sing out, louise

bread for all, and roses too. often thinking about 18th-century england

[glintglimmergleam]

imagine bridgerton if eloise had a gun

[pmamtraveller]

By clay artist Naoto Wada

[glintglimmergleam]

Also I wish I liked Dorothy Sayers. I tried, friends, I really did. In theory her books are everything I want from Interwar English genre mysteries but in practice every time she mentions Jews, even when she might be trying to comment on antisemitism, I get too sad.

Plus I find Peter Wimsey annoying.

[glintglimmergleam]

also yes I am having a murder mystery summer bc I'm working on my Inspector Lewis fic. Not taking formal notes on plots or themes or anything, just enjoying how other people do it. Especially the genre heavyweights like Hammett.

[glintglimmergleam]

Also with the sheer amount of Scotch they drink per hour in The Thin Man it's incredible someone dies of murder when they should have all died of alcohol poisoning.

[glintglimmergleam]

Chapter 11:

My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. "My nice policeman wants to see you," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober."

Ha fucking ha, but frankly I don't think he's joking.

[glintglimmergleam]

Also with the sheer amount of Scotch they drink per hour in The Thin Man it's incredible someone dies of murder when they should have all died of alcohol poisoning.

[glintglimmergleam]

was planning to do some writing tonight but got caught up reading The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett instead. He really is the GOAT: style for days. Only halfway through and I don't care who did the murder when the vibes are fun.

I like this better than The Maltese Falcon, obviously bc the female characters are more interesting. It's less grimdark noir and more whodoneit shenanigans with sarcasm and liquor.

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

The Archbishop of Canterbury is secretly messaging people on tumblr. Seems totally legit 🤔🤣

[glintglimmergleam]

one thing I do not want to do is sort my vacation photos

[jelloapocalypse]

Someone asked me a while ago if I still had a photo of the worst sink I had ever seen while apartment hunting in Los Angeles. I assumed I deleted it so I didn't answer the ask and now it's gone, but as it turns out, yes, I do still have a photo of it.

[rederiswrites]

There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.

[alexseanchai]

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?

[rederiswrites]

I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!

[pandorasquillandquotes]

Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.

[vaspider]

A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.

Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...

[foxofninetales]

I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.

[electronsprotonscroutons]

Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar

[magneticdeclination]

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come

[doctornerdington]

Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.

[bitchwhoyoukiddin]

DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.

I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.

[calystarose]

Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm

[karis-the-fangirl]

Consider the Fork isn’t about food itself exactly but all about cooking technology and how it changed how and what we eat

[glintglimmergleam]

The Met Gala’s Costume Drama

The exhibits accompanying the Met Gala used to break audience records. But now the museum’s playbook seems stuck in time.

essential reading for Met Gala watchers. this part especially damning:

But over at the Costume Institute, West European luxury designers remain at the center of Bolton’s curatorial focus. The museum celebrated its 2019 “Camp” exhibition by hosting a voguing battle on the front steps, but the exhibit inside largely ignored 20th-century queer subcultures. Historically, the Costume Institute has also prioritized aesthetic themes, about craftsmanship and visual influences, over topics highlighting fashion’s social or political implications. A Galliano exhibition now could have raised uncomfortable questions about who gets to be forgiven in fashion, and who decides [...]

In a 2020 Times article examining major fashion museum collections in the U.S. and Europe, Bolton pointed to the limitations of the collection he inherited. He didn’t mention that three years earlier, the Costume Institute oversaw an effort to rid its collection of 2,500 pieces of ethnographic and folk fashion. After some curators found out and complained, according to sources with knowledge of the project, about 700 pieces were “saved” and absorbed by other departments, including the Asian, Islamic, and American wings. A rep for the Met said the deaccessioning was conducted “after close collaboration with colleagues across the museum and external consultants, and in keeping with rigorous guidelines.”

further proof that as I've said for years, the value of the Costume Institute is in the Gala's red carpet spectacle, not its collection. their lens on fashion is exactly the narrow-minded myopia that rich white gay cis men in the industry always take: elitist, racist, lauding the dangerously thin, and fundamentally boring.

If you want real fashion analysis and thought-provoking curation over flashy names meant to sell tickets en masse, go to the Museum at FIT. Tickets to the Met are $30 if you're not a NY resident. Visiting the FIT museum is always free.

[glintglimmergleam]

just another reminder that Andrew Bolton has always been a piece of shit!!

[glintglimmergleam]

btw if you were wondering if I think badly of Zendaya (and her stylist Law Roach) for having a contract with Galliano right now: yes, yes I do.

[tigwalen]

Rivercane Storage Basket - Lottie Queen Stamper - Date unknown

This storage basket was made by Lottie Queen Stamper, one of Cherokee's best-known basket weavers. Using rivercane, the basket was woven upwards from a square base and tapers to a circular rim. Walnut hulls were used to dye the cane to achieve the dark brown color; bloodroot gave it an orange color. Its pattern is Man in a Coffin (or Man in a Casket), with "coffins" alternating along a diagonal.

Born in the Soco community to Levi and Mary Queen, Lottie first learned how to make white oak and pine needle baskets from her mother. She married into a family that taught her how to make baskets from rivercane. In 1935, at the age of 28, she started making cane baskets and, in 1937, she began teaching basketmaking at the Cherokee School. Over her teaching career, Stamper taught hundreds of girls to weave baskets.

[glintglimmergleam]

also FYI to the goyim, repentence and forgiveness in Judaism doesn't work like the Protestants or the Catholics. We also have no central organizing body so no one rabbi can be the spokesperson for the entire community on any issue ever.

We don't do hell, and people have the right to not forgive you.

[glintglimmergleam]

I love analyzing themed black-tie couture, so I wonder if next year I could find some old galas to look at, or other great moments in red carpet to revisit, or 18th-century gowns, Idk. The advantage of a live reblogging is you have an obvious frame for the commentary and you get to be part of the zeitgeist. Who even knows if in May 2027 I'll have the time for something substantial.

[glintglimmergleam]

The Met’s next fashion exhibit spotlights John Galliano, and will confront his troubled past

The next Met Gala fashion exhibit will focus on John Galliano. The British designer is known for both his talent and the scandal in which he

I'm sure most of you saw this news while I was away but here's more proof cancel culture is a lie. It doesn't work. White men who are somebody's favorite always float back up to the surface, like pond scum.

Fuck this racist antisemite but also fuck Anna Wintour and Andrew Bolton and everyone at Conde Nast and the Met for throwing him a Most Special Boy party at a time when bigotry is openly cheered in the public square. I don't care how many tears Galliano has cried or how many rabbis he's personally apologized to. Penance does not mean he deserves a reward, not when there are hundreds of designers the Costume Institute could have chosen.

I will not be blogging the Met Gala in 2027. It's so over.