20.00 USD

Dramatic light gloves from the 1930s, fine mesh hands with a cotton voile cuff and frill, great design! no labels. Please check the measurements and condition notes below.
Item ships first class worldwide, free within US.

c o n d i t i o n
overall very nice, one glove is faded so the tone is different on both but still a great pair!

size: best for 6-6.5

shop previews on instagram @wildfellhall

★visit our vintage lingerie shop right here!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/theslipperie

Thanks so much for stopping by!

hennyproud:

RIP Omar Sharif (April 10, 1932 - July 10, 2015)

the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell:

Happy Birthday John Gilbert (July 10, 1897 – January 9, 1936)

Charming and classically handsome, John Gilbert was among the world’s most recognizable actors during the silent era. He was a wild, swashbuckling figure on screen and off, and accounts of his life have focused on his high-profile romances with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, his legendary conflicts with Louis B. Mayer, his four tumultuous marriages, and his swift decline after the introduction of talkies. A dramatic and interesting personality, Gilbert served as one of the primary inspirations for the character of George Valentin in the Academy Award–winning movie The Artist (2011).  x

I met Rachel Jayson at a party a few years ago and was immediately drawn to her steam punk/apocalyptic outfit. A musician, Rachel is an orchestra director for Lexington public schools, and a violist in two Boston-based art-rock bands (Jaggery, Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys.) The rest of the time, she's throwing together incredible garments in under 24 hours for her own collection.

She doesn't use any patterns or forms, and has never had any training. "It's 50% planning, 25% winging it, and 25% fixing catastrophes from winging it."

Rachel has one rule: never buy any fabric unless she knows exactly what she's using it for. "This keeps me from becoming a textile hoarder in my tiny, tiny Cambridge apartment," she explains.

"I'm a power-crafter. A maker by way of sheer force. I only make one thing at a time, and it's always immediately after I procure the supplies. My process consists of wandering around a fabric store (often Gather Here in Cambridge) until I find a fabric I love. The bigger/louder/brighter a print is, the more likely I am to need it. Then I sit in the store and stare at the fabric until I can envision exactly what it will be. Because I'm making it up as I go along, I often use unorthodox materials (I've made skirts out of umbrellas and patio-furniture-upholstery-fabric.) Once I've got the stuff... it's an all out sprint to completion. Usually within 24 hours of buying supplies, the garment is done."

This animal print dress took our artist just six hours to make. It is made of 6 yards of fabric, a big yellow jacket zipper, and 16 yards of yellow bias tape. The hem around the bottom is about 40'.

This skirt has a city skape made out of cotton fabric and sewn on outdoor upholstery fabric, which she notes is super stiff and waterproof:

This skirt is made out of an umbrella:

In all photos she's wearing John Fluevog Shoes, a queer friendly brand with a store in Boston.

Follow Rachel @musykchyk on twitter and instagram

How are we supposed to learn, when you teach us something new every time we have class?

Have you ever wanted to drink booze in an awesome outdoor setting on a sweet-ass Boston summer night while a super-fan spins the best Guided By Voices tracks of all time under the craziest glowing moon you've ever seen*? THE CLUB IS OPEN 7PM - 11PM** *moon scenario not guaranteed ** that's when I'll play the jams

This week, the Fendi couture show in Paris caused an uproar for its heavy use of fur. Former model and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot explains why it’s a battle we’re still fighting

Karl Lagerfeld’s fur-heavy fashion house, Fendi, presented its first haute couture show in Paris on Wednesday evening. Under the banner Haute Fourrure, the house used animal pelts and skins in ever more extravagant ways. Unsurprisingly, animal rights activists gathered outside, the majority of whom came from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation . Here the actor explains why she fees so strongly about the fur trade and why she wrote an open letter to Lagerfeld’s pet cat.

Continue reading...

