Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, April 30, 2007
t shirts
T-shirts
From undershirts worn by soldiers in WW1, to the first printed t-shirt in 1948, “Dew it with Dewy” (nothing to do with Mountain Dew or sex) to $200 part silver designer (http://www.onthefly.com/category_brand.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302027449) undershirts, the humble garment has penetrated every strata of culture in the last 100 years. Cool, comfy, sexy, cheap and malleable, t-shirts tell stories about their wearers, even without slogans. And now they have moving light up versions, http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yd99gyE4jCk, the precursor to having a video running full time on someone’s chest in a couple of months.
Probably the first and last garment you will wear – tiny versions for newborns, and large soft ones for old achy bodies – t-shirts are your basic item of clothing. My favorite is my John Lennon in NYC, tattered, faded, four sizes too big black one that saw me through by big weight loss. It brings smiles and thumbs up from passersby, since I live in a liberal neighborhood, but might endanger my life in other ‘hoods. Some people believe he was the downfall of America and will not be talked out of it. When I wear my Lesley College t-shirt, everyone knows I am on the creative, feminist side. But usually I try not to talk to people on the street with my shirt, even though I love to see what everyone else wants to say to me – who to vote for, what music they like, and whether or not they want to date me.
For a while, in the beginning of t-shirt wearing, there was a cultural war going on between political groups. First the left started using t-shirts to stop the war or declare they could make their own clothes with tie-dye. In response the right started wearing ferocious little alligators on their shirts to show they supported Nixon and golfing. The lefties responded with in your face insults to the right, such as Make Love Not War, and the right began buying expensive designers t’s to show they supported capitalism. But eventually when designers started copying street fashion, no one could tell the difference anymore.
That’s where the designers saw an in to get their cuts, and not let Fruit of the Loom have it all. Color, shape, fabric – savvy shopping addicts can tell at a glance if you are wearing Lauren, DKNY, or Versace, even without logos. Poor K-Mart shoppers did not even realize they were exposing their indigence when they set out in their so-last-year yellow scoop necks, while in-the-know lilac cap sleeve wearers scoffed at them behind their backs. One half inch below or above the waist cuts reveled volumes about the wearers lives – car driven, house description, even job status.
Hard choices in buying t-shirts include: 100% cotton? Comfortable but they shrink. Baggy or tight? Depends on the goal. And of course: what message or image. Obscure French words or ancient writers’ faces indicate intelligence, rock band city tour lists show authenticity, and misspelled sentences indicate beer drinker. Everyone is going to be staring at your chest instead of your face, so it’s a good choice for not so beautiful people to have long paragraphs. Swear words are not allowed in schools; so wearing such shirts might make others think you are a drop out if you look young.
A very popular t-shirt phrase is “My____ went to _____ and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” – a very American sentiment. It conjures up images of the ugly American tourist, the spoiled American child, and the ever-innovative American marketer.
Many t-shirts end up on destitute third world bodies, with the wearer completely unaware of the meaning of the message or nuance of cut, but glad to have something to cover his or her body. People have to throw or give away t-shirts on a regular basis, so I guess some end up on jet planes for Unicef, or maybe Nike just sends over new ones to try for product placement on the CBS Evening news. It does look odd to see a malnutrition baby wearing a Phat Farm t, or an Ecuadorian peasant in a Gap logo, but does pretty well describe the state of our world.
In any case, t-shirts hold our world together in more ways than they divide it, since its one of the few things everyone on earth has in common. May they find a way to connect our hearts before we get buried in them.
From undershirts worn by soldiers in WW1, to the first printed t-shirt in 1948, “Dew it with Dewy” (nothing to do with Mountain Dew or sex) to $200 part silver designer (http://www.onthefly.com/category_brand.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302027449) undershirts, the humble garment has penetrated every strata of culture in the last 100 years. Cool, comfy, sexy, cheap and malleable, t-shirts tell stories about their wearers, even without slogans. And now they have moving light up versions, http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yd99gyE4jCk, the precursor to having a video running full time on someone’s chest in a couple of months.
Probably the first and last garment you will wear – tiny versions for newborns, and large soft ones for old achy bodies – t-shirts are your basic item of clothing. My favorite is my John Lennon in NYC, tattered, faded, four sizes too big black one that saw me through by big weight loss. It brings smiles and thumbs up from passersby, since I live in a liberal neighborhood, but might endanger my life in other ‘hoods. Some people believe he was the downfall of America and will not be talked out of it. When I wear my Lesley College t-shirt, everyone knows I am on the creative, feminist side. But usually I try not to talk to people on the street with my shirt, even though I love to see what everyone else wants to say to me – who to vote for, what music they like, and whether or not they want to date me.
