(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

So 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.

Comments

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's so hard to define why, isn't it? It has something to do with home, and secrets, and knowing something others don't, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Well, and the way we're all used to mysticism being applied to the natural world ... viewing an entirely artificial environment through that lens is a novel experience.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHA I see what you did thar. :D It's a good point, though.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

For me it's symbols, and language, and the power inherent in those two concepts. Not to say I don't agree with you on secrets and home, though...as a third-culture kid I get pinged by migration and resettling and redefining where home is.