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January 15, 2009

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I'm wearing three hats this weekend

All at the same time?

Have a good weekend, Susan. Hopefully, we'll get to see photos of the glowing eyeball.

no Arisia again. However, Lunacon is looking quite possible.

Have fun and stay warm.

magic wands. (I wonder how much interest there will be in the latter now that the Harry Potter series is done with.)

I wonder if the kids have stopped reading, or if they moved on to other books. Hopefully it's the latter. It may not be as obvious now that there is so much choice in the YA field.

Jeff,
Bustle ball on 2/28 in New Haven...

Serge,
I've noticed a dropoff over the three or four years I've been doing the wandmaking, but that might also be simply doing the same thing every year for a group of kids that has significant year-to-year overlap.

We'll have to talk. (Sandy & I that is).

We'd have where to stay issues as M. can still wail with no warning. Then there is the travel question. :(

For Lunacon, it will be a last minute decision based on how she is doing. At this age, a month can make a world of difference.

Jeff,
Best suggestion: grandparents in NYC are a great resource. :) It would be great to have you guys there. I can also ask around and see if anyone can host a baby.

I hope you have a great time at the convention :)

I didn't know that you did chainmail. My husband did for a while, and I'm trying to get him to do so again.

I'm wearing three hats this weekend

All at the same time?


Obviously, Serge, these hats are metaphorical, and even if they aren't, I would expect Susan to swap the hats in order to indicate to interested parties what role she was in at the time. I'm imagining the dealer hat as being maybe a battered black Homburg with a white hatband (possibly with a "Dealer" ticket tucked into it). The craft hat I'm not sure - I want to say it's a tissue-paper collage wizards hat with matching mask, but on balance I think just a flat workman's cap would be more practical. The party hat would either be a sparkly cone with elastic chin strap, or a Carmen Miranda-style fruit basket with Sparklers.

I assume that advice like "bring forth your inner hat" will not be needed. Have a good time!

Neil... Susan's inner hat is Carmen Miranda's? I expect that AJ's would be a chapeau combined with a clock.

We bring forth the inner hat most appropriate to the task in hand*. So, according to my recently devised classification of hat-events Susan's inner and, if so desired, outer party-hat is likely to be Carmen Miranda's.

I have not yet had a chance to perform double-blind experiments so treat this as provisional.

That said, a chapeau combined with a clock would be both appropriate and practical for almost any conceivable circumstance.

* Or if I were to get properly woo-woo about it I whould probably say that the Currents of the Earth, the Movements of the Stars and the Flow of our Humours call forth the inner hat that is our destiny for The Moment.

Have fun, Susan! I figured out a way to get the mailers to your PO Box, and they headed off, parcel post, today.

I will certainly come visit. And in case it's not too late to remind you, are you bringing me terrible steampunk porn? Because that's totally not going to lead to any awkward conversations at all, oh no.

Andyes. Stuff!

~Sor

Sor,
I am indeed bringing you the porn! It's on the packing list.

Serge & Neil,
My non-metaphorical hat for the weekend is my spiffy new top hat, probably with goggles on it.

AJ,
Yeah, I've made chainmail for years, but I'm phasing it out as a business because I can't compete with the large companies that have it all made in India for ten cents an hour. I suppose I could try something like Etsy - does it get you much business? Or if things go REALLY well at Arisia perhaps I will reconsider and simply shift to vending at cons instead of other sorts of events.

I should note that going to Arisia doesn't mean I'm actually going to be offline; the hotel has wireless and I plan to make use of it while I'm sitting around all day in my room!

Susan... My non-metaphorical hat for the weekend is my spiffy new top hat

Something like this?

Will you be driving, or enjoying a WiFi-endowed bus? Either way, I wish you a safe trip.

Driving - I have the stuff for the dealers room and party.

My inner hat is small and turban-like and made out of a pretty scarf, to wear for dancing.

My real hat is small and black and cost $10 at Target and provides a convenient cushion between my goggles and my head. I think it's a newsboy cap.

