Stop Telling Me How to Dress

I’ve recently been seeing a lot of publications about the legging epidemic that seems to be overtaking America. The “are they pants or not” debate has been raging since my junior year of high school, but it seems to be getting fiercer as stores come out with more styles and varieties. Up to this point I’ve just sort of rolled my eyes and stayed out of it but a series of incidents have led me to speak out on the topic. Let me start by saying that as someone who loves fashion, I do believe there are times to wear and not to wear leggings as pants, such as if they are see-through or in a professional setting. However I also firmly believe in a woman’s right to dress as she pleases without being labeled a “distraction.” Last year I remember seeing battles between middle/high schools and wearers of bright patterned leggings. Schools called them distracting and were working toward banning them as a result of this. Public education systems struggle enough with getting kids to focus, so even though I disagreed with this affront to self expression, I let it slide.

It wasn’t until I worked as a camp counselor this past summer that I really began to feel outrage toward this issue. The camp has a long standing history of trying to take the focus off of romantic relationships and put it on a more brotherly/sisterly type of bond. This is a reason that so many people love the camp, so it was easy to be accommodating when they started to establish guidelines for a more appropriate way of dressing. Booty shorts and low cut tank tops were quickly abolished, but soon they adopted the dreaded finger tip rule. The problem (as everyone who has recently been in high school knows) is that everyone has different body types and a perfectly acceptable pair of shorts may not always go down to the finger tips. In addition to this, it was becoming increasingly harder for campers and staff alike to find long enough shorts in stores and no one wanted to buy an entirely new wardrobe that they would never wear outside of camp. So, to avoid the issue, this year most of the staff came prepared with loads of leggings and yoga pants – easy to move around in, relatively thin, and not against the rules. Until… One day during the staff training week, one of my superiors told me that they were thinking of banning leggings. I, like all of my coworkers, was infuriated because that was basically all we had brought. When I asked her why, she replied that many of the male counselors had been commenting and talking about the girls. So, once again, they decided to blame the women for the male gaze and sexualization of women’s bodies.

I told her it wouldn’t matter how many times they change the dress code, boys will ALWAYS find something to talk about. For once it would be nice if they addressed the boys about their tendencies instead of blaming the women. Though I thought I was sounding like a broken record, she told me she had never considered it from this perspective. Never considered it?! Even this woman couldn’t fathom that boys looking at girls could be a boy problem, not a girl problem. I wear leggings because they’re extremely comfortable, agile, and stay in place whereas low rise jeans often require constant readjustment so as not to expose the butt crack. No girl wears yoga pants to be sexy. We wear skirts and dresses and booty shorts if we’re trying to dress to impress, but we wear yoga pants for comfort. So to blame us for men and the media’s long history of taking whatever we wear and sexualizing it, is outrageously unfair.

In an article I came across last night, a woman spoke of her decision to give up wearing leggings in public out of respect for her husband after she found out that men (shocker) check girls out when they wear them. She spoke of not wanting to tempt anyone, identifying herself as the problem. This self-blame for male temptation is the same reason that the first question many women get in cases of rape is “what were you wearing,” reaffirming again and again the idea that we ask for it. What this woman doesn’t realize that not wearing leggings isn’t going to change anything. Jeans these days are just as form fitting as leggings, slacks still reveal that we have butts, and skirts and dresses still show off our legs. I’m tired of society telling me I need to change me to be acceptable. That’s why there are so many cultures around the world that force women to almost entirely cover themselves up, so as not to tempt the men who never seem to be held accountable for their own self-control.

Enough is enough, it’s time to change the conversation and ask ourselves if we really want to sacrifice our right to individuality and self expression to try to adapt ourselves to these bogus social rules rather than trying to challenge and change them. I’m not in anyway trying to blame men, it’s a media that constantly sexualizes the female body that is really at fault for this pervasive vein of thought and needs to be put into check. Of course, it won’t happen over night, but in the mean time banning leggings is just further objectifying and manipulating the female body. It’s time to raise our voices just like 13 year old Illinois middle-schooler Sophie Hasty did in protest of her school’s ban: “not being able to wear leggings because it’s ‘too distracting for boys’ is giving us the impression we should be guilty for what guys do.” I’m not willing to turn a blind eye anymore and I think it’s time we rethink our systematized victim blaming.

