sundries

[rm]

Last night, I think I had vertigo in my sleep or something. I woke up (from a dream about Inception because er somehow (i.e., I got asked on Twitter) I'm cosplaying Arthur for a photoshoot at Gally) at about 3am, over-heated, itchy, and feeling like I was going to throw up. It got a little better when I took the eye-mask off, and much worse when I put it back on. It was weird, and sort of frightening, and the room was a bit spinny. Eventually, I fell back to sleep and feel fine this morning. What the fuck? And yeah, "use it in fiction," I know.

Right, so, Arthur. Mostly because I can phone that in. Own the clothes, more or less, don't have to fret about my slight build and angular face. It'll rock. Although, I'll tell you the truth, it's Eames's ridiculous wardrobe I love the most, but as much as I could actually pull that off (because, my dears, I can do anything), it would be a lot more work, for a character I don't particularly identify with (not that I identify with Arthur either) and hence, am uninspired. So hey, Arthur!

I am toying with two really different, really odd ideas for this week's WIAD. Not sure what'll happen.

Hey, if I say it in public, feel free to address it in public. Y'all know that's how I work, yeah?

Patty showed me this one of the other day. damned_colonial's multi-fandom vid, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is completely awesome, particularly evocative of all the best things about the recent Marie Antoinette, and makes me wish I was better at being a woman, because I want all those dresses and wigs, I do.

In Portland? Duchess is having a sample sale. And, I believe my new shirts are arriving today. V. excited, and, as ever, slightly emotional.

Meanwhile a tailor who makes house calls and blogs has run afoul of the Savile Row tailors he claims as his peers. And, oh yeah, article has a long digression that makes me want to get into an argument with all involved parties about the meaning of bespoke, because no, wrong.

Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle solved. I can't quite explain my emotional response to this one.

I will deal with closing out graduate_maria auctions tonight. Thanks all! Totals and news soon.

Should food be a right?

Paul Krugman on the economy, the politics of the economy, and the streetlights going out.

Oh man, do I miss poptarts. Poptart flagship coming to Times Square.

I miss the UK so much, I actually care about the Underground Rebel Bingo Club.

More random notes on my WIAD story this week: The narrator may or may not be Llinos, the only other named member of the 1941 team. Maybe Llinos is there in 1939, maybe she's not there yet. Maybe this is a different girl or boy who is dead by the time Llinos joins the team -- I did want the story to work with either gender narrating, and I think it's a sad, suffocating story either way, just differently.

1939 is also pre-rationing. Some things were surely hard to get by then, but Jack's actions probably feel somewhat bizarre in a number of ways to the rest of the team, but there's a war coming, and it's Jack, so what are you gonna do?

Jack was also a freelancer during this time. I had wanted to find a way, but couldn't find an overt way, to make it clear that with the war coming, suddenly, he actually wants to spend a lot more time around Torchwood than usual, that he is doing these things not to run his own scam, but to offer what kindnesses he can.

Weird crap I researched for this, much of which didn't make it into the fic including the invention of and commercial sale of the biro, a subject which I now know way too much about. Additionally, that summer, specifically July, remains the second rainiest on record in Cardiff. I obsess because I care.

Last night on Buffy: Coup d'Etat! Coup d'Etat! This whole return of Faith thing is the first time I've really liked her. And you know who is amazing and is leadership all over? Dawn. Probably can't make a military plan (okay, none of them can, but even in the world of the show, she can't), but damn, she's totally the head office, kicking Buffy out.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I love Eames and his gender-bendy goodness ;D

Also, he's a magnificent bastard who likes big(ger) guns! What's not to love!

I'm dying to see Inception again. Soon! This week!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I totally spent five minutes laying awake last night going "right, but I can do Jack... why not Eames. I already know the body language just lying here... oh, right, because chasing down a tweed jacket is a PitA. Tragic."

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who bought a tweed jacket at a flea market this winter and I salivated over it.

She was like, "er, what?". I said, "You know who Giles is right?". She humoured me :)

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Unrelated: someone on my Dreamwidth flist posted a link to a Harry Potter/White Collar xover, "Yours Or Mine" http://gyzym.livejournal.com/10669.html Pairings: Neal/Draco, Neal/Peter, Neal/Kate. Previous Harry/Draco and Draco/Astoria. Offscreen Harry/Ginny and Peter/El.

They hadn't read it yet, and neither have I, but I thought I'd give you a heads up.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

I don't even have any words about the Should Food Be a Right article. It made me cry right up until the point where they talked about the lenders- and my god. The photos are seriously gut wrenching, powerful stuff.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

Did you notice that Eames is even dressed terribly in Arthur's dream? Everyone else is in these lovely suits, all professional like, and Eames is wearing corduroy or tweed or something with a paisley collar and his shoes have a yellow stripe. Lord.

