavenly jaunt, my star-craft shall need its sheath of soft, cool seersucker to repel the dastardly heat of reentry," said Butterfox.  "And I, too, shall be adorned in suckerlab seersucker finery during the whole of my astronautical adventure." And with that, Butterfox slowly turned a complete circle, allowing the growing crowd to admire his new Cordarounds seersucker pants.

“Is there a more fashionable interstellar traveler in these parts?" cried Butterfox, a fresh gin and tonic sloshing gently in his hand as curtsied to the hundreds of onlookers. "By the sweet nape of gentle Persephone’s neck, I dare think not!”

The world of tactile technology was satisfied with "soft as a baby's bottom" as the measure of absolute softness. Anyone who dared name something "softer than" the aforementioned infant's posterior was suggesting a theoretical, quantum world of soft that existed beyond anything man could conceive.

That is, until researchers at the Cordarounds Livermore Laboratory invented the Tactile Soft-o-meter, a device that can detect and compare the density of softrons, the subatomic units of softness. And while this has proven a Nobel worthy discovery, our scientists could not simply rest on their laurels.

Continue reading " Cordarounds Discovers World's Softest Substance " »

For months, Cordarounds headquarters has been besieged by its most dastardly foe: Vertical Corduroy. By land and by sea, the vicious vertical villain has squeezed our supply lines like a giant, fabric Kraken. Yet Horizontal Corduroy did not succumb. Outnumbered literally millions to one, our horizontal lines have held strong, true...and velvety-soft to the touch.

Now, at long last, reinforcements have arrived! An armada of schooners laden with horizontal corduroy has docked in San Francisco Bay, and our hale and hearty stevedores are unloading cargo around the clock.

Continue reading " Dispatch from the Front Lines of the Corduroy War: The Siege of San Francisco " »

But we're going to need help.  Lots of help.  The Cordarounds Zeppelin will require hundreds of able-bodied crew members, from pilots to Pilates instructors.

Continue reading " Airmen Needed! " »

Do you know His Majesty, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Muizzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan of Brunei?  Do you know someone who knows him?  If so, please forward on this message:

Your Excellency:

It has been 13 insufferable years since Bill Gates surpassed you as the world's wealthiest man. These have been dark days indeed when unparalleled personal fortune has been defined not by harems and saffron-fueled Lamborghinis made of gold, but by stock options and sensible V neck sweaters.

Continue reading " Please Forward to the Sultan of Brunei " »

SPRING, Texas -- On May 2, at precisely 2:30 local time, members of Ms. McKey's English class watched in awe as a trouser-shaped UFO descended from the heavens, landing just shy of the end zone in Leonard George Stadium (home of the Lions).

Upon closer inspection, the intrepid students discovered curious "Cord-a-locator" cards in the pockets as well as a shiny Sacajawea dollar coin -- proof that these were not just any airborne trousers, but authentic Cordarounds summer trousers, the very ones that took flight (see video) from the from San Francisco's Fort Mason on April 22nd.

Continue reading " PANTS FOUND IN TEXAS! " »

On Tuesday , Earth Day, a vessel of hope took flight from San Francisco -- a pair of helium-borne trousers that rose into the firmament, and then traveled eastward upon the breath of angels.

And why? To prove an important point: That cords can be worn all summer long. They're not just any corduroy, of course, but Cordarounds' new ultra-lightweight, nano-wale trousers.

Weighing in at a scant .65 lbs, these feathery trousers need a mere 11 cubic feet of helium to go airborne -- to the envy of common khakis, jeans, and other comparatively leaden summer pants, the helium buoyancy of which is detailed in the extended entry.

Continue reading " CORDAROUNDS LAUNCHES LIGHTER-THAN-AIR PANTS " »

The newest competitor in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is neither an engineer nor a pilot. In fact, he never advanced beyond his third, gin-soaked semester at the University of Mississippi-Molassesburg. But 56-year-old Sylvester Boggs-Cockrell is nothing if not a determined and courtly Southern gentleman. And when this scion of the South first learned of the international competition to send a robot to the moon, he set down his glass of iced tea, rubbed his fine white whiskers contemplatively, and exclaimed, "Mercy me, how I would so delight in beating those Yankee rapscallion tin-men to the moon myself!"