Corky Pointillism

My mom has gained a recent obsession with corks as an artistic medium. (Largely due to a Pinterest-inspired addiction to recycled crafts).  Past projects have ranged from water bottle sunflowers to ceramic tile coasters. The cork craze has been one of the more interesting mediums and has produced some of the nicest art. Oddly enough, many of her projects have involved minimum effort over a long period of time. At least so far. It takes more than a few weeks to empty dozens of wine bottles to obtain an ample cork supply. Many of these corks have ended up in glass vases of varying shapes, among which she has sprinkled glass bulbs or tied complementary ribbons. The corks have an unobtrusive color to most any decor, plus a subtle shading of red or purple from the wine, rendering each cork marginally unique. This snowflake affect serves well to projects that capitalize off consistent difference. One such example is pointillism.

As a traditional painting technique, famous in works such as Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Un dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte) by Georges Seurat, pointillism embodies the idea of consistent difference. A collection of numerous similar pieces forms an image out of the pieces’ minor differences. As the name suggests, pointillism is the use of points in a work of art. Like pixels on a television set, the points are colored (or not colored) dots of similar size and shape that work together to form something larger. Traditionally, it has been used in painting, but has since been appropriated to ink drawings, soup cans, and even corks.

While my mom’s current project is not a pointillistic mosaic (she’s currently working on a wreath), there are some great works of corky pointillism on the Internet.

Cork Art

Like any art form, the beauty lies in the process of creation. Since it would take years to collect the corks and a good deal of time to assemble them into a whole, the dedication to assembling these works is impressive. But let’s hope Scott Gundersen, the cork artist pictured above, didn’t drink all that wine himself. Perhaps the process of creating this art is something that could celebrate community? A local winery where visitors can have a bottle and contribute their cork to something bigger. It may be a cool project. And if people don’t feel motivated to create art together, maybe they could donate their corks to someone who could?

I don’t know about you, but I’d love some cork pants.

Cork Pants

Reading the Classics

It seems that as soon as one turns 14, exits middle school and enters high school there is never enough time. With the stress of APUSH, Chemistry, and Calculus constantly looming, your life becomes filled with assigned readings and problem sets so that in your few moments of peace you neither have the ability or desire to do anything but take a moment to finally breathe.

Therein lies the beauty of summer vacation. In summer you have time to earn minimum wage at the local pizza shop, see your friends and watch enough TV to turn your brain to mush. During the school year there is never enough time, but during summer you have all the time in the world.

Before high school, I devoured books, but once freshmen year started I stopped reading entirely unless it was for class. Even worse, some of the assigned reading was expedited by the use of Sparknotes and Wikipedia. So the summer after freshmen year I started a tradition, one which I have honored every summer until now (my senior year of college). Every May I choose two books, two classics, and read them over the summer. While it may not seem like the largest commitment I could make, I always seem to choose the thickest books available and having never liked an English class which I have taken, it is a rather impressive feat for me.

From Don Quixote to Crime and Punishment I have loved my tradition but this past summer (2014) I couldn’t bear to finish my second book, The Portrait of a Lady. The summer of 2013 I had a girly summer where I picked two classic romance novels – Madame Bovary and Gone with the Wind (insert groan here). Madame Bovary was first and I absolutely hated it. Not for the writing, but because of the main character, Emma Bovary, who consistently whined about her boring life and did nothing to “fix it” but have an affair and ruin her husband’s life. So when Scarlet O’Hara appeared on the pages of Gone with the Wind I was hooked. Here was a girl who went after what she wanted and did not allow social niceties to stop her. SPOILER ALERT So when things did not work out as planned in the final pages of the book, I was angry. Finally I had found a character I related to, liked and respected and after a 1,200 page investment in her she ends up miserable? I was not happy. This caused Isabel Archer’s appearance in The Portrait of a Lady not to be exciting, rather scary. Scary because I worried that her free thinking would lead to her demise and that I would end my summer disappointed once more in a tradition which I had grown to love. Because of that, the book remains lying on my desk with the bookmark dangerously close to the end. Maybe some night I will find the courage to finish it. Or maybe May will come and I will find a book that does not have a strong willed, relatable, female protagonist.

