Cintra Wilson is a genius!

I've been looking forward to this book for a long time (here's where I first heard about it from Cintra) and it did not disappointment. This is as funny as her still-underrated novel Colors Insulting to Nature and as smart and sharp as her best political writing. I loved it and didn't want it to end! In my mind, the best sections are the ones on Beltway fashion (a must-read!), Utah and the women of the south - in some sections of the book, the integration of the old Critical Shopper columns feels a bit awkward, as they are very funny and full of aphoristic zingers but don't tend to have the depth of some of the newer analysis written specifically for the book - but it is altogether a wonderfully intelligent and funny comment on contemporary American culture.

Here's the Southern Belle bit excerpted at Salon; here's a good interview at WWD.

Women and clothes

Diana Athill on luxury.

Bringing home the bacon

Fou lard.

In other news, I have a slight cold - perhaps 3 out of 10 on Davidsonian ailment scale. It is making me feel as though I would benefit from a full head transplant!

Madrid pink, Prague green, Waddesdon navy

Via my father, a good Thatcher bit at the Guardian, reminiscences from Thatcher's personal assistant Cynthia Crawford:

In 1987 she was going to Russia for the first time and I had seen a wonderful coat in Aquascutum's window and I went to get it. A lot of her clothes up until that time had been homemade by a lady. She made all those dresses and blouses with bows and things. Mrs Thatcher went to Russia and she looked absolutely fabulous. I said to her: "If you are going to fight an election in June, why don't we ask Aquascutum to make you up some working suits." She agreed, so we ordered these suits. It was when the power shoulders were in and it just revolutionised her. She looked fantastic. She enjoyed all the new outfits and got away from the dresses. She never wears trousers, not even today. She always likes formal clothes, even at home. She hasn't got a lot of casual clothes.

Because her mother was a dressmaker, she knew exactly how things should be made, how hems should be turned and how stitching should be done.

Every outfit had a name. It was mostly the name of the place where it was first worn, such as Madrid Pink or Prague Green. We might say, "We'll take Waddesdon Navy" – because she had several suits in navy. Waddesdon was where she took Mitterrand, and they had a wonderful meal. We knew we were talking about a navy suit that had a trim of a cream collar with navy roses. That was easy because then we knew what we were talking about.

$638,412.97

Buzz Bissinger's shopping addiction.

Reacher's checklist

Via my father, Jack Reacher's wardrobe choices! (FT site registration required. NB in the middle books of Sara Paretsky, there is too much detail about the washing machine - it is the way of V.I. to wash clothes ruinously dirtied by some investigative enterprise, forget them in the washer and then find them smelling moldy a few days later and run them through another wash cycle - this is also the first set of books I read, other than the novels of Dick Francis, where the detective's exercise habits occupy a significant proportion of the pages, including the question of the affordability of new running shoes on a private investigator's income).

I remain excessively frazzled, but a good play and late dinner were soothing. Last night I needed to be home more than I needed to be at the opera; we sensibly left at the first intermission!

My main feeling right now is intense self-reproach at having dug myself so deep into the fatigue pit this semester that jury duty seemed cataclysmic. Now we have the schedule for the next week, it seems at least doable (in retrospect, based on the intensity of my distress yesterday and today, I probably should have deferred service, but between teaching and travel, it's rare that I am actually available, and I thought I should get it over with). We have Tuesday off and that's one of the two days I had a lot of stuff scheduled for on campus, so I only had to reschedule half, not all. Still slightly stymied as to when and how I will read the large heap of end-of-semester student work and dissertation chapters, but it should be that it will be one week from now and I'll be done with the fall semester work and also, if the trial isn't over, have a week's hiatus for Xmas holiday. Could be worse....

Signs of wear and tear

Kathy Acker's clothes.  (Via Ken Wark.)

Retail therapy

One reason staying in Cayman is surprisingly frugal for me is that it prevents me from ordering things online: it takes forever for stuff to get shipped here, shipping costs are huge and customs duty must be paid on anything that comes in (books excluded, fortunately).

