Perpetuating the Obsolete

Interesting how we have symbols and expressions for things that no longer exist. Often in front of phone numbers you see pictographs of those long discontinued black telephones with dial faces – something that most people have not seen in years, and many young folk have never seen at all. After I key in a telephone number on my office phone system, I hit a button that says ‘dial’ when there is no dialing going on at any point. I think there are still toy phones that have dials – teaching children something they will never again experience once they clear toddlerhood.

I’d horsewhip you, if I had a horse.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Groucho Marx. Not even close. In fact, like so much of the stuff that happened before I was born, I probably got my first inkling of him from an old Warner Brothers cartoon, or maybe the tired impressions of uncountable b-grade comics, and there’s every chance I’ve never sat through a whole Marx Brothers film, but still I was flabbergasted when Nicole confessed to me that she’d never even heard of him.
     “You know those glasses you can buy with the fake nose, moustache, and the bushy eyebrows?”
     “That’s Groucho,” I said.

Tragedy and Comedy

Back when we could control our son’s pastimes, back when he was willing to watch movies with us, we had Laurel and Hardy marathons. All the fun ones- Brats, Way Out West, The Music Box- we greedily watched right away. It developed into a weekend obsession and we worked quickly through their roster, eventually coming to their later, inferior films. If you are a Laurel and Hardy fan do not watch Utopia. It’s their last film. Both men are older, Oliver’s fatter and Stan, his body wracked by diabetes, looks like a ghost. It’s like spotting the waddle on Oopsy-Daisy.

Abuse of Power

The doorbell rang at about 4:00 a.m. My room was closest to the entrance on the floor I shared with three other student roomers in the big Annex house. Two cops stood there. One a short older guy who kept insisting they could get to the upper floors to arrest somebody on the third floor by surprise. I told him repeatedly there was no access and they would have to ring the bell on the other door. He continued to badger me while the other cop, who was young and tall, made eyes at me over the old guy’s head.

Officer Requires Assistance

Walking back to my place, along Eglinton Avenue towards Mount Pleasant, we came across the largest assemblage of police cars I’d ever seen. The closer we got to the Swiss Chalet, the more cops there seemed to be, and yet they weren’t warning us back, because as it turned out there was no danger. Apparently some poor sod had left the restaurant in a wheel chair and tried to cross the street. There down the road was what was left of his chair; and all those cops weren’t there for us, but to protect the cop that had hit him.

My Groovy Neighbour

From the oil paint on her smock to her eighty-odd years of wisdom, Bridget has style. She’s the coolest person I know. For years I watched her, purple do-rag on her head, tending her magnificent garden. She had quite a past: A London foundling, adopted into a posh family whom she rejected, she became an artist and married a much-younger sculptor. One night with the rest of us far into our cups she finished the tequila, adjusted her lime green glasses, looked both ways and crossed the street home. Feist now lives in her house. We’ve yet to have drinks.

The Glamour

What else is style, but confidence? It is not what you wear, but how you wear it. If you can walk into a room with an aura of knowing you rock, other people will think you do. More important than any piece of clothing or accessory you can purchase is the ability to have presence. Dance lessons, fitness classes, anything that enhances your grace of movement will have a much more profound impact on how you are seen. You do not even have to be toned and trim, as long as you have comportment. It is like casting a spell.

Sophisticates at the Gate

Things seemed simple enough when we started: try to ignore the fact most everyone at school is older, and therefore better, than you, do your time, and eventually it’ll be you at the top of the heap. And yet there we sat, looking down on the throng, only to see a new wave of kids coming in, with better clothes, better hair, and better music. And since we’d only ever been children in the ’60s and never of the ’60s, we’d never really developed a style of our own. We were the barbarians, and we had nothing better to offer.

Honey, I shrunk the Blundstones

Our Lainie says the mom uniform in suburban BC consists of yoga pants, a travel mug and a ponytail. Add a French manicure and these gals could be shopping at the Vaughan Mall. Inner city folks have a different vibe involving more attitude and less hair product. That’s how we recognize each other on winery tours. So imagine our surprise when last night at Aries we sat next to a family who, mullets akimbo, went on about hockey before spontaneously bursting into a round of Wavin’ Flag. Rich suspects Rob Ford parachuted them into the neighbourhood as the New Normal.

Loyalty Rewarded

“I’d rather fight than switch!” declared the models in the ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes, with eyes blackened to prove it. The height of brand loyalty. But are the brands loyal to you? I loved Lululemon yoga pants and Steve was under standing order to get them for my Christmas gift. Then one year the fit was different and I needed to exchange them. I ventured out on Boxing Day, something I had never done before. After slogging downtown I discovered that Lululemon does not make exchanges on Boxing Day. Lululemon treated me was atrociously. I will never go back.

