Ushpizin, available from Netflix for either DVD rental or instant viewing, is an interesting movie about a married couple trying to be religious and not always succeeding. It is the festival of Sukkot, and Moshe and his wife are so broke they barely have any food in the house, let alone supplies for celebrating the holiday. They begin to pray very hard and two things happen, they receive an unexpected sum of money and two guests from Moshe's not-so-religious past show up. They attempt to provide hospitality to the men, but things do not go smoothly.
I saw this small independent movie back in November, but I still remember it and would like to see it again; that's better than some big budget movies I've seen. I liked it not only because it gives a glimpse inside a world I will never be a part of, but because it shows religious people sincerely trying to follow God, failing to live up to their ideals, yet continuing to try. Religion is not shown as a contemptible thing, fit only for mockery. This makes Ushpizin an unusual movie by contemporary standards. It's also a good story.
Arranged (also available from Netflix) is another low-budget, seemingly small movie. It concerns Rochel and Nasira, two young schoolteachers in a NYC elementary school, who do not fit in with the other teachers. Both dress modestly and have expectations of an arranged marriage. Did I mention they don't fit in? They become friends through the shared bonds of looking for love in a now non-standard way and of enduring their principal's attempts to save them from oppression.
Ushpizin is the better film, but I like this movie too. How often do we get to see a young woman stand up in a movie and say that "traditional" isn't necessarily bad? Aren't all modern films supposed to be about young women defying authority and tradition? This is a different movie--refreshingly so.
As to family viewing, I don't think little kids would like these movies, but older girls might like Arranged and there's no acres of naked flesh, sex scenes, violence, or noticeable swearing in either movie. There's also no car chases and special effects, for family members who require them, and Ushpizin has subtitles, which I've learned is an issue for some people. (I'm sympathetic to illiteracy; I'm not sympathetic to whines of "I don't want to read" coming from literate people.)
Showing posts with label modesty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modesty. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Old Biddies and Mother Hens Trying to Look Like Young Chicks
Women have always had a desire to look good, especially to men, and as anyone who's worked in a nursing home or around old people in a hospital can tell you, that desire doesn't go away with age. It's why you'll see 70-somethings sitting under the hairdryer at the salon and 80-something ladies with a smear of bright red lipstick. But in the past most women aged more or less gracefully and didn't try to look twenty when they were well past forty. They recognized that to do otherwise was futile and a bit silly and they had a term for women who tried, through dress, to look like girls--mutton dressed as lamb.
Nowadays it's different, and many women think they really are supposed to look like twenty when they're forty--or at least that they're supposed to try their darnedest. Fifty is supposed to be the new thirty, we're told.* So exercise classes are filled with middle-aged mothers trying to attain the relatively flat bellies of their teenage daughters, diet books are always on the bestseller list, and info-mercials abound for wrinkle creams and makeup that will "turn back the clock".** Thirty-something mothers sport tattoos, forty-five year old redneck grandmothers wear low-cut jeans and belly-baring shirts to show their belly button piercing, and fifty-something women with breasts not far shy of wrinkling wear plunging necklines--all in the name of looking young. Wealthy women come closest to achieving the new goal of eternal girlhood, thanks to the "miracle" of plastic surgery. But, aside from the sometimes creepy results, look at the cost they pay--not just the money, but the physical pain. Cutting, pulling, puncturing, and bruising their flesh. Burning it with lasers or injecting it with poison. All so they won't look as old as they are.
Why?
The worship of youth that boomed with the boomers, but probably goes back to the Romantics or further. Boomer narcissim. A culture of shallowness. Better nutrition and health care that, while providing actual improvements in appearance and function, may create unrealistic expectations about what else is possible.
But personally I wonder if the breakdown of marriage doesn't have something to do with it. Back when marriages could reasonably be expected to last forever, a woman could age gracefully. Her husband wasn't going to leave her because she had wrinkles. Neither was he going to divorce her because his secretary was better in bed or because he'd decided he wasn't "fulfilled" and the answer must be returning to bachelor life. For that matter she wasn't going to leave him for those reasons, only to discover she's now having to date men her own age who have--sorry, but it's true--a natural, biological preference for youthful-looking partners. Divorced women (and those in shaky marriages) can get used to sleeping alone or compete with college students for unattached males. What a choice. Women were, in this one sense anyway, more secure in the past. So a fifty year-old woman in the past could do the basic grooming that comes from the natural desire to look good and otherwise just let herself be a fifty year-old woman. There's a kind of freedom in that.
*These things really escalate. It's less than a decade and a half since we were told that thirty was the new twenty-one. I guess the next slogan will be "Seventy is the new forty" or "Life begins at eighty".
** NASA should really look into that. Think of the benefits for long-range space travel.
Nowadays it's different, and many women think they really are supposed to look like twenty when they're forty--or at least that they're supposed to try their darnedest. Fifty is supposed to be the new thirty, we're told.* So exercise classes are filled with middle-aged mothers trying to attain the relatively flat bellies of their teenage daughters, diet books are always on the bestseller list, and info-mercials abound for wrinkle creams and makeup that will "turn back the clock".** Thirty-something mothers sport tattoos, forty-five year old redneck grandmothers wear low-cut jeans and belly-baring shirts to show their belly button piercing, and fifty-something women with breasts not far shy of wrinkling wear plunging necklines--all in the name of looking young. Wealthy women come closest to achieving the new goal of eternal girlhood, thanks to the "miracle" of plastic surgery. But, aside from the sometimes creepy results, look at the cost they pay--not just the money, but the physical pain. Cutting, pulling, puncturing, and bruising their flesh. Burning it with lasers or injecting it with poison. All so they won't look as old as they are.
Why?