But I was finding myself in need of some retail therapy today, and have ordered some things to be sent to my New York apartment for retrieval in September: a down jacket on sale at Patagonia, which is immaterial for Light Reading purposes but may speak to fantasies of winter, and a great set of books and 'stuff' from Amazon. The latter set of stuff counts as a birthday present from my mother and my brother and sister-in-law, who sensibly sent me Amazon gift certificates when I couldn't suggest actual presents for my birthday!

The glorious list (it accumulated by way of me adding things piecemeal to the shopping cart over the last month or so, but I think it gives a good profile in miniature):

"The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications"
David Deutsch

(This one's more or less self-explanatory: Brent and I were talking about David Deutsch, and I realized that really I might want to read his book)

"Field Notes on Science and Nature"
Michael R. Canfield

(Saw an image from this one a few weeks ago online and realized it was a book I had to have)

"Dover Solo: Swimming The English Channel"
Marcia Cleveland

(Self-explanatory! I am not a fast enough swimmer, unfortunately, to undertake something as epic as the Channel swim - you have to start with considerably higher baseline speeds in order for it to be realistic. Not that I am not tempted...)

"Lobster: A Global History (Reaktion Books - Edible)"
Elisabeth Townsend

(Do not like lobster for eating purposes, but could not resist this book's title and the beautifully designed cover!)

"The Delighted States: A Book of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents, & Accompanied by ... Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes"
Adam Thirlwell

(Curious to see whether this might cast any light for me on what I want to do with the ABCs of the novel book)

"Humiliation (Big Ideas//Small Books)"
Wayne Koestenbaum

(Can't wait for this one - also, I like the idea of writing something for the big ideas/small books series...)

"Marpac 980A Sound Screen Sleep Conditioner White Noise Generator Dual Speed"

(The upshot of reading Farhad Manjoo's piece about sleep noise-canceling devices)

"Jimbo"
Gary Panter

(Gary is one of the most interesting people I know, but I have never read any of his comics - this should be remedied...)

"Gary Panter"
Robert Storr

(...and also perhaps it is worth seeing what others have to say about the stuff Gary makes.)

"City of Diamond"
Jane Emerson

(Same author as "Doris Egan," and another recommendation from Jo Walton: pretty much convinced that this will be more perfect light reading.)

Linkage

Not literary in any particular sense, but do read this piece by Michael Ogg on what it means to depend on home health care aides when sidelined by a permanent disability (via Jane Gross).

A. L. Kennedy on why the worst part of writing is waiting.

Phil Nugent on the trials and tribulations of Winter Wipeout!

Finally, I got a nice piece of news the other day from my friend Helen Hill's mother Becky. Helen's last film, "The Florestine Dresses," has been completed by her husband Paul, and will premiere at the Indie Grits Film Festival at the Nickleodeon Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina on April 13-17, 2011. I will definitely be there for the premiere, and will do what I can to help gather a large group of Helen's friends for the occasion.

(There was an exhibit of the dresses themselves a few years ago; alas, I missed it, though I remember seeing the dresses not long after Helen had first found them - there were more than a hundred of them! - in trash bags on the street and rescued them and begun to investigate the story of their creation.)

Dogsbody

Dogs in space.

Snakes, pies

More on the snake dress (FT site registration required, plus no squeamishness about public self-revelation).

More appealingly, Melton Mowbray's Pie Olympics!

101 snakes

"Ms. Abramovic, however, was quick to mention that the snakes used in her jacket had died of natural causes."

"Those pushpins, you wouldn't believe how small they are"

At the New Yorker, Richard Brody on the stop-motion animation of Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox production (subscriber only):

Anderson wanted the figurines to have "a believable sort of finish, a lifelike quality," according to Andy Gent, the puppet master. Although the largest of the figurines were only about eighteen inches tall, their fur was, indeed, fur (which, Gent said, came from "safe sources," suc as "food production"). They had been crafted for maximum pliability of expression: Mr. Fox's eyes were poseable, and his foam-latex face had a jointed framework that could register the slightest sneer or snarl or raised eyebrow. Moreover, the figurines had tailored clothing, made with fabric. (Anderson designed the clothes himself, having his own tailor send fabric samples. He has a suit made from the same corduroy as Mr. Fox's.) In closeup, not only are the buttons on Mr. Fox's white shirt visible; so is the stitching on the edge of the collar.