For a while, in the beginning of t-shirt wearing, there was a cultural war going on between political groups. First the left started using t-shirts to stop the war or declare they could make their own clothes with tie-dye. In response the right started wearing ferocious little alligators on their shirts to show they supported Nixon and golfing. The lefties responded with in your face insults to the right, such as Make Love Not War, and the right began buying expensive designers t’s to show they supported capitalism. But eventually when designers started copying street fashion, no one could tell the difference anymore.
That’s where the designers saw an in to get their cuts, and not let Fruit of the Loom have it all. Color, shape, fabric – savvy shopping addicts can tell at a glance if you are wearing Lauren, DKNY, or Versace, even without logos. Poor K-Mart shoppers did not even realize they were exposing their indigence when they set out in their so-last-year yellow scoop necks, while in-the-know lilac cap sleeve wearers scoffed at them behind their backs. One half inch below or above the waist cuts reveled volumes about the wearers lives – car driven, house description, even job status.
Hard choices in buying t-shirts include: 100% cotton? Comfortable but they shrink. Baggy or tight? Depends on the goal. And of course: what message or image. Obscure French words or ancient writers’ faces indicate intelligence, rock band city tour lists show authenticity, and misspelled sentences indicate beer drinker. Everyone is going to be staring at your chest instead of your face, so it’s a good choice for not so beautiful people to have long paragraphs. Swear words are not allowed in schools; so wearing such shirts might make others think you are a drop out if you look young.
A very popular t-shirt phrase is “My____ went to _____ and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” – a very American sentiment. It conjures up images of the ugly American tourist, the spoiled American child, and the ever-innovative American marketer.
Many t-shirts end up on destitute third world bodies, with the wearer completely unaware of the meaning of the message or nuance of cut, but glad to have something to cover his or her body. People have to throw or give away t-shirts on a regular basis, so I guess some end up on jet planes for Unicef, or maybe Nike just sends over new ones to try for product placement on the CBS Evening news. It does look odd to see a malnutrition baby wearing a Phat Farm t, or an Ecuadorian peasant in a Gap logo, but does pretty well describe the state of our world.
In any case, t-shirts hold our world together in more ways than they divide it, since its one of the few things everyone on earth has in common. May they find a way to connect our hearts before we get buried in them.
Friday, April 27, 2007
strawberry fields
/Users/wendyhoo/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2007/Roll 276/IMG_3354.JPG
Strawberry Fields’ Fortieth
The song Strawberry Fields refers to a park where John Lennon used to play as a child, although to me, forty years ago, it suggested breaking out of my conservative world to explore the unknown. As a gesture, since I was trapped in a religious girls school, I bought blue cotton fabric with tiny red strawberries and white blossoms, and made a dress that simultaneously followed the dress code and looked alluring to the boys across campus at the Boys’ School. By then I was making up my own patterns from pieces of others, since McCalls did not have a lot of variations on the theme of maiden/vixen. This constant challenge honed my creativity, but produced some odd results. This one featured a skirt with just enough gathers to pass, but still sit closely to the body, a fitted bodice, and what I thought were fetchingly fashionable bell sleeves. I threw on lace to cut the glamour, so my date to the winter informal didn’t think I was a hussy. I did not look too hard in the mirror, since Living is easy with I closed. Later, after graduation, I realized the Beatles really wanted me to wear jack boots and polythene bags, or at least all white like John and Yoko. I settled on “no shoe shine” and never wearing red on dates with Paul. I didn’t want to make him “blue”.
I remember Feburary 1964, a cold night in Pennsylvania, when a black and white ten inch, out of focus screen ushered in the harbinger of liberation to my sheltered mind, along with millions of other kids raised in post war, suburban America. The adorable boys in suits hooked me into thinking they had the answer to mydilema: how to be everything my parents expected: well behaved and civilved, but also an individual with the courage to experiement with the fat, prosperous world that had been handed to our generation.
Its amazing to me that so many people my age who are radically diverse in politics and beliefs from one another mutually recall the Beatles as spokesmen for their youth. The car mechanic thought “Baby You Can Drive My Car” was about him as much as aspiring actresses thought that its lyrics were talking about their dreams of fame. Red necks believed the group was strumming their lives with their fingers when they heard “Run for your Life” express dominance theories of love, while flower children heard only messages of free love in “The Word”. Ok, there might be a dividing line with the advent of Rubber Soul, but few fiftiesh survivers fail to identify with Beatles music of some sort. Ambiguious lyrics left the door wide open for jocks and yippies alike to use them as an excuse to do what they wanted.