On special weekend mornings, my dad would run out and grab a dozen donuts for the entire family. It always annoyed me, though, when my perfectly delicious strawberry glazed donut would get chocolate icing on it or sprinkles from one of its neighbors in that big, flat donut box from Dunkin’ Donuts. 8munkar solves this issue, acting as a perfect solution for OCD donut eaters everywhere (and even those that aren't!). The concept, designed by Emelie Johannesson and Oliver Sjöqvist, takes a whole different approach, and these donuts are a little different from the ones you might be used to eating.

“8munkar is a fictional shop that sells Swedish premium munkar. As far from American diners and usual donut shops you could possibly get. Our munkar has the finest ingredients and Swedish flavours such as polka, cinnamon bun, ballerina cookie and lingonberries. You find 8munkar in trendy areas in the biggest cities worldwide. Dubai, Paris, New York, London and Sydney are examples of places where you can enjoy our pastries.”

Each donut is packaged individually, paired with a wet wipe, and labeled with a number. The container not only keeps each pastry fresh but allows them to stack on top of each other in the large 8munkar box. A small handle on top allows for easy transportation, and since the packaging is tall rather than wide it takes up far less space on a counter. The Venn diagram inspired logo is simple yet a perfect representation of the brand, offering something for everyone no matter their taste preferences.

 

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Designed by: Emelie Johannesson, Oliver Sjöqvist

Country: Sweden

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OED Word of the Day: nobbler, n. A person employed to strike inattentive members of a church congregation with a rod

Sameer ud Dowla Khan, a phonetician at Reed College, has written an open letter to Terry Gross, which starts like this:

While I am a loyal fan of your program, I’m very disappointed in your interview of David Thorpe and Susan Sankin from 7 July 2015. As both a phonetician who specializes in intonation, stress patterns, and voice quality, as well as a gay man, I found the opinions expressed in the interview to be not only inaccurate, but also offensive and damaging.

You can listen to that interview, and read the transcript, on the Fresh Air web site — "Filmmaker And Speech Pathologist Weigh In On What It Means To 'Sound Gay'":

Is there such a thing as a "gay voice"? For gay filmmaker David Thorpe, the answer to that question is complicated. "There is no such thing as a fundamentally gay voice," Thorpe tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. But, he adds, "there is a stereotype and there are men, to a greater or lesser extent, who embody that stereotype."

In his new film, Do I Sound Gay?, Thorpe searches for the origin of that stereotype and documents his own attempts to sound "less gay" by working with speech pathologist Susan Sankin.

Several other people have suggested that I write something about this interview, and so it was on my to-blog list. But Sameer sent me a copy of his letter as possible guest post, and I think it covers the ground quite well. So here it is:

---

Dear Ms. Gross,

While I am a loyal fan of your program, I’m very disappointed in your interview of David Thorpe and Susan Sankin from 7 July 2015. As both a phonetician who specializes in intonation, stress patterns, and voice quality, as well as a gay man, I found the opinions expressed in the interview to be not only inaccurate, but also offensive and damaging.

1. Straight people convey sexuality in their voice too
We know from decades of linguistic research that all people express themselves in ways that can convey an affiliation with a particular group or identity. We know that gender identity, sexual orientation, regional background, socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic affiliation, level of education, age, political beliefs, and many other social categories can be indexed through manipulations of voice quality, pitch, rhythm, vowel quality, consonant articulation, etc. Crucially, it’s not just the minorities of these categories who use such features; majority groups make use of these indexical features as well. For example, straight male speakers of American English are known to have deeper voices than straight male speakers of many other languages; even prepubescent boys in the US have been documented to have significantly lower pitch than girls of the same age, even though the two groups are physiologically indistinguishable in their throats. This trend has been getting more extreme since the 1960s, with American boys getting deeper and deeper voices with each generation.