Molly Cooper, the film's co-producer, told me, "Wes wants the references to be from the real world. A desk actually has a coffee stain, piles of papers, things you'd have in a real-world setting." Standing before the set of the supermarket, which is filled with hundreds of miniature boxes and cans and bottles and jars, Anderson told Dawson, "Stores don't put bread in the refrigerator." Dawson joked, "Here they do," and Anderson responded, "I'm saying a serious thing. Maybe we shouldn't have bread in the refrigerator." Another set featured a miniature piano, whose keys could be depressed individually, so that, when a figurine played, the motions matched those of the real performance being heard on the soundtrack. The walls of one character's office were lined with tiny cards that Anderson had based on the scheduling board in the film's production office. On his computer, he'd shown me a still frame of that set and said, gleefully, "Those pushpins, you wouldn't believe how small they are."

Also (courtesy of Wendy): miniature city in The Hague reduces everything to a fraction of its original size! (And I wouldn't mind seeing Miniatürk, either...)

Skinny jeans

A hilarious and beautifully written piece by Daniel Nester on a serious journalistic experiment.

Sweat, n.

I have a minor sinus infection and (it is not really causal) have been lounging around in sweatpants, giving rise to etymological curiosity...

The OED:

IV. 11. attrib. and Comb., as sweat-drop, labour, -scraper, -secretion, -stain; spec. = ‘exciting or relating to the secretion of sweat’, as sweat-absorber, apparatus, canal, centre, coil, fibre, nerve; sweat-dried, -marked, -shining, -soaked, -stained, -wet adjs.; also sweat-band, (a) a band of leather or other substance forming a lining of a hat or cap for protection against the sweat of the head; (b) in Sport, a strip of material worn around the (fore)head or wrist to absorb perspiration; sweat-bath, a steam-bath or hot-air bath, esp. among N. American Indians; cf. SWEAT-HOUSE 1; sweat-bee, a name for the small bees of the family Andrenidæ; sweat-box, (a) a narrow cell in which a prisoner is confined (slang); also U.S., a room in which a prisoner undergoes intensive questioning (see quot. 1931); (b) a box in which hides are sweated; (c) a large box in which figs are placed to undergo a ‘sweat’; (d) transf. and fig., spec. a heated compartment in which perspiration is induced, to encourage weight loss, etc.; sweat-cloth, a cloth or handkerchief used for wiping off sweat; a sudary; see also quot. 1872; sweat cooling Engin., a form of cooling in which the coolant is passed through a porous wall and evenly distributed over the surface, which is cooled by its evaporation; hence sweat-cooled ppl. a.; sweat-cyst Path., a cyst resulting from some disorder of the sweat-glands; sweat-duct Anat., the duct of a sweat-gland, by which the sweat is conveyed to the surface of the skin; sweat equity U.S., an interest in a property earned by a tenant who contributes his labour to its upkeep or renovation; sweat flap, a leather flap in harness, for protecting the rider's leg from the sweat of the horse; sweat-gland Anat., each of the numerous minute coiled tubular glands just beneath the skin which secrete sweat; sweat heat Gardening, the heat at which fermentation takes place; sweat-hog U.S. slang, a difficult student singled out in school or college for special instruction; {dag}sweat-hole, = sweat-pore; sweat-leather, (a) a leather sweat-band in a hat or cap; also sweat lining; (b) = sweat-flap; sweat-lodge, = SWEAT-HOUSE 1; sweat-orifice = sweat-pore; sweat pants chiefly U.S., trousers of thick cotton cloth worn by athletes, esp. before or after strenuous exercise; tracksuit trousers; sweat-pit, {dag}(a) the arm-pit exuding sweat (obs. nonce-use); (b) in Tanning, a pit in which hides are sweated, a sweating-pit; sweat-pore Anat., each of the pores of the skin formed by the openings of the sweat-ducts; sweat-rag (slang), any cloth used for wiping off sweat, or worn round the head to keep sweat out of the eyes; sweat-rash Path., an eruption caused