Other Beatle inspired fashions which influence my choices even today include: wearing pajamas for my press conferences, high heeled shoes and low necked sweater when I want to “get back”, and large bags when I want to eat chocolate cake. Sometimes when I want that military look and too look much older, I wear a cap and a bag across my shoulder, but with over 200 songs, the Beatles gave surprisingly few hints about how to dress. They set a lot of fashion standards in what they wore, however, and I still have a paisley shirt and pair of round glasses to prove that. It was an attitude of experimentation they were advocating. The Sgt Pepper uniforms certainly had a say in my design for my husband’s wedding outfit: a satin tie dyed peasant shirt, velvet vest with tails and matiching bell bottoms.
In the sixties I went to England and visited the famous Carnaby Street, by far the coolest shopping place in the world at the time. Flashy satin prints, Indian style shirts, neru jackets, every kind of mini skirt and hots pants, hip boots, wide belts, huge hoop earrings, and poor boy caps lined the narrow street where you could catch a glimpse of Marriane Faithful or the equvilent. It was a clothes candy shop for youth who wanted to join the Magical Mystery Tour. I got a translucent shirt with six inch long collar lapels, wide cuffs, and fitted darts in a psycodelic paisley design. Then my babysitting money was gone. But it did the trick, and I became a virtual Apple Corp member, although the chaperones of the trip would not let us camp out at Abby Road or climb in any bathroom windows.
These years paved a new vista for our generation, a road that few of us ever veered from. Many may have and bought business suits in the years following, but most have never have gotten the spirit of the 60’s out of their blood. Proof of this is the popularity of oldies radio stations, and the refusal of jeans and t-shirts to go out of fashion. Most pot-bellied attorneys put these on every off duty chance they get, whether they are off to pollute the countryside with snowmobiles or to a “Save the Environment” fundraiser. Neither will change the radio station if “Penny Lane” comes on.
Since the Beatles seemed to be telling me in 1967 to quit college and travel the country in a beat up VW van, I thought it was only fair of them to write my college thesis for me when I suddenly realized at age 45 that I needed a degree to get by in life. How I managed to get them to do it was a trick, but first I had to convince my liberal minded but academic professor that the Beatles were a significant force in history. From there, it was a matter of cut and paste with lyrics and press releases, and I had a convincing argument that the Beatles not only replaced Jesus as the most powerful influence for my age group, but were the cause of the computer industry (see George Martins book on the mechanics of producing Sgt Pepper) and a powerful catalyst to the self-help era of the eighties (“Help!”).
Thirty years after their heyday, I tried to capture the feelings the Beatles evocted in my heart by doing an academic study of their influence. I found I was not the first to do so and discovered dozens of studies concerning their music, in some of which musicologists compared them to Beethoveen, insisting they ushered in a new genre of songwriting. Sifting through the many tell all books about John and Yoko’s eating habits and Paul’s personal grooming, I found serious works that tracked the changes in society they effected, and linked shifts in everything from philosophy to ecology to the phenonomen of the Beatles. Did their ambiguous “ count me in, count me out” stance on revolution cause political groups to rethink their tactics? Could John’s househusband phase be the reason men quit jobs and asked for paternity leaves? I couldn’t deny that my own decision to marry an Asian was a tiny bit influenced by the peace alience of John and Yoko’s public coupling.
About ten different philosophies can be gleaned from the lyrics of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Nothing is real reflects Hume’s skeptisism, misunderstanding all you see expresses Kant’s ideas about pure reason, and I think I know I mean a “yes” but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree might have been a direct transcript of a conversation between Kirkegaard and Confuscius. And Sarte agreed that it’s definitely getting hard to be someone, although may have doubted it would all work out. The song is a virtual Cliff Note for philosophy minors, and majors need only to study up on “Tommorrow Never Knows” and “I am the Walrus” to get the rest.
The universality of the Beatles is undeniable. Ambiguity plays a big part in that, and the variety of themes in the songs makes their work seem like a mirror to almost anyone. The range of boyfriend types was there, and although I loved Paul best, grew into George for a while, John was in the end the best choice of styles. Not that I wanted to marry John, although being adored wasn’t a bad option, but it was John I dressed up as for my final thesis presentation. He embodied the ideals of creative freedom and standing up for ones beliefs that are the qualities I strive for. I showed up in a white jacket and hat and the ubiquitious glasses for my presentation, three more items of clothing that only got worn once and then waiting in the pile for the next trip to the thrift shop.
Identity crisises never really end, and as I have tried on everything from radical feminist to earth mother, the clothes follow in a heap behind me. The Beatles gave me permission to keep trying to figure out who I am and then buy the outfit to express that to the world, to see if it works out. I read in one of those books that John and Yoko had a huge room where they kept their many clothes, although many were variations on black and white, and you can’t tell me that their impact would have been the same if they had posed in Sonny and Cher outfits. They were trying to say Give Peace a Chance, not I got You Babe, although they certainly got each other, too.
