the horrors of polyester

I may have studied fashion promotion, but the meaning of what this actually is completely escapes my family. However, they do seem to grasp the ‘fashion’ element. My grand father in particular seems to have caught on and is even evaluating what his trousers say about him. I would like to think my efforts at explaining lifestyle branding have rubbed off, but after the following episode I can see my attempts are futile.

Now let me paint you a picture. This isn’t an old man with a stick, swimming relentlessly around memories of the war. This is Grandad who is probably fitter and healthier than me, and you for that matter. He cycles sixty miles sometimes three days a week, plays tennis, grows numerous vegetables and ferries the entire family back and forth between various appointments on demand. His only request being that he is allowed a nap after lunch.

Usually we enter in to pointless rounds of stubborn debates over the definition of shepherds pie or the possibility that the meaning of the earth and everything in it is 22, and I am given no slack in consideration of my youth, (he is pretty big on anti-agism too). Yet he will sheepishly enter the dining room, modelling an impulse pair of what he says are ‘practical, I’ve jut got off my boat and going for a glass of port’ trousers . A way of speaking I am sure he as adopted from me, in which an entire garment will summarise your every dream and whim. “Well?” he asks.

I look. He is modelling, what look suspiciously like an unruly spewing of polyester trousers, in a muted duck egg blue that do no favour for his lean frame, and are not only ugly trousers but are the sort of item that would provoke hours of rebuke on the terrors of polyester from my friends and I. There are many, believe me; the static, the noise, the undeniable man made sheen and unsightly way the fabric falls, in that it doesn't fall but merely hangs in a desperate manner.

I am sure, after reading this, he will storm in dramatically demanding I take back this clear line of unprovoked abuse at his beautiful new trousers. I could almost buy in to his daydream of yachts and expensive liquor, if the polyester were cotton or linen and the colour was crisp white, but dirty blue polyester trousers Grandad say only one thing - OLD! And that is one thing your trousers should never say about you.

..and sew to bed

Arts hub review

“Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton, talking in our beds for a week, the newspapers say,’ what’re you doing in bed? I said ‘we’re only trying to get us some peace.”

(The Ballad of John and Yoko,The Beatles, 1969)

Liverpool City Council is hosting a John Lennon tribute season to celebrate his seventieth birthday. Named 'Bed- In', after John and Yoko’s famous bed-held protests, the exhibition celebrates John Lennon’s seventieth birthday and will be holding different events ‘in bed’ throughout October.

One of these is …and sew to bed. Collaborating with the West Everton Community Council (WCC) and One World Week, Craftivist Collective (a group of craft-expressive activists), are hand- making a quilt to adorn bed and make their protest against inequality.

Craftivists began in 2008, with the manifesto, "To expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. This will be done through provocative, non-violent creative actions, with the aim to show people that raising awareness of the injustices and poverty in the world can be fun, fulfilling and can build friendships all over the world. It doesn’t have to be stressful or elitist. Anyone can be a Craftivist whatever their skill or
understanding."

Founded by Sarah Corbett, an activist burnt out on the frustration and sometimes aggressive approach of established activists organisations, she filtered her protests in to a new found love for craft. The accompanying blog took off and has gained a cult following as it works on raising awareness about inequality and injustice on an international scale. This exhibition is a chance for WCC to voice local concerns, whilst the Craftivist team will be voicing global issues through their creations. The patches created for the quilt will be cross-stitched, painted or sewn to expresses relevant quotes and statistics on international inequality.

To help the Craftivists and to have your patch hand sewn and exhibited at the Bluecoat Project, create your message - be it an inspirations quote (please credit the source), a statistic or a personal message on a 7” x 7” patch of fabric and send a photo to Sarah Corbett.

For more information join the Facebook event group for "…and sew to bed."

Bed-In
October 9th – December 9th 2010,
The ‘Hub’ at Blue Coat Gallery,
School Lane,
Liverpool.

For tickets and further information please visit: Bed in at the Blue Coat

The lost art of conversation

(… and yes, I know I’m completely contradicting myself, I continue to be an avid user and lover of social networking sites)

The bright greeting of my Mac book is a sound I have come to associate with getting in from a long day and finally relaxing. I mindlessly watch as I am ‘remembered’ by my various social networks. Bombarded almost immediately with a stream of identical greetings I barely acknowledge whoever is home inquiring about my day. This need to present a simulated image of our idealised self has become an addiction, we constantly asses our represented persona. Surely it is better to live in the moment and enjoy life rather than religiously worrying yourself with recording what are largely posed memories? Our relationship with a large amount of these’ friends’ is virtual and your only understanding of their true self is what they decide to tell you on their status updates or their Mr Men personality quiz results. So occupied are we with maintaining up to the second knowledge of everyone else’s lives, and making sure our thoughts are published, we are even beginning to tell people what, in reality, are very personal thoughts. It is all so idealised, so specific; the information given so considered and compromised. Yes of course its helpful to maintain work contacts and relationships and get instant feedback from targets for research and generally keep ‘connected’, but it has become, for many, an obsession...

