Which textile fabrics are synthetic?

 https://sewguide.com/synthetic-fabrics-fibers/

 

Norma Jean's Reading List

 https://nothingintherulebook.com/2020/02/06/book-obsessed-the-430-books-of-marilyn-monroes-personal-library/?fbclid=IwAR3vIuPtVy7q9ks8_NJbdSND6x79kuTlfSTglapO0Pw3VSyDn7ChNdITzkM

 

A letter from elsewhere

I left church today, bid my wife, Sue, farewell as she headed off to a brunch, while I headed to Whole Foods to buy flowers (we buy flowers for our hallway table every Sunday when we’re in town), and started walking to my car. It was a chilly but sunny day in Cambridge, MA. We’ve been going to Christ Church Cambridge, an Episcopal church, since our first child, Lucy, was born in 1989. The service almost always puts me in a reflective, positive mood. 

But not today. I could feel it the moment I said goodbye to Sue. A chill of sadness was gathering around me. This was not good news because, aside from the discomfort of feeling the sadness, I had a book to work on and the free hours of a Sunday afternoon were precious to me.

But first, I did the shopping. I picked out four bunches of 20 daffodils, 80 daffodils in all, because they were on sale for $4 a bunch, and because they looked so un-sad, so happy, so full of yellow promise. 80 daffodils may sound like a lot, but because at least half had not yet opened, it didn’t look like that many. I probably should have bought twice as many, because daffodils push a special button in me, reminding me of D.C. in spring when my sister was falling in love there with the man she married. But I settled for 80. 

I then pushed my cart down different aisles, picking out the ingredients with which I’d make my crock-pot dinner Tuesday; I make dinner Tuesdays because Sue works late that night. I picked out four cans of beans—red kidney; black; great northern; and pinto—along with a green pepper, a zucchini, two cans of diced tomatoes, one can of tomato paste, and a head of garlic, as well as a dozen eggs and a bag of coffee beans. The eggs and coffee were not for my recipe; we just needed them. And we had the rest of the ingredients for my vegetarian chili already at home. We’re not vegetarians, but we try to eat healthy, at least most of the time. 

When I got home, I found my 27-year old son, Jack, working on repairing our front porch. He’s a carpenter, and I was most grateful to find him doing this, which we’d been hoping he’d do for some time. Jack and I greeted, in the usual minimalist male fashion, while I went inside to put the daffodils in vases and unpack the rest of the groceries.

Once all that was completed, I tried to sit down and write. I said “tried” because I couldn’t. I’m a pretty disciplined writer, a more-or-less believer in what Samuel Johnson said: “Any person can write if he will set himself to it doggedly enough.” But I wasn’t able to be dogged enough. The words just wouldn’t come. Even though I’d had a few ideas in church and had jotted them down, I just could not bring myself to sit down at my laptop and write.

It was that sadness I’d felt after church rushing in. Or maybe I was entering into the sadness. Either way, we met, and entwined. Not the way lovers entwine, more the way you entwine with a spell or a fever. It comes over you and try as you might, you can’t get rid of it.

I had to lie down. We have a large, comfortable couch in our living room, the upholstery rather torn up by the dogs we’ve had over the years, but to my eyes that only makes it more inviting. So the couch took me in and gave me a place to lie with my sadness.

I don’t know why I was sad. I can always find reasons—I should lose weight, spend less money, finish my book, complete this project or that, or deeper reasons, like what have I not done that I ought to have done or what have I done that I ought not to have done, or the obvious reasons that come with being human and getting older, the death of friends and loved ones, the feelings of my own aging now that I am 70—but today no one reason stood out. The sadness just took me over without tentacles of reason.

I closed my eyes and hoped to sleep. No such luck. I thought of calling my best friends, but I didn’t want to burden them (the exact opposite of what I urge my patients to do; call your friends, I say; never worry alone). I let my mind wander, and simply let the sadness have its way, as I had no choice.

It was not the excruciating sadness of depression or suicidal despair. But neither was it fun. It was keeping me from doing work I needed to do. It was causing me to look bad in my own eyes. I should be able to shake this, I said to myself, as I lay there, unable to shake it.

