Gosh it’s been a busy week, plus there have been doctor appointments to fit in. Really feeling this:
But we’re doing it (art by Nicholas Vargas):
And trying not to buy too many little treats (art by Ruth Mora):
Gosh it’s been a busy week, plus there have been doctor appointments to fit in. Really feeling this:
But we’re doing it (art by Nicholas Vargas):
And trying not to buy too many little treats (art by Ruth Mora):
Going back even further from Pinterest in 2007, I present a page from the J. Peterman catalog in 1996, selling us a linen jacket:
Imagine being 16–anxious (clinically), awkward, with bad skin and giant jeans–and reading, “a great champagne-in-a-rowboat jacket” and also “Staggering over a slip of ivory charmeuse.” A different world was possible just through clothes? People who wore those clothes referenced culture I’d never heard of and owned linen pants and drank champagne in rowboats? Sign me UP.
The illustration doesn’t do a great job showing what the jacket actually looks like but that is beside the point; the point is the story and the promise. Can we thank Peterman for me becoming a marketing writer? I think we can.
I went to the fabric store in Provo over the weekend with a list of very specific fabrics to make things for summer. I wasn’t expecting them to have much but lo and behold, they had the PERFECT heavier weight herringbone linen-cotton:
What am I re-creating from 2007? This linen “topper” from Emersonmade, before they were Emerson Fry, which is one of the first things I ever saved on Pinterest:
The Assembly Line Cap Sleeve Vest pattern that I made at the first of the year gives the exact same vibes, plus I know it fits and I like it. I won’t line this version; I also got a fat quarter from Harmony to make into bias binding to Hong Kong finish the seams.
I still feel the most “dressed” for work in a blazer-like object but most people show up to Zooms in sweatshirts; I think this rumply linen will be a nice casual-but-still-more-polished-than-a-sweatshirt layer to have for the summer.
1. “Please Accept My Application To Be Turned Loose in The Royal Forest to Root for Beechmast and Acorns”
2. Behold, an AI-generated beer commercial that is indeed deeply disturbing but also hilarious (the FIRE!):
4. And a deeply human, mesmerizing chaser: Pharaoh Sanders performing in a tunnel. Ten minutes of pure vibes.
In news almost as exciting as my new bench max, the Writers’ Guild of America is on strike. I’m not a screenwriter but this one feels pretty close to home, and they’re not asking for anything the people profiting off their work don’t already have.
Vulture talked to a former entertainment lawyer turned journalist about what led to this point and what the consequences could be, and this phrase near the end really struck me:
The most powerful tool labor has is to withhold its labor. The difficulty is that unlike a hammer with a cushion grip, this is more like a knife you have to hold by the blade. It hurts the workers as much as, or perhaps even more than, it hurts the studios.
If you love stories, support writers. Hold the line!
— Sabrina Almeida (@sabrinaDalmeida) May 2, 2023
Friends, I finally, FINALLY got a new bench press max yesterday. I hadn’t moved more than 85 pounds in two years but yesterday I kept putting plates on and 95 pounds went! tf! UP! YEAH BUDDY!
I’d set my last max of 90 pounds probably three years ago and have just been stuck since then, but for the last six months I’ve really been hitting accessories (dumbbell bench and back) and I think that did it. (That, and my brain shutting off so I couldn’t overthink it.)
Like all Gym Stuff, there’s a metaphor for life in there–keep trying, don’t be afraid, and do those reps until failure:
It finally warmed up here, which means I got all the warm weather clothes out and went through what I still liked, what still fit, and what I could sew to fill the gaps.
I need more basic tanks and I had a yard of really great retro seagull rainbow print from Spoonflower, so I made a tank top Sunday morning:
The pattern is the Greenstyle Staple Tank and it was all done on the serger/cover stitch, which was such a good purchase for knits.
Next up for the summer closet: Some chambray pants to wear with the tank tops.
It’s May Day, or International Workers’ Day. How did such a holiday come about? Because people didn’t want to work sixteen hours a day (and ACAB).
According to NPR,
May Day in America was born out of the 8-hour workday movement in 19th-century Chicago. At the time, as the capitalist system gained a foothold in industrial-era America, working-class conditions had worsened. A 16-hour shift wasn’t unusual for workers at the time.
In Chicago, more than 40,000 people went on strike on May 1, 1886; strikes and clashes between protestors and police grew until May 4, when a bomb went off and police started firing into the crowd (the Haymarket affair). Eight anarchists were arrested and convicted with no evidence and four were executed.
To honor the Chicago workers, the International Socialist Conference in 1889 named May Day a labor holiday, birthing what many nations now call International Workers’ Day.
But in the U.S., anti-communist attitudes during the Cold War, as well as opposition to working-class unity, led authorities to suppress May Day’s association with labor movements.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower instead declared May 1 “Law Day” — dedicated to the principles of government under law — and Labor Day is now celebrated in September.