Susan, Etsy is iffy. Some people do great, I do so-so. The problem is that it's a very flooded market and it's practically a full-time job to promote yourself to try to get sales. I haven't had the time/energy to dedicate to that lately, so I haven't sold anything since... hmmm... November.

Susan... Again, a safe trip to you. As for my own metaphorical hat, I hesitate between a fedora and a fez.

Fezdora!

AJ... There is such a thing as a crime of fashion.

naked cupcakes (because every party needs cupcakes)

Dare we ask?

Serge, I have a straw fedora, just in case I have to spend time in the sun.

(I started the new med, Lyrica, today and have gotten so dizzy I can't turn my head -- I'm moving around carefully in the wheeled office chair on the laminate. I called Kaiser Advice, who talked to the doctor, who agreed with me that it's the Lyrica and I should stop taking it. Kaiser is closed Monday, so the neurologist won't know until Tuesday.)

Marilee... I have one of those too, for the same reason. By the way, what would your inner hat be? As for my non-metaphorical hat, this is what I'd like to get, even better than a fedora.

Serge, I think hats are one thing that changed when I had the stroke. I used to have lots of hats of all styles and wore them regularly, but now I'm mostly bareheaded -- even yesterday when the high temp was 22F.* I guess if we're talking metaphorically, maybe a 60s scarf/headband to go with all my tiedye shirts. Freedom, Peace, Justice. Political Action.

*And today? 12F with a wind chill of -4F. I stayed in.

I just want to note that I resist having my inner hat determined for me by anyone else. I'm not sure what it is, but I'll think on it!

Yesterday's outer hat was my newsboy cap. Tonight's outer hat is the top hat.

Currently I'm quietly ensconced in my dealer's room, making a little money (about 50% of the way towards my expenses now, which is pretty good for the first full day of the con) and reading a magazine in between sales. Sor has come by a couple of times, as have other friends, so I don't feel too hideously isolated. I will take a break at 2:00 for my first program item and some food.

Serge, naked cupcakes simply means unfrosted ones. But doesn't "naked" sound more exciting on a party invitation? It's so much more positive than "unfrosted."

Susan...

'Naked' definitely sounds more inviting. ("Pssttt! Want some defrosted pictures?")

As for inner hats, we'd never dream of determining yours. We were but trying to figure out which it was.

I'm glad to hear you're doing reasonably well at Arisia.

if I were to get properly woo-woo about it I whould probably say that the Currents of the Earth, the Movements of the Stars and the Flow of our Humours call forth the inner hat that is our destiny for The Moment.

Right; have I mentioned that I am relentlessly non-mystical?

So are we, Susan. Still, how about posting some photos of our Rixosous Hostess wearing her various chapeaux?

Hats! I love hats. I'm not sure how many I own, but it's probably around a couple of dozen at the moment.

Marilee, if you don't mind my asking, why did hats change when you had your stroke?

Yes, I came a bit close to asserting what your inner hat is Susan; please take them as suggestions.

My... conjecture... of inner hats is that one's inner hat is determined by one's inner state and modified by external circumstance, in much the same way that an outer hat is. For example, this morning while holding ladders and catching wiring around town, I was wearing a very dark grey warm hat (looks a bit like this but is man-made fibre); meanwhile my inner hat was more like a flat cap which I have associated with working outdoors for as long as I can remember. Now I'm sitting inside typing, I'm not wearing a hat*, but my inner hat is for relaxing so maybe a smoking cap. Hmm. I think I have an inner dessing gown to go with it.


* The shame! The shame!**
** Although gentlemen shouldn't wear hats indoors.

My inner hat might be a mortarboard with ostrich feathers. I'm still pondering.

Serge,
I'm really bad about taking pictures at cons, and I rarely have myself photographed. But I'll see how the party goes tonight. There are some great costumes on other people here!

My con highlight so far: the meep entrepreneurs in children's programming (where I just spent an hour covering my fingers with hot glue helping kids make masks.)

Clearly once I get the bookshelf post done (soon, sorry) I should do a hat post.

Susan... What's a meep entrepreneur?

