Television / Film

Your Horse Dropped: Magnetic poetry with cattle marker illustrations PART 7 « Goodwerks Creative

Silly horse shouldn’t have put his piano so close to the edge of the butte.

After wearing the same six items of clothing for 30 days, I have learned a few things:

1. Truly, no one cares what you wear. No one notices. The only folks who remarked on my clothes either (A) knew nothing about the project but complimented me on looking especially stylish and sharp or (B) had read my first post and knew the experiment was past, and wondered how it went.

2. It is much easier to get dressed in the morning when one has fewer choices. Normally, I put on and take off at least one outfit each morning, trying to figure out what to wear, before settling on an outfit; often I go through several outfits at a time. During the 30 day experiment I think I swapped my top in the morning four times total.

3. Having multiples of an item — four black tank tops, for example — makes a world of difference. I was able to do laundry just once a week, which helped a lot, particularly given the heat of August and my tendency to sweat. On this, I bent the “rules” a bit. I had just one black tank top at the start of the project, and one white t-shirt. About a week in, I went shopping and picked up three more black tanks and one more white t, and all of them were better designed and more flexible than my original items (looser fit for the t-shirt, wider straps for the tanks to better cover bra straps). This made it much easier for me to feel confident wearing them, and I credit this with part of my surviving the month. So, having great-fitting and well-made items is important, and having enough that you don’t have to wash your clothes every night helps.

4. I used to wear scarves and belts a lot, particularly in the 90s when I wore suits and my wardrobe was more “corporate” looking. Those accessories made my outfits more varied. It wasn’t critical to me, but it was sort of nice. For someone who has a more public life, like TODAY’s financial editor Jean Chatzky who did the same experiment during much the same period I did, it might make a bigger difference. Here are her notes about the project, plus the segment TODAY broadcast on Thursday about her experience.

Video segment on TODAY about “sixperiment” wardrobe diet

5. Choosing the right items for the project is key. Two days in, I realized I’d made a strategic error in choosing linen-type pants during a particularly sweltering August. I would have to wash the pants every time I wore them. I opted to cheat take a mulligan and swap the khaki pants out of the project in favor of a pair of wide-leg black knit pants. These turned out to be a fantastic and flexible choice, one that I could dress up or down easily, yet never looked wrinkled or sloppy. (They did look linty and attract cat hair, but I think that’s mostly because of how I am.) So, as with the t-shirts and tanks, selecting clothes that are flexible and that one feels terrific in makes this project work.

6. Wearing the same colors all the time was more of a challenge for me than wearing the same items. In fact, the day after I completed the project, I wore a plum-color t-shirt and the khaki pants I abandoned after day 3 — in other words, i kind of kept going with just a change of color. (I thought of it as kind of a penalty day, penance for my day two swap.) Then, in the past week, when i could choose anything from my wardrobe again, I’ve defaulted to the black pants and black skirt several times. And this weekend, when I’m traveling to attend a friend’s wedding, I wore the black pants AGAIN, brought the brown capris (which I bet I won’t wear), and packed t-shirts and tank tops, one of them even in black. The major additions to my project wardrobe for this trip have been a cocktail dress for the wedding and two jackets, one dressy for the wedding and one more casual — and frankly, I could have gotten away with just the one dressy jacket. I’m thinking I might just get another pair of these wide-leg pants and make it a uniform for my work days.

My friend Jenda asked me if I would ever choose to do this six-item wardrobe experiment again. I don’t think I would, not because it was too hard but because I feel I’ve gotten about as much from it — in understanding of myself and in rethinking appearance in general and mine in particular — as I can. Plus, as we’ve seen from my wardrobe choices since the project ended, I’m kind of just living the smaller wardrobe now anyway.