The worship of youth that boomed with the boomers, but probably goes back to the Romantics or further. Boomer narcissim. A culture of shallowness. Better nutrition and health care that, while providing actual improvements in appearance and function, may create unrealistic expectations about what else is possible.
But personally I wonder if the breakdown of marriage doesn't have something to do with it. Back when marriages could reasonably be expected to last forever, a woman could age gracefully. Her husband wasn't going to leave her because she had wrinkles. Neither was he going to divorce her because his secretary was better in bed or because he'd decided he wasn't "fulfilled" and the answer must be returning to bachelor life. For that matter she wasn't going to leave him for those reasons, only to discover she's now having to date men her own age who have--sorry, but it's true--a natural, biological preference for youthful-looking partners. Divorced women (and those in shaky marriages) can get used to sleeping alone or compete with college students for unattached males. What a choice. Women were, in this one sense anyway, more secure in the past. So a fifty year-old woman in the past could do the basic grooming that comes from the natural desire to look good and otherwise just let herself be a fifty year-old woman. There's a kind of freedom in that.
*These things really escalate. It's less than a decade and a half since we were told that thirty was the new twenty-one. I guess the next slogan will be "Seventy is the new forty" or "Life begins at eighty".
** NASA should really look into that. Think of the benefits for long-range space travel.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Way Things Should Be--Two Examples
Clearing away some stuff from last year, here's a couple of things I meant to post earlier.
***
When Uncle Pookie and I went to Christmas Day mass at the church we used to attend before we moved here, I spotted a new piece of art in the entrance hall. It was composed of a number of wooden boxes arranged in a cross shape. Inside each box there were beads (and possibly some of those pins with beads on the end) artfully arranged with some of those wonderful Madonna and Child postage stamps the United States Postal Service used to publish every year until 2005, when they decided "holiday cookies" were a superior alternative. It had a folk art feel and yet was modern too. I liked it. *
I think this was part of "the way things should be", because churches should have contemporary art pieces as well as old pieces. Also because not all pieces have to have the same traditional look to be acceptable. Indeed sometimes the traditional look isn't always best--here I mean not the high art of Michelangelo's Pieta, but the lower end stuff. I'm fortunate to attend a church that, although recently built, has a lot of statues, stained glass, and pictures. But one of the statues of Mary is, even if it fits into traditional Catholic statuary genre, just ghastly; it makes me think of old store mannequins and eyeshadow, so however traditional it is it doesn't work as well as the other statues. (I still light candles in front of it, though; it's still a reminder of what it represents even if a less effective one than the other lovely statues of Mary.) We need more people of all skill levels and styles creating religious art. The society in general, not just churches or homes lucky enough to house these works, will be the richer for it.
*(I wouldn't be an American Catholic if I weren't complaining about something so let me say I noted with ambivalence they'd also added a statue of the Risen Christ in front of the weird Crucifixion painting--it now looks like the Risen Christ on the Cross, which is even weirder--and with displeasure that they still haven't put the tabernacle in the central location tabernacles ought to have; I had only good experiences there, but this church was undeniably designed back when a lot of Catholics had low self-esteem about being Catholic and wanted their buildings to look anything but.)
***
Back in, I guess, October, I was at a restaurant out of town with U.P. and a friend. While we were eating a woman from a table behind me got up to leave. She was wearing a loosely-fitted or semi-fitted black jacket and matching skirt that came down much longer than are usually worn with suits, but is a length I like to wear, and she had long wavy hair worn up. She was also free of make-up. I was admiring her appearance when her teenage daughter came into my view too. The daughter had really long curly hair and wore a long-sleeved tee-shirt and a long denim skirt of a type I'd seen several young women wear right around that time. And suddenly I guessed what I hadn't when I saw the mother: these women were dressed like that out of religious convictions about modesty. I was seated by a window so I looked around to the parking lot. I saw a minivan with a front plate advertising a Pentecostal church on it and, sure enough, this family (there was also a man and a small boy) got in it.
Why I think this is part of the way things should be: They were dressed modestly but not making a big deal of it. A while back I developed an interest in modesty in dress (caused by several years of having to look at girls' butt cracks, bellies, and boobs when all I wanted to do was buy some eggs or wait in line to see a movie) and looked at a number of web pages about same. I admire the intentions behind all of these women, religious (Christian and Jewish) and secular alike, but some of the Christian women seemed to think modesty was best served by adopting a mode of dress that looks costumey and yells, "Hey, I'm being modest over here!" I am not so sure about that approach. I like costumes and am very far from being averse to unconventional dressing, but it could be argued that calling attention to your modesty isn't the most modest thing possible and it is certain that choosing unflattering, costumey looks isn't going to win many converts to modest dressing. The mother and daughter I saw in the restaurant were different. They looked attractive and stylish--teenage stylish in the daughter's case, a more adult style in the mother's--and anyone might look at them and not realize they were dressed that way out of conviction.
I only guessed when I saw both of them together and even then it was only because I grew up in an area where there were a number of Holiness people. (Holiness is related to Pentecostalism but I'm not sure how exactly.) Female Holiness practitioners could always be recognized by this "look" they had: they always wore dresses or skirts, always had long hair (back then the middle-aged white ones piled it high on their heads, like an attempt to emulate the already-obsolete beehives of their more worldly contemporaries), and never wore makeup or nail polish. Beyond that, I can't describe it. None of them ever looked as nice as the mother and daughter I was talking about, though.
But this is the way modest clothing should be--attractive and not yelling, "Look at me!"
