On THAT Day, and the Mosque in Question

I wasn't here for America's bicentennial, and the chances of me witnessing the tricentennial are slim. Just over two hundred years as a country, but about four hundred since the first English colonies began settling along the east coast. That's quite a bit of time to build, tear down, build over, etc. People reproduce in that time, they expand boundaries, dump mud and rubbish into bays as landfill to continue expansion until someone decides it's time to stop filling out and start building up.

Hence you get New York City. One of the oldest settlements in the country, New York boasts an impressive history and is well on its way into legend as one of the greatest cities of all time. Americans take pride in this shining beacon by the sea. It is our Paris. Our Rome. Our Athens. So does it not make sense then that it would be a target? A wound to the heart?


I remember the morning well. I had to be to church at five in the morning for zero period seminary. Outside of Utah, Mormon kids have to go in the morning, and as I was taking gym as a zero period class I had to go to an earlier seminary class. Ugh. I'm not at all a morning person. I came downstairs to get breakfast, my dad perched in his chair as usual, watching the stock market. This was my favourite part of the morning during high school. Today being September the eleventh, however, meant that the morning ritual of discussing Wall Street was interrupted. There were more pressing matters at hand.


I asked what was going on. I recognized the towers, but not as the World Trade Center. They were simply the twin towers to me at that time. High rise wastes of material dedicated to some businesses that I knew nothing about, didn't care about, and probably would deem unnecessary. Then again I think that much of what has come about in the past century has been unnecessary. I digress. Instead talking over what was happening with the Oracle stocks I was interested in, Dad and I mused at how much the damages would cost to repair. Little did we know that this plane that had crashed into the first tower was an airliner and not a small private plane. In the wee hours of that morning, that's what they were telling us on the west coast.

I was the only one in the seminary class who knew. I was telling everyone, and no one seemed all that interested. Most teenagers don't seem to care for the news, let alone that early in the morning. We carried on with group projects about some scripture from The D&C, did some presentations... the next thing I remember is climbing into the carpool. By this time everyone knew, and this particular minivan was tuned in to a particular radio station that was speculating that terrorists were threatening shopping malls across the country, the Pentagon was hit, and the second tower was also hit. It was mass panic. The rest of the day went by in a haze. Some of my classes carried on as normal, but how could ANYONE just go on that day? My one concern was that my friend was visiting her aunt in New York and there was no way to get a hold of her. This was before texting, so there was no simple instant message to her phone. We couldn't call for days. She ended up stranded there for weeks. One of the girls I knew had gotten word that her cousin had jumped. Her last moments falling were aired on television.

Now there's talk going around of a certain religion wanting to refurbish an old building into a place of worship. This has the country in an uproar. Politicians are jumping on some bandwagon, thinking that their opinions on the matter will buy them votes on both sides of the line. Extreme Christians and relentless nationalists stand opposed, and others are ready to move on and let the mosque carry forward. I happen to think that no matter what happens, no matter whether there is a mosque built near Ground Zero or not, it's high time that Americans realize that places like New York will carry on. That history places upon them all sorts of strange contradictions.

Take for instance Rome. Rome is one of the oldest cities in the world, and the funny thing is that it's overrun with Catholics. The bleeding Vatican is in Rome, and why is that funny? Because this city was the center of an empire that stifled upstart religions like the cult of Christ. Christians were enslaved, used as lion fodder, persecuted, and murdered. Oh the irony of it all! They end up turning Rome on its head and rebuilding a new empire based on this upstart religion from the Middle East. What does this mean? Well, in this case, it means that New York has come to the point of historical maturity, of significance, in history. It's become a palimpsest of new writings upon old. A new mosque on an old ruin, both being related, funny enough, in that it was extremists of that religion who made that ruin.

Where am I going with this blog post? Oh I don't know, this one is rather rubbish I think. It's hard to put into words what I want to say this time. I have these ideas I want to put down, but there is no real rhyme or reason. I guess what I mean is that there is a time where people will have to let go. That's history, that's how other cities in other countries have been moving for centuries. The Dome of the Rock is smack dab where we have to build the Temple of Jerusalem. It may be too soon for New York; nine years went by very quickly, but what are we to do? People grow old and die, and someone in the future may try the same thing, and what do we think of that? We can't stop it. Does it really matter? Is it absolutely necessary to delay the inevitable for our own emotional reasons?