This means that inviting a gay man to talk about how his voice conveys gay-maleness is (scientifically speaking) just as valid as asking a straight man to talk about how his voice conveys straight-maleness, how a white person’s voice conveys whiteness, how a middle class person’s voice conveys middle class-ness, how a college-educated person’s voice conveys education, etc. But I can say I’ve never heard of such an interview from your program or any program; this is only something that gets asked of women, gay men, African Americans, immigrants, and other people who are in a socially un(der)privileged position. The questions that get asked are “why do gay people/women have to talk like that?” or “why can’t blacks speak (what we consider) proper English?” instead of “why do straight people/men have to talk like that?” or “why don’t whites know how to speak (any variety of) African American English?”, etc. There is no logical reason why we should ask the questions like the former two and not questions like the latter two.

2. There’s no single “natural” way to speak
Not only is it inaccurate to label minorities as the only ones who convey their identities through their speech, it also perpetuates a misguided belief that there is a “natural” way to speak, or a way to speak that has no “styles”. This concept of “naturalness” or “authenticity”, which came up many times in your interview, assumes that only some people (i.e. minorities) are adopting “styles”, deviating from “natural” speech in order to convey their identity. This myth comes up all the time with another linguistic feature brought up in the interview, “vocal fry”. This type of voice quality, which linguists call “creaky voice”, “glottalization”, “laryngealization”, or a host of other terms depending on the specific acoustic characteristics, appears to index a number of social categories in American English: younger age, urban background, and (lately in the popular media) a sort of femininity. Ms. Sankin’s technical description of the voice quality was not incorrect (it does involve a slow vocal fold vibration with often incomplete closure), except for the part where she said it is harmful or unnatural.

Endless popular articles and podcasts (and your interview) describe “vocal fry” as a deviation from a natural voice quality, that it can be physiologically harmful to the vocal folds, that it grates on the ears, that it’s a “style” coming from singers of pop music, and that it should be avoided in order to be successful in life. None of these claims has any basis in reality. In truth, these voice qualities are used extensively in languages like Danish, Vietnamese, Burmese, Hmong, and many indigenous languages of Mexico and Central America (such as Zapotec, Mazatec, and Yukatek Maya), far more than they are in English – and as you might imagine, speakers of those languages do not suffer from medical problems in the throat any more than speakers of other languages. (I have no idea where Ms. Sankin got the idea that this is causing medical problems in the US; that’s simply untrue.) Those languages are just as “natural” as English is, and the voices used by speakers of those languages are just as
“natural” as those used by English speakers.

I could, but won’t (for brevity) get into detail about how Ms. Sankin’s claims about upspeak, filler words, and New York City vowels could be subjected to the same criticism I just provided for vocal fry. But when you step back and think about all the things that are identified as deviations from “natural” speech–vocal fry, upspeak, filler words, dentalized “s”, a wide pitch range, etc.–you notice that there’s only one thing that these features have in common: these are the things that are not traditionally associated with straight white educated male speakers of American English. And there we have it: what gets categorized as “natural” is just how people in power speak. And any feature that deviates from that is given labels like “unnatural”, “uneducated”, or just a “style”. Any sociolinguist could have said that in a second, but Ms. Sankin only provided this stigmatizing view instead.

3. This harms our community
Beyond the inaccuracies and the propagation of linguistic myths, the part that disturbed me the most in the interview was that your program is highly influential and well-respected (for good reason), and thus people across the nation will hear these opinions with a seriousness and receptiveness that they frankly do not merit. Interviewing Mr. Thorpe, a member of a minority group, to talk about how he is disgusted by features associated with that group, how he underwent therapy to try to rid himself of such features, how it is a part of his “self-loathing”, or how his disgust can be justified by the even more stigmatizing opinions of Ms. Sankin, is the wrong message to send to gay people, parents of gay children, members of any stigmatized minority, or the public at large. No matter what strides have been made in the past few decades, LGBT people are far more likely to be estranged from their families, suffer from depression, and attempt suicide. Hearing that self-loathing feeling inside them justified on an intellectual radio program can only be harmful. This will strengthen a narrow-minded view that gay men (and other minorities) are going out of their way to just sound that way, implying that even in their speech, their behavior is unnatural and undesirable.