***
When Uncle Pookie and I went to Christmas Day mass at the church we used to attend before we moved here, I spotted a new piece of art in the entrance hall. It was composed of a number of wooden boxes arranged in a cross shape. Inside each box there were beads (and possibly some of those pins with beads on the end) artfully arranged with some of those wonderful Madonna and Child postage stamps the United States Postal Service used to publish every year until 2005, when they decided "holiday cookies" were a superior alternative. It had a folk art feel and yet was modern too. I liked it. *
I think this was part of "the way things should be", because churches should have contemporary art pieces as well as old pieces. Also because not all pieces have to have the same traditional look to be acceptable. Indeed sometimes the traditional look isn't always best--here I mean not the high art of Michelangelo's Pieta, but the lower end stuff. I'm fortunate to attend a church that, although recently built, has a lot of statues, stained glass, and pictures. But one of the statues of Mary is, even if it fits into traditional Catholic statuary genre, just ghastly; it makes me think of old store mannequins and eyeshadow, so however traditional it is it doesn't work as well as the other statues. (I still light candles in front of it, though; it's still a reminder of what it represents even if a less effective one than the other lovely statues of Mary.) We need more people of all skill levels and styles creating religious art. The society in general, not just churches or homes lucky enough to house these works, will be the richer for it.
*(I wouldn't be an American Catholic if I weren't complaining about something so let me say I noted with ambivalence they'd also added a statue of the Risen Christ in front of the weird Crucifixion painting--it now looks like the Risen Christ on the Cross, which is even weirder--and with displeasure that they still haven't put the tabernacle in the central location tabernacles ought to have; I had only good experiences there, but this church was undeniably designed back when a lot of Catholics had low self-esteem about being Catholic and wanted their buildings to look anything but.)
***
Back in, I guess, October, I was at a restaurant out of town with U.P. and a friend. While we were eating a woman from a table behind me got up to leave. She was wearing a loosely-fitted or semi-fitted black jacket and matching skirt that came down much longer than are usually worn with suits, but is a length I like to wear, and she had long wavy hair worn up. She was also free of make-up. I was admiring her appearance when her teenage daughter came into my view too. The daughter had really long curly hair and wore a long-sleeved tee-shirt and a long denim skirt of a type I'd seen several young women wear right around that time. And suddenly I guessed what I hadn't when I saw the mother: these women were dressed like that out of religious convictions about modesty. I was seated by a window so I looked around to the parking lot. I saw a minivan with a front plate advertising a Pentecostal church on it and, sure enough, this family (there was also a man and a small boy) got in it.
Why I think this is part of the way things should be: They were dressed modestly but not making a big deal of it. A while back I developed an interest in modesty in dress (caused by several years of having to look at girls' butt cracks, bellies, and boobs when all I wanted to do was buy some eggs or wait in line to see a movie) and looked at a number of web pages about same. I admire the intentions behind all of these women, religious (Christian and Jewish) and secular alike, but some of the Christian women seemed to think modesty was best served by adopting a mode of dress that looks costumey and yells, "Hey, I'm being modest over here!" I am not so sure about that approach. I like costumes and am very far from being averse to unconventional dressing, but it could be argued that calling attention to your modesty isn't the most modest thing possible and it is certain that choosing unflattering, costumey looks isn't going to win many converts to modest dressing. The mother and daughter I saw in the restaurant were different. They looked attractive and stylish--teenage stylish in the daughter's case, a more adult style in the mother's--and anyone might look at them and not realize they were dressed that way out of conviction.
I only guessed when I saw both of them together and even then it was only because I grew up in an area where there were a number of Holiness people. (Holiness is related to Pentecostalism but I'm not sure how exactly.) Female Holiness practitioners could always be recognized by this "look" they had: they always wore dresses or skirts, always had long hair (back then the middle-aged white ones piled it high on their heads, like an attempt to emulate the already-obsolete beehives of their more worldly contemporaries), and never wore makeup or nail polish. Beyond that, I can't describe it. None of them ever looked as nice as the mother and daughter I was talking about, though.
But this is the way modest clothing should be--attractive and not yelling, "Look at me!"
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Why This Was Probably My Last Summer To Wear Shorts
Because of Mississippi's hideously hot and humid summers, I grew wearing shorts all summer, every summer, and, except for school hours, much of the spring and fall and some days in what we ironically call our winter as well. But this summer I found myself thinking about giving them up.
For one thing, this summer I discovered that skirts can actually be cooler than shorts. For another, the past year and a half or more, I've been doing a lot of thinking about modesty in dress, and I'm not sure most shorts make the cut. I've also sometimes found myself thinking about how Americans never dress up any more and what that and the tendency of so many adults now to dress in juvenile ways says about us. And then there's my age (35) and my noticing that the old and late-middle-age women I see now don't seem to look as neat and well-put-together as old women used to when I was young. And then there was the Wednesday evening I stopped off at mass on my way to do the shopping and only realized as I walked into the church I was wearing shorts; it was a nice Liz Claiborne shorts and vest set but I felt bad wearing shorts to church, and then I started to wonder why it was okay to wear them elsewhere but not to church. But none of these are the reason.
No, I can recall the moment the decision, such as it is, was made. I was in Wal-Mart, headed for the check-out, when I saw a woman, probably in her early-thirties, of average attractiveness, probably with a kid or two at home, and she was wearing shorts. They weren't too short or too tight. They were normal shorts that came at least half-way down the thigh. On the outside of the thigh, that is. On the inner thigh, they were bunched up so high, the cloth was resting against her crotch. On both of the inner thighs. I know not every woman's shorts ride up that badly and that most women would have done one of those covert "pull the fabric down" moves before they rode up that high, but that visual got to me. Somehow shorts just haven't seemed appealing to me since.