Continue reading " Cordarounds Enters X Prize Competition " »

The last time riverboat gambler Beauregard P. Delacroix faced the mechanical man in a game of cards, he had lost his money, his home, and his prized Appaloosas. Worse, he had lost his cool – falling for the gambling gadget’s bluff when he could least afford to.

He blamed his pants.

Continue reading " Southern Gentleman Testing: Riverboat Gambling " »

SAN FRANCISCO, April 03 — Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but a tourist recently discovered that you can leave your arm there as well. That is, when local fashionistas convince you to stick your arm into a dark and foreboding grotto – a grotto that happens to be occupied by a large and remorseless sea lion, whose insatiable appetite for human flesh is exceeded only by his remarkable capacity to accurately predict the onset of the summer fashion season!

Continue reading " Frisco Frank Eats Tourist's Arm! Sucklab is open! " »

Cordarounds Adventurer Emeritus Wellington Stack has always been ready to take his Cordarounds to the limit, whenever and wherever duty calls.  Recently, we asked him to subject our trousers to a grueling test of gluttony – and report back in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.  The question at hand:  Could Cordarounds survive a stomach-expanding meal of Thanksgiving-like proportions, without its button rocketing forth from its stitching?  Mr. Stack’s dispatch follows.

BY WELLINGTON STACK

A crisp, October morning found me in a somnolent tavern in the meat-weaving district of Kathmandu, utterly exhausted, a flagon of rakshi in hand.  I had arrived from the Nepalese hinterland only days earlier after one of the most difficult Cordarounds field tests yet.  It had left me bloodied, concussed and in need of an appendectomy – to say nothing of my Cordarounds, which were dusty and redolent of soot and yak dung. 

Continue reading " Gluttony Tested For Thanksgiving " »

Dear Ladies,

When you wipe up a spill with a Brawny paper towel, who do you think of?  A rugged and intriguing woodsman, of course.

Take a drag off your Marlboro, and does your mind’s eye not wander to a stark, beautiful dreamscape, where a handsome cowboy pauses to survey the infinite horizon before lighting another cigarette and calling softly to his four-legged charges?

Continue reading " Cordarounds Announces Romantic Spokesman for Women " »

Why are Cordarounds the preferred pant of secret agents, ninjas and justice-seeking vigilantes like the indomitable Ted Fist (featured below)?  That’s easy: The meshing wales of these wonderpants allow for effortlessly swish-free sneakabouts -- no vrrt-vrrts, woosh-wooshes or other onomatopoeic tip-offs that you’re on the prowl.

Most of our customers are, in fact, employed in professions requiring the utmost stealth as well as a high degree of proficiency with throwing stars.  So we thought it was time to make a pair of trousers just for them: the PAYBACK Cordarounds.   These black, thin-wale classic Cordarounds are styled with black paisley pockets and liners.  They’re very, very black. They mean business.  And yet they’re our most fancy-pants pants to date, equally at home in the VIP room or the interrogation room.


But we didn’t stop there.  Oh no.  In our never-ending quest to properly outfit our daring and deadly clientele, we went one step further.   Sure, PAYBACK pants are dashing when paired with our reversible smoking jacket, but why just think outside the box when you can silently shoot it from 2,000 meters?   To wit: the Urban Jungle Sniper Coat!

Since Cordarounds lives on the bleeding edge of fashion, we felt duty-bound to urbanize the sniper’s trusty ghillie coat.  Designed to make you look like a mound of moss wherever you go, the Urban Jungle Sniper Coat is perfect for any occasion when discretion is paramount.  (It’s mesh woven, so you can insert local flora and blend into any environment, like quiet bouquet of ill-tidings.)

You can find these and other fantastic new items in the Cordarounds store --your #1 online destination for Valentine’s Day gifts.   For Him.  For Her.   For Adventure.

 

Kind Sirs:

As you and undoubtedly most San Franciscans well know, Civil War reenacting is never a particularly comfortable endeavor. Especially during the long, Alabama summer, when we must take to the roasting battlefield in our heavy burlap jackets and scratchy woolen trousers, when the heat of combat is exceeded only by the steamy, tortuous environs between pant and leg. Why, after the Battle of Hooper’s Mill, my unmentionables were no less miserable than the Okeefenokee Swamp, and even with generous applications of salves and medicinal powders, my chafed thighs remain quite tender to the touch!