Strawberry Fields’ Fortieth
The song Strawberry Fields refers to a park where John Lennon used to play as a child, although to me, forty years ago, it suggested breaking out of my conservative world to explore the unknown. As a gesture, since I was trapped in a religious girls school, I bought blue cotton fabric with tiny red strawberries and white blossoms, and made a dress that simultaneously followed the dress code and looked alluring to the boys across campus at the Boys’ School. By then I was making up my own patterns from pieces of others, since McCalls did not have a lot of variations on the theme of maiden/vixen. This constant challenge honed my creativity, but produced some odd results. This one featured a skirt with just enough gathers to pass, but still sit closely to the body, a fitted bodice, and what I thought were fetchingly fashionable bell sleeves. I threw on lace to cut the glamour, so my date to the winter informal didn’t think I was a hussy. I did not look too hard in the mirror, since Living is easy with I closed. Later, after graduation, I realized the Beatles really wanted me to wear jack boots and polythene bags, or at least all white like John and Yoko. I settled on “no shoe shine” and never wearing red on dates with Paul. I didn’t want to make him “blue”.
I remember Feburary 1964, a cold night in Pennsylvania, when a black and white ten inch, out of focus screen ushered in the harbinger of liberation to my sheltered mind, along with millions of other kids raised in post war, suburban America. The adorable boys in suits hooked me into thinking they had the answer to mydilema: how to be everything my parents expected: well behaved and civilved, but also an individual with the courage to experiement with the fat, prosperous world that had been handed to our generation.
Its amazing to me that so many people my age who are radically diverse in politics and beliefs from one another mutually recall the Beatles as spokesmen for their youth. The car mechanic thought “Baby You Can Drive My Car” was about him as much as aspiring actresses thought that its lyrics were talking about their dreams of fame. Red necks believed the group was strumming their lives with their fingers when they heard “Run for your Life” express dominance theories of love, while flower children heard only messages of free love in “The Word”. Ok, there might be a dividing line with the advent of Rubber Soul, but few fiftiesh survivers fail to identify with Beatles music of some sort. Ambiguious lyrics left the door wide open for jocks and yippies alike to use them as an excuse to do what they wanted.
Other Beatle inspired fashions which influence my choices even today include: wearing pajamas for my press conferences, high heeled shoes and low necked sweater when I want to “get back”, and large bags when I want to eat chocolate cake. Sometimes when I want that military look and too look much older, I wear a cap and a bag across my shoulder, but with over 200 songs, the Beatles gave surprisingly few hints about how to dress. They set a lot of fashion standards in what they wore, however, and I still have a paisley shirt and pair of round glasses to prove that. It was an attitude of experimentation they were advocating. The Sgt Pepper uniforms certainly had a say in my design for my husband’s wedding outfit: a satin tie dyed peasant shirt, velvet vest with tails and matiching bell bottoms.
In the sixties I went to England and visited the famous Carnaby Street, by far the coolest shopping place in the world at the time. Flashy satin prints, Indian style shirts, neru jackets, every kind of mini skirt and hots pants, hip boots, wide belts, huge hoop earrings, and poor boy caps lined the narrow street where you could catch a glimpse of Marriane Faithful or the equvilent. It was a clothes candy shop for youth who wanted to join the Magical Mystery Tour. I got a translucent shirt with six inch long collar lapels, wide cuffs, and fitted darts in a psycodelic paisley design. Then my babysitting money was gone. But it did the trick, and I became a virtual Apple Corp member, although the chaperones of the trip would not let us camp out at Abby Road or climb in any bathroom windows.
These years paved a new vista for our generation, a road that few of us ever veered from. Many may have and bought business suits in the years following, but most have never have gotten the spirit of the 60’s out of their blood. Proof of this is the popularity of oldies radio stations, and the refusal of jeans and t-shirts to go out of fashion. Most pot-bellied attorneys put these on every off duty chance they get, whether they are off to pollute the countryside with snowmobiles or to a “Save the Environment” fundraiser. Neither will change the radio station if “Penny Lane” comes on.
Since the Beatles seemed to be telling me in 1967 to quit college and travel the country in a beat up VW van, I thought it was only fair of them to write my college thesis for me when I suddenly realized at age 45 that I needed a degree to get by in life. How I managed to get them to do it was a trick, but first I had to convince my liberal minded but academic professor that the Beatles were a significant force in history. From there, it was a matter of cut and paste with lyrics and press releases, and I had a convincing argument that the Beatles not only replaced Jesus as the most powerful influence for my age group, but were the cause of the computer industry (see George Martins book on the mechanics of producing Sgt Pepper) and a powerful catalyst to the self-help era of the eighties (“Help!”).