As for hats... Inner ones, or non-metaphorical... I seem to remember a Bugs Bunny cartoon that begins with a truck full of hats, and the backdoor pops open, sending hats out to the four winds. Throughout the cartoon, they drift around and, when one lands on the head of Bugs, or Elmer Fudd's, they suddently acquire the personality associated with the hat, then the hat drifts away, to be replaced by a new hat and a new personality. I don't think I imagined that cartoon.

Ostrich feathers?

I found the cartoon... It was called Bugs' Bonnets. Watch it to the very end, which has a top hat, crossdressing, and a same-sex wedding. Typical Bugs Bunny stuff.

Serge,
That was hysterical! We watched it here in my dealer's room. I'd never even heard of that one before. And it is so fitting for Rixo! They are like the moobs in Larklight!

This started us off on a little video-watching that extended to The Three Little Bops and Istanbul. Both are lamentably short of plot-critical hats.

Carol, I had a two-sided stroke with a six-week coma. My brain rewired differently in a number of ways and hats is one of them. I used to wear hats all the time, even when I was the only one wearing one, but I realized after I'd been home for a while after the stroke that I just didn't care anymore.

Marilee: Thanks for answering. I've read elsenet about some of your medical difficulties, and it sounds awful.

Okay, party in progress and more or less working. I wish I had more decor, but the naked cupcakes are a definite hit. Nice crowd, neat costumes, but it's too dark to take pictures.

(And yes, I'm blogging from the party because my main function here is to prevent anyone from trashing the hotel room associated with my credit card. So I'm being deliberately unobtrusive.)

I have four outer hats, not counting a couple I never wear:

1. For everyday wear, in a sunny clime, a broad-brimmed hat rather like the one Sean Connery's wearing in the picture Serge linked to.

2. The hat that goes with the brass band uniform.

3. A black trilby, for formal occasions and gangster-themed fancy dress parties.

4. A maroon knit cap several sizes too large for me, which I wear occasionally in winter but keep mostly for the sentimental value.


My inner hat? I don't know. I'm generally very vague about the shape of anything in my inner landscape.

Susan... Glad you enjoyed the cartoon. It's one of those they seldom showed, like "the Three Little Bops", even in the days of my youth, during the "Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Hour", at 5pm, on Saturdays. (That was Sacred Time for me.) I had never seen "Istambul", probably because I completely missed out on the Tinty Toons.

As for your party, I hope it turned out ok. No photos? So it goes.

Outer hats... Besides my straw gardening/landscaping hat, I have a tweed cap that I wear during winters, except that I misplaced it a year ago, and I can't find it anymore.

I did take a picture of a very stylish steampunk who came by my room. I loved her leg ruffles. I want leg ruffles. I will have leg ruffles!

I also just sold one of my more expensive pieces, woo hoo!

I also just sold one of my more expensive pieces, woo hoo!

Yay! That's always a great feeling :) I'm hoping I'll sell something between now and the big gem shows in 2 weeks, so I can justify the shopping spree that I'll go on.

I note some similarities between Bugs Bonnets and a Daffy Duck/Porky Pig cartoon I saw while entertaining some small children over Christmas: Boobs in the Woods. To my relief at the time, it is family friendly.

Susan... I will have leg ruffles!

If said by Glenn Close, it'll sound even scarier.
"I will not be denied."

The leg ruffles were like these except in black and grey fabric with no lace. Are those not fabulous? I must have leg ruffles now.

Neil,
I think I like the moobs more than the boobs, as cartoons go.

Serge,
I didn't even know what the Tiny Toons were when I saw that cartoon. I just found it when I was searching for the song "Istanbul (Not Constantiople)" and thought it was hysterical.

Neil... it is family friendly

This reminds me of the mid-1990s, when some of those cartoons were released on laserdisk. Columnist Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle was awed by the crisp image, so crisp in fact that, in one cartoon where Daffy and Porky are presented with a laundry bill while travelling together, you can actually read the bill's items, one of which is about the cleaning of love stains.

