Category: Random

If you are writing regularly, you are a writer. If you are not writing regularly, you are another kind of creature altogether. You are a stalled-writer or a blocked-writer or an in-pain-writer.

I’m not saying this to be mean; I have a lot of sympathy for the pain of blocked creatives. I’m frequently one of them. I’m saying this because if you are a writer, then the world needs you to write.

“Are you kidding me?” you say. We have nearly 10% unemployment, large populations of women who don’t have reliable access to birth control, and a progressively more broken political system. We have 40% of our streams and rivers polluted, a chemical industry running almost completely unregulated, and suburban sprawl stealing our wild places. And Facebook is making all of us more narcissistic, while advertisting is helping us become both mindlessly greedy and cynical. So how exactly is my writing going to help any of this?

Because writing, and any art-making, is the inverse of: war-mongering, consumerism, dissatisfaction and cynicism.

Art-making helps you recover your enthusiasm and sincere delight. Now that you are open to your own fragile hopes, you will become more empathetic to other people and to creatures. Every time you create something for your own satisfaction, you give the virtual middle-finger to all the institutions that make it their business to breed dissatisfaction. Every time you create something that has never been seen before, you put the lie to the  idea that we can’t figure out new ways to live in our world. Now that your personal flame is burning more resiliently, you will be more likely to challenge people speaking out of the negativity they’ve been frightened into, or the privilege they’ve taken for granted.

Art-creating is practice for creating our lives and our culture as we want them to be, not just as they’re suggested by the corporations we work for and buy from. Art-making makes you think for yourself. It makes you more tolerant of individual people but less tolerant of the oppressive institutions that people may participate in.

Your piece of art, your painting or poem or screenplay, does not magically make the world better. Honestly, in a lot of ways, it’s just an artifact. But the fact that you made it makes you better because now you feel your own power to create.You are no longer mindless. You can no longer see yourself as helpless. You no longer accept the culture’s simplistic version of yourself, and you will likewise not accept the simplistic versions of other people that are constantly shoved down your throat.

And that’s why, if you are a writer, you need to write. Also, it will make you feel better. Now go out there and write something.

I have to be honest. Most of the time when I encounter the fashion world in the form of Vogue, the celebrity “red carpet," and Fashion Week, I am reminded of this quote from Edie Sedgwick.

"Fashion as a whole is a farce, completely. The people behind it are perverted. The styles are created by freaked out people, just natural weirdos. I know this because I worked with all those people while I was modeling."

I can’t be the only feminist to ask: is fashion is just a clever redirection of women’s potentially revolutionary creativity into something safer and a lot more ephemeral? “Find me attractive!” is a legitimate wish, but how often do we really mean “Take me seriously”? I suspect that women sometimes become obsessed with expressing themselves through style, when what we’re really hungry for is to express ourselves verbally and politically. 

But on the other hand, I am, as anyone can tell you, completely obsessed with jewelry. Antique, vintage, artisan, all of it. I will gleefully tell you that I have identified the perfect eyeshadow (Cover Girl Brown Smolder and Mink, fyi). And I agree with Tavi Gevinson when she says this.

…to me, fashion is a form of art…that's strictly what I find it: it's not necessarily about simply looking "good" or "chic". The designers that inspire me don't focus on designing clothes just to be clothes; the looks they design are art! WEARABLE art, which is more fun than pretty paintings in a museum that you can't touch. My ignorance aside, it really bothers me when silly ideas like "Fashion Do's and Don't's" and "Fashion Police" are established, because that takes all the fun out of putting together an outfit. In my opinion, the most interesting fashion is the Anti-Fashion. No rules, no restrictions, no normalcy, no pleasing anyone. 

I will even admit that occasionally, in a fit of narcissism and 20-years-belated vanity, I want to make an appointment to get my colors done.

So lately I’ve been really annoyed with my wardrobe (why do I own so many ugly blue shirts? why don't any of these blacks match? what was I thinking when I bought all these asymmetrical hemlines???). I’ve been trying to whittle down my closet, to be interesting without looking ridiculous or shlumpy. And what I find most inspiring is definitely not the fashion hegemony of Anna Wintour et al. Instead I wander over to HelLooks and see what the youth of Finland are wearing. And they never fail to amaze and inspire me.

Sample quote: My style is a soldierly gardener. 

Warning: Don’t click over there unless you’ve got some free time.