4. Why not talk to the experts?
It’s unfortunate and disrespectful to those who actually do research on these topics that no linguists or speech scientists were interviewed to provide an informed, objective, and non-stigmatizing analysis. Robert Podesva (Stanford University), Benjamin Munson (University of Minnesota), LeAnn Brown (University of Manitoba), Fabiana Piccolo (Nuance), Erez Levon (Queen Mary University of London), Ron Smyth (University of Toronto), Robin Queen (University of Michigan), Birch Moonwomon (Sonoma State), Lal Zimman (UC Santa Barbara), and Greg Jacobs (York University) are among many researchers who have studied the acoustics and perception of what is typically considered “gay men’s speech” and related varieties of American English. In the future, I would hope that these would be people you would invite to give an informed opinion.

I hope that through my criticism, I have remained respectful. I know your program to have high standards, and I only want these topics that are so close to me to be subject to the same standards you give to other topics in your interviews. I very much appreciate your time to read this.

Sincerely,

Sameer ud Dowla Khan
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Reed College

---

Above is a guest post by Sameer ud Dowla Khan.

Update —Lisa Davidson, a linguist at NYU, was also inspired to write a letter to Terry Gross.

Some earlier LLOG posts on vocal fry, uptalk, and the connections between pitch range and biological sex:

"This is, like, such total crap?", 5/15/2005
"Uptalk uptick", 12/15/2005
"Angry Rises", 2/11/2006
"Further thoughts on 'the affect'", 3/22/2006
"Nationality, Gender and Pitch", 11/12/2007
"Mailbag: F0 in Japanese vs. English", 11/13/2007
"Uptalk anxiety", 9/7/2008
"Vocal fry: 'creeping in' or 'still here'?", 12/12/2011
"More on 'vocal fry'", 12/18/2011
"'Sexy baby vocal virus'", 8/15/2013
"Biology, sex, culture, and pitch", 8/16/2013
"Vocal fry probably doesn't harm your career prospects", 6/7/2014
"Real fry", 6/19/2014
"Freedom Fries", 2/3/2015
"You want fries with that?", 2/3/2015
"Sarah Koenig", 2/5/2015

And a few posts on whose ways of talking get negatively evaluated:

"Those slurry, sleepy southerners", 2/25/2004
"More illusions", 8/17/2005
"The social psychology of linguistic naming and shaming", 2/27/2007
"'At the end of the day' not management-speak", 9/26/2009
"When did managers become stupid?", 10/1/2009
"Language diversity", 2/6/2015
"Un justified", 7/8/2015

 

Dogspotting resides on a very fine line between completely serious and tongue-in-cheek, but members are passionate enough that a schism formed earlier this year over rules. Dogspotter Josh Boruff’s stricter set of rules for scoring opposed Savoia’s more lax, original system. Particularly, Boruff wanted small dogs to be worth zero points, which some saw as a clearly discriminatory standpoint. The debate got so heated that it eventually demanded an official vote.

"... if you call yourself a distiller, there ought to be some distilling going on in your place of business—otherwise, you're just fabricating ways to describe a bottling plant." - Ben Lyon, Lyon Distilling Co.

Ah, vintage patterns….. so lovely, but rarely in plus sizes!

No, worries! I’m going to share a method to MAKE them your size!

Disclaimer:  I am not an expert pattern drafter.  Take caution when grading up a pattern.

• To demonstrate this method I’m using a one-size vintage pattern.
• I’m grading this pattern up several sizes.  Many sources suggest grading up only one or two sizes.
• This is just one method of pattern grading.  There are many different methods that can be used to resize a pattern.

 

Starting Out

For this tutorial, I am sharing a basic method on how to resize a dress bodice.  Basically, I am drawing horizontal and vertical lines on a pattern piece and cutting and spreading them apart to achieve a larger size.

