Author Archives: dogpossum

what is it that i’m saying that encourages a male demographic?

i just looked at a blog that had a post with 486 comments. can you believe that? 486. shee-it.

talk about popular kids.

well, i’m happy with my sum total of about 5 readers. i have nothing to prove. morissey loves me just as i am.

but i do sometimes worry about the fact that all my readers are blokes. i mean, i know there are a couple of you faithful chicks who tune in now and then
a) to see photos of yourselves
b) to make sure i haven’t died down here in melbourne or
c) to see pictures of the clothes i’m making for you so you can answer awkward questions about numbers of buttons.
but really. blokes? what is it that i’m saying that encourages a male demographic?

even The Squeeze watches it

ok, so now i need to know why every bloggging woman in australia is obsessed with chanel (which i keep reading as channel).

why do people like her? she really irritates me – she’s a bit smug. and not nearly as ‘out there’ as she’d like to think. just because ms hines thought that portishead song was really obscure, doesn’t mean it actually IS. i mean, it did rank in the mainstream charts for quite a while, if i recall (possibly incorrectly).

in fact, i don’t know why people watch this show. even The Squeeze watches it. he who declared that reality television was ‘amoral’ before stomping out of the room mid-way through big brother last season.
my mum even watches this dire program.

gawd.

it’s not like they do anything interesting. they just go on telly and preen and sing songs and cry. even the boy-toy hosts suck.

having said all that, that star search show is actually the closest i’ve come to teenager fashion in a while. i’m continually shocked by the toyboy hairdos.
and at uni yesterday (after giving my lecture TRIUMPHANTLY and triggering spontaneous applause and moderate audience participation) i saw a guy whose fashion was so ludicrous it made me laugh out loud.
now, i do have a history of laughing inappropriately, but gawddammn. WHAT is with this 70s surfer boy fashion revival? it was ridiculous in the day. and now, on the bodies of young wipper snappers who were born, like less than two decades ago (that means they were born in the EIGHTIES), it’s absolutely ridiculous.

sheesh.

yes, i am turning 30 next month. no, i do not have any ‘issues’ about it.

i’m a crap blogger

i have been doing so much computery stuff lately i have a really sore right hand and wrist. i’ve had to request absolutely-no-wrist-holds from leads out dancing. including the squeeze, who had to be reminded a few times. unlike every other dance partner.

so anyhoo i’m doing the lefthanded mouse thing. i learnt to mouse with my left hand (using a south paw’s computer). but those skills are now long gone.

i like using this tiny laptop. it’s nice. a nice alternative to the pc, which is more hassle. i especially like supernerding it up and setting them up next to each other.

i’m also the dullest blogger in the entire universe.

i can’t help it. i don’t have time to write interesting things. i’m too busy fussing over free swing press. well, i would if i had time. i’m too busy with this lecture. or else i’m too busy with my thesis.
i’m very boring these days.

sewing update

now i’m making trousers for dachelle (with plans for a pair of very short sailor pants style shorts), spent some time altering some old trousers of mine for corinne (with plans to help her figure out how to make them for herself), have done a bit of alteration for doris and still have multiple projects on the go for lotte.
i have pair of denim pants on the go for me, but i hate altering my own pants. and it’s denim: too much work. i think i have an idea for a dress for me, but i’m still ruminating.

dachelle will colour my hair for me, corinne has been very good about lifts places, and doris provided an excellent afternoon tea. dachelle’s past life as a cook has been a bit of a score as well.
this seamstress gig ain’t so bad.

lotte’s projects have changed. i’ve had a shitty time with the sleeves on the jacket of the suit, so i’m ditching it. or else making it sleeveless.
she has a pair of maroon trousers, a blue gingham tie-waiste, buttonup, sleeveless shirt, a blue collared, sleeved blouse done, and i’ve got a black and white striped shirt in progress, with plans for a pair of black sailor pants style trousers. those i’ll make a bit quirky. lotte’s not really into full on vintage, so i’ll make them sailor suit themed, but actually kind of quirky. make the buttons out of alignment and different sizes (rather than a row down from each hip). i’ll use a lighter, softer fabric so they’re comfy. high waisted of course. though actually all these ‘high waisted’ trousers are actually normal waiste height. just feel high with today’s fashions…

we also have plans for a pair of late 30s/40s overalls, high waisted, in a bright colour. orange or blue or turquoise, or red. in that order of preference. with a little contrasting colour blouse underneath. this is a very lotte outfit, which i know she’ll adore. i’ll match it with a bright headscarf.

for the black and white ball outfit i need to make a red beret to bring colour up around her face as she doesn’t look so good in black and white. i’m also planning a red necklace of some sort. savers here i come.