Sick Days and Movies

I’d like to propose a theory that has not been tested or proven in any way shape or form. To be honest, this theory hasn’t been around for very long because I may or may not have come up with it today while I was lying in agony trying to will my body to sleep. But it’s a theory nonetheless.

This theory? When there is an increase in sickness/illness/general suckiness, there is a direct correlation to the increase in enjoyment of any movie or TV show.

Note I said correlation not causation because if I hadn’t already had it drilled into my brain in high school AP Psych I had it again drilled into my brain in my (very easy) stats class last year.

Normally, today I would have one class in the morning, have an hour and a half for lunch, and have a 3 hour work shift after which I’d attend my last class of the day from 4-5:30. However my body was having none of that, so after waking up with a scratchy throat I went to my first class and in the course of an hour and half went from “ew gross throat” to “please help I’m dying.” To my chagrin, my poor attempt to use Panera Bread’s chicken noodle soup to nurse myself back to health did not work, and so I walked into my office a half hour earlier than I’m supposed to arrive and asked if please I could go back and rest, and she agreed heartily. (Side note: I literally have the best boss on campus. And I’m not saying that in case she reads this, because she probably won’t, but because it’s true, so you should all be jealous).

Only focused on how the wind was not lowering my pain tolerance at all, I shuffled slowly back to my dorm, took the elevator instead of the stairs, and crawled into bed. And even though I was completely exhausted from only getting six hours of sleep the night previous, I could not fall asleep.

Not only was I thinking of all the things I still need to do this week and how to accomplish them with the least amount of effort possible, I also was kept awake by the dull throbbing in my muscles.

And so, as I lay there, I thought of all of the times I had been sick when at home, and how yes, I felt horrible, but maybe it’d be okay because that meant I got to watch a new movie or finish a TV show.

One distinct time this happened was when I was in 4th, maybe 5th grade. My mom kept me home from school with just a normal (but brutal) cold, but she still had to go to the store and wouldn’t leave me home alone, so naturally I accompanied her to the WalMart five minutes down the road. As soon as we got there, there was a huge display in front of me, with at least three shelves all lined with one movie. This movie, which happens to be my favorite out of all Disney/Pixar movies, is Finding Nemo. I don’t know why my mom did it, maybe out of pity, or maybe she just saw the look on my face as I looked at the shiny blue cover of a movie I didn’t get to see in the movie theatre, but she turned to me and asked “Do you want me to buy this for you?”

Young and confused, I answered with my own question, “Why?”

“Because today is a special day.” I couldn’t see what was so special about it, but if it meant getting a new movie I was game, so I went and picked out one, a two disc special edition, and watched it when I got home.

Now, to be honest, I don’t remember how sick I was or how much I liked the movie the first time I saw it. But to this day, it’s one of my favorite movies, both to watch when I’m sick and when I’m fine. I can quote almost every line, and over break I bought myself a stuffed plush of Dory (I kid you not).

Okay, so I will acknowledge that this has less to do with “art” and more to do with psychology. Maybe it’s just this way for me, but when I get sick, cuddling up with a soft blanket and a movie works better than any medicine or home remedy. I can’t tell you why, but the connection still exists in my head to this day, because when I lay there in my dorm, miserable and desperately wishing for sleep, just sleep, all I really wanted was to watch Finding Nemo.