But one way that I might choose to do it again, differently, would be to choose six items that were not as “safe” as the ones I chose this time. Maybe an extravagant frock coat, like Captain Jack Sparrow’s; fancy pants like my party pants or some ruffle capris; a notable dress; a t-shirt and a tank top, but neither in black nor white; and remarkable sweater. Could I wear those items for a month, to client meetings and the grocery store and everywhere else? I’ve said before that I am weary of wearing boring clothes, that I want only to wear fun clothes, yet I drift back to the staid and safe again and again. If I were to do this again, I’d like to challenge myself to be as freaky on the outside as I fell inside.

If you’re thinking of trying the six-item wardrobe diet or any similar wardrobe-limiting project, do it. Fascinating.

I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn’t itch. ~Gilda Radner

People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile. ~Lee Mildon

Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are. ~Quentin Crisp

Now here you may be thinking, “But wait…on vacation last Summer I had a Mai Tai at ‘Benny’s Beachfront Bazooka Bar’ in Panama City, and it had pineapple juice and orange juice and red stuff and came in a hollowed-out cantaloupe with a live tree frog impaled on a sparkler as a garnish. This recipe leaves a bunch of stuff out!”

The short answer is no, it doesn’t. For the sad tale of how the original Mai Tai was bastardized into oblivion almost from the moment of conception, consult the sources listed above. For now, back to the drink…

I adopted a new kitty. He’s gradually making himself at home.

In the last few days, he’s made significant progress in breaking down the resistance of the other cats. They now can all eat in the same room, and Sammy (the grey cat) doesn’t hiss every time she sees the new cat.

He’s a hilarious little being. I haven’t had a kitten before — at least, not since I was a wee one myself — and I’m surprised every day by his unending energy and his ability to turn anything he encounters into a toy. He also makes the funniest sounds. He doesn’t “meow” or even “mew.” The noise he makes is more of a squeak or peep.

I still don’t have a name for him. I’ve looked for princely names to suit his apparent sense of entitlement and slight obliviousness to the concerns of others — Prince Hal is the closest so far — but I’m not sold on that. Suggestions?

Soon, we’ll be able to buy Stay Puft marshmallows. Perfect for making smores while telling ghost stories. Via murketing

How To Be Alone (via andyradorfman)

Nowadays, the Pittsburgh region is blessed with so many local meetups and tweetups and benefits and social media conferences that I’ve wondered whether there was still a need for Pittsburgh BlogFests.

But people continue to ask when the next BlogFest will be, just as people continue to list their new blogs on Pittsburgh Bloggers. And in truth, I’ve missed them.

So we’re going to have another one.

Pittsburgh BlogFest 20: The Return of the BlogFest

Come meet your fellow bloggers and social media types in a friendly, unstructured setting. BlogFest is an informal and friendly quarterly (or so, ahem) gathering of local bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, and anyone who enjoys life on the Internet. It’s more happy hour than meeting: No talks will be given, no credentials required.

WHAT: Pittsburgh Blogfest 20
WHEN: Friday, August 27, 2010, 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM and beyond
WHERE: Finnegan’s Wake (near PNC Park, 20 General Robinson St., North Shore, 412-325-2601), in the Pub Room
WHO: All local bloggers, podcasters, and social media folk of all stripes (and their friends… feel free to bring some even if they don’t blog!)

Food and beverages will be available for purchase from Finnegan’s Wake, as always. Arrive when you like, leave when you must.

SMOKING NOTE: As always, the room in which we’ll be blogfesting will be smoke-free. The rest of the bar allows smoking, so one can hop out for a smoke break. There’s a glass wall between, so the smokers and nonsmokers can stare at each other and see how the other half lives.

If you plan to attend, please send an e-mail to blogfest AT pghbloggers.org or RSVP on our Facebook event listing.

And speaking of the Pittsburgh Bloggers website: If you’ve wondered what’s happening with the site and why new blogs don’t seem to be listed with any regularity — or at all — please read this post about our plans to revamp the site.

The goal is to have the new site launched in time for BlogFest. Wish me luck!