(for full article please email christinepettman@hotmail.com)

in the dentist's chair

It is funny really that we hand over forty quid or more for the joy of having our mouths wedged open to accommodate various unspecified machinery. I can usually cope with it by blocking out the heavy breathing of my bemused dentist and the metal tray of very questionable tools, by drifting off to chew over some thoughts.

What annoys and bewilders me is my dentist's assumption that I know what he means when he points at various fuzzy shapes on my x-ray and mutters technical words that I'm apparently meant to understand; concluding I must surely need a filling. I retort that I am sure I don't. He injects my gum so I feel like half of my face is at a severe disadvantage should I need to smile and converse intelligently in the next half an hour. As we all wait for it to numb, the dentist and his assistant sit poised with various invasive (and in my opinion somewhat suspicious) looking instruments. I surrender to their hopefully experienced and well trained hands whilst my mouth locks open and my spine shivers from the drill.

I could probably have retained my dignity even after I gesture like a wounded bird at the pain, and attempt a stifled reply from behind the protruding drill whilst I'm cross questioned about my career path, - but as I feel a cold line of dribble running down my chin my former self takes one look at the sorry mess I've become and bolts out the door.

1am encounter / a spiders tale

I can't sleep.

A spider, that would have frankly been more at home in the Amazon, was loitering by my bookcase just underneath an oversized edition of 'Degas by Himself'. Very suspicious. I tried a humane capture, honestly I did, despite his obviously evil intentions. I ushered him towards a cup sternly, but he was having none of it and promptly bolted across the terrain of carpet.

What else could I do but honorably bash it on the head with last weeks Grazia?

I text K, who informs me that spiders come inside to mate at this time of year. A great comfort- fucking hell I'm probably providing low- level accommodation for the entire extended family. They are probably all in mourning for dear uncle Pete, unceremoniously murdered south of the washing basket. It's typical, I can't help thinking that the prickling feeling on my feet is not just my duvet, but an army of angry relatives, getting in to position to preform a complex 'coup de main'.

Taps dripping too. Will my torment never end?

___

I was waiting for Larry, (earwig/ renowned drunk.) We sometimes take a walk at the weekends, get away from the kids. Landlady never seems to notice. She is usually pissed at the weekends anyway so even when I've almost run over her foot she is oblivious. So she spots me. Starts yelling "look, if you come quietly i'll release you outside by the wheelie bins." Well, sod that, it was raining hard and I was due back for dinner. I made a run for it. She's half blind anyway without her glasses on so I thought what the hell. Then THWACK! I'm squished uncomfortably between the god awful brown rug she brought last tuesday and a flimsy magazine. Luckily her hearts not in it, but she screams shrilly and I play dead whilst she parades me around the house to prove I was a terrifying threat. Soon as she puts me down I'll send the signal. They'll attack at dawn. Shame I'd paid the rent already.

Manhattan murder mystery

The unmistakable dry wit and subtle observations expected of Allen’s writing make for a film full of tantalisingly funny punch lines, one of my favourites being;
“For our twentieth, I got her some very beautiful handkerchiefs ... I didn’t even know her size.”

The plot line is relatively straightforward – a middle-aged Manhattan couple, Larry (Woody Allen) and Carol (Diane Keaton), are intelligent, cultural and comfortable. They begin to suspect their neighbour of killing his wife. Yet the intricacy of how he went about it and the entwined subplots of marital uncertainties and struggles, carry the film past being duly predictable and in to a comic thriller of unfolding discoveries. It may be occasionally over-dubbed by fuzzy jazz records, but there are moments as thrilling as Hitchcock’s Psycho, diffused by Allen’s nervous disposition and turmoil of discourse with the over imaginative and inquisitive Carol.

Their interactions begin with the suspicious husband next door, and his soon-to-be-dead wife. One evening they begin chatting in the hall and soon find themselves dragged away from their cosy plans and sitting through the formalities of polite small talk. Allen complains afterwards, having faked a scrupulous examination of the neighbours stamp collection: “Yes it’s my favourite thing in life - to look at cancelled postage.”
We are quickly integrated in to the scenario by the comfortable banter and squabbles between Larry and his wife. They chat unreservedly with friends, revealing an air of worldliness and self-assurance that come with middle age. The rift between Larry and his wife being that he is reluctant to believe her mad murder theories and rebukes her rash behavior. He jealously notes that his friend Ted indulges her in the mystery with open encouragement and leering ulterior motives. Carol meanwhile, snubs Larry’s glamorous work colleague Marsha, who seems intent on solving the mystery herself and impressing both men in the process.

“We could be living next to a murderer Larry!..”
“WELL NEW YORK IS A MELTING POT, GET USED TO IT.”

One of my favourite Allen films/ witty, engaging, delicious.

current article taster

Let’s keep it short.

It has slowly come to my attention, more vividly than the usual acknowledgement and complaints from ‘adult’ observers, that I find myself on the cusp of a generation that cannot be bothered; to cook, (order fast food) to read, (skim the net) to wait for a film, (instant access online) to write, (just text) to talk, (just email) - it goes on, and the underlying thread of all this impatience is technology. What has fast paced living done to our language? What of the habits it has induced in an entire generation that no longer even care to articulate a full word, let alone a full sentence?

...