Professional costume technician, forever trying to find food I can actually eat, has many a chronic illness (0/10 do not recomend), reads too many books and drinks too much tea, is maybe a cat?
I’m sure this will get buried but for the sake of answering all your FAQs
- they’re Opawz pet specific dyes. Non toxic made specifically for dogs. Once they’re set and rinsed they can groom themselves normally, they pose no danger to her in any way, no fumes, there’s no bleach involved
- my dog is trained with cooperative care skills, the process is not stressful for her, she gets paid heavily for her cooperation and looks forwards to the opportunity to earn extra snacks with the grooming
- she’s a mini American shepherd, her name is Yoshi
A planned community in Arizona has used time-honored Mediterranean strategies to keep temperatures down and attitudes high. Western civiliza
"A planned community in Arizona has used time-honored Mediterranean strategies to keep temperatures down and attitudes high.
Western civilization has grown remarkably climate conscious over the last 20 years, but not when it comes to building, civic planning, and especially zoning. Perhaps the interiors of buildings are becoming more climate adapted, and in some cases the facades as well, but in a way that’s a little like inventing a freezer designed to keep ice cream frozen while sitting next to a fire.
Wooden or concrete boxes arranged side-by-side across leveled ground with sprawling, largely treeless gardens and concrete sidewalks alongside wide, blacktop roads is simply a culture of construction that has to be abandoned if living in a world of 2°C or higher annual temperatures [or, hopefully, less than that, but nonetheless likely over 1.5°C] is to be tolerable.
Fortunately for Arizonans, change may have finally arrived in the form of a carless, planned community that looks and feels like a Greek island village.
In the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Culdesac has arisen as a 17-acre mixed-use neighborhood from the ground up to stay cool and local, taking the concept of the 15-minute city, where anything a resident might need is only 15 minutes away, and putting a Mediterranean spin on it.
Buildings are tall, thick, and totally white. The residential areas look like they were built atop of the ashes of the Phoenix zoning code burnt in effigy. Crammed together, they create narrow streets and alleys that are almost constantly shaded, through which wind is channeled and accelerated in passing.
Windows open towards each other, allowing wind that enters one building to exit into another, while the total lack of asphalt means that the ground temperatures are a staggering 50-60°F lower than pavements beyond the limits of Culdesac.
No privately-owned cars are allowed to enter the neighborhood, in which electric bikes, robotic mini taxis, and light rail shuttle people around town, to downtown Phoenix, or out to the airport.
The street life is lively—there are no cars to bisect movement between the 21 different businesses and eateries, among which is a James Beard Award-winning Mexican restaurant, DIY ceramic business, and some stores run out of apartments—a big no-no under Phoenix zoning laws.
“Once you pull the cars out,” Architect Daniel Parolek who designed Culdesac, told BBC, “there’s so much more opportunity to make a vibrant, thriving community.”
His inspiration was sun-soaked locales like Italy, Greece, and Croatia, where town centers were designed before the automobile and before air conditioning.
Technically speaking, the entire Culdesac neighborhood is one apartment complex, but the paseos, or little alleyways, open up into plazas of open space exactly liked one would expect in a little village in the Cyclades.
Because no one has to jump in a car to get from place to place, people run into each other, sparking conversations, relations, and breaking through the counterintuitive phenomenon of big city loneliness, which in Phoenix hits particularly hard.
“Culdesac Tempe has shown that people do want to live car-free in the US, even in a metro area like Phoenix that’s often seen as the poster child for car dependency,” says Erin Boyd, Culdesac’s government relations and external affairs lead. “This success has shifted the conversation around what’s possible in American development.”
When we were children, my sister had private music lessons at her violin teacher’s house. I only visited there once, but I still remember that afternoon. The teacher had an artificial pond in her yard, a large beautiful thing with lily pads and plant life. And in the pond, there were goldfish. I had never seen such enormous goldfish.
I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond.
Funny what lessons children remember. My sister doesn’t play the violin anymore, but that was the first time I caught a glimpse of the overwhelming extent to which it matters, the way the world treats us.
see this is exactly what I'm talking about. this labour is so incredibly invisibilised that there are real human beings, walking about amongst us, leading normal lives, etc., who earnestly believe that machines can make an item of clothing from start to finish.
Hey just in case someone on here doesn’t quite understand how labor intensive making a garment is, here is a list of things that (to the best of my knowledge) cannot be done by machine alone, from a costumer/tailor in training
Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.
Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.
Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.
Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.
Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.
These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.
Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:
See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.
Please respect textile workers and continue the fight to eliminate the use of sweatshops and exploited labor in the fashion industry!
Ive told this story before and I'll tell it again amd again until the world changes. When I was 18, freshly orphaned, at my first ever job, trying to go to college I met my first serious boyfriend. He was 24, we ended up moving in together and he was so controlling and emotionally abusing that I had a genuine epiphany.
After 2 years of this I asked myself "How could I have let this happen? How did I not see the red flags? How did it get this far?" And it hit me. He treated exactly the same way my adults treated me when I was a child. I didn't see any red flags because I'd never been treated any differently. I'd be screamed at for being lazy, if I wanted anything then I was selfish. I was physically intimidated to make me behave. My emotions were "dramatic", and if I complained at all I heard the "everything I do for you" speech. He treated me exactly the way id always been treated and I didn't even recognize it as abuse until I wanted to kill myself about it.
That realization changed my life. Its a big part of why I work with children now. Parents sometimes hate when I say this but you need to treat your children how you would want their future partners to treat them. They are going to use their relationship with you as the blueprint for every other relationship in their life.
And it keeps them safe *now* as well. People who groom children are able to do so easily because many children havent experienced an adult be kind to them before. All the predators need to do is treat them like a person for a bit and of course they seem safe and friendly. If you treat your children with respect and kindness then their uncle or babysitter or whoever is gonna have a harder time gaining their trust and getting close to them because their tactics don't work if the child already expects to be treated like a person. Plus if your child feels safe and respected most of the time the moment someone makes them feel unsafe they can immediately know this isnt right and they will trust you to fix it.
Keeping children, and the adults they will become, safe isn't about tracking or the games they play, or if they get to go to a friend's house or not. Its about you treating them so well that they are able to recognize and seek help the moment a red flag appears.
takes a real artist to go "i have to deface this billboard promoting an evil corporation's evil product. but crucially☝️the typeface and kerning must match or else it's cringe"
If you make it look official, people will leave it up. I knew someone who replaced all the motivational posters at work with 'demotivation' versions and corp didnt notice for like 2 years.
you can stay indoors all day when the sun is out, and sometimes it's nice like a cool draught from a tranquil spring, but watch out because if you stay indoors for two days in a row while the sun is out you start doing odd gothic literature things, stalking the halls and passages and muttering to yourself and parting the blinds to gaze down at your neighbours with a haunted look before turning away to contemplate your mannequins #yourmannequins. three days and you're basically fucked. you have to throw a towel over your head to scurry as far as the store for milk and people jeer at you like frankenstein's monster.
"I'm only criticizing the people who are lazy on purpose" is just not the reassurance people think it is when nearly every disabled person has been accused of not really being disabled and just being lazy on purpose