My battle with my backyard continues. In recent weekends I’ve cut back more of the forsythia. See:

Progress!

I’ve chopped the bushes far to the right. At that point, there’s still another smaller bush or two, but most of the space is taken up by a rogue tree, which has multiple trunks of up to 3 inches in diameter.

The dread tree, hovering next to the deck

I need to upgrade to more significant chopping equipment. I may also need to watch out that I don’t take out utility wiring and maybe a neighbor’s window in the process of clearing that monster.

I was able to make such great strides thanks to the help of family. My brother-in-law again lent me a pickup to haul the stuff away, my parents allowed me to dump the cuttings on their land (under protest, in my dad’s case), and my brother Jude helped me load up the truck and trimmed small forsythia sprouts that were trying to gain traction.

The forsythia, as predicted, got right to work in regrowing.

These forsythia were chopped down to bare stalks less than a foot high. They’re now leafy and over two feet tall.

The crownvetch has regrouped and is spreading. It’s joined by another plant that also is virulent, but whose name I don’t know.

And yet, despite the regrowth, it’s clear that I’m making strides. I keep reminding myself, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Frightened Rabbit are a band from Scotland, and I love both their sound and the poetry of their lyrics.

Of their songs, this is (so far) my favorite:

They’re on tour now in Europe, coming to the US in October. They’ll be in Pittsburgh on November 2.

I’m buying some tickets, so let me know if you’d like to come along or meet us there. Such fun it will be!

Here’s a fun and funny fundraising event to benefit the Moraine Trails Scoutreach Program: the MedExpress Ducky Derby.

On August 5, we’re racing hundreds of rubber ducks by floating them down Sullivan Run in Butler. The backer of the winning duck will win $1000.

Tickets to rent a duck for the race are $5. You don’t get to keep the ducks you sponsor, but you do get the satisfaction of supporting a worthy cause and being part of a surreal, slow motion aqua race in the middle of a Pennsylvania small town. You know we’ll be taking lots of photos and video.

A little bit about the cause we’re supporting:

The Moraine Trails Scoutreach Program is a collaborative effort between Moraine Trails Council-Boy Scouts of America, Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center and The Salvation Army. It provides a “Scout Leader” and a “Role Model” for boys who would otherwise not be able to access the Scouting Program for lack of volunteer leadership and financial support. Scoutreach explores creative ways to involve parents who haven’t been involved in the past through a parent/son day at camp.

For tickets, contact me.

This event is sponsored by:
United Way of Butler County
Butler County Young Professionals’ officers
Butler Downtown
Butler County Chamber of Commerce
Big Big Design

The Moth is a live storytelling series. Sometimes the stories are true, and sometimes they are factual. Always they are interesting.

Here’s a sample.

The Moth will be in Pittsburgh in August, and I’m so looking forward to it.
American Shorts @WYEP presents The Moth in Pittsburgh

Nerves of Steel: Stories of Moxie and Might

Hosted by

Jessi Klein

Featuring stories by
George Dawes Green (founder of The Moth)
among others

Stories begin at 7pm
at New Hazlett Theater
Allegheny Square E.
Pittsburgh, PA

Tickets: $20, $25, reserved seating

http://www.pittsburghlectures.org/interior.php?pageID=238

If you can’t attend the event, they also have a podcast.

Recently, my niece Rachel found this white ceramic cat at my parents’ house. She carried it downstairs by herself.

The cat had been a Christmas gift for me years ago and was a prized possession. This was during a period when I was nicknamed “Pussycat Doggie Girl,” thanks to my habit of crawling around houses on hands and knees, either mewing or barking depending on whether I felt more like a cat or dog at the time.

I think that’s my father’s handwriting. He’d also have been more likely to include the date.

Sometime to shake things up I would be a horse instead, but somehow “Horsey Girl” didn’t stick as a nickname.

Thirty-some years later, my niece has taken up this animal-impersonation habit, completely on her own and much to the amusement of everyone. Here she is, a momma cat carrying her kitten.

