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Nov. 30th, 2010 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupSo apparently a lot of people don't know about the Pillowcase Trick? Allow me to share.
When cleaning an overhead fan, the best technique is to find a pillowcase you don't care about too much. What you do is open the end of the pillowcase, slide the pillowcase over the fan blade, tighten the end around the fan blade at the far end, and pull it back towards yourself. The dust gets wiped into the pillowcase, which you can shake out and wash later. Easy peasy. And kind of funny to watch.
In other, less domestic news...
One of my favourite parts of writing novels (or fic, for that matter) is the research. I am research-oriented by nature; I love learning and I do a lot of it. When I was writing Felinecor's Land I had quite a time researching how tiger meat tastes (oh, the scandals in Japan over tiger meat!) and the average size and weight of an African elephant, so that I could calculate how many soldiers it would feed for how many days.
I've mentioned I'm reading up on prison life, tattoos, and assorted related issues, which has led me afield to Iraq and Afghanistan, where Chicago gang graffiti is turning up in occupied areas (primarily on tanks and military buildings). I don't know why I find this so intriguing; it's not like I was unaware that we have bangers in our military, especially since recruitment often focuses on low-income neighborhoods and disproportionately on African-American and Latino communities.
Part of it, true, is probably because the graffiti comes from what seems to be predominantly Chicago sources, or at any rate they're the ones getting the attention. This may be because the man who broke the story, Jeffrey Stoleson, is an Army reservist who hails from around these parts. He began documenting the graffiti independent of any news source or military orders, and you can see a photograph of him with some of it here. (Relatedly, his article with the Sun Times, which is now not accessible on their website, stirred up some serious racism in Kuwait when Latino soldiers were forced to strip down and searched for gang tatts.)
I know, intellectually, that there are plenty of what we think of as "American" artefacts on overseas military bases -- I know there are Pizza Huts in Afghanistan, for example -- but graffiti is such an organic thing, corporatised in a different way. There is plenty of indigenous graffiti in these regions, but a gang tag in Afghanistan is an unmistakable marker of presence. The only way a Gangster Disciple tag shows up in Iraq is if a Gangster Disciple out of Chicago puts it there, and the only way a Gangster Disciple makes it to Iraq is on a military transport.
Hidden worlds, the secret cities that live within the surface cities, the coded signs that represent them and cross the boundary, all of this is endlessly interesting to me. Tagging, which can be lovely, is also vandalism and I know that -- but it is a secret and symbolic language and to see it so far from where it arose is fascinating.
When cleaning an overhead fan, the best technique is to find a pillowcase you don't care about too much. What you do is open the end of the pillowcase, slide the pillowcase over the fan blade, tighten the end around the fan blade at the far end, and pull it back towards yourself. The dust gets wiped into the pillowcase, which you can shake out and wash later. Easy peasy. And kind of funny to watch.
In other, less domestic news...
One of my favourite parts of writing novels (or fic, for that matter) is the research. I am research-oriented by nature; I love learning and I do a lot of it. When I was writing Felinecor's Land I had quite a time researching how tiger meat tastes (oh, the scandals in Japan over tiger meat!) and the average size and weight of an African elephant, so that I could calculate how many soldiers it would feed for how many days.
I've mentioned I'm reading up on prison life, tattoos, and assorted related issues, which has led me afield to Iraq and Afghanistan, where Chicago gang graffiti is turning up in occupied areas (primarily on tanks and military buildings). I don't know why I find this so intriguing; it's not like I was unaware that we have bangers in our military, especially since recruitment often focuses on low-income neighborhoods and disproportionately on African-American and Latino communities.
Part of it, true, is probably because the graffiti comes from what seems to be predominantly Chicago sources, or at any rate they're the ones getting the attention. This may be because the man who broke the story, Jeffrey Stoleson, is an Army reservist who hails from around these parts. He began documenting the graffiti independent of any news source or military orders, and you can see a photograph of him with some of it here. (Relatedly, his article with the Sun Times, which is now not accessible on their website, stirred up some serious racism in Kuwait when Latino soldiers were forced to strip down and searched for gang tatts.)
I know, intellectually, that there are plenty of what we think of as "American" artefacts on overseas military bases -- I know there are Pizza Huts in Afghanistan, for example -- but graffiti is such an organic thing, corporatised in a different way. There is plenty of indigenous graffiti in these regions, but a gang tag in Afghanistan is an unmistakable marker of presence. The only way a Gangster Disciple tag shows up in Iraq is if a Gangster Disciple out of Chicago puts it there, and the only way a Gangster Disciple makes it to Iraq is on a military transport.