by obstruction of the sweat-pores; sweat-room, a room in which tobacco is sweated; sweat root, Polemonium reptans (Dunglison Med. Lex. 1857); sweat rug a rug put on a horse after exercise; sweat-shirt orig. U.S., a loose shirt; spec. a long-sleeved, high-necked pullover shirt of thick cotton cloth (usu. with a fleecy lining), worn by athletes to avoid taking cold before or after exercise (cf. SWEATER 7b); hence sweat-shirted a.; sweat-shop orig. U.S., a workshop in a dwelling-house, in which work is done under the sweating system (or, by extension, under any system of sub-contract); also fig. and attrib.; sweat-stock Tanning, a collective term for hides which are being or have been sweated (see SWEAT v. 13); sweat-suit orig. U.S., an athlete's suit consisting of a sweat-shirt and sweat-pants; {dag}sweat-sweet a. nonce-wd., having a sweet exudation; sweat vesicle Path., = sweat-cyst; sweat-vessel Anat., = sweat-duct; sweat-weed, marsh mallow, Althæa officinalis (Billings Med. Dict. 1890). See also SWEAT-HOUSE.
1956 S. BECKETT Malone Dies 93 A *sweat-absorber for the armpit. 1883 F. T. ROBERTS Handbk. Med. (ed. 5) 960 Affections of the *sweat-apparatus. 1891 Pall Mall G. 28 Sept. 2/3 An American chemist..threatens us with lead-poisoning from the ‘*sweat-band’. 1956 R. H. APPLEWHAITE Lawn Tennis i. 12 Sweatbands..are worn round the wrist to prevent perspiration running down the arms into the hands. 1977 J. F. FIXX Compl. Bk. Running xii. 134 When I started running, I saw a lot of runners wearing sweatbands, so after sweat had dripped into my eyes a few times I went out and bought one. 1877 S. POWERS Tribes of California xxvi. 244 [The Shasta Indians] have no assembly chamber..; nothing but a kind of oven large enough that one person may stretch himself therein and enjoy a *sweat-bath. 1921 J. HASTINGS Encycl. Relig. & Ethics XII. 128/2 When we turn to the Old World, we find a striking resemblance to the American customs in Herodotus's description of the use of the sweat-bath among the Scythians as a means of purification, after mourning. 1963 E. WAUGH Let. Sept. in C. Sykes Evelyn Waugh (1975) xxvi. 439, I have sat in a ‘sweat-bath’ and been severely massaged. 1965 S. G. LAWRENCE 40 Yrs. on Yukon Telegraph xiv. 75 They [sc. some Indians] stayed over a day and all the old men took sweat baths. 1894 U.S. Dept. Agric., Div. Veg. Physiol. & Path. Bulletin v. 79 (Cent. Dict., Suppl.) The *sweat bees of the genus Halictus and Andrena. 1870 U.S. Navy Gen. Orders & Circulars (1887) 97 He was..gagged and confined in a *sweat-box of such dimensions that it was impossible to sit down. 1888 W. B. CHURCHWARD Blackbirding in S. Pacific 28 This sweat-box is a sort of cell in the lowest part of the ship, pitch dark, and hot as hell. 1890 BARRÈRE & LELAND Slang Dict., Sweat-box, the cell where prisoners are confined on arrest previous to being brought up for examination before the magistrate. 1895 Pop. Sci. Monthly XLVI. 345 When sympathetic visitors crowded around his sweatbox. 1897 Chicago Tribune 10 July 1/4 The upper gallery commonly known as the ‘sweat box’ in regular theaters. 1900 Yearbk. U.S. Dept. Agric. 94 After the figs were dried they were placed in sweat boxes holding about 200 pounds each, where they were allowed to remain for two weeks, to pass through a sweat. 1901 ‘J. FLYNT’ World of Graft 102 He was copped out on suspicion. They put him in the sweat-box, made him cough, an' you know the rest. 1931 Z. CHAFEE et al. in Rep. Nat. Comm. Law Observance & Enforcement (U.S.) ii. 38 The original ‘sweat box’ used during the period following the Civil War..was a cell in close proximity to a stove, in which a scorching fire was built and fed with old bones, pieces of rubber shoes, etc., all to make great heat and offensive smells, until the sickened and perspiring inmate of the cell confessed in order to get released. 1973 ‘H. HOWARD’ Highway to Murder ii. 28, I ought to stick you in the sweat box until you told me the name of your client. 1974 J. ENGELHARD Horsemen vi. 38, I never go in a sweatbox... I lose all the weight I want playing tennis. 