For one thing, this summer I discovered that skirts can actually be cooler than shorts. For another, the past year and a half or more, I've been doing a lot of thinking about modesty in dress, and I'm not sure most shorts make the cut. I've also sometimes found myself thinking about how Americans never dress up any more and what that and the tendency of so many adults now to dress in juvenile ways says about us. And then there's my age (35) and my noticing that the old and late-middle-age women I see now don't seem to look as neat and well-put-together as old women used to when I was young. And then there was the Wednesday evening I stopped off at mass on my way to do the shopping and only realized as I walked into the church I was wearing shorts; it was a nice Liz Claiborne shorts and vest set but I felt bad wearing shorts to church, and then I started to wonder why it was okay to wear them elsewhere but not to church. But none of these are the reason.
No, I can recall the moment the decision, such as it is, was made. I was in Wal-Mart, headed for the check-out, when I saw a woman, probably in her early-thirties, of average attractiveness, probably with a kid or two at home, and she was wearing shorts. They weren't too short or too tight. They were normal shorts that came at least half-way down the thigh. On the outside of the thigh, that is. On the inner thigh, they were bunched up so high, the cloth was resting against her crotch. On both of the inner thighs. I know not every woman's shorts ride up that badly and that most women would have done one of those covert "pull the fabric down" moves before they rode up that high, but that visual got to me. Somehow shorts just haven't seemed appealing to me since.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Misc. Things Seen Around the Web
This is seriously cool*--amphibious houses, that rise and fall with water levels in the event of flooding. A good-sized--and growing--chunk of the Netherlands is under sea level. Problems are kept in check by a system of canals, pumps, and dykes (must not repeat bad Bernie Rhodenbarr joke, must not repeat... ) and, until now, limiting construction in flood zones. They're now testing waterproof home designs, and more power to them. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily)
*Note: Auntie Suzanne is a person of questionable coolness who tends to equate cleverness with coolness.
*** *** ***
Seriously NOT cool (see above): the My Scene Bling Bling Barbie. Why not just call it Streetcorner Barbie and tattoo her price list on her tail, like that Yale girl from the limerick?
The saddest thing here is that this is obviously another attempt to make Barbie look more like the Bratz dolls, which, as I understand it, are supposed to represent underage girls. This kind of thing makes you wonder who won the sexual revolution, women or dirty old men.
*** *** ***
As I've brought up the subject of immodest dress--i.e., I've mentioned contemporary Barbies--here's the two best articles on modest dress I've ever read: Don't Wear That Mini to Mass and Drawing a Hemline, both by Benjamin D. Wiker. The former, obviously, is about immodest dress in church, and the latter is mainly about immodest clothes on campus.
Full disclosure (pun intended): Although I agree with Wiker's points, I did get a kick out of "Berkeley Guy" back when he was doing his thing. But then I don't find nudity offensive, just immodest clothes.
Unfortunately, some of what's touted as modest clothing by some American Christians is aesthetically offensive--all shapeless jumpers and the most dowdy dresses you've ever seen (really, the Amish are more stylishly and flatteringly attired, which is odd as some of it seems to be an attempt to attempt to imitate the Amish)--and seems to be motivated more by an idea that the body is bad than by an idea that it is too precious to share with everyone who walks by. For some talk about beauty and modesty, see Regina Schmiedicke's article, Modesty and Beauty--The Lost Connection; this is probably the third best article on modest dress I've read, although do read this response to it.
FWIW, Schmiedicke's point about how, historically, people of higher status have worn more clothes than low-status people is accurate. It has lasted into modern times. In the early 1980s, the novelist and literature professor Alison Lurie published a fascinating book on clothing and how what people wear reveals social status and attitudes. (I've often thought it would make good reading for fantasy writers who are designing their world's clothing.) She talked about well-off people wearing more clothing--as well as better quality clothing and/or harder-to-clean clothing--as a probably unconscious sign of wealth, even in the '80s. I think it still holds true even today, when many women of all socio-economic classes are walking around skimpily dressed.
*** *** ***
Yet another in the long list of lawsuits I wouldn't have filed: an Oregon woman is suing her doctor and his clinic (presumably they have more money than he does personally) because the doctor convinced the woman that the way to cure her lower back pain was to have sex with him. Apparently more than one time, as the article mentions "treatments".
I wonder if she's any relation to that woman a while back who complained to her state's medical board because her doctor told her she was too fat and needed to lose weight. Stupidity/gullibility and whiny complaining are often related.
*** *** ***
Over the past year or two, there have been so many news stories about policemen being called on elementary school children that when I drove by the local elementary school last winter and saw a cop car in front I thought, "Oh, some little girl must have brought non-safety scissors to school."
Yesterday I saw a news story about cops being called to break up a fight between two six year-olds fighting over a pacifier. But this time I actually felt some sympathy with the caller (in this case, the mother of one of the boys, rather than a school official), when I heard why she called: she said she didn't want her son's school to accuse her of child abuse when they saw the marks on his face. Given the excessive nosiness of schools nowadays and the hell that a false accusation of child abuse could make of your life, I can kind of see it. But that just shows another set of problems.
*** *** ***
This isn't on the web (except as it relates to some opinion pieces I've read on government waste and "compassionate conservatism", etc.) but last week someone told me my husband and I should have filed for the hurricane-related food stamps. I pointed out that we didn't need them. "But you still should have filed, you could get up to $300 worth."
I again pointed out that we didn't need them, as we hadn't lost much food and could afford to buy food. The person didn't seem to get what I was saying and kept saying it was for anyone who'd lost food. "But I didn't lose much, I was careful to use up as much of the perishables as I could before I started using our non-perishables, and I figure what we lost is just a consequence of the risk we take living in a hurricane-prone area, and it's not as if we can't afford to buy more."
