sundries

[rm]

More fucking annoying rumours about Torchwood air dates in Britain. Can we just know already so we know when to plan our viewing parties/hiding from the Internet. I suppose sooner is better though. We'll know and we'll get on with things.

It's almost warm and sunny today. Let's see if it lasts. The plants are cranky. Also, something about the most recent additions (the two pepper plants) tips it all over from the sad little pots on our fire-escape to a real garden.

This morning I picked up the dry-cleaning:

- one vintage military coat
- one black three-piece suit

and dropped off the new dry-cleaning:

- 5 dress shirts: medium blue-grey, light blue, white with dark-blue pinstripes, white with light-blue pinstripes, white.
- one white silk aviator scarf (it was a gift, okay?!?!)
- one raw silk scarf from India.

Yes, my life is fucking ridiculous.

It occurs to me that I've never written a story about a tailor. This must be corrected as I have so many strong emotional resonances with the idea of bending over clothes. There is something of mourning in my mind in the tending of fabric. So yes, I think, I need to write a bunch of stories with various characters who tend to clothes. It is a good quiet thing.

Rhetorical device you can lose: "no offense meant." Because really, when said, how often is that true?

Iran Iran Iran. Please listen. Please witness. I am not sure there is anything else we can do. I follow it as I can on Twitter. Students locked into dorms as riot police come for them. Pictures of someone's friend beaten or shot -- there is too much blood in the twitpic to tell; they are not allowed to remove him to a hospital; no one knows much first aid; his friends update us on whether they think he is going to die.

Some good guidance on how you can help digitally is here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/16/cyberwar-guide-for-i.html

Comments

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I fascinated that you connect mourning with the tending of fabric because for me, as a couturier and costumier (I've made too many formal garments from a set of measurements and draping that anything else isn't correct.), playing with fabric is an artistic joy for me. There are frustrations of course but very little of mourning in it all for me.

A bit of mania, certainly, because when I'm struck by my artistic vision, things that aren't the project tend to get short shrift. (My house is still a disaster area due to the recent spate of sewing projects and as I ramp up for ComicCon and DragonCon, I doubt that will change much in the next few months.)

I tend to remember, with fondness and a touch of melancholy, the women who taught me to sew who have already passed, my mother and grandmother (whose 1950ish Singer is my primary sewing machine) and wish they could see the newest creation.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It just seems like a quiet solitary labor, on behalf of someone else.

Of course, I also don't view mourning as a bad thing, and I just have a sort of congenital tendency towards it.

Sometimes, I think it has to do with being Jewish. There's a million association -- films and books -- of Jewish tailors tending to clothes while wanting the world to be better than it is.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

That explains it!

I see sewing as often communal. My grandmother and I used to work on projects together and then in college and afterwards there were regular sewing days where bunches of us would get together and help each other as needed.

When I worked at the university costume shop all of the seamstresses/seamsters (we had one guy working with us) generally worked all together in one room and we would chat and laugh as we sewed (still the best job I ever had). It was the same the summer I sewed for an interior decorator, though with a little less laughter. When I was an alterationist in a drycleaners after university, I was out in the open and could chat with people as I did my work. (The waiting area for the laundramat was in front of my counter.)

My sewing area at home is in one end of the kitchen, so I'm not cut off from everyone. When I'm sewing by myself, it's because it's one of my days off, or no one's up yet/they've all gone to bed and then it's just nice to take some quiet time for myself.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Even when I've gone to stick and bitches and the like, (because communal sewing is good for me, as I'm not very good) it always seems a stranger labor to be doing in front of other people, as if just like random strangers shouldn't see your small clothes, they shouldn't see your clothes internal construction either. I don't know. It's odd.

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

"Rhetorical device you can lose: "no offense meant." Because really, when said, how often is that true?"

Here is how I interpret the statement:

*I think you are the type to take offense where none is intended.
*I believe you can't tell when someone is trying to offend you.
*I am intentionally saying something I know is likely to offend you.

Usually whatever is being said is not something that I would have been offended by, but the assumption I would take offense bugs me.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

It's disrespectful and condescending, almost always. I don't think that I ever use it other than as a gag. I think it is generally intended to be used as the other kind of gag.
I am about to insult you,or I just have, but I require you not to notice.
In my mind, it a relative of being told that you don't have a sense of humour, somehow.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

In my experience, "no offence meant" is almost invariably used as a "get out of jail free" card. The person saying it knows damned well that they're being offensive, but by saying that they think they'll get a pass. If they're called on it, the next thing will be an accusation that you're being oversensitive.

(Grrrr.)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

The Guardian has a live blog of the events going on Tehran: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jun/16/iran-uprising

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

So does the NYT, including a link at 12:25pm to what seems to be a phone interview (Farsi subtitled in English) with someone who witnessed one of the shootings.

One white silk aviator scarf

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Oh, Dude! Does it go with The Coat? Because that would be awesome. It would also beget plot bunnies, guarantee!

Re: One white silk aviator scarf

[rm.livejournal.com]

It doesn't really. I suppose it could. It's just... a thing. I've not worn it actually. But I should.

Re: One white silk aviator scarf

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

If it doesn't work with The Coat, then it doesn't. Your call.

Re: One white silk aviator scarf

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've never tried.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I am snickering quietly about your dry cleaning. Out of love, mostly, but still.

Am enraged about the Iran thing, but have few resources to really go nuts. I suspect a linking post will be in order soon...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Current sentiment seems to be that the Iranian gov't will fall by Friday, but the real question is whether we get some good change out of this or if Khomeni will grab for power in a really scary way.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I'm just overwhelmed by this feeling of anger and sadness for the people of Iran. They deserve better than this. Everyone does.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

One of the various articles I read made the point that Khamenei is in a serious bind after making his pronouncement about how the election was the result of divine will. Either he allows the protests to continue, and thus risks major changes in Iran or he allows brutal and violent repression to take place, which makes his statement and obvious lie that the Iranian people are unlikely to forget. Also, I'm not certain that Khamenei could get much more powerful.

In any case, it's hard to hope for anything good in the midst of the awfulness going on over there, but for now at least there's a chance for something better.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Must, MUST ask - where are you shopping for all these lovely silk and dry-cleanable suit and pieces? Or are you making them yourself?

Re: clothing and mourning - Yeah, it is kind of solitary. That, and once you cut the fabric into one thing, it often loses the potential to be something else.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My suit is from http://www.DuchessClothier.com A second suit and some dress shirts from them should be here next month.

The vintage coat was found on Ebay and then I spent a fortune having it altered.

The scarves were gifts.

The dress shirts are mostly from various department store boy's departments or uniqlo which does a "boyfriend shirt" -- women's sizes but no darts. Only problem is the collars aren't quite right for handling a tie, so they can be moderately annoying, but it's workable.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Yes, my life is fucking ridiculous.


I'd say it was just fun and full of things you like :)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Photos from Sydney protest http://bit.ly/kuiXK #iranelection