By the time Sue got home, I was back at my laptop, giving writing another try. But once again, I couldn’t do it. Sue said, “Honey, you’re probably just tired. Why don’t you take a rest?”

This is one of the many reasons I love Sue. Always armed with sympathy and an apt solution. I tried to nap but I couldn’t sleep. However, lying on my bed, I felt the sadness begin to subside, like a fever breaking. I began to have ideas again as to what to write. I still didn’t feel like I could do the writing, but the confidence started to return that the time would come, before too long, when I would be able to do it.

Such is sadness for me. I enter it, or it overcomes me, fairly often. I am never far from it. Even when I am at my happiest—and I am in general a positive, upbeat man—I am also aware that sadness is usually just around the bend. Most of the time it does not prevent me from doing my work, as it did this afternoon. But when I do get working, the sadness subsides.

It’s not depression. But it’s more than “ordinary sadness,” or at least I think it is, based upon others’ accounts of ordinary sadness as well as my own experience of such sadness. 

I write about it here in case any of you experience the same thing. My advice is see this sadness for what it is: a passing state of mind, a temporary fever. And to take Sue’s advice. Don’t fight it. Take a rest. And don’t mistake it for a permanent state.

After all, this is still Sunday, and here I am writing this piece. The sadness subsided enough for me to be able to write now. It is in the nature of moods: like the weather, they change.

The Female Eunuch - by Germaine Greer

**this blog is a slow work in progress (true to form 😏). updates to follow**

"'Many games are played most intensely by disturbed people; generally speaking, the more disturbed they are, the harder they play.'  The alternative to game-playing, to the defensive process which is the game of war, is what every woman must now seek for herself, autonomy." (327)

Every once in a while I find that I'm reading a book just at the time when I need it.  That's what happened with The Female Eunuch, and for that I'm grateful.

Germaine Greer is an honest, forthright author so even if you might not agree with the specifics of what she's saying, I would hope that the reader could appreciate her intentions at the very least.  She is a very intelligent person who supports her arguments with an eye towards the historical context of the facts she uses as support.

I have not visited the realm of Women's Studies since I was an undergraduate in college. I found two issues with the class that I took at the ripe age of 19. First, I perceived that social studies was just the wrong lens with which to examine what it's trying to look at (an admittedly confusing statement, but perhaps you get my gist).  Second (specific to women's studies), is that the discipline is filled with a lot of poor thoughts and strange feminists that I can't relate to.  However, to this day I love when I am able to find common ground in conversation with another woman.  It is a powerful experience.  Feminism has the potential to be great, & to truly improve the condition of the world (for both men and women).  However, it often seems to fall short of that mark.

Germaine Greer seems to share my point of view on that, and I think that's a big part of why I was able to hang in there with this book when I have started and stopped so many feminist works over the years.  She doesn't blindly take up the cause of all women without taking into account our faults and the mistakes we have a tendency to make.  She tries to bring these into the light in The Female Eunuch in order that we can be more effective in seeking out the goals that she suggests we really need to be pursuing.  In fact, Greer goes beyond being an author & really is a revolutionary.  Beyond being a feminist she is a socialist and really argues that we need to pursue both aims in order to change the world.  It's as if, to her mind, the most evolved feminist also has a bit of Marxist in her/him.  She also suggests that women, based on their subservient role in the status quo, make better leaders towards these aims than men simply because men are more deeply embedded in the status quo (as a function of their being its dominant members).  Bottom line, she definitely believes that changing the reality of women and their lives will improve the condition of all humankind.

"The same pressures that bind with briars a woman's joys and desires are the pressures that will destroy the world." (112)  

And she shares her opinions in the hope of guiding all people away from that potential outcome.  It's a very ambitious goal she has set for herself.

I was glad to start thinking in terms of sexual politics again.  I was glad to spend some time musing on what it's like being a woman in this world.  Reading this I felt like I was going into a inner room that I hadn't visited in a long while - and while I'm still mulling this book over (and suspect I will continue to do so for a bit) I am as I say thankful for that much.  I have always thought that gender relations are so inherent in our social fabric that they become a given to us.  It's a given that deep-rooted complacency follows even though it really does not serve us for this to be so.  For now, I'm far from looking to pick a fight with all the men in my life, but I am trying to hold onto that antithesis to complacency, a willingness to think critically about what I am genuinely observing.  And a willingness to follow it wherever it leads me.