These are the tools I used to grade up this pattern:

• Swedish Tracing Paper
• Tissue Paper
• Rulers
• Pens
• Scissors
• Tape

I like to use Swedish tracing paper to trace vintage patterns.  You can use whatever tracing paper is your preference.  The tissue paper is used for altering the pattern pieces and keeping it together after cutting and spreading the pattern.  You can use your paper preference for that as well.  Sometimes I also use a seam gauge, but I prefer clear rulers when I resize patterns like this.  Sharpies are also not the best if you don’t want ink marks on your table, but they work well for sharing this method with you.  You may prefer to use pencils instead.

The Pattern I’m Using

This pattern is a simple design from the 1950’s.  If you can, try to use a pattern that is closest to your size.  I have a few vintage patterns that are my bust size, but they are difficult to find.

 

Step One

Before I get into any mathematical equations, I start out by tracing my pattern pieces so that I have them ready to go.  For me, it’s important to trace my pattern pieces as I don’t want to cut into my vintage pattern and alter it.

 

Step Two

Next, I need to find my size on the pattern envelope and compare the pattern’s measurements to my own.  I find the easiest way to do this is write down each set of measurements and then find the difference between each one by subtracting the vintage size from my size.  I will then split up that difference, distributing it to resize my pattern.  I would not just add 7 inches to the seam line, instead I will divide that number and spread it out.

For this pattern piece, I will be dividing the difference between the pattern measurements and my measurements by 4.    This is how I reached this number:  The 7 inches I need added to this pattern in order to get it to fit me needs to be shared for both the front and back of the bodice, which are 2 areas.   As this piece is cut on the fold, I will need to break it down further to 2 more areas.  Adding those 2 numbers together gives me the number 4, which are the 4 areas that I need to distribute the overall grade among my pattern pieces to achieve my size.

Equations:

1. Your size – pattern size = overall grade
2. Overall grade divided by front/back + number of seams (or 2 for fold) = allocated grade

Example:

1. 48 (my size) – 41 (pattern size) = 7 (the difference/overall grade)
2. 7 (overall grade) divided by 4 (front/back + fold) = 1.75 (amount I need to add to each piece – allocated grade)

 

Step Three

Now, I need to figure out where I’m going to cut and spread my pattern piece.  The diagram above shows some basic areas to increase the size using my figures from step two.  You can add more lines, but just remember to evenly distribute your measurement differences.

Here is an example of other areas you can place cut lines.

I then take my ruler and add my cut lines, following my diagram.

 

Step Five

For this pattern piece, I have 2 vertical lines, so I need to share 1.75″ (my figure from Step 3) between these 2 lines, essentially:  1.75″ divided by 2 = 0.87″.

For the horizontal line, the rule of thumb is 3/8″ per adult size.  People generally don’t get taller as they grow wider, so this number is usually enough length to fit.  You may want to adjust this to your body type.

Equations:

• Allocated grade divided by number of vertical lines = amount to add between each vertical line
• 3/8 x number of sizes you that you have graded this pattern up divided by number of horizontal lines = amount to add between each horizontal line

I then spread the pattern pieces out on tissue paper according to my figures and tape them down.

Note:  I am grading this pattern up basically 3 1/2 sizes, so the equation should be 3/8 x 3 1/2, but I am opting not to follow that rule for my bodice.  My preference is to add that minimum amount on the horizontal line that I’ve drawn and then later adjust the original lengthen/shorten line to my preference after I am finished resizing this pattern.  I am short-waisted, so if I want the waistline of the dress to hit me at that point, this is how I would do it.  I would figure out what works best for you.  You have a traced pattern, so you can experiment with what suits you.

 

Step Six

After I’ve finished taping my pieces to the tissue paper, I draw new lines with my ruler and trim the edges.  And there’s my new pattern piece!

For a difference in bust/waist measurements from the pattern measurements, I would figure the maths out differently for each area and grade between sizes, just as I would do for a multi-size pattern.  I would either angle the pattern pieces to fit my measurements or draw lines and blend the measurements together.

 

For grading up the rest of this pattern, I will use the same basic concept on the skirt.  Of course this method does not take into account any additional alterations like widening the sleeves or doing a full bust adjustment.  This is just an example of enlarging a pattern from it’s initial size.  You will need to amend any dart positions on your pattern after enlarging it and do any of your normal pattern alterations.