*Disclaimer* I am still very sick as I write this so if you see any typos or if some sentences just don’t sound the best, please forgive me, I’m about to take a shower and some Nyquil and sleep forever.

Sex, Drugs, and Performance Art

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One of the more recent documentaries on rock star legend Jim Morrison entitled “When You’re Strange” offers an interesting new perspective on the celebrity. Jim Morrison is an infamous figure, known for haranguing his audiences in between performances, frequent altercations with the law, and open admission to illicit drug use.

Although his band’s music was a popular, Morrison’s personal image struggled. Even though Morrison would self-identify as a poet and creative genius, the public felt his antics were uncalled for, his belittling attitude towards his fans arrogant, and his unpredictable, reckless actions menacing. Morrison’s behavior is not unlike hip hop star Kanye West’s today (Kanye actually refers to himself as this generation’s Jim Morrison, interestingly enough).

However, as the documentary I mention above notes, Morrison’s awareness of his identity being an integral part of his music was quite clear. One excellent example is the song LA Woman, and the famous refrain “Mr. Mojo Risin’/Gotta keep on risin’/risin, risin…” – the emotional and musical climax of a radio hit, and a song frequently requested live. As band members note, Morrison invented this phrase on the spot, and later revealed that it was an anagram (he just rearranged the words of his own name – like Tom Marvolo Riddle in Harry Potter).

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This particular moment of studio session songwriting brilliance is emblematic of a larger point – Jim Morrison’s wild “bad boy” persona fueled his band’s fiery sound. As band member Manzarek notes in interviews, “he would do things just to see if he could get away with them. To say he did them.” One might even risk the thought that if Morrison was aware of his persona and its relationship to his music, perhaps his wild behavior was in fact a form of performance art.

Jim’s antics on stage, according to his band members, could be highly energized, or highly dangerous – one could never tell. On bad days, Jim would consume so much alcohol and LSD that he would yell at the crowd, or pass out, forcing the band to continue without him.

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Another time, Jim blacked out on stage from drinking heavily and dosing on LSD and proclaimed, “I AM THE LIZARD KING!!! I CAN DO ANYTHING”. The Doors’ label later released a band compilation entitled “Lizard King” – concretizing Jim’s physical performance into a musical object.

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A Coincidence? I Think Not! or actually maybe it is. I don’t know.

During this holiday season, as my family was heading back from Jirisan, a mountain in South Korea, I was listening to the audiobook of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (narrated by none other than Stephen Fry) in the car. Never before had I even considered listening to an audiobook, but it was a fairly long drive and I get carsick easily if I have my head bent over a book whilst in a moving vehicle.

Interestingly enough, I was at the part, where the massive computer named Deep Thought, revealed that the answer to life, the universe, and everything, is 42. I chuckled a little. Not saying British humour isn’t hilarious – because there were other parts of this novel that had me laughing considerably harder – but I suppose the joke hit me with a pang of bleakness. Nobody and nothing knows the secret of life dummy. You are chasing a fools errand.

But this emotional pitfall quickly resolved itself, for me anyways, because I swiftly recovered by remembering that life may very well be, incredibly, shitty if we knew the answer to such a question. And by that, I mean shitty all the time. It is a hunch. Nothing more really. I may very well be wrong. It may very well be the case that if we knew the answer to that non-question, we would live like gods.

Yet, isn’t it the fact that we have both the inability to resolve such dumbfounding queries whilst also having the ability to conceive of them in the first place, what makes us human?

And at that very moment, as I heard the passage in my earbuds, we were passing by exit number 42 on the highway.

What a coincidence I thought, and how appropriate that such a coincidence would happen whilst listening to a book that features an invention called the Infinite Improbability Drive.

It was then that I thought, it is when moments like these happen – moments of pure chance, amidst all the universal chaos, when the stars align to make something like this to happen – that I get this jovial feeling that everything will be ok. That not everything will go to shit. Well eventually, things do go to shit, but life offers you small victories from now till then. Just don’t panic.