Thirty years after their heyday, I tried to capture the feelings the Beatles evocted in my heart by doing an academic study of their influence. I found I was not the first to do so and discovered dozens of studies concerning their music, in some of which musicologists compared them to Beethoveen, insisting they ushered in a new genre of songwriting. Sifting through the many tell all books about John and Yoko’s eating habits and Paul’s personal grooming, I found serious works that tracked the changes in society they effected, and linked shifts in everything from philosophy to ecology to the phenonomen of the Beatles. Did their ambiguous “ count me in, count me out” stance on revolution cause political groups to rethink their tactics? Could John’s househusband phase be the reason men quit jobs and asked for paternity leaves? I couldn’t deny that my own decision to marry an Asian was a tiny bit influenced by the peace alience of John and Yoko’s public coupling.
About ten different philosophies can be gleaned from the lyrics of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Nothing is real reflects Hume’s skeptisism, misunderstanding all you see expresses Kant’s ideas about pure reason, and I think I know I mean a “yes” but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree might have been a direct transcript of a conversation between Kirkegaard and Confuscius. And Sarte agreed that it’s definitely getting hard to be someone, although may have doubted it would all work out. The song is a virtual Cliff Note for philosophy minors, and majors need only to study up on “Tommorrow Never Knows” and “I am the Walrus” to get the rest.
The universality of the Beatles is undeniable. Ambiguity plays a big part in that, and the variety of themes in the songs makes their work seem like a mirror to almost anyone. The range of boyfriend types was there, and although I loved Paul best, grew into George for a while, John was in the end the best choice of styles. Not that I wanted to marry John, although being adored wasn’t a bad option, but it was John I dressed up as for my final thesis presentation. He embodied the ideals of creative freedom and standing up for ones beliefs that are the qualities I strive for. I showed up in a white jacket and hat and the ubiquitious glasses for my presentation, three more items of clothing that only got worn once and then waiting in the pile for the next trip to the thrift shop.
Identity crisises never really end, and as I have tried on everything from radical feminist to earth mother, the clothes follow in a heap behind me. The Beatles gave me permission to keep trying to figure out who I am and then buy the outfit to express that to the world, to see if it works out. I read in one of those books that John and Yoko had a huge room where they kept their many clothes, although many were variations on black and white, and you can’t tell me that their impact would have been the same if they had posed in Sonny and Cher outfits. They were trying to say Give Peace a Chance, not I got You Babe, although they certainly got each other, too.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
clothes have feelings
Feelings
My brother and I hold the same secret belief: clothes have feelings. I found out by watching him rotate his set of old shirts that his wife had not yet thrown out, and I knew. He felt sorry for the clothes at the bottom of the drawer or in the back corner of the closet, that had been hoping to be chosen, and he tries to be fair to them all. Just like we want to make sure each of our children have the same amount of time alone with us, we have to also consider the needs of sweatshirt that got us through a long soccer game, or kept us warm when we had the flu. My blue sequined top from the 70’s, that I have not been able to think of an occasion to wear for decades, breaks my heart as she (clothes have gender too) sits there expectantly each morning, waiting for that shaft of light that gives her hope that maybe today is the day her owner will choose to wear a sparkly butterfly patterned top to work.
This makes it seem like giving up your child for adoption when you give clothing away. Turning threadbare underwear into rags is not an option for those of us who suffer from the Clothing Empathy Syndrome. I ended up with a fire hazard in my basement as I gradually relegated all neglected clothes to the “costume closet”, silently (I don’t actually speak out loud to them; they can read my mind) promising each one they had been elevated to a higher status, and fully believing myself they would be on stage someday. As soon as I was asked to do costumes for Rent, my torn jeans would have a stint in the limelight, and next time I needed angel costumes for the Sunday school play, all the nightgowns and stained white blouses would have new lives. It got to the point where the oil man could not find the furnace, so I moved them over to the school costume closet, thinking words of encouragement to them about their glorious futures ahead.
I knew it wasn’t healthy to keep size 18 dresses when I had maintained a size 8 for a year, but you know how sensitive fat clothes are. So I made a pile of big pants by the sewing machine and invited them to come along to my new thin life with me, as I attempted to take in the seams. I faked enthusiasm as I tried them on in the mirror and realized I could never get the inseams to not bunch up, and finally moved them to the dreaded thrift shop, contractor size, black (lets not say trash) bag. It is always a sad day when I drop off those bags, feeling as though I let my friends down, but I try to use my imagination about them finding new, happy homes. I see clearly in my mind an unsuspecting middle age woman on a budget spotting my old flowered cotton frock, and leaping for joy when she sees it’s size 16!
