Jousting at windmills, and other literary metaphors.
Hello again! Hope this missive finds you well, and you haven’t completely raged out because of current events. To ignore them would be…folly at this point, and I have adopted a coping mechanism in which I am informed, I have unchecked rage in private, and a bit of grace for those bending the knee to fascism because of their livelihoods, but less to those who want to cozy up to strongmen because of their own notion of power.
Anyway, thank you for reading, and thank you for still being here. Let’s get into it.
Black Dandyism, or, Pass Me My Cravat
Part of the weirdness in these times is the reaction to any expression or concern that is not our immediate survival or care. It feels weird to laugh at a show, to listen to music, to engage in a conversation that is not dealing with the current state we’re in. “How can you listen to this/think about this/wonder about that at a time like this?” Well, let me share a bit of what I’m letting occupy a few of my neurons.
The Met Gala is never a big thing for me, and amidst the current climate, a blip on my screen of cognizance. I became aware, though, of the theme for this year’s edition; the Black Dandy.
Interest piqued, I find that this professor’s work was at the center of this examination of the clothes and mannerisms and history of Black men specifically.
In this great lecture, Professor Monica L. Miller walks us through her book, and the many issues that come up with regards to dress and what that has historically meant to Black dudes. Even now, to look put together, to look clean and pressed and crispy, is a privilege that wasn’t overlooked by my ancestors. To be able to iron your one white shirt for church on Sunday while all you wore were overalls while doing field work was elevated in meaning. They found dignity in those clothes, and throughout our history here, have taken whatever they were afforded and made it somehow more than what they wore, but also the how.
Some time ago I bought a book called Black Ivy, an examination of more modern Black dandyism. In my review, though, I note that this book has a subtext that doesn’t point out the why’s, but ignores the how’s of what was Black style. Style that didn’t just pop out of nowhere. Style that is more than what you throw on, but how you wear it.
I may get a tailored suit with shiny shoes, and someone else may have the same linens, but there are so many things which set the ensemble apart. Cologne tickles the olfactory, while cufflinks can be a point of visual interest. Beyond ties and belts, we can look at jewelry in its various forms, from watches to rings, as an elect that can be present. Style can, literally, be down to the socks.
The Gala itself is May 5, and there are a number of issues this raises at this particular time; the sociology of Black bodies, the adaptation of the fashion industry to trends and connection with regular people, and in the shadow of this “DEI” hysteria which wants to remind people that non-white male bodies are not to be seen or respected except, oddly, in sports.
In the meantime, I suggest looking up “Black dandy” on these internets for ideas of style and history. Meanwhile, I’m going to iron my shirts and get my own style together.
Zine project, or brain chemistry fun
I have a confession to make. I am a chronic procrastinator, and a lot of you reading this are at the tops of your fields, battling imposter syndrome or your own demons, and doing great things and being decent people. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
As I’ve understood it, my parents’ exacting academic standards (“We don’t get Bs in this house!”) and my own perfectionism leaked over into my artistic brain, and since I can remember, I’ve been my own worst critic. Know thyself, right?
So, this has manifested itself in a lot of creative projects being started and abandoned, a lot of work that I’ve created that I simply can’t look at anymore. “I could do better.”
Anyway, I’ve had an idea to do a zine for a very long time. A personal, self-published compendium of stories and writing and drawing in the same vein as my people who are making music and putting it out there for people to hear, with no eye on profitability or reach. It’s the quip near the end of “High Fidelity”, the “it’s time to put something of mine out in the world.” Time to stop being a critic and be a creator.
Anyway, I got a major boost of energy and “I can do this” from my good friend Keidra, who, besides being an awesome person to know, is also a shining example of just…fucking DOING the damn thing. She’s produced a number of zines about subjects close to her, and while they may make her a pittance or nothing at all, I can see the joy in getting ideas and words and thoughts out of your head, to land squarely into the public domain and to be consumed by others who may connect with you or what you’re saying or how you’re saying it.
Anyway, I’m trying to fight this procrastination habit; doing these newsletters themselves is a reaction against it, a moment to prove to myself that I can push through.
Got six pages done to date. The goal is to get it done and printed before SummertimeChi hits and I’m outside. If it’s 80 degrees and nice, I will NOT be in the house drawing. I put that on everything I love, which includes being warm.
If I could make a plea, it’s for you to make something. There are plenty of zine how-tos out there, and there is very much a need for physical media in the creative arts. Things to frame, things to staple, things to hold are very much still needed, and in times where ownership of digital items is very iffy and nebulous, specifically as things tied to a live Internet connection that, say, can be cut off at any time. You on the Internet all the time? Damn shame if something…happened…to it.
So make things, read things, wonder things, write things. Which kind of segues into my next section.
Fahrenheit 451 is here
I was absorbing the news of the deletion and modification of government pages, of resources having to do with COVID and weather data and all sorts of research, and the call went out for people to save everything, to scrub websites and the Internet Wayback Machine for things that the government was purging.
And I thought to myself, that this was a huge part of the plot of Fahrenheit 451.
I don’t suppose anyone reading this has not finished this very important bit of literature, which I think is bigger than any label of “dystopian” or “sci-fi” it’s been tagged with. If you haven’t read it, go handle that, but the part I’m finding a similarity to is in the latter parts of the book, where our man Guy Montag meets people whose job it has been to memorize great works of literature and become the source of that work.
Put simply, those people BECOME that book.
Now, people are becoming THE digital repository for this information that they have. They may decide to put it somewhere for others to see and use, but it starts with them. As the information gets deleted, one “tornado nerd” may decide to save the atmospheric readings for the last 100 years of tornadoes in Iowa, because someone may say, in our reality, that there have never been tornadoes in Iowa, or, if there has been, that they’re not getting worse, and there is no such thing as climate change. Something oddly specific, very niche, is going to be kept from some goth chick in Fort Worth who just so happened to zero right in on the nerdy thing she wanted to keep.
Digital makes it easy for duplication of information; you have a book and I have a flash drive, then I can get your book, or song, or whatever, but the digital divide is also very real. In Montag’s world, those avenues of easy duplication were closed to him. Then what? Sit at the feet of someone who had memorized a book you’d only heard of, or one you didn’t get to read before it got banned.
It’s just not that far-fetched to think, in this day in time, when the libraries get closed, the groupthink enforced by your local Republican representative and their police force, the indie bookstores burned for “endangering our children” or somesuch, that someone whose reading of some forbidden text will be a valued part of an underground society.
Oddly enough, this is will a society where nerdom will be celebrated. Think of it! To have the capability to remember entire books and histories will make everyone a griot and a storyteller in their own way. But, alternatively, if you forgot how that Michael Crichton book went, and you just so happened to hate the guy who had memorized that book…
Hopefully these kinds of things stay fiction. But, in a way, they already aren’t.
Words From An Elder
“I’m leaving here with SOMETHING.”
-Denzel Washington
Y’all be good, and blessed, and may no harm come to you or yours, and may you find strength in the little things, may you find joy in those things you hold dear, and may you be buoyed by your people.
Thank you for reading.