I never did get through, but then again I bit my tongue (as a politely brought up Southern girl, I do that a lot) and didn't point out that the government doesn't owe support to people who can help themselves, because I was afraid the person I was talking to might have applied for them and I didn't want to be offensive. But the whole thing was shocking to me, because it was coming from someone I wouldn't have expected to have such an attitude. It made me worry about how many other people are helping themselves to disaster relief they don't need.
*Note: Auntie Suzanne is a person of questionable coolness who tends to equate cleverness with coolness.
*** *** ***
Seriously NOT cool (see above): the My Scene Bling Bling Barbie. Why not just call it Streetcorner Barbie and tattoo her price list on her tail, like that Yale girl from the limerick?
The saddest thing here is that this is obviously another attempt to make Barbie look more like the Bratz dolls, which, as I understand it, are supposed to represent underage girls. This kind of thing makes you wonder who won the sexual revolution, women or dirty old men.
*** *** ***
As I've brought up the subject of immodest dress--i.e., I've mentioned contemporary Barbies--here's the two best articles on modest dress I've ever read: Don't Wear That Mini to Mass and Drawing a Hemline, both by Benjamin D. Wiker. The former, obviously, is about immodest dress in church, and the latter is mainly about immodest clothes on campus.
Full disclosure (pun intended): Although I agree with Wiker's points, I did get a kick out of "Berkeley Guy" back when he was doing his thing. But then I don't find nudity offensive, just immodest clothes.
Unfortunately, some of what's touted as modest clothing by some American Christians is aesthetically offensive--all shapeless jumpers and the most dowdy dresses you've ever seen (really, the Amish are more stylishly and flatteringly attired, which is odd as some of it seems to be an attempt to attempt to imitate the Amish)--and seems to be motivated more by an idea that the body is bad than by an idea that it is too precious to share with everyone who walks by. For some talk about beauty and modesty, see Regina Schmiedicke's article, Modesty and Beauty--The Lost Connection; this is probably the third best article on modest dress I've read, although do read this response to it.
FWIW, Schmiedicke's point about how, historically, people of higher status have worn more clothes than low-status people is accurate. It has lasted into modern times. In the early 1980s, the novelist and literature professor Alison Lurie published a fascinating book on clothing and how what people wear reveals social status and attitudes. (I've often thought it would make good reading for fantasy writers who are designing their world's clothing.) She talked about well-off people wearing more clothing--as well as better quality clothing and/or harder-to-clean clothing--as a probably unconscious sign of wealth, even in the '80s. I think it still holds true even today, when many women of all socio-economic classes are walking around skimpily dressed.
*** *** ***
Yet another in the long list of lawsuits I wouldn't have filed: an Oregon woman is suing her doctor and his clinic (presumably they have more money than he does personally) because the doctor convinced the woman that the way to cure her lower back pain was to have sex with him. Apparently more than one time, as the article mentions "treatments".
I wonder if she's any relation to that woman a while back who complained to her state's medical board because her doctor told her she was too fat and needed to lose weight. Stupidity/gullibility and whiny complaining are often related.
*** *** ***
Over the past year or two, there have been so many news stories about policemen being called on elementary school children that when I drove by the local elementary school last winter and saw a cop car in front I thought, "Oh, some little girl must have brought non-safety scissors to school."
Yesterday I saw a news story about cops being called to break up a fight between two six year-olds fighting over a pacifier. But this time I actually felt some sympathy with the caller (in this case, the mother of one of the boys, rather than a school official), when I heard why she called: she said she didn't want her son's school to accuse her of child abuse when they saw the marks on his face. Given the excessive nosiness of schools nowadays and the hell that a false accusation of child abuse could make of your life, I can kind of see it. But that just shows another set of problems.
*** *** ***
This isn't on the web (except as it relates to some opinion pieces I've read on government waste and "compassionate conservatism", etc.) but last week someone told me my husband and I should have filed for the hurricane-related food stamps. I pointed out that we didn't need them. "But you still should have filed, you could get up to $300 worth."
I again pointed out that we didn't need them, as we hadn't lost much food and could afford to buy food. The person didn't seem to get what I was saying and kept saying it was for anyone who'd lost food. "But I didn't lose much, I was careful to use up as much of the perishables as I could before I started using our non-perishables, and I figure what we lost is just a consequence of the risk we take living in a hurricane-prone area, and it's not as if we can't afford to buy more."
I never did get through, but then again I bit my tongue (as a politely brought up Southern girl, I do that a lot) and didn't point out that the government doesn't owe support to people who can help themselves, because I was afraid the person I was talking to might have applied for them and I didn't want to be offensive. But the whole thing was shocking to me, because it was coming from someone I wouldn't have expected to have such an attitude. It made me worry about how many other people are helping themselves to disaster relief they don't need.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
An Even More Modest Swimsuit
As I mentioned before, I don't have a problem with a basic one-piece swimsuit. I have seen an American suit or two advertised as a modest suit, but I did not like them, so I didn't mention them in my previous post on swimsuits; one of them looked like a knee-length wetsuit with a flowery skirt over it--not a look that would appeal to most American women, I think.
These probably aren't going to either, but I like them better than that American one:
They're pretty, happy-looking women; apparently no one ever told them you have to wear a string bikini to be attractive.
The LATimes article I took this photo from is worth skimming. It says that, thanks to the new Islamic bourgeoisie in Turkey, there's now designer headscarfs and liquor-free resorts, in addition to the really modest swimsuits. And those swimsuits are apparently more for sex-mixed groups; the article says women sometimes wear revealing suits when they're in women-only groups.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
A Modest Swimsuit
I have no problem with a basic swimsuit--you know, the kind you see on competitive swimmers or in Azumanga Daioh's swim classes--myself, but for modesty or other reasons some women prefer not to show their bottoms. The swimdress is a good option for those women, as well as being an attractive choice for women who don't have the same concerns. I've liked those flirty little skirted swimdresses ever since I was a kid and I think it's unfortunate they aren't more readily available; they're tasteful, feminine, and more flattering to the average female form than most of the suits out there.