Hidden worlds, the secret cities that live within the surface cities, the coded signs that represent them and cross the boundary, all of this is endlessly interesting to me. Tagging, which can be lovely, is also vandalism and I know that -- but it is a secret and symbolic language and to see it so far from where it arose is fascinating.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:44 pm (UTC)Once in a while I do find I bring up random research stuff in conversation, but I can't think of when I'm likely to be talking about prison tatts again, outside of the journal :D
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Date: 2010-11-30 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:57 pm (UTC)Had I known that as a kid, I wouldn't have mouthed off as much...
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:32 pm (UTC)Fascinating about the graffiti. I'm a bit obsessed with body art and markings along those lines, and obviously the two intersect in many instances, particularly where gangs are involved. VERY interesting how native US tags are turning up in new contexts...
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:32 pm (UTC)Also, this secret language of gangs reminds me a ton of the Hobo Code. Totally fascinating way of life those people lead!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:56 pm (UTC)No fan-dust is safe! AAAAAAHHHH!
(This may have changed my life. I used to just let it accumulate until I finally broke down and attempted to clean with a plastic bag and a duster. It...wasn't pretty.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 06:56 pm (UTC)One thing you see out here in the Wide, Wide West (i.e., Sonoran Desert just above Nogales) is a kind of 3-D graffiti that relates to Hispanic folk-saints. There're all sorts of oddities-- glyphs spray-painted on walls that look remarkably like voodoo veves, odd 'markers' for safe passage like the foil-wrapped bricks dedicated to Jesus Malverde, the patron of drug smugglers (yes, really. No, really), roadside crosses and wreathes marking the places where people died in traffic-accidents... I remember an impromptu shrine popping up in the apartment complex that I lived in back in Las Vegas years ago following the murder of a 6-year-old girl; her body had been found in a dumpster, and within hours there were candles and a piece of plywood painted with the Virgin Mary propped against the dumpster. When sanitation workers tried to remove it, somebody took a shot at them from a nearby balcony, so the shrine was shifted over a few feet away from the dumpster and left in peace. Eventually it got taken down, but the dumpster acquired some interesting scenes painted on it.
It's interesting stuff; mostly the shrines and markers are left alone and eventually weather and fade, but there're a few non-church folk-shrines here in Tucson that've been around for a long time, like the one to La Tiradito downtown (it means 'little outcast'-- he was a guy who committed adultery with his mother-in-law, was murdered and then was buried outside church boundaries for his sins.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:38 pm (UTC)Oh, yeah! I'm too tired to be coherent about it at the moment, but I associate these phenomena with things like pop psychogeography and the human desire to believe in conspiracies. I think what first tuned me into them was Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 and the idea of the Tristero underground postal system. Either that or I loved the Pynchon book because I already had an affinity for such stuff. Hm...
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:53 pm (UTC)Now having mental image of trying to lasso fans with a pillowcase.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:56 pm (UTC)Graffiti
Date: 2010-11-30 09:10 pm (UTC)I distinctly remember the first time I went to the Met and saw the Temple of Dendur. After the initial 'woah, there's a whole temple in this room', I went up to actually look at it, and I noticed all of this graffiti mixed in with the hieroglyphics. Some from as early as the 1600's and in a multitude of languages including Latin. I had never before thought to include the context of time in amongst place, meaning, and language when looking at graffiti.
Out of all the incredible things I saw in the Met that day, the graffiti was what I remember the most.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 09:29 pm (UTC)There was a fascinating piece back home that was on a bridge, just a series of numbers and then the words 'come back, live life". There's a story there begging to be told.
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Date: 2010-12-01 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:16 pm (UTC)Cases in point:
James: Magic 8 blog, where can I find Calvin and Hobbes fanworks?
Copperbadge: So I was reading this C&H thing, right?
James: Magic 8 blog, I need something new to read.
Copperbadge: Ohi, I have this new book I've written. Wanna buy a copy?
James: Magic 8 blog, how can I explain the pacing issues my cast is having in Importance of Being Earnest.
Copperbadge: Wilde should be like a Lacrosse Match. Also, try these helpful theatre tricks.
James: Oh magic 8 blog, my ceiling fan is filthy and I am being showered in dust while trying to escape the sticky horrible heat of the Australian Summer.
Copperbadege: So there's this pillowcase trick, right?
James: Okay, now you're just playing with me...
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:35 pm (UTC)And now I want to write a short story in which someone stumbles across a blog that can be used to accurately predict the future, with the usual urban legend Things Of Which Man Was Not Meant To Know ending.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 12:25 pm (UTC)It includes roof chases! A guy teaching a girl wearing his clothes how to tie a tie! Horse racing! Theft! And one of the few films where I could not, for the life of me, gues the ending. I was SURE they'd end it on a cheep shot- but they managed to be brilliant and surprising.
Highly recomended for everybody that loves a good time.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-03 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 05:08 am (UTC)[also, there is a town here in which, I swear to god, "SAM" is tagged like every 10 feet.]
no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 01:48 pm (UTC)