Marie antoinette + hand fans

 

I use a lot of elastic to make lingerie. I mean a lot. It is used for both the upper and lower edges of a bra, the legs and waist of underwear not to mention swimwear and active wear. It seems like I am always sewing with elastic!

I have talked about the types of elastic and its purpose before but there is one thing you need to do after sewing elastic thing that you probably don’t know about. Ready for this?! Steam it.

Let me explain. When you stretch elastic while you are sewing it, you are stretching it out of shape. You may not have realized this and even have tried on the garment thinking it was larger than you expected.

Think about wearing stretch jeans. After a couple of wearings, they feel loose. After you wash them, they are back to their original fitted state. You may notice the same thing with your bras. Which is one of the reasons why they require frequent washing.

To illustrate why elastic should be steamed after sewing, I put together a small sample (you can enlarge the images to see them more clearly):

• 6” piece of power mesh that has 50% stretch in the direction of greatest stretch.
• 4” piece of ⅜” wide elastic (the length in-between the markings on the elastic, from 1″ to 5″ on the ruler).

In this sample, the elastic is two-thirds of the length of the power mesh piece so it needs to be stretched to attach it to the swatch of power mesh.

Following is an image right after sewing the elastic onto the power mesh  using the classic two passes of zigzag stitches. Notice the piece is now 4 ¾” wide (from 1″ to 5 ¾” on the ruler, between the markings on the elastic).

After steaming here is the same swatch. It is now 4 ½” wide (from 1″ to 5 ½” on the ruler). The swatch ends up a bit longer than the original length of the elastic because the power mesh also has stretch.

You may be thinking that ¼” difference is not enough to bother with but for lingerie, even ⅛” makes a difference in the fit and feel of the garment. This is also a small swatch. This effect can be amplified depending on the fabric and length of the elasticized edge.

Now you know to give elastic a good steam after you finish sewing it to restore it to its neutral state. Just be sure to only use steam on elastic. Never directly iron or press elastic or you will get a melty mess!

No one writes articles telling men how they’re damaging their career prospects by using the wrong words. With women, on the other hand, it’s a regular occurrence. This post was inspired by a case in point: a piece published last month in Business Insider, in which a former Google executive named Ellen Petry Leanse claimed that women overuse the word ‘just’.

There's a big fight in the UK over ISIS. It's not over how to fight the group — but what to call it.

Last week, Prime Minister David Cameron and a group of 120 members of Parliament asked the BBC to stop calling ISIS "the Islamic State." The name, Cameron said, would cause Muslim audiences to "recoil every time they hear [it]." Rather, he said, the group should be called by the derogatory name Daesh — an Arabic acronym for ISIS that also sounds like the Arabic for "one who sows discord."

The BBC has so far refused Cameron's request. But this is a debate that's extending beyond the UK. A number of Arab governments and France's foreign minister already use Daesh, for examples, a policy that apparently has irritated ISIS quite a bit. And some analysts here in the US refer to them by that name.

Are they right? Should we stop calling the group ISIS and instead call it Daesh — or one of its other names?

A short guide to ISIS's many names

There are, broadly speaking, four things that people call the group: ISIS, ISIL, the Islamic State, or Daesh. This is largely ISIS's fault; a big reason the group has so many names is that it keeps changing it.

When the group's predecessor organization was created in 1999, it was called Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which means Unity and Jihad. In 2004, the group's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged an oath to al-Qaeda, changing his group's name to Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn — or, as it was called in English, al-Qaeda in Iraq.

After AQI took over huge swaths of Iraq in 2006, the organization declared itself to be a state in northern Iraq, and started calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq. When it took a bunch of territory in Syria in 2013, it began calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham — ISIS.

