School is hard, y’all

I don’t really know how much time it’s been since the last time I posted, but comments kept coming, so I thought I’d come back around here. School is hard. I’ve barely had any free time in the past month, let alone time to read and/or blog. Now it’s midnight, I’m wide awake, and I felt like writing a bit. Maybe some bullet points will make my randomness more “look, he can organize seemingly unrelated ideas properly” and less “look at that piece of unstructured prose over there.”

- I looked at pictures from Spring 2010 fashion weeks, and I was kind of underwhelmed. As usual, I loved Burberry Prorsum, Rag & Bone, Yves Saint Laurent, and (oddly enough) Alexander McQueen. As usual, I hated Marc Jacobs (Kabuki theater? Please, that disaster of a fashion show was obviously inspired by homeless people), John Galliano, and Louis Vuitton. I thought Prada was meh, as were most of the American designers.

- I haven’t had a lot of time to read lately, but I am becoming such a Neil Gaiman fanboy. He is awesome. I just can’t get enough of “Fragile Things” right now. I wanna be like him when I grow up!

- I used to think Marketing was a fun subject, something I could’ve done if I hadn’t chosen International Business as my major a long time ago. And the class was cool… for about two weeks. Now it is the most annoying, time-consuming, boring 3 hours of every week. Okay, maybe not the most annoying (Statistics takes THAT particular prize), but it is not enjoyable at all. I miss not having homework and/or quizzes every once in a while.

- I got a Chuck Bass haircut, inspired by awesome editiorial he had in the July edition of American GQ. I like it.

- I think I’m gonna add my 2009 reading list to this blog. EDIT: It’s done, AND it has Amazon links!

Just how systematic Disney is

So I went to see “Hannah Montana” with my siblings and cousin last night, and confirmed one of my theories about how huge and kind of complicated the planning process behind Disney’s star machine really is. There seem to be a lot of guidelines on how they choose their stars. These comparisons are based on shows that have been aired in Mexico (where I live), and on my own personal opinion. I obviously don’t have any insight into the Disney Channel’s planning process, I just have a TV a lots of free time. Click the cut for my conclusions:

Arm Socks

Parts of an arm sock

Today I was introduced to the concept of “arm socks” by my sister, while watching Disney Channel together. Apparently they’re the latest hit by the Disney stars in shows like “Sonny with a Chance“, “Jonas“, and “Wizards of Waverly Place” (not Hannah Montana, because that show takes place in California, so THERE). I’m all for utilitarian clothes, so I totally support the movement in favor of arm socks (although I prefer the term “gauntlets”), but I think it’s funny that thanks to Disney, my sister is no longer embarrassed that her older brother likes to knit. Add that to the list of things Disney can manipulate tweens with.

Why would ‘Boy Power’ be such a crime?

Where is boy power?

I started thinking about this when I saw a link to this article from the Chicago Tribune, “‘Power’ move by male students ruffles U of C” in the feminist blog (which I read almost everyday) Jezebel today. While there were a few commenters that mentioned how they were cool with this group as long as it wasn’t an excuse for sexist statements and actions, most of them were well into bashing anyone who said something remotely not-sore about it. As it often happens to me, I couldn’t keep quiet and pointed out that while women are affected by sexism, it affects both genders. I rambled a lot (gave examples from Mexico, quoted Will Smith movies, etc), and the response I got was pretty much a huge package of raised eyebrows, requests to stop being annoying, and some excessive doses of skepticism.

My point is I understand that women have been marginalized through the ages, but I believe that we have swung away from the pursuit of gender equality, and into the realm of male bashing. I have no idea why, but one of the topics that is very close to my heart is that of paternity rights. While it’s completely legal for a woman to take her kids, leave her husband, and go to a shelter; if a man does the exact same thing, he could be charged with kidnapping, get his kids taken away from him, and that doesn’t even take into account that he probably never even found a shelter for single fathers, because those are extremely rare. In custody trials, the mother will get her children unless she does something as outrageous as doing coke lines on the stand. Courts, women, and society assume that all men will be okay with seeing their kids every few weekends and on holidays. In countries where mothers are not required to name the father of their child when they register their birth (pretty much every country except Great Britain), it is assumed that men’s only role in their kids’ lives is that of food and money provider; and that they should be comfortable with that. If we see a father being sensitive or emotional with his kids, would we think something other than “what a loser”? If we see a man going to a toy store alone, why is it so much easier to believe that he’s a pervert, and not that maybe (just maybe) he wants to buy a toy for his child?