Also, I'm about 99% sure that his jacket is blue checked at some point, which made me love him unreservedly.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, I don't actually find Eames to be dressed terribly. I find it a very particular, very expensive sort of English dressing that I've seen on sort of hyper-masculine men there in a way that reads as very feminine and hard for me to understand, but I'm very drawn to it.

I also, suspect, that Eames and the "OH GOD, TOO MANY TEXTURES" problem of his wardrobe is related to his identity as a forger. There is no center.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that. It does seem particularly English, and also particularly expensive. It's funny, though, it doesn't feel feminine for me at all. To me, Arthur's clean lines and close fits have a more feminine look, while Eames' clothes, which are big, brash and bold, seem very masculine to me. They definitely have some very feminine elements, but the overall image I get isn't one that's feminine at all. Maybe it's because, like you said, it's a kind of clothing very associated with hyper-masculine men. Or maybe my sense of gender expression is still asleep this morning. xD

Definitely agree with your second point, though. It's one of my favourite little things about his character. It's hard to have pick and choose when you've a thousand identities in a thousand dreams.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, I can dress like Arthur and not look particularly more feminine than I wish to. I dress like Eames, and I look like a girl. Someone like Arthur just can't dress that way, unless he wants to look like a chick, because he will. I think it also looks like an over-compensating loudness on slight men. There's not enough room for all that texture.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, body shape does play into it. Arthur would look so ridiculous in Eames' clothing, he really would. It would just be overwhelming, and you're right, very feminine. Almost a bit like dress up.

I was picturing it from a slightly ego-centric point of view. When I dress like Arthur, and I do, because I love a well cut suit more than I love breathing, I really don't look masculine. A suit made for a man, on me, just seems to highlight the fact that I look like a girl. It's kind of annoying, actually.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

A suit made for a man, on me, just seems to highlight the fact that I look like a girl. It's kind of annoying, actually.

I used to complain that I looked more butch in girl clothes than I do in boydrag. (It's still true, I just don't complain about it.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

And all of this is why I spend the money I do on my suits. It's not just being a woman that's an art of illusion. The lies my clothes tell are pretty massive either way.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Once, just once, in my life, I was read as male. I'm still, twenty years later, bemused by the memory. Undoubtedly it helped that the person I was standing next to was screamingly well-endowed with markers of femininity. (As I recall, I was wearing a baggy white button-down shirt and a pair of khaki pants, or something like that. And short hair.)

I don't know whether tailoring would be enough to tip things into androgyny for me. Not something I'm likely to find out soon - alas, the sheckels are apportioned elsewhere for a long while.

Motherhood has made my relationship with gender more and less interesting. And I've learned a great deal about what people use as gendering cues. My son with the super-long lashes and a lean frame gets read as a girl (he's just about 3 now), even if I put him in boy clothes. My daughter who doesn't have her brother's lashes gets read as a boy for her stocky frame. If you just go by the silhouette, though - she's already got a very girl structure - narrow shoulders, wide hips; he's all broad shoulders and slim. I'd always thought those characteristics were post-pubertal.

[rm.livejournal.com]

People really do respond to the outline more than anything, also, it seems body language (when I had long hair I got called sir a lot even in dresses that made me look very curvy, because I stand to take up space).

I always get called sir when I wear my Jack cosplay coat (which is also the warmest thing I own, so comes out on brutal, winter days) and that's lovely (because damn, right, damn you) until someone then does a double take and apologizes. We're always fine until the apology. So awkward.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Some people are more androgynous from the neck up than others.

I find the way that people respond to misgendering incidents fascinating. I've had people apologizing profusely for guessing wrong when it comes to my kids. For a while, when people would come up and say, "your daughter is so beautiful!" to my son, my default response was to say, "Michael, tell this nice person 'thank you very much!'." A bit mean, maybe. ;)

It also won't work the other way with my daughter, as she's got an ambiguously gendered nickname. I've had people get quite cross that I don't put an obvious gender marker (ridiculous, hard-to-play-in hair ribbon or flower) on her. Feh. That's deliberate, thankyouverymuch. I prefer people playing a bit rough with her, rather than "no don't do that it's not ladylike". She can learn to play femme later, if she's so inclined.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You are being awesome.

Because I went to an all-girls school growing up, misgendering by accident or on purpose (as a way to say "you're ugly") was a very big deal.