1890 BILLINGS Med. Dict., *Sweat canal, excretory duct of a sweat-gland. Ibid., *Sweat centre. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 200 The effect of this [accumulation of carbonic acid in the blood] being to stimulate the sweat centres. 1872 SCHELE DE VERE Americanisms 329 The *sweat-cloth, a cloth marked with figures, and used by gamblers with dice. 1894 Athenæum 24 Feb. 239/3 The appearance of the sweat-cloth is a very characteristic mark. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 741 An uninterrupted series of changes in the *sweat-coils was observed from the beginning up to the end of the disease. 1948 Technical Publ. Amer. Inst. Mining & Metall. Engineers No. 2343. Class E. 1 In designing a *sweat cooled part it is imperative to assure a given rate of flow of coolant. Ibid., A less orthodox method consists of making the part to be cooled of a porous material, so that the cooling fluid can be forced through the pores... This method, referred to as ‘*sweat cooling’, was proposed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in September 1944. 1969 E. C. ROBERTSON Now Bks. Rocket Motors iv. 29 Many devices have been tried to keep the walls of the chamber cool and techniques have ranged from sweat cooling..to the one that is most common today. 1898 HUTCHINSON Archives Surgery IX. 160 My patient had been liable to unilateral sweating of the face... The vesicles or little cysts..varied in size from pins' heads to peas... There could be little doubt that these were *sweat-cysts. 1885 B. HARTE Maruja iii, As he groomed the *sweat-dried skin of the mustang. 1776 MICKLE tr. Camoens' Lusiad 304 Fell the hot *sweat-drops as he champt the rein. 1817 BYRON Mazeppa xi, And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain Upon the courser's bristling mane. 1881 HUXLEY Elem. Physiol. v. (new ed.) 114 Cells lining the *sweat duct. 1973 Time 16 July 43 A group of poor, racially mixed tenants took over a nearby city-owned tenement, stripped the shabby interiors and are building modern apartments to replace the narrow, cold-water flats... In return for their ‘*sweat equity’, the builder-residents will make payments as low as $80 per month and ultimately own the building as a cooperative. 1980 B. VILA This Old House v. 83/1 The calculations you make in a sweat equity job are different from those in a project in which you are employing professionals. 1908 Animal Managem. 182 The *sweat flap of the girth. 1845 TODD & BOWMAN Phys. Anat. I. 423 The *sweat-glands exist under almost every part of the cutaneous surface. 1843 Florist's Jrnl. (1846) IV. 225 A ‘*sweat heat’ of from 85° to 95° temperature. 1976 Senior Scholastic 4 May 41 John Travolta..[is] back in the classroom..as the leader of the *sweathogs in ABC's Welcome Back, Kotter. 1979 BROOKS & MARSH Compl. Directory Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present 673/1 Gabe's ‘sweathogs’ were the outcasts of the academic system, streetwise but unable or unwilling to make it in normal classes.

Penguinia

From Anatole France, Penguin Island:

"To clothe the penguins is a very serious business. At present when a penguin desires a penguin he knows precisely what he desires and his lust is limited by an exact knowledge of its object. At this moment two or three couples of penguins are making love on the beach. See with what simplicity! No one pays any attention and the actors themselves do not seem to be greatly preoccupied. But when the female penguins are clothed, the male penguin will not form so exact a notion of what it is that attracts him to them. His indeterminate desires will fly out into all sorts of dreams and illusions; in short, father, he will know love and its mad torments. And all the time the female penguins will cast down their eyes and bite their lips, and take on airs as if they kept a treasure under their clothes! . . . what a pity!"

Vegetable beaux

From Jonathan Swift, A tale of a tub. Written for the universal improvement of mankind. To which is added, an account of a battel between the antient and modern books ... The fourth edition corrected (1705):