Ultimately, no matter how much politicians want to campaign this, the decision should be left up to New York. I'm over it. I've moved on. I get though that many people drive by that site everyday and probably (at least once a week or so) think of the people they knew who perished. What happened in 2001 was a national crisis, what's happening in 2010 is a local concern with national interest attached.

On the Brutality Against Our Most Majestic Language of English

English is one disturbing language. It is the language suffering from the deepest identity crisis of all languages, and it has been this way for centuries. Thank you Normans! For that matter, thank you GIs who bring home the Japanese at the end of WWII and suck the meaning out of words such as 'karaoke' and 'geisha' and mistranslating these words into pop culture, rendering them vulgar and utterly useless. (To be fair, the Japanese obsession with American culture is far more frightful.)

What I really want to talk about is the direction English is going lately. Specifically, I'd like to mention slang and the reformation of words into new vulgarities. To be even more specific: Terms of Endearment.

William Shakespeare is long acknowledged to be the greatest wordsmith our language has ever been influenced by. His timing was impeccable; the English had, for too long, been held under cultural siege by the Continent (The worst atrocities committed by the French.), and the 16th century was the absolute last straw. By the end of it, during Bill's own heyday, Britain had managed to propagate nationalism in the liberation from such powerhouse influences such as Catholicism and the Holy Roman Empire. Elizabeth had destroyed the Spanish with a ragtag bunch of sea dogs. The Irish were under control. Drake and other Englishmen had imprinted the English seal into the Americas. It was a ripe time to reclaim the English language from Franco-Germanification.

Reading over some of the words invented by Shakespeare, it's hard to imagine English without them. Auspicious, gnarled, obscene, suspicious, even apostrophe, which is only a word meant to indicate a grammatical notation. They are so common place that the list of approximately 1700 words holds some shockers. What is a language without the word 'control' for example? As I mentioned the word earlier, had Shakespeare not coined the word 'control', would the Irish ever have become civilized (I jest, of course.)?

It's this tradition of reclaiming English, started by the Bard himself, that has carried us into the modern English of today. True, there is French resistance to this deconstructionist shove, but English has since become the language of choice in the global market. So what the frak (Battlestar Galactica) are we doing to it?!

I'm talking specifically about slang and the infantilization of perfectly good, useful words. This trend of shortening words, adding a double consonant and a 'y', is a pathetic cry for help. English, insane as it is, is a largely creative palette. You have all sorts of Latin and Greek to play with (Again, thank you Normans!), so go USE it! Were I a man and my 'wifey' dared call me her 'hubby', I would be insulted by her ignorance. For that matter I would never marry someone who found either of those words to be acceptable terms of endearment.

While not my favorite, I would like to explore the endearing 'patootie' . My handy reference, the Online Etymology Dictionary, suggests that it derives from an earlier 'sweet potato'. As ludicrous as being called a sweet potato may seem, considering that at one time sweet potatoes were a popular staple of nutrition, it's no different from calling someone 'cookie' or 'sugar'. We like cookies and sugar, and people liked sweet potatoes. I still like sweet potatoes. Patootie somehow came out of that and now stands alone as cute nickname. You wouldn't guess it was related to 'sweet potato', and its story of origin is speculative at best. It holds its own, while 'hubby' in the meantime is an obvious brutalization of the word 'husband'. Where is the creativity?

The creativity comes out in phrases. 'Baby bump' comes to mind, and for a moment I would like to argue its status as endearing. Bump (Shakespeare!) has always suggested, as far as in reference to the human body, an unpleasant situation in which swelling occurs on the surface of ourselves. This includes acne, goosebumps, bumps on the head, etc. Being bumped is also typically unpleasant. Heck, 'bumping someone off' is murder, for Betsy's sake! How then is an awaiting bundle of joy comparable at all to such an antagonistic state of being? Creating life is generally thought of as a good thing. Implying that your pregnant belly is a bump only says to me that you're somehow ashamed, and yet people still use it in complimenting you. 'Oh, what a cute baby bump! How long do you have left to be preggers?!' It makes me shudder.

I know this is a losing battle. Slang will carry on, language will evolve, and I will die before the end of it. No, this has nothing to do with my eternal salvation, but it's important to me nonetheless. I may die, but I would like to think that I may have a positive impact on the temporal world, one slang word at a time. I REALLY don't want to hear the word 'hubby' in the afterlife.

