The pros and cons of shopping at American Apparel March 27, 2008
Posted by ohdearanotherusername in Adventures, Good Intentions.1 comment so far
Pros:
Their clothing is made in L.A., not China (I’ve recently decided to boycott Made in China products).
Cons:
The inherent oddity of the clothing in question.
I ventured into an American Apparel shop for the first time last week to purchase a plain white tee to go with an outfit I had. Is anyone else leery of AA shops? There’s just something about them that gives off creepy vibes. All those sparkly leggings and multi-coloured jersey shorts! Bathing suits to wear over your clothes! Freaky. Who actually buys this stuff? It didn’t help that the cashier was way too cool to even acknowledge my presence. No greeting or eye contact, she just took the shirt and my credit card. I left the store with a distinct feeling of relief. Mais ils sont fous, ces Romains!
What The Onion has to say about American Apparel.
Igloo building looks fun! March 25, 2008
Posted by ohdearanotherusername in DIY.1 comment so far
[Photo: Banff Lake Louise]
As a translator, I’m always googling bits of sentences to see how they’ve been translated by others. The results I get and the pages I end up on often make for interesting discoveries.
This morning, I was looking for the English word for “glacière” (which I found out is “cooler”) and I landed on this site about the ICEBOX, an igloo-building kit. The site goes into a lot of detail and makes it look fun to camp in a giant snow shelter.
The catch is, the kit costs about $200. It really wouldn’t have to. You can make your own igloo-building tools out of almost anything, as Matthias Wandel has demonstrated on another randomly-found page.
Too bad I didn’t find out about this at the beginning of winter, when I still felt like enjoying the snow. Maybe next year.
Yael Naim March 25, 2008
Posted by ohdearanotherusername in Movies, music.add a comment
So I don’t watch TV that much. But the few times I’ve seen (or rather heard) the new Macbook Air ads, they just make me want to grin and do a finger dance. No, not this one! The happy pointy-finger dance you do when you’re just having fun.
The reason for all this glee is Yael Naim’s catchy tune “New Soul” which absolutely makes the ad for me. I don’t care that the Macbook Air can fit in an envelope. I’m just enjoying the muze! So, for your listening pleasure, here’s “New Soul”:
Oh yeah, I went out and bought her CD at HMV for $11.99 and I’m enjoying most of it. A lot of the songs are in Hebrew with little bits of French thrown in. It’s always harder for me to connect with a song if I don’t understand the lyrics. But the sound is really enjoyable. All but the cover of “Toxic,” which I simply can’t dissociate from Britney. But overall, it’s a pleasurable new music discovery!
Actually, Yael Naim’s music and especially this video remind me of a movie I recently watched called, “Once.” It tells the story of an immigrant girl who meets a busker. He plays a guitar that is literally worn through on the streets of Dublin. She studied piano for many years, but now she cleans houses. During her lunch break, she plays the pianos in a piano shop. They develop a friendship and undertake the ambitious project of recording a CD together. I love the idea of strangers coming together to create. Throwing out little strings of friendships that might create some ties but could just as easily rip, leaving just the ragged ends of memories.
George Eliot was a woman! March 17, 2008
Posted by ohdearanotherusername in Reading, School.add a comment
Who knew?
Clearly everyone but me!
It seems my education on English literature was lacking. My parents sent us to one of the cheapest English private schools in Montreal because of the Quebec language laws. I had fun, but I don’t think I learned enough. In grade 11, we read Romeo and Juliet and Lord of the Flies. Anything else–Austen, Dickens, the Brontës–I picked up almost accidentally.
Anyways, somebody recently wrote or said something about Middlemarch that made me want to read it.
So I picked up a copy at the library. It is musty and beige and fat with small print and it’s covered with one of those annoyed plastic sleeves that are loosely taped to the cover.
But the positive impression I got from whoever referenced it is still lingering, so I’ll dive into it soon.
Before putting the book on my shelf, I flipped open the front cover and read a few sentences from the prologue. I was honestly surprised to see “George Eliot bla bla bla…great author bla bla bla… She…” She?
So yeah, George Eliot was a woman. And my ignorance has been revealed.
Proxemics March 4, 2008
Posted by ohdearanotherusername in Brainfood, Metro, Society.add a comment
“Time trickles downward” by Bah Humbug on Flickr
Did you know there are unspoken and even unconscious rules that govern what seems to be random behaviour? If we reflect on our everyday actions, we can spot patterns. Look at the photo above. I combined several photos snapped from the metro platform opposite, in chronological order from top to bottom. Notice anything about where the commuters have chosen to sit? Want to take a guess about where the next commuter would sit down?
Proxemics, a term coined by anthropologist Edward T. Hall, is “the study of the cultural, behavioral, and sociological aspects of spatial distances between individuals.” [The Free Dictionary]
We are always, whether unconsciously or not, aware of our surroundings: how close people are standing to us, whether they are facing us or looking away, how our fixed surroundings (furniture, walls) are oriented… We are experiencing what is informally called “spatial empathy.” It has to do with that imaginary personal bubble we all have floating around us, that we can voluntarily shrink in certain situations (e.g., a crowded bus) or that can be invaded (e.g., by someone standing too close as they talk to you). The size of this bubble also varies from culture to culture, implying that this is learned behaviour and not innate.
People will behave in predictable ways as they try to protect their personal space and maintain their sense of comfort in their surroundings.
In a New York Times article entitled “In Certain Circles, Two Is a Crowd”, Stephanie Rosenbloom writes:
Scholars can predict which areas of an elevator are likely to fill up first and which urinal a man will choose. They know people will stare at the lighted floor numbers in elevators, not one another.
“In order to overcome the intimacy, you have to make sure you don’t make eye contact,” said Dane Archer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies proxemics.
“If you videotape people at a library table, it’s very clear what seat somebody will take,” Dr. Archer said, adding that one of the corner seats will go first, followed by the chair diagonally opposite because that is farthest away.
“If you break those rules, it’s fascinating,” he said. “People will pile up books as if to make a wall — glare.”
I think this is a topic to investigate more. It’s useful to be aware of these unconscious social mores. If we can learn to better understand our interactions with others, maybe we can get to the point where we choose to act in ways that break social conventions (for a good reason… or maybe just to stir up thoughts).
It’s also a useful skill to develop if you intend to spend time in a culture other than your own, as you will be able to spot social patterns and adapt your own habits accordingly.
Anyways, something about being able to predict human behaviour fascinates me. And then, there are the few who catch my attention because they don’t fit the mold.