Now for some background on what The Female Eunuch was born out of.  The Female Eunuch was written in 1969.  The thing about reading it now is that it will, inevitably, seem as if parts of it are dated.  So, it's tough not to ask that question: why should I read it?  However, the book almost immediately sets out to prove that attitude wrong.  It goes straight into trying to muck up the deeply entrenched attitudes towards women, attitudes amongst women, societal injustices, etc. that affected women then.  And as with most deeply entrenched things, they are still (to varying degrees) relevant to contemporary problems.

Part of what helps The Female Eunuch continue to be relevant 50 years after its publication is that its author cast a very wide net on women's/world issues.  This can be seen in the book's sections which are entitled:

1) Body

2) Soul

3) Love

4) Hate

5) Revolution

To me the central thesis of this book is a strong and simple one.  Women are treated as passive creatures and so are often spoken of in passive terms.  The most striking example is, of course, the role of women in the sexual act.  Women are fucked.  It is a thing that is done to them and they are spoken of as if they lie there, passively, and simply receive all the action that is visited upon them.  Germaine Greer calls this the "spittoon theory" of womanhood.  A spittoon is a round canister that is used for spitting chewing tobacco into.  Check it, it's a thing : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittoon

It is the male attitude towards sex, and it is perniciously pervasive in so many, many other areas.  Women struggle to actively, intentionally, and vigorously seek after their goals; I think this has a basis in not only what society tells them they should do but also comes inwardly from some part of themselves.  It's not necessarily frowned upon as much as it used to be when a woman is willing to move mountains to get what she wants/needs, however, it's still not something that we associate with femininity.  Femininity - as a concept - remains associated with passivity.  Consequently, if a woman deviates from passivity, she deviates from femininity.

Femininity is something that is in the eye of the beholder.  Not everyone would see things that way.  There are women and men who when faced with a pro-active woman I'm sure would not consider that woman any less feminine for it.  However, on the whole Greer's thesis seems to still hold water.  Women are very oppressed by having to uphold this concept of what it means to be feminine.

I've been thinking that this imperative might not be simply imprinted upon women from societal pressures.  I have a niece and a nephew (fraternal twins) - and so, they are at the same point in their development at all times with the exception of their gender (and, of course, their distinct personalities).  At age 5, it's very interesting to see how they've begun to take different tracks in life.  Consequently, I've been considering how passivity might be to some unknown extent written more into the female biology.

No matter how differently we might begin, we all need to grow into inhabiting the mode of inquiry.  Women may take a different track towards this than men, but a capable adult of either gender must end up in a similar place.  While it seems to me that a man and a woman would get somewhat separate things out of reading this, it is also easy to see that both parties have plenty to learn.

For now, I leave the post with this :

"The acts of sex are themselves forms of inquiry, as the old euphemism 'carnal knowledge' makes clear: it is exactly the element of quest in her sexuality which the female is taught to deny.  She is not only taught to deny it in her sexual contacts, but (for in some subliminal way the connection is understood) in all her contacts, from infancy onward, so that when she becomes aware of her sex the pattern has sufficient force of inertia to prevail over new forms of desire and curiosity.  This is the condition which is meant by the term: female eunuch.  In traditional psychological theory, which is after all only another way of describing and rationalizing the status quo, the de-sexualization of women is illustrated in the Freudian theory of the female sex as lacking a sexual organ.  Freud may not have intended his formulations to have been taken as statements of natural law, but merely as coherent descriptions of contingent facts in a new and valuably revealing terminology; nevertheless he did say: 

'Indeed, if we are able to give a more definite connotation to the concept of 'masculine' and 'feminine,' it would also be possible to maintain that libido is invariably and necessarily of a masculine nature, whether it occurs in men or women, and irrespectively of whether its object is a man or a woman.'