Going back to the article that started it all, I think it’s pretty cool that men have their own advocacy group now. The University of Chicago has nine feminist groups, and this is the first one for men. While I don’t agree with the term “reverse sexism”, because sexism affects both genders by definition, I think this group could go far with the right leadership. It doesn’t make sense to expect both genders to be equal in society, because they’re biologically different; but to expect a certain inequality isn’t the same as having to expect unfairness. Giving women unfair advantages in certain areas (such as motherhood rights and divorces) so they’ll ignore other disadvantages is definitely not the way to go. I think the “ZOMG men are the kings of the world, throw rocks at them!” argument is about as valid as “OMG women are taking over, shut them in the kitchen!”. This brings up the question of why slogans like “Girl power!” are acceptable and embraced, but anything to do with being proud of being male is frowned upon. Why is it okay when female entertainers or writers generalize about how ALL men are stupid, sex-driven Neanderthals who can’t commit, but it would be sacrilege to say all women are “crazy, hormonal, irrational, ditzy, frigid bitches”? I think the best thing that a group like this could do is show how there is nothing wrong with being proud of being male. That, and being very specific about how they are NOT misogynistic.

Here is another blog post that discusses this and is basically made of win.

And AntiMisandry.com, a pretty awesome website that exposes the flaws in second-wave feminism. Don’t click if you’re the kind of feminist that will just raise an eyebrow and do nothing but complain when he/she is exposed to the radical notion that maybe it’s not that great to be a guy nowadays. And that the wage gap is an outdated argument (but this is material for a whole other post).

Hell yeah I know Madonna’s real name

I made it through the wilderness...

My Business Law teacher needs to get his pop culture facts right. He was explaining random stuff about copyright, and he said some artists can choose another name, “like Madonna.” I was like “uh, that’s her real name, she’s called Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Penn Ritchie, legally”. He stared at me like I had just said his mother was hot, and said “okay fine, what about Sting? That’s not his real name, IS IT?”. I just shook my head. Then, he decided to tell us a story about how J. K. Rowling apparently started writing Harry Potter to keep her (multiple) kids entertained while she was unemployed, and suddenly she was rich. I didn’t say anything this time, but on the inside I was like “Bish plz, I know the real story.” Everyone knows she only had one daughter at the time, and she wrote the novel over the course of a about 10 years (the first book, I mean), even while she lived in Portugal and everything.

A very scarfy issue

My name is Francisco and I am a scarf freak. I’m at that stage in my knitting “career” where I guess I could go on in many directions and learn to do different things, but I just love scarves too much! I think it all stems from when I used to be in a musical theater company, and I had to take care of my throat. Culiacán (my hometown) is a hot, humid place, so wearing a scarf to fight the temperature ups and downs that come with coming in and out of buildings with AC into the outodoors sauna that is the weather there is a MUST when you want to maintain a somewhat acceptable singing voice. I always sucked at singing, but the scarf thing sure stuck.

Anyway, I am in a dilemma. My friend Georgina requested a scarf inspired by the star sweater seen in the new movie “Coraline”. I’m excited to knit it, but I am at a loss as to how exactly to make it.

1. Imitate the original pattern: velour stars on finished scarf. In this case, I would knit it in stockinette or garter stitch, make the stars out of white velour, and sew them on the finished scarf. This way would probably make me feel better, because I would be doing what they did to the one in the movie, but I’m afraid the stitches will show on the other side of the scarf, and it will look sloppy. Not to mention how making the stars in velour sounds like a lot of work, because it involves ironing and some weird sticky fabric…

2. Sewing felt stars on the finished scarf. I read this article in an old KnitSimple magazine about a scarf that is knit in garter stitch, and then has felt stuff stuck on it with fabric glue. That sounds like a much simpler way of doing things, but again, I am worried about how sloppy it could look. And then there’s also the issue of whether if I should buy synthetic felt, or make my own and risk screwing up.

3. Knitting each star and sewing it on the scarf. I was linked to a pattern to knit stars on Ravelry, and I must say it does sound like a promising idea… I do have enough white yarn to make the stars, so it could look good. The thing is, should I sew them on or glue them? Sigh, these decisions are so hard.

I’m currently leaning towards the garter-stitch-and-knit-stars convo, but I’m still considering the others… Any ideas, fellow knitters/readers who would like to chime in?

Sexual Anatomy is SO in for Fall 2009

What is up with all the genital-shaped clothes on the runways for Fall 2009?

Languages, Idiomas, Langues, 语言

I want this poster.