On Oxfords

I'm noticing that this may very well turn into a fashion blog. I promise that this is not the goal nor intention, as I am interested in a great many things other than clothes. I'm not that shallow. However, I must bring to the table the fact that my degree is in costume design, and that clothing plays a key role in the way I interpret people and view society. Is it not true that people spend an excess amount of time on image? My obsession with clothing is not so unprecedented then. For the record also, I am a dresser of persons, not so much of myself. I don't care so much what I look like since I don't have to look at myself all the time. I know you may be thinking 'How can anyone trust you if you show no style?' Easy. I tell them what to wear. They wear it. They look good. End of story. I feel more like an outside observer anyway, and my theories and works are all based on my notes on how people function.

The true intention of this blog today is to give credit to women for something. This is a great compliment coming from yours truly. There are few things I think women have gotten right at all, let alone in the past century. Granted they are uncomfortable after so much time standing, the accomplishment women hold over men is the excellent way in which they employ Oxfords. The shoes. Of the heeled variety specifically.

Men haven't worn heeled shoes since the 1700s, and good riddance. They were getting a bit ostentatious with those clappers on the bottoms to emphasize the clack of the heel on the pavement. The shorter heel has dominated men's footwear since the 19th century, and the Oxford has since become a standard wardrobe staple. In the 1920s, women's footwear became more simplified from the boots of the Edwardian period, and thank goodness they adopted the Oxford!

Being a great fan of menswear, I can't express how thrilled I am to have something of theirs tailored to be more feminine; giving you the soft lines of a an arched foot (One of the more attractive shapes in the human body.), while retaining the straight forward well to do attitude of the predominately masculine white collar class. The heeled Oxford especially (Flat heeled Oxfords on women are absolutely unacceptable.) is the most perfect juxtaposition of feminine and masculine. However, since only women can wear them, they are the victors. Oxfords just look better on us boys, sorry. And for that matter, we'll take your loafers too, thank you very much.

My only goal today, mind, was to take a gander at Chuck Taylors. Needless to say I got carried away on Famous Footwear's website.

On Proper Feminine Undergarments

There are certain rules that should be set to dictate the manner in which women choose to dress. I'd like to mention now the particular way in which they wear dresses and skirts.

The problem at hand is the lack of structural integrity in a dress or skirt. In previous centuries, a woman was never fully dressed without proper undergarments, petticoats being counted among these. Before petticoats was the crinoline, and before that was the farthingale. These earlier structures allowed for ventilation under heavy fabrics (Skirts increased in volume and layers at the end of the Middle Ages, hence the reason we have underthings in the first place.) as well as gave what was then considered a flattering shape. Personally, aside from the eighteenth century fashions (The extra area created by the pannier seems to only exist as more space for 'frou frou rubbish.'), I am a devotee of this mode in regards to long skirts. It's clean, it's finished, and it gives the wearer complete control of how their skirts drape around their bodies. You don't get them bunched between your legs walking into the wind, nor can the wind sneak up from behind and blow them up a la Marilyn Monroe (Which is never attractive unless you ARE Marilyn Monroe and the moment is completely scripted.). Why in heaven's name would anyone want to abandon such ownership of potentially unruly garments?

A woman came in to work today with a 1970s style broom skirt. The broom has since been revisited in the early to mid 2000s, but I'd never considered just how unfinished and unrefined these skirts look on women until this specimen revealed itself. I remember wanting to own a broom skirt in high school because they were the height of fashion and looked great in the ads. Today I find them on a dusty old rack at my local Deseret Industries. Why? Because noone save models should ever wear one. They quite literally look like petticoats and are made much in the same way, which makes me question what came first: the feminist rebellion against 'restrictive' undergarments, or the childish game of dressing like it were Backwards Day (Underclothes on top!)?

The petticoat, being the last structural form used in shaping women into something more genteel and attractive left, was a staple of the 1950s before taking flight at the threat of the Women's Lib Movement. Where petticoats were seen as a God-send in the 19th century (I can sit down in this!), they were a symbol of the man's control over the woman and promptly stuffed away into costume history in favor of no structure and complete 'freedom'.