If we are to insist on the contingency of feminine characteristics as the product of conditioning, we will have to argue that the masculine-feminine polarity is actual enough, but not necessary.  We will have to reject the polarity of definite terms, which are always artificial, and strive for the freedom to move within indefinite terms.  On these grounds we can, indeed we must reject femininity as meaning without libido, and therefore incomplete, subhuman, a cultural reduction of human possibilities, and rely upon the indefinite term female, which retains the possibility of female libido." (p. 78-79)

old man crete

In the middle of the sea there lies a wasteland,
he immediately began, that is known as Crete,
under whose king the world knew innocence.

There is a mountain there that was called Ida;
then happy in its verdure and its streams,
now deserted like an old, discarded thing;

Rhea chose it once as a safe cradle
for her son, and, to conceal his presence better,
she had her servants scream loud when he cried.

In the mountain's core an ancient man stands tall;
he has his shoulders turned toward Damietta
and faces Rome as though it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of the finest gold;
pure silver are his arms and hands and chest;
from there to where his legs spread, he is brass;

the rest of him is all of chosen iron,
except his right foot which is terra cotta;
he puts more weight on this foot than the other.

Every part of him, except the gold, is broken
by a fissure dripping tears down to his feet,
where they collect and erode the cavern's rock;

from stone to stone they drain down here, becoming
rivers: the Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon,
then overflow down through this tight canal

until they fall to where all falling ends:
they form Cocytus.  What that pool is like
I need not tell you.  You will see yourself.

And I to him: If this small stream beside us
has its source, as you have told me, in our world,
why have we seen it only on this ledge?

And he to me: You know this place is round,
and though your journey has been long, circling
towards the bottom, turn only to the left,

you still have not completed a full circle;
so you should never look surprised, as now,
if you see something you have not seen before.

2018

1. La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri

2. Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck

3. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

4. Bhagavad Gita (Anonymous)

5. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

6. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

Thank you, 2018.  

Inferno ~ Dante Alighieri

Broken Media, Broken Politics

I read this today & enjoyed it.  

WHOLE ARTICLE: https://digboston.com/broken-media-broken-politics/

*** "The point is that a polity where a Charlie Baker can be incredibly popular is a broken polity.  And a news media that enables him is a broken news media.  Baker does not represent even the interest of the white middle class that keeps voting him into office, let alone the working class as a whole.  A media that was doing its job would make that patently clear.  Every hour of every day.  Yet it does the opposite.  Because it too is controlled by the same rich and powerful interests that control politics and ensure pols like Baker keep getting elected.  Whether those pols call themselves Democrats or Republicans.  So to fix politics, we have to fix the media...And the fix starts with journalists who are independent and strive to tell the truth about problems in media and the political system.  Every hour of every day.  Beyond that there's not much to say."*** 

PIRATE CAPTAIN JIM ~ SHEL SILVERSTEIN

Shel - I too have seen this phenomenon in life. 

*** 

"Walk the plank," says Pirate Jim.
"But Captain Jim, I cannot swim."
"Then you must steer us through the gale."
"But Captain Jim, I cannot sail."
"Then down with the galley slaves you go."
"But Captain Jim, I cannot row."
"Then you must be the pirate's clerk."
"But Captain Jim, I cannot work."
"Then a pirate captain you must be."
"Thank you, Jim," says Captain Me.

Protect Yourself Against Cyberthreats: How to Create a Strong Password - USAA

https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Your-Future/Protect-Yourself-Against-Cyberthreats-How-to-Create-a-Strong/ba-p/202065

2017 - Subterranean homesick blues

Thank you, 2017. 



1. The Aeneid by Virgil
2. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
3. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
4. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
5. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

6. The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo

7. Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
8. The Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

9. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

10. The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer

11. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

12. A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen

13. Going Into Town : a Love Letter to New York by Roz Chast

La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri

"The Salutation of Beatrice," Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1859.  National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

"In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, 'Here beginneth the New Life.'  Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance." 

*****

La Vita Nuova is a coming of age story, and it is also the story of the journey towards becoming a poet.  As seen in the above quotation, La Vita Nuova is the product of his work trying to synthesize the two (his personal experience, i.e. his memory, with his personal aesthetic, i.e. the rubric of "the New Life").  I envision that Dante wishes to have them run as if parallel rivers, side by side.  He wishes for his life to inform his art and for his art to inform his life.  Many of us might wish that for ourselves too, but Dante has the abilities to make it so.