I know children believe everything around them is alive, like stuffed animals and pencil sharpeners. I know this from reading child development books and watching kids play with newspaper, or making sound effect while they move blocks around the floor. I know that babies think keys are tinkling fairies if you shake them before their eyes. My mother says that I named all my dresses when I was young, and yes, I do miss old Rosebud dress and faithful Play pants. Scratchy Cat coat, not so much.
I guess my brother and I missed a developmental stage and kept on thinking our shoes under the bed were talking to each other while we slept. In my drawing classes, we sometimes do portraits of old running shoes, and don’t tell me they have no stories to tell! My high heeled gold pumps don’t mind that I only wear them once a year on Christmas eve, since they need their beauty sleep, but I do have to be careful to give equal time to my black clogs and brown suede walking shoes. I don’t want them duking it out in the hall closet while I try to cook dinner.
My sister in law doesn’t understand the “disease” my brother suffers from, and feels no compunction about replacing his work shirts and chinos on a regular basis without asking. She thinks she is helping him. I’d suggest to her that she enter a twelve step program for those who are married to people with this problem, so she could help him more effectively, but since that doesn’t exist yet, to my knowledge, I stay silent. Perhaps by example I can show her how to be considerate to all one’s clothing, without actually having to say to her, kindly, “Wow, I haven’t seen your yellow cardigan for a while, how is she (oops, it) doing?” If I get to that point and she stares at me quizzically, I will quickly change the subject and wait until she has time to consider that question during a meditation session, and sees the light.
Traveling is hard, since carry on luggage is so small, and all my clothes know about the temptations of foreign flea markets and ethnic boutiques. They fear I may return with a flowered muumuu or woven poncho that will be my favorite for a while. They do their best to keep me warm and elicit compliments, when they have their day on display, but know that a random splash of cranberry juice or harsh florescent lights near a mirror can send them to solitary confinement indefinitely. That’s why it’s so important for me to try to be impartial when I choose my outfits. On good days, I change three or four times just to keep their spirits up. As much as I want to wear the same, hardly dirty, jeans two days in a row, since they always fit better the second day after washing, I make myself wear the brown cords. I try to keep my thoughts to myself when I feel passion for my purple cashmere sweater, knowing he is the one who will have to pay the price for the others’ jealousy while I am at work.
I hope I die before Karl, my brother. I don’t want to be the only one left on earth that knows these secrets. If there are others out there like myself, please, let yourselves be known. We can start a twelve-step group on line.
My brother and I hold the same secret belief: clothes have feelings. I found out by watching him rotate his set of old shirts that his wife had not yet thrown out, and I knew. He felt sorry for the clothes at the bottom of the drawer or in the back corner of the closet, that had been hoping to be chosen, and he tries to be fair to them all. Just like we want to make sure each of our children have the same amount of time alone with us, we have to also consider the needs of sweatshirt that got us through a long soccer game, or kept us warm when we had the flu. My blue sequined top from the 70’s, that I have not been able to think of an occasion to wear for decades, breaks my heart as she (clothes have gender too) sits there expectantly each morning, waiting for that shaft of light that gives her hope that maybe today is the day her owner will choose to wear a sparkly butterfly patterned top to work.
This makes it seem like giving up your child for adoption when you give clothing away. Turning threadbare underwear into rags is not an option for those of us who suffer from the Clothing Empathy Syndrome. I ended up with a fire hazard in my basement as I gradually relegated all neglected clothes to the “costume closet”, silently (I don’t actually speak out loud to them; they can read my mind) promising each one they had been elevated to a higher status, and fully believing myself they would be on stage someday. As soon as I was asked to do costumes for Rent, my torn jeans would have a stint in the limelight, and next time I needed angel costumes for the Sunday school play, all the nightgowns and stained white blouses would have new lives. It got to the point where the oil man could not find the furnace, so I moved them over to the school costume closet, thinking words of encouragement to them about their glorious futures ahead.
I knew it wasn’t healthy to keep size 18 dresses when I had maintained a size 8 for a year, but you know how sensitive fat clothes are. So I made a pile of big pants by the sewing machine and invited them to come along to my new thin life with me, as I attempted to take in the seams. I faked enthusiasm as I tried them on in the mirror and realized I could never get the inseams to not bunch up, and finally moved them to the dreaded thrift shop, contractor size, black (lets not say trash) bag. It is always a sad day when I drop off those bags, feeling as though I let my friends down, but I try to use my imagination about them finding new, happy homes. I see clearly in my mind an unsuspecting middle age woman on a budget spotting my old flowered cotton frock, and leaping for joy when she sees it’s size 16!