I recently found a tutorial on how to make a swimdress. This swimdress is different from the suits with the little skirt, and is more of a sheath-like dress, worn over a pair of bottoms. It's just as nice, though. The gist of the instructions: Buy a tankini swimsuit plus a duplicate suit in a larger size, cut off the larger tank below the breast and sew the resulting tube of fabric to the other tank.
McCall's #4848 has a swimdress pattern, but it has spaghetti straps and looks no better than the two tankini reconstruction job. And I think you'd have to be either good at sewing knits or very optimistic in your chances of having beginner's luck to attempt a swimsuit from scratch. I'm neither.
I recently found a tutorial on how to make a swimdress. This swimdress is different from the suits with the little skirt, and is more of a sheath-like dress, worn over a pair of bottoms. It's just as nice, though. The gist of the instructions: Buy a tankini swimsuit plus a duplicate suit in a larger size, cut off the larger tank below the breast and sew the resulting tube of fabric to the other tank.
McCall's #4848 has a swimdress pattern, but it has spaghetti straps and looks no better than the two tankini reconstruction job. And I think you'd have to be either good at sewing knits or very optimistic in your chances of having beginner's luck to attempt a swimsuit from scratch. I'm neither.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
In Praise of a Skirt
Like most American women my age, I grew up in pants and shorts. In the early '70s my mother sometimes dressed me in short dresses (fortunately none quite so short as the early Cindy Brady-type dresses, like these), but by the time I got to first grade she had me living in pants. From then until adolescence, the only time I wore skirts or dresses was when I went to church; Baptists frowned upon females wearing pants. And although in adolescence, when I began to be able to choose some of my own clothes, I began to occasionally wear skirts by choice, the association had already been made: dresses and skirts were for "dressing up" and they were uncomfortable. (I also associated church with "ugly dresses", but that's another story.)
That association changed this summer. Earlier this summer I made myself a jeans-to-skirt skirt. I've never liked denim skirts, but I do like thriftiness, and I had a pair of too loose jeans with some puppy-toenail snags on them that I didn't think the thrift store would want. So I set to, to make a skirt, using the usual two triangle insertion method. The method is shown on innumerable websites, but I like the about.com tutorial best; you can ignore the information about including a slit, because why would you be making a skirt so tight you can't walk without a slit? (Another method, using four triangles, is shown at SavvySeams.) I had only one pair of jeans, so unlike the skirt on about.com, my skirt ended up coming only just below the knee (it's kneelength when I sit), which is a really short skirt for me. (I tend to wear mid-calf or ankle-length skirts because I look best in mid-calf length hemlines and because I've always thought short skirts were a little too frivolous for someone of my oh-so-serious beatnik-ish, hippie-ish aesthethics.) I also left a fringe on the bottom, rather than hemming it, because the fabric spoke to me and asked to be left that way; I've never liked fringe before, hippie-ish aesthetics notwithstanding. So now I have a fringed denim skirt.
And guess what? It's super-comfortable. I've worn it more this summer than any other item of clothing I own. I wear it around the house to work in or waste time in, but it's not too sloppy or immodest to wear out grocery shopping or thrifting. It's cooler than shorts--all that upward draft. (A long crinkle cotton skirt or dress can be even cooler, but they're not exactly work clothes.) So who knew skirts could be comfortable and could be work clothes, as well as "dress up" clothes? Every generation of women before mine, as well as a great many women my age or younger. I guess I'm just slow. Add this to last year's revelation about aprons. (I discovered, after another thrifty recycle, that if you wear an apron, you don't have to look like a street urchin in the kitchen.) Funny how I'm just now learning things my grandmothers knew all their lives.
I've since made two more pants-to-skirt recons: a black denim skirt (neatly hemmed) out of a pair of damaged men's jeans and a long, hippie-ish skirt out of my favorite (but frayed at the inner thigh) pants and some sunflower fabric. My first one is my favorite though.
Note: A skirt-from-jeans is not only a good way to recycle pants you don't like anymore or that have a small tear or other damage, it's also a good project for a woman who's losing weight and doesn't want to invest a lot in new clothes while she's losing; the jeans that have become uncomfortably loose quickly become a skirt with a comfortable amount of ease.
That association changed this summer. Earlier this summer I made myself a jeans-to-skirt skirt. I've never liked denim skirts, but I do like thriftiness, and I had a pair of too loose jeans with some puppy-toenail snags on them that I didn't think the thrift store would want. So I set to, to make a skirt, using the usual two triangle insertion method. The method is shown on innumerable websites, but I like the about.com tutorial best; you can ignore the information about including a slit, because why would you be making a skirt so tight you can't walk without a slit? (Another method, using four triangles, is shown at SavvySeams.) I had only one pair of jeans, so unlike the skirt on about.com, my skirt ended up coming only just below the knee (it's kneelength when I sit), which is a really short skirt for me. (I tend to wear mid-calf or ankle-length skirts because I look best in mid-calf length hemlines and because I've always thought short skirts were a little too frivolous for someone of my oh-so-serious beatnik-ish, hippie-ish aesthethics.) I also left a fringe on the bottom, rather than hemming it, because the fabric spoke to me and asked to be left that way; I've never liked fringe before, hippie-ish aesthetics notwithstanding. So now I have a fringed denim skirt.