Al-Sham is a difficult-to-translate Arabic term referring to a specific geographic area along the eastern Mediterranean that includes Syria. Some English speakers translate al-Sham as "the Levant," which refers to a broader region in the Middle East that generally overlaps with al-Sham. This is how you get ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), as the White House and others call it. Others still approximate al-Sham to Syria, which yields the same ISIS acronym.

The full name in Arabic is transliterated like this: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham — which produces the acronym DAIISH (usually spelled Daesh in English). That sounds an awful lot like the Arabic word "dahes," which the Guardian translates as "one who sows discord." ISIS kind of hates this insulting connotation, and so banned the name "Daesh" in its territory.

But it doesn't use ISIS either. Crucially, the group now claims to be a caliphate — that is, the successor of the original seventh-century founding Islamic nation. As such, it dropped the geographic identifiers from its name, and simply calls itself "the Islamic State."

The case for calling it "Daesh"

A French ISIS volunteer.

A lot of news organizations use "Islamic State" or "the Islamic State" for a simple reason: It's what the group calls itself, and accuracy is important. But politicians and governments generally don't. They've got some pretty good reasons: Calling it the Islamic State helps ISIS sell its message, and helps insult Muslims to boot.

The name "Islamic State," as opposed to ISIS or Daesh, is at its heart a propaganda tool. By claiming to be the caliphate, ISIS is implying that it's the only state true Muslims should obey: Around the world, they should pledge loyalty to the one and only Islamic State. This message is part of how ISIS recruits and thus keeps fighting.

Hence why British and French authorities are moving to the more derogatory Daesh, which doesn't imply that the group is either a real government or an authentic representation of Islamic thought.

"Islamic State, ISIL, and ISIS [give] legitimacy to a terrorist organization that is not Islamic nor has it been recognised as a state," 120 British MPs wrote in a letter to Lord Tony Hall, the director-general of the BBC.

I, for one, am a bit skeptical that anyone joins ISIS because of the words David Cameron or Barack Obama, let alone a TV news anchor, uses to describe the group.

But there's also an issue of insulting and stigmatizing Muslims. Using Daesh sends the message to French and British audiences that they should not equate ISIS with Islam. Given the large Muslim minorities in both countries, and their struggles with assimilation and intolerance, this is an important message. A group of British imams wrote a letter to Cameron last year asking him to call it the "un-Islamic state."

Cameron, during a BBC interview, called the name Islamic State "a perversion of the religion of Islam and many Muslims listening to this programme will recoil every time they hear the words Islamic State."

The case for calling the group ISIS

A Kurdish fighter poses with a destroyed ISIS truck. (Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

While it's Cameron's job to combat ISIS propaganda in the UK, it's the BBC's job to accurately inform its audience about ISIS as an organization: what it believes, how strong it is, and what it wants. And, yes, what it calls itself.

For non-Arabic-speaking audiences, Daesh is merely another unfamiliar foreign word. But "the Islamic State" helps convey the group's core ideology: It sees itself as an Islamic government, not merely another terrorist organization.

Understanding this is critically important to understanding how the group works. It's also important for understanding how it's being fought. Because ISIS is ideologically committed to governing and defending its territory, it needs to fight a conventional war rather than an insurgency. This point is not well understood; most people think of ISIS as something like the Viet Cong or the Iraqi insurgents of the mid-2000s.

At the same time, "ISIS" is perhaps more accurate than "Islamic State" because, despite the group's efforts to sow violence in other countries such as Yemen and Libya, its claim to statehood only really stands in Syria and Iraq.

As for the issue of whether the last word in ISIS's name should be translated as "al-Sham" or "the Levant" or "Syria," there's not really a single answer. But one reason many organizations have stuck with ISIS over ISIL is that the former is by far the term readers are most familiar with, as this Google trends search emphasizes (ISIS is the one in blue):

(Google Trends)

So while Cameron may want to call it Daesh, Obama calls it ISIL, and the BBC uses Islamic State, we at Vox will be sticking with ISIS.

vintagegal:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Wiene

The title ballet sequence took six weeks to shoot and employed over 120 paintings by Hein Heckroth and used a corps de ballet of 53 dancers.