I know children believe everything around them is alive, like stuffed animals and pencil sharpeners. I know this from reading child development books and watching kids play with newspaper, or making sound effect while they move blocks around the floor. I know that babies think keys are tinkling fairies if you shake them before their eyes. My mother says that I named all my dresses when I was young, and yes, I do miss old Rosebud dress and faithful Play pants. Scratchy Cat coat, not so much.
I guess my brother and I missed a developmental stage and kept on thinking our shoes under the bed were talking to each other while we slept. In my drawing classes, we sometimes do portraits of old running shoes, and don’t tell me they have no stories to tell! My high heeled gold pumps don’t mind that I only wear them once a year on Christmas eve, since they need their beauty sleep, but I do have to be careful to give equal time to my black clogs and brown suede walking shoes. I don’t want them duking it out in the hall closet while I try to cook dinner.
My sister in law doesn’t understand the “disease” my brother suffers from, and feels no compunction about replacing his work shirts and chinos on a regular basis without asking. She thinks she is helping him. I’d suggest to her that she enter a twelve step program for those who are married to people with this problem, so she could help him more effectively, but since that doesn’t exist yet, to my knowledge, I stay silent. Perhaps by example I can show her how to be considerate to all one’s clothing, without actually having to say to her, kindly, “Wow, I haven’t seen your yellow cardigan for a while, how is she (oops, it) doing?” If I get to that point and she stares at me quizzically, I will quickly change the subject and wait until she has time to consider that question during a meditation session, and sees the light.
Traveling is hard, since carry on luggage is so small, and all my clothes know about the temptations of foreign flea markets and ethnic boutiques. They fear I may return with a flowered muumuu or woven poncho that will be my favorite for a while. They do their best to keep me warm and elicit compliments, when they have their day on display, but know that a random splash of cranberry juice or harsh florescent lights near a mirror can send them to solitary confinement indefinitely. That’s why it’s so important for me to try to be impartial when I choose my outfits. On good days, I change three or four times just to keep their spirits up. As much as I want to wear the same, hardly dirty, jeans two days in a row, since they always fit better the second day after washing, I make myself wear the brown cords. I try to keep my thoughts to myself when I feel passion for my purple cashmere sweater, knowing he is the one who will have to pay the price for the others’ jealousy while I am at work.
I hope I die before Karl, my brother. I don’t want to be the only one left on earth that knows these secrets. If there are others out there like myself, please, let yourselves be known. We can start a twelve-step group on line.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Nyc part one
Still unwinding from the tornado trip to New York City, a mind-altering weekend, and an experience I was drawn to by a force inside. From the book that spilled out of me which commenced in February, like a forgotten bank account just waiting to be spent, I tumbled into the plan of forging my way into the jungle of the publishing world. I moved from my kindergarten knowledge garnered from Writer’s magazines and books and a little experiment I did one summer years ago trying to get published, to full immersion in the fast paced real world of today’s publishing world, replete with controversy, myth and opportunity. Seven hundred industry people – writers, agents, and would be writers clutching to their baby manuscripts and proposals – mingled and simmered among brilliant presentations, editors with enticing offers, all eyeing each other trying to categorize whether they were looking at the competition, a great mentor, or a crazy person that writes about ufos on yellow lined pads for weeks at a time. The setting of the Grand Central Station Hyatt could not have been more hermetically-sealed-hotel-conference with its silver pots of coffee and piles of – for me – non edible pastries, crystal chandeliers, comfy upholstered chairs with enough give in the backs to make sitting tolerable, and stacks of handouts and media for sale everywhere. All of us would have rather been outside on the first and most heartbreakingly tender spring day the northeast has seen in a year, but the draw of the presenters and the potential fuel for dreams keep us inside most of the time.
The cliché of Grand Central Station kept running through my head, a phrase I grew up on, but is anachronistic to youth. As I might have expected, the new Grand Central Station everyone was talking about, and traipsing through at lightening speed, was the Internet. Aside from a few die hard, typewriter-using holdouts, everyone agreed that’s where the action is, in so many ways relevant to writers. Since the participants were generally my age, with a lesser contingent of older and younger ones (presumably, the younger ones are getting the same info on the web and needed not attend), There was a lot of fast note taking about web sites and blogs. The best was a Columbia Journalism professor, who was not as young as my kids, so gave me hope I could keep up with him, who talked exclusively in cyber speech, but with handouts that pointed to the ocean of info we would later explore at home. The gist was: you don’t have the excuse of – hey, I’m too busy for this stuff, I have a real life. That to him would be like saying, sorry, I don’t have time to eat, I have to go to work, or sorry I don’t have time to tune up my car before a big trip, I have to get going. You pay later.
