Mennonite mischief, of the on-line variety

"Brace yourself..."

Over behind the blue-and-white velvet rope I posted this picture of the late Christopher Plummer, with the following text:

An interesting, if seldom discussed bigraphical footnote: after divorcing Patricia Lewis in '67 Plummer was having some difficulty with whipsawing emotions. At the time he was doing a number of plays at Stratford, ON, and took up with one of the local Mennonite communities. For a brief summer ('68) he actually considered converting. He was discouraged by an elder, however, who informed him he would from here on out be referred to as “Kristoff-fa-Pluma-Moos.” They parted ways shortly thereafter.

A loose translation of the Plautdietsch employed here would be “Kristoff-likes-Plum-Soup.” My apologies, dear reader, if you’ve just sprayed your morning coffee.

This painstakingly staged bit of punnery is of a piece with the sort of wordplay our tribe engages in, in our better moments. It’s not to everyone’s taste, of course, and some friends asked for further details of this supposedly historical moment. I finally issued a disclaimer that at no point in his life was this most highly esteemed of thespians ever in danger of being called “Kristoff-fa-Pluma-Moos.”

At this, a friend regaled me of a similar misunderstanding he’d experienced: 

“A few years ago some loose bar room talk about the lack of distinctive dress for contemporary Mennonite men resulted in the verbal hallucination of the Mennonite kilt, spelled quilt [sic]. Some days later, someone, and I've never confirmed who (wasn't me), posted a draft Wikipedia article on Mennonite men's quilts, complete with a picture and a description featuring dried pieces of sausage stitched into the garment. A chuckle or two and the draft page was taken down. Months later the page reappeared with reverential seriousness about a forgotten element of Mennonite history.”

Another friend posted visual evidence of the on-line mishap. The first Google page for “quilte Mennonite men’s wear” turns up one Pin and nothing else. I could search further, but what would be the point? For my own archives, then — and your edification! — here are the screensaves of the original (fake) Wiki.