there’s also a blue blouse to buy to go with the blue plaid skirt i found in tasmania. i might also make up some white frilly knickers for that outfit (tres swinger).

and sorted!

what will i wear at mlx? oh, i don’t know. clothes i hope. who cares.

lotte reckons we should make it into a sauna

ok, so i’d be going nuts if i wasn’t numb. another three years under howard. with free rein in the senate.
oh man.

i guess it’s time to jump ship, really. things will get worse. very doom and gloom, but really. i’m ashamed to be australian at the moment, re everything from refugees to iraq.
on rrr this morning the spin people made the comment that it suggests that we’re living in a more conservative country now. i wonder if this means we’ll start getting more politically active on the left. get into some demonstrating. i’m about ready to get into the rallying thing.

if i finish this thesis (i will, i will) i will quite happily go overseas to work…

i’m working on this lecture for tuesday. still. but it seems under control. now i have to do the powerpoint thing, which will no doubt take heaps of time.

the garden is nice. we have planted a bunch of native shrubs in the front yard, to get a bit more privacy. the squeeze has dug over the back garden patches and planted some seeds (bit late, really). he’s also very proud of having recently ‘plumbed’ his greenhouse. he’s added a line from his irrigation system which he’s run through his greenhouse and is watering the seeds in there with fine drip attachments. it’s all very technical and i know he likes this part far more than the other gardening bits. i gave him the irrigation system and the greenhouse (which is plastic, portable and pretty ace. lotte reckons we should make it into a sauna) as birthday/xmas presents and they were a great success. i’m not sure how i’ll top them, so i’d better get thinking…

toilet wipes. what ??

ok, so i’ve just seen my first australian ad for moist toilet wipes.like, literally, toilet wipes. i’d discovered these things in the uk.
gross.
they really puzzled me when i was in the uk. i couldn’t figure out where the toilet paper was. and then, later, i figured out that you were supposed to use these wipe things. gross.
not to mention environmental terrorism.

so now, here they are. in australia. fucking unethical. and gross.

sewing

i’ve been working on some outfits for lotte to wear during mlx this year. i’m going for a vintage 30s theme. some of it is historically accurate, some is sort of 30s themed, but more loosely interpreted.

lotte has the perfect figure for early 30s stuff, pre 1935. long legs, slim build, tall. but that earlier stuff isn’t too practical for dancing. she also prefers trousers, and while women were wearing trouser then, it really wasn’t until later (with the beginning of the war and women’s mobilisation in the conflict in various capacities) that trousers became common-place.

so i’ve had to compromise and go for later 30s stuff, for the most part.

i am keen to do some nice earlier 30s stuff, though. i’m also very interested in some deco-styled garments, late 20s stuff. but that’s not really the clothing of swingers…
hm. we’ll see.

meanwhile, that picture up there is of my prelim plans for lotte’s outfit for the ball.
my movable type is totally rooted at the moment.i cannot upload images at all. not even on fsp, i don’t think. if anyone can help me out with that, i’ll love them forever…

, which is black and white themed. and difficult to work with. bit naff and over-done if you ask me. i reckon black and white cinema would be way excellenter, and give people something to really work with, as they did in 2002.

i just read a paper called ‘the anti-political populism of cultural studies’

by todd gitlin (in cultural studies in question, edited by marjorie ferguson and peter golding, 1997). i’m not really sure how i feel about it.
i mean, i’ve had troubles with the work done by quite a few people in cultural studies programs in the unis i’ve been at – they just seemed depoliticised in a worrying way. especially to me, whose always done feminist work where i’ve really tried to make my research practical, have some sort of political use-value.

and gitlin is echoing all that, but he seems fairly tough. and he’s really getting into the cultural studies people of today. his key point is that they shouldn’t pretend that they’re doing ‘politics’ just because they’re doing popular/populist stuff. that doing ‘politics’ is actually a bit more complicated (and he places ‘politics’ right over there in the activist camp, doing things like rallying and protesting and writing pamphlets and so on).

i’m a bit torn…

he’s very critical of things like radway and modleski’s work on women’s romance novel reading, and pretty much says that we shouldn’t treat that as political activism.

… i don’t know. on the one hand i agree with a lot of the things he has to say. and on the other, i wonder if he’s being too harsh.

either way, his concerns are very similar to the ones i have when i read the horrid wench’s blog, and when i heard her speak about her work on bogans.

i’m not in that gang. i’m with the people who still want to politicise stuff (which she doesn’t – she confesses that she has no interest in politics – stink of ‘politics’ much?). i also want to get feminist in this sort of work…

hm. dilemma. i need to find a response to this article.