She’s also been playing with the ceramic cat. She’ll put it and her stuffed kitty in a laundry basket and then crawl in with them, three cats in a nest together.

As adorable as that sounds, my parents decided I should take the ceramic cat to my own home — one tiny step toward clearing out clutter from their place. For now it’s in my living room. My live cats have taken little notice of it, until tonight when I took these photos to share on the blog.

I always thought of the ceramic cat as larger than life-size. It’s only now, seeing my real housecats next to it, that I see it’s been just about life-size all along.

Meow.

Here’s how I knew I need to go on a clothing diet: Yesterday I read about Six Items or Less in the New York Times, and, while I felt inspired by the people who restricted their wardrobes to a bare minimum of items for a month, I felt more inspired to buy more clothes.

Specifically, I felt that I needed a pair of jeggings — an item of clothing I’d never heard of before, denim-ish leggings. Clearly the perfect thing to straddle the line between casual and hip. I also thought I would do well to get some more black tank tops, and a versatile black dress that could be accessorized to be dressy or day-to-day. I started searching online for an ideal pair of jeggings, ignoring the nagging thought that my closet is crammed to full to fit even a tiny pair of jeggings or leggings or even flip-flops; my two bureaus are overflowing with clothes; and I have yet more dresses and coats and stuff in the basement and garage.

Eventually I convinced myself that I would rather attempt a six item clothing diet with only clothes I already own. I consider this bit of shopping self-control a major win already.

The idea of a clothing diet is this: Choose 6 items of clothing and wear them, and only them, for a month. Underwear, socks, and pajamas don’t count; I’m also not counting workout gear, nor clothes for yardwork (still have a half a yard full of forsythia and regrown weeds to battle in the next few weeks). If you have several duplicate items, like white t-shirts or black tank tops, you can count that as a single item since it really just reduces your laundry efforts. Accessorize in any way you please.

I’d previously thought of trying something like The Uniform Project, in which a woman wore the same dress (actually multiple copies of a dress) every day for a year. But the focus there was on creativity, whereas I’m more interested in simplicity and focus.

I’ve thought often of adopting a uniform, like Steve Jobs and his black turtleneck/blue jeans, or like habits worn by the nuns at my grade school. How lovely it would be to not fuss each day about what to wear, I’d think. Over time I have in some ways simplified my wardrobe, color coordinating it so that it’s easy to mix and match. Even so, it still takes time and mental effort each day to choose an outfit. And I’ve hesitated from making a commitment and really sticking with a uniform of my own.

No more. Starting today I’m wearing these items for a month:

Long black skirt
Light-weight khaki pants
Brown knit capris
White t-shirt
Black tank top
Crinkle-dyed embellished top

The big decision was whether to include a jacket, for client meetings. In the heat of this summer I haven’t worn a jacket in weeks, so including one would feel like a waste of an item for this project. And over the next few weeks I don’t anticipate many meetings with new clients — we’re mid-project on several jobs. If a meeting does come up I may be able to squeak by with the embellished top and skirt, or black tank and a scarf.

One of the interesting points that the Six Items of Less participants made was how few people even noticed that they were wearing the same clothes over and over. In part this may show how clever folks are at accessorizing, but I think it’s also true that people on the whole don’t notice what others wear. Will anyone notice that I’m wearing the same clothes every day? I’ll let you know.

Want to join me on the diet? We can be our own support group, ready with a calming word when the compulsion to buy just this one awesome pair of pants feels too much to bear. We can do it!

Last week in the CSA share that my mom and I split, we had the option to try two kinds of wild greens: purslane and lamb’s quarters. We took a bag of each, and Mom kept the purslane to try while I took the lamb’s quarters.

Lamb’s quarters (that link includes lots of photos) are a relative of spinach. They tasted a little like spinach to me, but also like wild leaves, although not unpleasantly so. The leaves themselves are smallish — at least mine were — and a bit more tedious than spinach to pick off the stems and wash.