Susan... Are those not fabulous?

They are indeed. Might you planning to wear them at the Hugo Ceremonies if you wind up being one of the ushers?

I'm reasonably sure that I will never wear leg ruffles! Now, I don't normally wear ruffles, anyway, but those remind me of Little Miss Muffet!

Marilee,
I am wounded to the core! I will never look like Little Miss Muffet!

I would have said Little Bo Peep rather than Little Miss Muffet. Either way I'm still flashing back to old-fashioned nursery rhyme illustrations.

Thinking of Susan as Little Miss Muffet or Little Bo Peep is enough to make my brain blow up.

Gah! You're all breaking my heart. Don't you think they're fabulous and kind of sexy? NOT Bo-Peep. NOT Miss Muffet. Especially in black! They give me vague flashbacks to the 1970s and bell bottom pants, or maybe something out of Elfquest.

I'm just packing up and getting ready to head home. Interesting con. I took a picture of some leg ruffles.

Of course they are, Susan, especially if in black. When they're associated with Ms.Peep and Ms.Muffet though, 'sexy' isn't the first workd that comes to mind. That being said, have a safe trip back.

Erm, well, no. They aren't even really Victorian.

Hats: I'm not so sure what my inner hat is, but it's certainly *fabulous* --something like one of the hats I lust over at craft shows.

I can't really list the sheer number of outer hats I have, beyond "nothing like the ones in the above link". The one that garners the most comments is probably my incredibly warm knitted and felted bright orange tricorn that a friend made me. My new sun-hat, which is very floaty and huge is pretty good too though.

Maybe I should make a photo gallery of hats.

Serge: Re: Glenn Close --was that from 101 Dalmatians or something else? It sounds vaguely Cruella de Ville-ish.

~Sor

A photo gallery of hats sounds like a fantastic idea!

Sor... That was from 1988's Fatal Attraction.

I think the leg ruffles are more Gothic Lolita than truly Victorian. They're also not really my thing, but I can see why some would like them. The dancer in Abney Park's "Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll" music video has pants that terminate in similar ruffles, so there is precedent for them in the Gothic community.

What I'm lusting for is a bustled skirt. One of my Twitter friends bought an absolutely gorgeous one, and I am so envious of her. I'm a long way off from being able to sew my own.

Marilee,
They've got vaguely Victorian ancestry; children used to wear pantalettes in that sort of style, though with much shorter ruffles. But no, I consider them more goth (but not lolita). They appear to be crossing over from the gothic/tribal bellydance fusion into steampunk. Remember there is some punk in steampunk; it doesn't have to be straight Victorian. (I would be less interested if it did, since I wear straight Victorian all the time.)

Since I actually liked bell bottom pants and was hugely pleased when the wide-leg style came back in a few years ago, they're right up my fashion alley. I am trying to decide if I want to do them as gartered like the ones in that photo (advantage: can be worn with different outfits; disadvantage: have to make pants to go under them or wear tights) or just build them onto the bottom of pants like the ones Finn wears in the Abney Park vids.

I met both the hats Sor mentioned at Arisia, where my top hat was also much admired by all and sundry.

Susan, that's true. But did you get your picture taken in the top hat?

Marilee,
I did, actually, and must remember to get the pic from the person who took it. Top hat and goggles and lab coat with a flamboyant teenage boy hugging me. It was definitely an odd sort of con.

I will work on the hat photo gallery as soon as I've gotten back home and have access to all of them, instead of the five or six that have been traveling with me. I encourage everyone else to do the same, hats are too good to not be displayed and modeled.

As for the leg ruffles...I haven't really an opinion on them beyond "I don't like ruffles" which is really my biggest problem with the gothic lolita look as a whole. I suppose I want a more elegant and mature look in my goth, though of course, I'm sure that's partially due to me being young and therefore wanting to look older (rather than part of the original lolita iirc which was so that older women could look or seem younger.)

~Sor

Sor... I'm sure that's partially due to me being young

Define young. Me, I'm 53 and still young at heart. ("Juvenile, you mean!"). I heard that. And my literal heart is doing well.