So you can imagine my surprise and envy when, during the annual reenactment of The Massacre at Blood Mountain last month, I spied through my field glasses several Union reenactors charging toward our redoubt … wearing luxurious, seersucker pants! Gorgeous, Union-blue pants, loose-fitting and ingeniously horizontal in nature. Feeling as cool and fresh as a spring morning in the Shenandoah, those Yankees broke through our lines and annihilated the regiment with even more speed and vigor than was historically called for. As I pretended that the thrust of a Union bayonet had pierced my spleen, I crumpled to the ground, moaning: “If only my men had such fine and stylish pants!”

Weeks later, while leafing through the latest issue of Confederate Quartermaster Monthly, I saw an advertisement for these wonderful pants, these so-called “Summerounds,” available for a limited time only in …GREY! I can not adequately convey to you in this modest missive the tears and Rebel Yells and other assorted enthusiasms with which my men received the news. Needless to say, each and every one of us has ordered copious amounts of your grey Summerounds; with the Reenactors’ Ball fast approaching, one cannot have too much fine toggery.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Before our grey Summerounds can delight the belles, they will delight in the thrill of battle! After victory at Culver’s Crossroads, we will once again be roundly defeated at the Skirmish of Crabapple Corners. On that day, the creek will run red with blood, after the dye is poured in. We will imagine that Union rifles are shooting real bullets, that swords have razor-sharp edges, that there are actual horses to trample our mangled, perforated corpses into the mud. As always, we will gallantly pretend-fight to the last man. But as that last man falls to the ground, he shall do so, this year, in comfort and style.

Huzzah, Summerounds, huzzah!

Most Sincerely Yours,

O. Rutherford Pickling III
Captain, 134th Alabama Volunteer Infantry
Adjunct Professor of American History,
Cyprus City Community College

 

Now that soccer season has arrived, we think it’s the perfect time to discuss Shortarounds, our line of Cordarounds shorts. These are faithful replicas of 19th century Welsh “sporting breeches,” the trousers of choice for fierce devotees of a legendary gentleman’s game that would give rise to the modern game of soccer. That sport was none other than Skunk Kicking.

Whether Skunk Kicking grew out of boredom or a deep resentment toward skunks, we cannot say. The rules were strikingly simple: chase and, if possible, kick a skunk – without being sprayed, clawed or having one’s toes chewed off. Suffice it to say, competitors had to move deftly.

In 1837, the so-called “aristocrathletes” of Wales decided to reorient the wales of their corduroy shorts horizontally, an aerodynamic innovation that forever changed the sport. With their newfound quickness, they could deploy a full arsenal of talents – dribbling, passing, and bicycle-kicking the skunk – while easily avoiding a foul-smelling reprisal.

The horizontal shorts worked too well. So nimble and fleet of foot did these skunk kickers become, there was soon no challenge in simply kicking a skunk. Why, with a pair of horizontal corduroys, any portly schoolboy or one-legged knave could suddenly kick like Rees “Thunderfoot” Llewellyn, Cardiff’s skunk-kicking wonder!

In a vain effort to preserve the sport’s exclusivity, the Welsh elite devised a confusing set of rules, including indirect skunk kicks, off sides, and golden goals, but their efforts were for naught. Across Britannia, sport-crazed commoners quickly learned the rules of the game and, what’s more, feverishly applied black and white paint to anything they could get their hands on – sheep bladders, hog heads, hedgehogs and a variety of pastries, to name just a few – in lieu of an exceedingly expensive skunk. Then in 1845, a Scottish cobbler named Jarvis Meade created his legendary “Foot Ball,” and the Beautiful Game was officially born.

In this matter, we at Cordarounds have been accused of historical revisionism, a crass attempt to cash in on the popularity of the World Cup. To that we say: Is it mere coincidence that the modern soccer ball is black and white? Or that a lopsided defeat is known as a “skunking”? Note the hairstyle on Serbian World Cup striker Daniel Ljuboja. We rest our case.

Now you can wear a piece of history – and look great doing it. Cordarounds is pleased to offer our new line of horizontal-corduroy shorts. Wear them with your favorite soccer jersey, and tell the world that you have a profound appreciation for the history of the sport.