Mixed with warm lentils and red wine vinaigrette, topped with feta, the lamb’s quarters were delicious. Here’s the recipe, provided by the Northwest PA Growers’ Co-op and attributed to “Facts on Edible Wild Greens in Maine,” Mahmoud El-Begearmi, Extension specialist, nutrition and food safety, University of Maine Cooperative Extension; Bulletin #4060.

4 cups water
1-1/4 cups dried lentils
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried whole oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 small clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
3 cups lamb’s-quarters, well washed

Combine 4 cups water and lentils in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 30 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside.

Combine 2 tablespoons water, olive oil, vinegar, oregano, salt, pepper and garlic in medium bowl. Stir well. Add lentils, cheese and lamb’s-quarters; toss well. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes four 1-cup servings.

For this, I used a French feta cheese, Valbreso Feta, and I need for you to know that it is the most exquisite feta cheese I’ve ever tasted. Salty and just barely tart, and somehow also wonderfully sweet, like the goats had eaten only cherries their whole lives.

PLCB User’s Group reports that Herbsaint is now available in Pennsylvania liquor stores.

Herbsaint was developed as a substitute for absinthe when the latter was banned in the U.S.

The Herbsaint now available is a replica of the original recipe, and it’s getting fine reviews from the cocktail cognoscenti. I look forward to making a Sazerac with it.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I spent most of my waking time online, so you might think I’m always up-to-date with the memes (recurring themes and in-jokes) currently circulating the Internet. I’m not; far from it. In fact, the more time I spend online, the more memes I learn about that I’ve not known about although they’ve been around for years.

Take the list in this paragraph from a story in this week’s NYT Magazine, “When Funny Goes Viral,” by Rob Walker:
If one function of ROFL in the online ecosystem is to bring people together around something funny, it also draws lines. The memes of the moment change constantly; new variations are added to its language and older material is recombined to shift or add to its meaning. A MemeFactory presentation I caught at New York University was adizzying blur: Boxxy, David After Dentist, Star Wars Kid, “Downfall,” Advice Dog, “Imma chargin mah lazer!” Crasher Squirrel, “This is Sparta!” multiple Japanese cartoon clips, a new Chat Roulette prank, Weegee and so on. Your reaction to that list — incomprehensible? kind of played out? — says something about your relationship to “Internet culture.”

Of those memes, I knew with confidence only three (and that only means I could define them and point to one example — I don’t know every variation on them or memes that have evolved from them), recognized one more (”Downfall”) after reading more about it in the article, and could take a stab guessing two or three others.

(Walker’s article provides a nice introduction to Internet culture, at least for a mainstream audience. And for anyone who, like me, thinks they know what’s what on the web, it’s either a reassuring confirmation, a wake-up call, or a useful filler-in for any gaps in knowledge. Also useful is danah boyd’s blog post about 4chan, “‘for the lolz’: 4chan is hacking the attention economy,” which can catch you up on where many Internet memes come from and how chaos can be a seed of culture.)

Does it matter that I don’t recognize or get the majority of memes? I feel like it does. I used to feel uncomfortable not knowing the source of most pop culture television references, but that no longer bothers me. I watch relatively little television, and over time I’ve gotten to feel OK knowing that most references go over my head because I’m not putting time and attention into being current. Similarly, it should be clear to me that to stay current with every new meme that comes up, I’d need to spend most of my day watching YouTube videos, reading Boing Boing, and surfing forums, which I wouldn’t actually enjoy. So why do I feel a little like a failure each time I discover that a meme has been around for a year without my encountering it?

Are you in tune with Internet culture? Do you care?

Happy birthday, Atomic Age. Photo of the Trinity Gadget via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats: The Future is Now #27

  Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

  Letters from a Stoic

Dead Souls: A Novel

  American Rust: A Novel