When I was little, I lived in the US for about two years and a half. First, when I was 3 months old, we moved to El Paso, TX, because my dad was doing his Master’s degree. Then, when I was 4, we moved to Nashville, TN, for a year and a half, because he was doing his PhD. I don’t know, I guess English kind of stuck with me since then, because I never really needed classes, and apparently I learned to read in English first. I am Mexican, so Spanish is my mother tongue, even if I can’t stop mixing it up with English. Also, I have this thing where I don’t really enjoy reading books in Spanish, but then I’ll read the same one in English, and it’ll be much more interesting. My friend Georgina thinks that it’s because I learned English first, so that is the language I associate with reading. On the other hand, speeches somehow sound better to me in Spanish. It’s weird how different languages can communicate different things with similar words.

A few years later, when I started high school (in 2005), I started taking French. Three and a half years later, I wouldn’t say I know French per se… More like I guess I could communicate properly if I went to France or Québec, but I doubt I could get into a discussion and actually speak my mind. I quit French this semester, so I’m at that stage where I can read a book and infer the meanings I don’t know by context. I am really shy about speaking it, though. My “I kind of learned French in school but not quite” accent is way too obvious. During high school, I also took some brief classes in German and Italian. None of it stuck, because I didn’t stick with the classes, but it was an interesting experience. Finally, I started taking Chinese (Mandarin) last semester, and it’s pretty cool. It is the first time in my life where I am totally blank on a language. The grammar and pronounciation are pretty easy, but writing is damn hard. It takes a lot of practice and memorizing. The point of this post was pretty much that I wanted to complain about how freakin hard my Chinese homework has been lately. Like, whoa, it takes hours and hours of study to actually understand it. Makes me wonder why I am doing it… My dad wants me to consider studying in China for a while, which would be pretty cool, but I am keeping my options open for a while. Taking this class is my way of doing that. Okay, back to doing homework. 再见 (good bye)！

Quaker Cinnamon Squares Scarf

Weaving in the tails of a yarn change in a multi-color scarf is a pain in the ass. At least for me, because it took me approximately 2 days to figure out how to do it, using the instructions in this article. I know it’s supposed to be one of the easy finishing touches, but dammit it’s so hard. Whenever I finished weaving a tail, it would show on the other side of the scarf, or it would stay visible! Or weird stuff would happen, like when a stitch was really loose, so I thought it was one of the tails and I pulled, and THE WHOLE FREAKIN ROW CAME OUT. What the hell?! I am so tempted to learn how to do Russian Joins, but I just know it will take me a long time to figure out. I am way too lazy to learn stuff beyond the basics, until I master the basics. I’m afraid that if I go for something too hard, I will lose interest.

Red Heart "Windsor Blue" Worsted Yarn

In other news, my Checks & Eyelets scarf is about 3/4 done. I like the way it’s turning out, and I’m glad I have so much of the yarn I’m using, because I love it. It’s thick, warm, and the color (Windsor Blue) is very pretty. I’m debating whether to add fringes or not… I’m leaning towards no, particularly because I think the checks look good by themselves. Besides, it doesn’t seem to be curling, so I don’t think it needs them. I think it’s gonna end up being a gift for someone, but I don’t know who. It was supposed to just be an exercise to help me learn to purl correctly, but it’s actually turning out quite nice. My mom (whose birthday is today; happy birthday, Mom!) did ask for a warm scarf a few months ago, so maybe she’ll be the lucky winner.

Red Heart "Aran" Worsted Yarn

Since I can’t have only one work in progress, I started knitting what could very well turn into a scarf or a cushion in basketweave stitch, using Aran yarn. I feel so lucky, because I got all this yarn from a woman I met through Freecycle, so it was entirely free; yet it is very good yarn. This pattern is made of little squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette stitches, so it’s curling a bit… Maybe I could knit a whole scarf with it, knit a second one, and then sew them together to hide the “wrong” side of the pattern. The result would be a very thick and warm scarf, that would also look awesome. Of course, it would take about twice as long to finish this project, not to mention how it scares me a bit that I may not have enough yarn. Either way, I love the way it’s turning out, because the squares look like Quaker Cinnamon Squares, and make me hungry everytime I look at them.

I’m starting to think that the URL for this blog is a little deceiving, because not everything I write is about fashion… Meh, I can live with that.

Dr. Who Chic at Marc by Marc Jacobs

Confession time: I do not like Marc Jacobs’s clothes. Fashionistas might say I just don’t get him, but still. I think they are overly crazy, and not entirely brand-conscious. Like, I doubt that in future generations someone would recognize this frumpy 80′s extravaganza, this pastel Grandma costume (tights and peep-toe shoes?), and this “Little House in the Prairie” ensemble as being by the same designer. I understand being creative, but designing clothes for a famous label should also be about being able to identify with it. That said, what he does for his other brand, Marc by Marc Jacobs, pretty much always hits the awesome mark. Some comments about his Fall/Winter 2009 collection after the cut.