(This is the part where I rag on feminism. My friends will roll their eyes and chortle under their breath. They know me for a conspiracy theorist standing solo against the Feminist Agenda like some paranoid commentator on Fox News. Perhaps I am, but in any case you've been warned.) Feminists have long had it in for underclothes (Bra burnings come to mind, but are only part of feminist myth.) and clothes alike. Having since taken control of the fashion industry, the idea that corsets and underskirts are uncomfortable has infiltrated the consumer market and now we cringe at the very thought. Then they blame it on the men. I don't think men care so much, or ever really have cared, though everyone should care about the shapes they keep their bodies in.

Like most everything else about Women's Lib that makes sense (Sarcasm sign), this has been the popular opinion ever since, but I insist that this belief that undergarments of bygone eras are uncomfortable is a complete fabrication. I've worn petticoats, and I'd rather take them than a crinoline (For the record, corsets are not uncomfortable, but we'll save that for another day?). They accentuate the shapes that women should want men to pay attention to (It is generally acknowledged by anthropologists that men like wider hipped women.), they allow for that princess twirl that every girl (Diva and uber feminist alike.) wants to be able to enjoy, and women of ANY shape will benefit. Like I stated, everyone should care about the shapes their silhouettes should take, and given that we have more body shapes today than ever, these 'uncomfortable' underthings should be welcome and regarded as 'slightly annoying but TOTALLY worth it'!

In any case, I actually want to emphasize that since we don't wear underskirts in contemporary fashion, we should do away with long skirts altogether. That's exactly what ran through my head today as my nose wrinkled in disgust at the broom skirt. Shorter skirts don't require petticoats as they have pleating and gathers enough to give shape. Trousers are more common in recent decades, negating the need for long skirts anyway. If you're going to send underclothes to the great fashion beyond, send on the very garments that called for them in the first place and end the disrespect!

As an end note: There are exceptions, of course. The Marveilleuses at the turn of the 19th century wore long dresses without any underwear at all. However these dresses had an empire waistline; any underskirts would have looked ridiculous. In more recent decades, Hollywood glamour has introduced the tight fitting gown, leaving no room for underthings anyway. Then there were the 1910s-20s, which may not have favoured underskirts, but only in the name of war rationing and post traumatic nonsense. The 1920s as a matter of fact were still susceptible to structured garments, if not also underskirts.

On Hellenic Hairstylings

I was thinking last night, while trying to mosey into Nod, about hair. Yes, appearance is a bit of a shallow train of thought, and I usually wonder more about other things, but this was important. For example: just how do the Greeks do it?

This has actually been a question sitting at the back of my head since fourth grade and my early obsession with Greek mythology. I read every single mythology related book in the school and city libraries, resulting in quite a bit of exposure to illustrations of women with hair wrapped up with stretches of fabric. The Regency period saw a revival of the Greek style, and while it makes sense to me that they were able to pull it off, I just don't see how I would do it from a Greek perspective. While I've done research, I feel as though I still don't really get it. How do you keep it all wrapped up? What sort of product do they use to hold shape? Why won't these websites walk me through the steps instead of talking about the sorts of hairstyles they had? I can see the illustrations, thank you very much.

Four fifty AM, and this is how I start my day. I don't have time for this.

On Titling This Blog and Why This Blog Is

CANT

No apostrophe to imply my inability to function. I function very well. I think.

Cant is a noun meaning 'empty, hypocritical talk', according to my Bibliophile's Dictionary, being the only dictionary I own. In coming entries I little doubt that the topics of choice will reflect why this word is appropriately assigned to this blog.

The goal being, of course, to put down on metaphoric paper my own musings on several things. Do my ideas matter? No. Not in a world where everyone is a pretentious windbag like myself, I don't expect them to matter at all. However since the Facebook Age is upon us and journal keeping has resorted to microblogging and status updates, this is the best I can do. I would hope someone might read this, provided that technology proves me wrong and does not fail. If it goes unread, this is of no consequence to me.

It all comes down to this; I'm fed up with the route we're taking to the end. I'm finding lately that I'm more comfortable with the archaic means of communication, the connection between generations through memory recording. While we may think we'll live forever through technology, the fact of the matter is that technology is only as mortal as its creator. I once kept a journal, which gave way to an online journal on that once ever popular site of yore, which in turn gave way to Facebook. I'm turning it around, and one day I will be hand writing again. This is just a step in that direction.