I find it nearly impossible to enter the men's sections of department stores, even when shopping for gifts for men in my life, because it feels like such a declaration of my own supposed awfulness. Now, I am too slight to wear men's clothes off-the-rack (and too long-limbed for boys clothes to work well), so it's not too essential an issue, but I will sat that even if I could wear off-the-rack men's clothes, I'd probably, mostly continue to go with Duchess and the like, simply because it means I do not have to trespass and deal with my damage about it.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

You are being awesome.

Thank you, I try really hard on this one. I did a lot of social justice homework before I was ever certain I was going to have children of my own.

As I said below to sevendayloan, I'm also concerned about encoding "male is better" if I avoid femme-ing up my daughter. I'm concerned about the effect of other little girls, and makeup and manicure parties that I'm seeing advertised.

I'm sorry that going to the men's section is such a source of discomfort for you. When I was a teen, there was a delicious sense of naughty, and I loved buying men's clothes from the thrift stores. I inherited a lot of my dad's clothes when he died (I was 16), and wore his short-sleeved button downs and ties (not together!) for a long time. Duchess has gorgeous things, and I wish their page worked better on my display.

Growing up in the 80's was a fantastic thing for exploration of gender, for me anyway.

misgendering and men's sections

[(Anonymous)]

I've been lurking for a little while (and I'm not on LJ myself), but I really felt I couldn't not respond to your comments in this thread.

I'm a 30-year-old cisgender female and straight. I am deep-voiced and nearly 6' tall, with incredibly broad shoulders, curvy hips and thighs, long limbs, large hands and feet and large breasts. And I've been called "sir" very much more often than "miss" or "ma'am" since I was 12, despite a rather feminine babyface that gets me carded for cigarettes and hair halfway down my back.

It's been in person and on the phone; by people looking straight at me and people seeing only my silhouette; with implicit judgment and without; followed by an awkward apology or by a defensive sneer. Over the years, "sir" has made me mad, made me cry, made me laugh, made me throw my hands up in the air.

In school, I was the target of my share of gender-based taunting, and I have a body type that is not well-served by mainstream women's clothing lines. Result: I find it nearly impossible to enter women's sections of department stores or women's clothing stores, even when I need to update my wardrobe, because it feels like such a declaration of my own obvious not-fitting-in-ness. All of the other women shopping in the store know just by looking at me, dontcha know, that I'm not going to look good in any of the clothing because women's clothing isn't for me. At least when I walk into the men's section, almost always for someone else, I know that the other shoppers just assume I'm a butch lesbian; they may judge me for what they think I am, but they don't know the real deep, dark secret: that I fail as a woman because I can't dress like one the way I want to.


I have trouble finding the women's clothes I want to wear and I don't want to wear men's clothes.

Even this weekend, I was reduced to tears, agian, after a shopping expedition that bore no fruit. Standard clothing tends not to fit me; the cute, feminine cuts of skirts and dresses that I want to be able to wear make me look like I'm butch and crammed against my will into someone else's idea of 'what girls are supposed to wear'; though I have certainly put on some weight over the last few years, I'm not actually plus-size proportioned, so anything that's PS that fits my shoulders and bust make me look like I'm wearing a mu'umu'u.

I fall back on some men's style off-the-rack button-downs (sleeves get rolled up to just below the elbow, even in the winter, and the collar's always open low) and polos sometimes for comfort. But, really, how comfortable for me is it, that I have XL men's shirts hanging next to my little black dresses and tailored slacks, if I find myself staring at my (drastically under-filled) closet every day on the brink of tears.

My friends, who are all shapes and sizes, don't understand that, for me, hunting through racks and racks of clothing isn't fun. I don't relish shopping as a challenge to find that perfect piece or an unbelievable deal. It's a matter of being faced over and over again with the fact that I, quite literally, don't fit other people's image (or size parameters, or proportions) of what a woman is.

I'm not saying I have no clothing, or that I can't find quite acceptable elements of my wardrobe (see above-mentioned little black dresses, in addition to cute Levis and sophisticated business skirts, among other things). But, the cute, flirty, flattering feminine pieces that I want to wear out after work or on the weekend because, damn it, that's how I feel? No. And I'm reminded of that every time I try on clothes that I want but that make me feel like I'm in the middle of my own nightmarish farce, and every time I settle for the frumpy, stodgy or just plain ugly clothes that designers think I'll want because people call me "sir."

Re: misgendering and men's sections

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Aieee! I'm overflowing with tenderouchies for you. I went to high school with a girl who fit your description. People were so cruel to her. (She was a year ahead of me, or I'd have had more opportunity to try to get to know her better.)

Would it make sense for you to try to find a good seamstress/tailor to create custom pieces for you?