And guess what? It's super-comfortable. I've worn it more this summer than any other item of clothing I own. I wear it around the house to work in or waste time in, but it's not too sloppy or immodest to wear out grocery shopping or thrifting. It's cooler than shorts--all that upward draft. (A long crinkle cotton skirt or dress can be even cooler, but they're not exactly work clothes.) So who knew skirts could be comfortable and could be work clothes, as well as "dress up" clothes? Every generation of women before mine, as well as a great many women my age or younger. I guess I'm just slow. Add this to last year's revelation about aprons. (I discovered, after another thrifty recycle, that if you wear an apron, you don't have to look like a street urchin in the kitchen.) Funny how I'm just now learning things my grandmothers knew all their lives.
I've since made two more pants-to-skirt recons: a black denim skirt (neatly hemmed) out of a pair of damaged men's jeans and a long, hippie-ish skirt out of my favorite (but frayed at the inner thigh) pants and some sunflower fabric. My first one is my favorite though.
Note: A skirt-from-jeans is not only a good way to recycle pants you don't like anymore or that have a small tear or other damage, it's also a good project for a woman who's losing weight and doesn't want to invest a lot in new clothes while she's losing; the jeans that have become uncomfortably loose quickly become a skirt with a comfortable amount of ease.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Misc. Stuff, Including More Barbies I Can Get Behind
I had some minor computer troubles lately that made using Blogger a pain, but here's some fun stuff I would have otherwise posted this past week.
***
I've seen altered dolls before, but I didn't realize the extent of this little subculture/hobby/craft. I was browsing the pattern catalogues in Wal-Mart last week, looking for a particular style of dress, and came across Simplicity number 4696, a Barbie--sorry, 11 1/2 inch fashion doll--"Extreme Doll Makeover". Actually it's patterns for a couple of outfits with instructions for modifications that may or may not be extreme. That very night, while looking for something else, I happened to come across the delightfully-named website of the woman who made the two dolls pictured on Simplicity #4696. Her Doll Gallery is fantastic; the Valkyrie section is my favorite, although there are great-looking dolls in every section and I particularly like the Chicks in Chain Mail doll. (Chicks in Chain Mail is a series of light-hearted fantasy stories, edited by Esther Freisner and featuring, as you might guess, chicks in chain mail. I've not read all the books, but I enjoyed what I read.) The dolls' weapons are made by the dollmaker's husband, a knifemaker; I like all the weapons, but the Barbie-sized battle ax made me ooh and aww more than anything. For people who want to alter their own dolls, Valkyrie has a lot of tips.
To see more people's altered dolls, search Dogpile or EBay for the terms FDMAA or OOAK. In addition to altered 11 1/2 inch fashion dolls, you'll also find "reborn" baby dolls and others.
***
I enjoy Maclin Horton's posts on the Caelum et Terra blog, but the most interesting post of his this past week was his link to what he calls "the definitive judgement on Harry Potter." I could find some things to quibble with in the post he links to, but it is pretty close to what he says it is.
I believe the Regina Doman who wrote that judgement on HP is the same Regina Doman or Schmiedicke who wrote an article on liturgical dressing in Domestic-Church. I'm not interested in dressing according to the liturgical colors for the simple reason that I don't look good in any of those colors except green (and not the shade of green usually seen in priest's vestments either), but I'm fascinated by her account of the Mary Dress and the Mary Jumper because I prefer simplicity of dress and am interested in pattern-free clothes. I just wish she'd posted photos of her wearing samples of each.
***
The current Foamy has Germaine making her own clothes because all the clothing in the local stores is "slutwear for teens". A recent episode had her complaining that she couldn't find a pair of pants without something written across the butt. Now if it were Jerry Falwell complaining that would be one thing. And if it were a non-prudish but decidedly grumpy person such as myself complaining--and I assure you I have been doing so the past couple of years--that would be another thing. But when a Gothy, bitch-hermit wannabe, tank-top-wearer like Germaine is fed up with how revealing fashions are, things have officially gone too far.
I think the tide is turning, albeit slowly. I'm seeing more knee-length skirts, and hear talk of the "sexy librarian" look (a big step up from the cheap whore look), gypsy skirts, and prairie dresses. Also I think the minor fad-let of girls wearing revealing slip-dresses over jeans comes from a (possibly unconscious) desire for more modesty; it reminds me of Wendy Shalit talking about women wearing split skirts who, when a breeze comes by, instinctively try to close the slit.
(I don't remember where I read that bit from Shalit, but she has several things available online. Click here for the first chapter of her book and here for a speech she gave.)
***
I've seen many hummingbirds, but I have never seen a hummingbird nest. Here's a story-in-photos of a hummingbird nest and its occupants. Even if you're grossed out by baby birds and glossy, full-color, photographic depictions of bird shit, keep going till the end--the size comparison is amazing. (Link via The Anchoress.)
***
Here's a pattern I want to try: Dolly Hugs. It's a small cloth doll that is made so that its arms will drape around a child's neck as if it were hugging the child. Yeah, yeah, it sounds nauseating, but the doll looks cute and the pattern is incredibly simple. The pattern is free, provided it's used for non-commercial, preferably charitable purposes. That's the other part I like--the pattern was created with troubled children in mind.
***
I've seen altered dolls before, but I didn't realize the extent of this little subculture/hobby/craft. I was browsing the pattern catalogues in Wal-Mart last week, looking for a particular style of dress, and came across Simplicity number 4696, a Barbie--sorry, 11 1/2 inch fashion doll--"Extreme Doll Makeover". Actually it's patterns for a couple of outfits with instructions for modifications that may or may not be extreme. That very night, while looking for something else, I happened to come across the delightfully-named website of the woman who made the two dolls pictured on Simplicity #4696. Her Doll Gallery is fantastic; the Valkyrie section is my favorite, although there are great-looking dolls in every section and I particularly like the Chicks in Chain Mail doll. (Chicks in Chain Mail is a series of light-hearted fantasy stories, edited by Esther Freisner and featuring, as you might guess, chicks in chain mail. I've not read all the books, but I enjoyed what I read.) The dolls' weapons are made by the dollmaker's husband, a knifemaker; I like all the weapons, but the Barbie-sized battle ax made me ooh and aww more than anything. For people who want to alter their own dolls, Valkyrie has a lot of tips.