His love for Beatrice presents an obstacle to this endeavor.  As such, he places it at the center of this book.  This is the hardest thing for him to get enough perspective on to in turn be able to write about.  What's difficult for Dante, is it's also the thing in his life which most inspires him to pick up his pen (or quill as the case may be).  More than once in this book he expresses a desire to speak on something concerning Beatrice, but stops himself because of some reason or another.  I got the impression these moments, in a way, speak the most about who Dante must have been as a man and also as an artist.

While Dante's personal goals/desires are not so foreign because they are universal, this book is still a challenge for the modern reader.  Especially, if you have no previous experience with medieval texts as I did.  Books from that period are just different than books from our own time, or those of the previous 4-5 generations.  It is written in a language very different from our own.  It is very formal.  Writing at that time seems to not only have been about the content of what you were writing but also extremely focused on the format of the writing.  We no longer seem to be preoccupied with this so it's awkward for a modern reader to encounter.

Perhaps the most challenging part of La Vita Nuova is that it is a combination of prose and poetry.  Each type of writing has its own rhythm.  Having them back to back as they are presented here forces the reader to change gears quite frequently - and that's not something I'm accustomed to.  But it was a healthy challenge.

For all the intellectualizing that goes on in this book I think it is really a book that is meant to be taken to heart.  The narrator struggles to find his way - to temper his impulses, to organize his thoughts, and to discover how to shore up his life from enemies in his midst.

As the book progresses, I found the poetry to improve exponentially.  This makes me excited to read The Divine Comedy, whereas before I was simply intimidated beyond belief by that poem (heck, I still am).

I really enjoyed this poem the most, so I thought I'd include it here:

*****

A gentle thought there is will often start,
Within my secret self, to speech of thee;
Also of Love it speaks so tenderly
That much in me consents and takes its part.
"And what is this," the soul saith to the heart,
"That cometh thus to comfort thee and me,
And thence where it would dwell, thus potently
Can drive all other thoughts by its strange art?"
And the heart answers: "Be no more at strife
'Twixt doubt and doubt: this is Love's messenger
And speaketh but his words, from him received:
And all the strength it owns and all the life
It draweth from the gentle eyes of her
Who, looking on our grief, hath often grieved." 

*****

Anyway, this lecture on La Vita Nuova is a part of Giuseppe Mazzotta's  Yale's open course on Dante.  It is excellent and it is FREE.  Whatever he has to say about the book, he no doubt does it better than I can.

And, finally, some artwork...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Beata Beatrix, 1864-1870

Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday. Dante looks longingly at Beatrice (in center) passing by with friend Lady Vanna (red) along the Arno River.

Cat ~ by Charles Baudelaire

I've been re-reading some Charles Baudelaire this year.  I read this one recently and it affected me somehow, so I thought I'd put it out there - on the information highway...

CAT BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

As if he owned the place, a cat
    meanders through my mind,
sleek and proud, yet so discreet
    in making known his will

that I hear music when he mews,
    and even when he purrs
a tender timbre in the sound
    compels my consciousness-

a secret rhythm penetrates
    to unsuspected depths,
obsessive as a line of verse
    and potent as a drug:

all woes are spirited away,
    I hear ecstatic news-
it seems a telling language has
     no need of words at all.

My heart, assenting instrument,
     is masterfully played;
no other bow across its strings
     can draw such music out

the way this cat's uncanny voice
     -seraphic, alien-
can reconcile discordant strains
    into close harmony!

One night his brindled fur gave off
     a perfume so intense
I seemed to be embalmed because
     (just once!) I fondled him....

Familiar spirit, genius, judge,
     the cat presides-inspires
events that he appears to spurn,
    half goblin and half god!

and when my spellbound eyes at last
     relinquish worship of
this cat they love to contemplate
     and look inside myself,

I find to my astonishment
     like living opals there
his fiery pupils, embers which
     observe me fixedly.

from here

100 Best Novels - The Guardian (UK)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list