My problems are not as extensive as yours, but I've had a lots and lots of black wardrobe for years, because when I was living in the high albedo hinterlands, everything available was designed for pastel-loving Spring types, and made me look like a hideous hospital-bound undead creature. That, and I'm short statured, short-legged, long-torsoed and on the smaller end of in-betweenie. And I look ridiculous in small prints that people think belong on petites.

When I was slimmer, I liked shopping a lot better.

Re: misgendering and men's sections

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for reading my summer essay on why shopping sucks :)

I guess that custom pieces would be a good option for basic elements, but I think I'd be hesitant to try it for some of the more stylish stuff that's out there. And I'm definitely scared that I'd go through the process and still find my wardrobe distressing. But, maybe this thread is the push I need to hunt around for a seamstress...

Re: misgendering and men's sections

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Didn't hit my tl;dr, since it was well-written. Not easy to read in an emotional sense, but easy to read in terms of prose.

I don't know where you are, nor how feasible this will end up being. Because you don't just need someone who can sew, but someone with a good sense of style and what will work with your bodyshape. I hate the "What to Wear" type shows on TV because they're so...middle-class/fashion magazine normative, but there's a certain something to be said about people not having a good sense of what will work to show of their features to best effect.

If you were in proximity to me, and felt comfortable doing so with a relative stranger, this is the sort of geeking that I enjoy doing. I hope you have someone around you that you can work with like that. (I don't sew, though.)

You're welcome to e-mail me...I can be reached at $myLJusername @ ymail dot com.

Re: misgendering and men's sections

[graene.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I have a supposedly 'standard' feminine body. And I can remember spending four hours in a GAP one day in HS trying on literally every style of women's jeans they had. The only cut that allowed me small waist, hips and tush had almost a foot of extra material around my calves - and no, not boot cut or anything like it. Went through something similar again this summer dealing with post-babies body.

I hope you can find a designer who works for you, at some point, or that you find a tailor willing to make clothes to your measurements. Sewing my own skirts has become a (mostly) relaxing hobby when I have the time.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

I work with children, and I've really noticed that about the ribbon-or-flower thing. People get all kinds of grumpy about it. What, you mean, you didn't write GIRL in lipstick on little four year old Susie's face? Shame, shame.

Androgyny in children is natural, but god forbid you put your son in pink shirt or your daughter in something with train. Obviously you're trying to turn them [gasp] gay.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

My kids used to go to a playgroup in a low population density, red state area. There was *one* girl other than mine who was not bedecked in ridiculous hair frippery. (Unsurprisingly, her mother wasn't from 'round there, either.) Watching those little girls running back to their mothers (or being chased by them) constantly, to put the gendermarkers back into their wispy hair? Maddening.

Also maddening: watching the teachers guide the kids toward the gender-appropriate play areas. Joyous to behold: watching the kids cross the lines.

My son likes pink, probably because it's a novelty to him. And he loves hair ornaments like gigantic flower clips and hair elastics. He gets them because he asks for them, and that'll be the way it works with my daughter, too. I'm trying just as hard to make sure they're not getting "male encoded is superior to female encoded".

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that in the 1900s or 1910s it was positively de rigueur to clothe male infants in pink (seen as a "manly" color) and female infants in blue (particularly "Alice blue").

Oy, I do recall the times at playgroup and primary school where kids were crossing the lines; also, the times where the kids themselves drew the lines (probably having been acculturated by their parents).

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I went and looked up the timeline on that, and came up with this:
http://hueconsulting.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-is-blue-for-boys-and-pink-for-girls.html

Seems it's even more recent than that! (WWII)

The amount of gender policing I see makes me seriously itchy. I'm glad to be out of "Jr. Hunter/Baby Supermodel land".

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

In kinder and first grade my son adored pink in every shade, the hotter the better, and wanted a pair of hot pink sneakers. They made him gloriously happy. A teacher (not his) pulled me aside one day to warn me that he would get teased for them and I ask her (and later his teacher) if she was aware of any actual bullying around the issue and found there had been none. I guess if he'd been teased about them he could have made the call himself and decided to wear them or not. He wore out/outgrew three more pair before his allegiance turned to lime green. We never heard a word about it from anyone other than that one anxious teacher.

In fifth grade, when many of the boys were wearing their hair long (as The Boy still is) the Social Studies teacher had a rule that if she couldn't see your face you had to clip your hair back in her class. She bought the most outrageous, glittery, pink butterfly clips - I guess hoping the boys would brush hair back to avoid them - and it became a contest to see who would have to clip first everyday! It was a status symbol to have a big pink glitter clip! When she brought in plain headbands nobody wanted to wear them.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Loff.