To see more people's altered dolls, search Dogpile or EBay for the terms FDMAA or OOAK. In addition to altered 11 1/2 inch fashion dolls, you'll also find "reborn" baby dolls and others.
***
I enjoy Maclin Horton's posts on the Caelum et Terra blog, but the most interesting post of his this past week was his link to what he calls "the definitive judgement on Harry Potter." I could find some things to quibble with in the post he links to, but it is pretty close to what he says it is.
I believe the Regina Doman who wrote that judgement on HP is the same Regina Doman or Schmiedicke who wrote an article on liturgical dressing in Domestic-Church. I'm not interested in dressing according to the liturgical colors for the simple reason that I don't look good in any of those colors except green (and not the shade of green usually seen in priest's vestments either), but I'm fascinated by her account of the Mary Dress and the Mary Jumper because I prefer simplicity of dress and am interested in pattern-free clothes. I just wish she'd posted photos of her wearing samples of each.
***
The current Foamy has Germaine making her own clothes because all the clothing in the local stores is "slutwear for teens". A recent episode had her complaining that she couldn't find a pair of pants without something written across the butt. Now if it were Jerry Falwell complaining that would be one thing. And if it were a non-prudish but decidedly grumpy person such as myself complaining--and I assure you I have been doing so the past couple of years--that would be another thing. But when a Gothy, bitch-hermit wannabe, tank-top-wearer like Germaine is fed up with how revealing fashions are, things have officially gone too far.
I think the tide is turning, albeit slowly. I'm seeing more knee-length skirts, and hear talk of the "sexy librarian" look (a big step up from the cheap whore look), gypsy skirts, and prairie dresses. Also I think the minor fad-let of girls wearing revealing slip-dresses over jeans comes from a (possibly unconscious) desire for more modesty; it reminds me of Wendy Shalit talking about women wearing split skirts who, when a breeze comes by, instinctively try to close the slit.
(I don't remember where I read that bit from Shalit, but she has several things available online. Click here for the first chapter of her book and here for a speech she gave.)
***
I've seen many hummingbirds, but I have never seen a hummingbird nest. Here's a story-in-photos of a hummingbird nest and its occupants. Even if you're grossed out by baby birds and glossy, full-color, photographic depictions of bird shit, keep going till the end--the size comparison is amazing. (Link via The Anchoress.)
***
Here's a pattern I want to try: Dolly Hugs. It's a small cloth doll that is made so that its arms will drape around a child's neck as if it were hugging the child. Yeah, yeah, it sounds nauseating, but the doll looks cute and the pattern is incredibly simple. The pattern is free, provided it's used for non-commercial, preferably charitable purposes. That's the other part I like--the pattern was created with troubled children in mind.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
I'm Moving to Texas
You know Texas must be a great place to live, because its state legislators have so little to do they have to invent busy work for themselves.
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200505/s1359862.htm
Apparently one of the most pressing issues in Texas is revealing cheerleader outfits and smutty cheerleader dance routines. I mean, come on.
Look, I'm no fan of the mainstreaming of pornography. I think schoolgirls performing for crowds dance moves that would look more at home in a topless bar is a bad idea, not to mention vulgar, tacky, and immodest. Teen girls--post-pubescent girls--being encouraged to act slutty doesn't disturb me the way children being encouraged to act slutty does, of course, but this is something that, once upon a time, the average American parent wouldn't have wanted their daughters doing.
But why should this mean the government must get involved? That's big government intrusion into the public. And it's not even necessary to solve the problem of smutty cheerleading. If people who dislike being exposed to a bump-and-grind show when all they wanted to do was watch a football game started going to their local principals or school boards and say, "Look, I've been paying to come to these football games for a while, but now I'm thinking about not coming anymore because your cheerleaders' behavior is so vulgar." It wouldn't take many complaints like that for your average school to tell the cheerleading coach to tone it down. A few local newspaper editorials or letters to the editor wouldn't hurt either. Local problems, local solutions. We don't have to run to the state (much less the federal) government every time we have a problem.
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200505/s1359862.htm
Apparently one of the most pressing issues in Texas is revealing cheerleader outfits and smutty cheerleader dance routines. I mean, come on.
Look, I'm no fan of the mainstreaming of pornography. I think schoolgirls performing for crowds dance moves that would look more at home in a topless bar is a bad idea, not to mention vulgar, tacky, and immodest. Teen girls--post-pubescent girls--being encouraged to act slutty doesn't disturb me the way children being encouraged to act slutty does, of course, but this is something that, once upon a time, the average American parent wouldn't have wanted their daughters doing.
But why should this mean the government must get involved? That's big government intrusion into the public. And it's not even necessary to solve the problem of smutty cheerleading. If people who dislike being exposed to a bump-and-grind show when all they wanted to do was watch a football game started going to their local principals or school boards and say, "Look, I've been paying to come to these football games for a while, but now I'm thinking about not coming anymore because your cheerleaders' behavior is so vulgar." It wouldn't take many complaints like that for your average school to tell the cheerleading coach to tone it down. A few local newspaper editorials or letters to the editor wouldn't hurt either. Local problems, local solutions. We don't have to run to the state (much less the federal) government every time we have a problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