Crossing threads:
Cartoon-watching here meets the square dancing from the comments on the Gothic Lolita thread in this video. Those are some pretty good singing calls, too!

Ah yes, well, I'm nineteen and get about equal amounts of "I thought you were younger" and "I thought you were older" in real life. While I don't much care about my physical age, there is a little bit in me that really quite wants to be seen as old enough to hold my own in conversations and not just be thought of as a silly teenager.

~Sor

Sor... I hope I didn't give the impression that I'd dismiss you as a silly teenager, or as anything else.

Sor, I know how you feel. I'm 26 now, but I've been hanging out with older people on-line since I was 16, and I got dismissed a lot when I was a teenager, or had to deal with people griping about teens in general.

And now, I still get mistaken for a 16-18 year old, which can be pretty frustrating at times.

Rixo seems to have a wide and fairly balanced mix of ages among the regular and semi-regular commenters, and I hope that everyone will be treated according to the intelligence of their conversation rather than whatever physical age they might happen to be. Normally on the net no one knows your age, despite the spate of confessionals we seem to have here ever so often. I certainly don't care. I've seen plenty of people on the net act like bratty children when their age is no longer anything like an excuse.

Sor, I've never had the impression you were a silly teenager, here or in person.

Sor... AJ... What Susan says.

No worries on my account :) I've never felt like anyone here was judging me based on my age, as much as Serge might tease me about it. In fact, I'm really enjoying being part of conversations with a wide age range, and where I'm not the only one at the low end (or in the case of my gaming group, where I'm not the 3rd oldest).

...I hope that everyone will be treated according to the intelligence of their conversation rather than whatever physical age they might happen to be.

Damn it.

More seriously, I've known teenagers be wise and septegenarians be remarkably silly. Silly teenager wouldn't have been on my list of ways to describe Sor (or anyone else here, for that matter).

Neil:
I wasn't suggesting we should avoid bouts of silliness!

AJ... Thanks. Teasing is all this is about. Now, I've got to go out in the front and tell neighborood kids to get off my lawn, like Clint Eastwood does in Gran Torrino. ("But you don't have a lawn, Serge. You said it's all gravel.") Darn. I'm having another episode.

Hats? For some reason I've never had a hat strictu sensu, in my adult life. I own a couple of baseball caps (picked up at tourist trap shops), but no hats. As a lad, I wore a couple of my father's cast off jippi-jappa (properly jipi-japa, what Americans improperly call a Panama) hats in the bush. But I have something of an aversion to hats because my father owned a formal homburg, and I hated the thing. It looked truly ugly.

Serge: Hey, no worries, I don't get this often on the internet at all (or, really, in the fandom).

And feel free to tease. I can hold my own. :D

~Sor

Feel free to tease back, Sor. As you may have seen, AJ has made some cracks about my decrepitude and I live to tell the tale. Say, would you be planning to go to this year's worldcon?

Fledgist: people without hats are welcome too. Those of us who like hats will happily absorb any strays that come by.

I have just done some digging in my sewing room, and I think if I'm very careful in my cutting I can get my entire gothic-tribal-steampunk-bustle outfit (how's that for a combination?) done out of box fabric. I found six yards of lovely black wool and three yards of black silk plus enough random black cottons to do linings and such. So all I need to buy are trim and buttons and stuff. Woo hoo!

Susan... I can get my entire gothic-tribal-steampunk-bustle outfit (how's that for a combination?) done out of box fabric

What? No fairy wings?

I have just done some digging in my sewing room, and I think if I'm very careful in my cutting I can get my entire gothic-tribal-steampunk-bustle outfit (how's that for a combination?)

It sounds like a combination I would wear! There will be pictures, I hope?

AJ, you were a bit of a brat when you first started hanging out with us! You grew up as you spent more time online with adults.

Susan, sounds like a great outfit!

Marilee... I feel embarassed when I think of what I was like at my first con. Discovering the wonders of fandom. And my first Star Trek episode in the original language.

And I was 24.

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