[marcmagus]

I'm trying to find any comment from Mr. Farnes about the meaning of bespoke. In fact, I can't find any comment at all about the process Mr. Farnes uses anywhere in the article to get a sense of whether what he's doing is bespoke or not?

Meanwhile there's a while side-discussion occupying much of the middle of the article about some other guy two years ago who does made to measure which he calls bespoke, and gets insulted by the SRA calling it "ready to wear". Lots of no on all sides there. :(

[mneme]

I don't remember, have you been watching Angel at all?

This was very much a point of converergence -- Faith went through some learning experiences in LA with Angel, and got sent down to help out with the Scooby Gang's problems in time for them to parallel LA going all "Glory" in 2nd (IIRC) season Angel.

But yeah, I liked Faith a -lot- better the second time around.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're watching the two shows in some elaborate order ascertained by the Internet to make them make the most sense. Right now I'm struggling witht he fact that stylistically Angel is a much better fit for me, but we're in S4, and we're dealing with Cordelia's 927th demon baby pregnancy combined with Connor's complete idiocy and my patience is low.

[mneme]

*laugh* All I have to say is "it gets better. Soon".

But Connor is still an idiot.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Just try to cope. We all did. ;)

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

What's the matter with the article's definition of bespoke?

Is it because Saville Row tailors are insisting that only they can make "bespoke" suits?

(And I would say that's ridiculous. As far as it matters to me, bespoke indicates that the suit was custom made, from scratch, involved a team of specialists for cutting, fitting and finishing (not just one tailor) and requires at least one fitting, usually two or three. Whether it was made on SR is irrelevant)

It's a shame that the term "made to measure" seems to have fallen out of use. IIRC, that implied a suit that comes off the peg, but is cut with generous seam allowances and thus has the potential for fairly extensive alterations. One fitting and about a fifth of the price of bespoke.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Savile Row tailors are wrong that only they can make them, and the dude saying that "made to order" is the same as bespoke is even more wrong.

I still certainly see made-to-measure, usually to mean, that it's made from a standard pattern that's modified for the client, as opposed to a new pattern being drafted from scratch.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

*nods*

With the terms getting fuzzier/being appropriated by the mass market, I can understand why the SR tailors want to go all appellation-controlee (sp!) on the term "bespoke" - but I don't agree with 'em.

[setissma.livejournal.com]

I suspect the methane thing re: Bermuda Triangle is sort of sensationalist journalism; it's a theory that's been around for quite a while, but it's just a hypothesis, and there's really no conclusive evidence of it. But it's probably worth noting that if you control for the frequency of boat and plane traffic, there really aren't more crashes there than elsewhere.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Good point. There must be similar gollops of methane coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, and you don't hear of that being a Mystery Place where aircraft go missing.

At least they're moving away from UFOs? :/

[setissma.livejournal.com]

I think my take as a scientist is that it's sort of become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sure there ARE some geophysical anomalies in the area, and the area is prone to piracy stemming from the drug trade, but I think that... you know, if your electrical equipment stops working ten miles off the coast of Key West, you're just kind of like, "Aw, shit, bad luck," whereas if it happens in the Bermuda triangle, you... automatically blame the mysterious forces of the Bermuda triangle.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

The Florida Keys has a much higher percentage of small luxury (as opposed to working) craft owners who think that "small craft advisory" doesn't apply to them. Hence more "inexplicable" disappearances.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I didn't like seeing Buffy get kicked out of her own house, actually. Sure, she made some bad decisions. But she's also saved all their lives a least a zillion times over. It seemed kind of ridiculous to me.

I never could warm to Dawn as a character. And I always loved Faith. And Connor. On the other hand, I totally agreed with your opinion of the ending of the Riley/Buffy relationship. It's interesting to see your views on Buffy, watching it for the first time, though. I found season 7 to be a horrific season, myself. Do you have any seasons you prefer?

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

re: buffy - i finally liked faith, but i also finally liked dawn around this time, too

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I hope it's not creepy to say, I think you in Arthur suits would look amazing, because I totally think that.

Poptarts

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Maybe if you bug these people: http://tu-lusbakery.com/menu/ you'll end up with GF poptarts...

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I have chronic vertigo and often wake up with the symptoms you describe. I get it worse in summer because I'm more likely to be dehydrated, so I just stare at a spot on the ceiling until I'm reoriented, and keep some water on hand to drink when I can sit up.

[graene.livejournal.com]

That sounds like my vertigo which was ruled nausea (related to GERD) after MRIs. fwiw. for me it's plus a feeling of cold winds swirling in through the back of my skull.