Yet one of the most endearing die hard typewriter user speakers was the other book end to my experience – a seventy something essayist whose style reminded me of my writer grandfather – every word carefully chosen, with the wisdom of his years shining through like golden sunsets in every color. I was in love! As much as I coveted the knowledge of Sree the cyber guru, I felt a symbiosis with David that tapped into my deep love of writing, the real reason I came. I was afraid to blink or cough in case I missed a nuance of his talk which took us from eighteenth century essayists that sound like they were written yesterday, to his modest foray into modern technology: creating pod casts of his essays for NPR. Trying to put my jealousy aside and just bask in the chance to be with great people in my hoped for field, I could pause with David and realize, its not a race, its tapping into ones deepest self that makes a writer successful.
The room was filled with 80% women, and I relaxed when I realized what writers are. They are hundreds of versions of myself. They are preoccupied with thoughts, often a little out of style fashion wise – except a few who were obviously New York fashion writers – and basically smart and about as uninterested in small talk as I am. They were friendly, but got to the point of conversations quickly, and most were modest about their talents and accomplishments. Compared to the average social crowd they were high minded, thoughtful, and humble. I relaxed and could be myself, which was great, since the scariest part I anticipated was having to be fake and put on some kind of act for others.
Still unwinding from the tornado trip to New York City, a mind-altering weekend, and an experience I was drawn to by a force inside. From the book that spilled out of me which commenced in February, like a forgotten bank account just waiting to be spent, I tumbled into the plan of forging my way into the jungle of the publishing world. I moved from my kindergarten knowledge garnered from Writer’s magazines and books and a little experiment I did one summer years ago trying to get published, to full immersion in the fast paced real world of today’s publishing world, replete with controversy, myth and opportunity. Seven hundred industry people – writers, agents, and would be writers clutching to their baby manuscripts and proposals – mingled and simmered among brilliant presentations, editors with enticing offers, all eyeing each other trying to categorize whether they were looking at the competition, a great mentor, or a crazy person that writes about ufos on yellow lined pads for weeks at a time. The setting of the Grand Central Station Hyatt could not have been more hermetically-sealed-hotel-conference with its silver pots of coffee and piles of – for me – non edible pastries, crystal chandeliers, comfy upholstered chairs with enough give in the backs to make sitting tolerable, and stacks of handouts and media for sale everywhere. All of us would have rather been outside on the first and most heartbreakingly tender spring day the northeast has seen in a year, but the draw of the presenters and the potential fuel for dreams keep us inside most of the time.
The cliché of Grand Central Station kept running through my head, a phrase I grew up on, but is anachronistic to youth. As I might have expected, the new Grand Central Station everyone was talking about, and traipsing through at lightening speed, was the Internet. Aside from a few die hard, typewriter-using holdouts, everyone agreed that’s where the action is, in so many ways relevant to writers. Since the participants were generally my age, with a lesser contingent of older and younger ones (presumably, the younger ones are getting the same info on the web and needed not attend), There was a lot of fast note taking about web sites and blogs. The best was a Columbia Journalism professor, who was not as young as my kids, so gave me hope I could keep up with him, who talked exclusively in cyber speech, but with handouts that pointed to the ocean of info we would later explore at home. The gist was: you don’t have the excuse of – hey, I’m too busy for this stuff, I have a real life. That to him would be like saying, sorry, I don’t have time to eat, I have to go to work, or sorry I don’t have time to tune up my car before a big trip, I have to get going. You pay later.
Yet one of the most endearing die hard typewriter user speakers was the other book end to my experience – a seventy something essayist whose style reminded me of my writer grandfather – every word carefully chosen, with the wisdom of his years shining through like golden sunsets in every color. I was in love! As much as I coveted the knowledge of Sree the cyber guru, I felt a symbiosis with David that tapped into my deep love of writing, the real reason I came. I was afraid to blink or cough in case I missed a nuance of his talk which took us from eighteenth century essayists that sound like they were written yesterday, to his modest foray into modern technology: creating pod casts of his essays for NPR. Trying to put my jealousy aside and just bask in the chance to be with great people in my hoped for field, I could pause with David and realize, its not a race, its tapping into ones deepest self that makes a writer successful.
The room was filled with 80% women, and I relaxed when I realized what writers are. They are hundreds of versions of myself. They are preoccupied with thoughts, often a little out of style fashion wise – except a few who were obviously New York fashion writers – and basically smart and about as uninterested in small talk as I am. They were friendly, but got to the point of conversations quickly, and most were modest about their talents and accomplishments. Compared to the average social crowd they were high minded, thoughtful, and humble. I relaxed and could be myself, which was great, since the scariest part I anticipated was having to be fake and put on some kind of act for others.
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