Branded

As a conscientious and rather cynical consumer, I try not to let myself be unduly influenced by particular brands. Sometimes I even like to think that I’m somewhat immune to their effect, but here I sit in my tiny basement office and within easy reach I have my CANON scanner and my CANON camera, my PANASONIC phone, my VIRGIN mobile, CRAYOLA markers stuck in an empty tin of SPAM, a stand I built out of LEGO to raise my monitor, IKEA everywhere I look, a SHARP calculator, HARMAN/KARDON speakers, a WACOM tablet I hardly ever use, and APPLE APPLE APPLE.

Wabi-Slobby

Andrew my summer student always gave me grief about my preaching edgy design yet practicing a bland urban aesthetic. Day after day he’d sit in his ersatz office in our kitchen and point out the Pottery-Barneyness of Caesarstone and KitchenAid appliances. It’s not as schizophrenic as it sounds. Mixing slick with schlump is my take on the Japanese notion of the impermanence of beauty. My sink full of dirty hand-thrown pottery, black Comrags clothes loaded with cat hair. A fridge full of organic fruit and a drawer teeming with ho-hos. It’s not really me being slovenly. It is artistic. Really.

Imperfect Beauty

I have always thought that the difference between crafts that are art and crafts that are simply products is perfection. The more perfect something is, the less artistic it is, as far as I am concerned. A hand-knit sweater is lovelier than a machine knit sweater because of the changes in tension and the imperfections. I remember watching a documentary on Japanese potters who would throw a perfect vase on their wheel, and then knock a dent in it on purpose to make it more beautiful. The hands of artisans must be balanced with their humanity or they become machines.

Too Crewel for School

For one of our class projects, Mrs. May made us all sew, girls and boys alike. Nothing fancy: cut two identical halves, leave a gap in the seam, turn the whole thing inside out, stuff it, and stitch up the hole. An heirloom it would never be, but at least we’d have done it ourselves. She taught us the back stitch and the overhand stitch and warned us that there’d be hell to pay if she found out we’d been using a sewing machine . . . which, in spite of all my careful work, was exactly what she accused me of doing.

Get a Room

Whenever I shell out a couple of Bordens for a bias-cut schmatte held together by two artisanal buttons, I know I should get back into sewing. Mom was a seamstress, and her mother before her. It’s genetically predisposed that I should sew, and I can, but I hate it. I feel the back of my neck getting hot just thinking about it. Mostly it’s because I have no place to sew. If I awoke one morning to my own workroom, half of it devoted to wool and the other half showcasing a Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1 that’d be a different story.

Fabric Hound

The fabric piles up. Irresistible pieces from bargain bins and lawn sales; many from an interior design company where I once worked – tail ends left over winnowing their fabric store room. They are crammed from floor to ceiling into a closet in my workroom. I have no idea what I will eventually do with them. Every once in awhile I come up with a project to use a piece, but not enough to keep ahead of the incoming flow. Sometimes I cannot bear to cut into that piece once I have devised a use for it. I just love fabric.

Begonia Pope

Poor Begonia Pope suffers from a rather serious case of anterograde amnesia, which means that, although she can still remember things from before her accident, she can no longer form new memories. She can’t recall what she was doing five minutes ago, for instance, but she still knows how to knit. She’ll be making a scarf, but soon forget why she started or even how far she’s gotten, yard after yard without once looking down, beautiful and eccentric creations that never fail to fetch a good price on the High Street.
     And so her family just keeps feeding her yarn.

Image based on the Original Pattern.

Muffler Queen

“Not another one…can’t you knit something that isn’t a rectangle?” Dan asked, bemused by the constant stream of scarves that chug forth from my needles. Of course I can make other things, I just choose not to. Knitting is meditation for me, and those I truly love have either received their karma scarf, or are on my mental list of future recipients. Most of the people I’ve given these to really do like them. Maybe my former boss, or Louise the evil travel agent wouldn’t wear something I designed to wrap around their necks, but I wouldn’t knit for them.

Cover Up

Joan knew a guy who wore shorts until the snow fell, only then would he concede that he needed the protection of long pants. A lot of people seemed to be that way – always seeking to wear as few layers of clothing as possible. Joan welcomed autumn weather for the comfort of more clothing. Others would say, “Do I need to wear a jacket?” Joan asked, “Can I wear a jacket?” Gloves, scarves, hats - tights when she wore skirts – these provided a sense of security, like a shield against the outer world. The bareness of summer made her feel vulnerable.

Leo

     “You’re nuts!” said Corvus. “Didn’t you hear what he did to those kids last week?”
     “He’s not so tough,” said Krebbs.
     “No, only five guys catch him alone in the wrong neighbourhood and he stares them down. I heard he just singled out the biggest and said something like: ‘I don’t care what your ugly friends do to me, but I’m going to get you. I’m going to shove my fist down your throat, and I’m going to hold it there until you’re dead.”
     “Big deal. He never even touched them.”
     “Tough and smart . . . and you’re asking for trouble.”