We’re sometimes asked how the early modern recipe books we cook from ended up in library collections. It varies: some were purchased directly by the library, others were gifts. However they made it into holdings like the Kislak Center’s, we feel fortunate that they did. As I looked over the provenance notes for UPenn Ms. Codex 205, I saw a familiar name. The book was a gift from Esther Bradford Aresty, part of the Esther B. Aresty Collection of Rare Books on the Culinary Arts. Aresty (1908-2000) was a culinary historian and cookbook collector who donated her collection of 576 printed volumes and 13 manuscripts, ranging from the fifteenth to twentieth century, to the University of Pennsylvania. (For more on Aresty’s remarkable life and collecting, see here and here. Penn also holds Aresty’s papers, which I’m looking forward to digging into soon.) Aresty’s collection has already informed this project: of the recipe books we’ve cooked from so far, UPenn Ms. Codices 252, 625, 627, and 631 were also her gifts.

In her first book, The Delectable Past: The Joys of the Table – from Rome to the Renaissance, from Queen Elizabeth I to Mrs. Beeton. The Menus, the Manners – and the most delectable Recipes of the past masterfully recreated for cooking and enjoying today (1964), Aresty transcribed and updated over 700 recipes from the volumes in her collection in order to make them widely accessible: “The more I wandered around in those precious volumes, the more I wanted to share them with others” (9). The chapters begin with “Antiquity to the Middle Ages – The Delicious Beginnings” and end with “Late 19th-Century America – Cooking Lessons Well Learned,” each detailing several recipes and images. Aresty didn’t include any recipes from Ms. Codex 205, but it’s listed in the index as part of her collection at the time. She describes The Delectable Past as “the result of my adventuring through their pages.” Adventuring through the pages: what a perfect way to describe the experience of reading old cookbooks, or encountering older texts more generally.

Aresty characterized her method as one of updating: “I’ve tried to adapt the recipes in the simple style that made them such a delight to read and follow. … With few exceptions, they are all easy to prepare, and rely on a subtle twist, or nuance, or combination, rather than laborious preparation. Though canned soups and other commercially prepared products have not been specified, they may be substituted wherever you deem proper.” And she encouraged experimentation: “You may arrive at some individual effects of your own while using the recipes in The Delectable Past. All have been tested in my kitchen, but your imagination can take over in many of them. After all, the same recipe will produce varying though equally good results in different hands. Yours may be better than mine” (12). As I read Aresty’s words, with Ms. Codex 205 sitting to one side, I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit. I’m looking forward to more adventuring in Aresty’s collection.

UPenn Ms. Codex 205 begins with a handy table of contents of its recipes. I looked no further as soon as I saw #66: Beer Cakes. Beer Cakes? I had to try these.

This recipe book was probably compiled from the last few decades of the eighteenth century into the first of the nineteenth. Recipe #130 is dated 1791; #162 is dated 1801. The last page of the book details the diet plan “Mr. Whilby of Wallington Norfolk” used to raise his calves in the winter of 1777. (Now, there’s a sentence I’ve never written before.) There is also a loose letter tucked into the volume, dated February 1808, from “AB” to Mrs. Edward Browne, copying the recipe for “A Sweet Jar” that’s also written into the book. The first 109 recipes (including the Beer Cakes) are written in one hand, then the rest of the book continues in at least six hands.

The Beer Cakes call for “old Beer” – a very efficient way to use beer that might be past optimal drinking stage. Interestingly, this is the first early modern baking recipe I’ve noticed that calls for beer. I’m now curious about how common this was, so I’ll be on the lookout for more. The beer used would probably have been purchased; by the late eighteenth century, the earlier prevalence of home brewing had been largely displaced by industrialized beer production. (For more background, see, e.g., The Oxford Companion to Beer, ed. Garret Oliver [2011], and I. S. Hornsey, A History of Beer and Brewing [2003].)

I wasn’t the only one who found these Beer Cakes delicious, apparently: note the bookworm holes in the upper right-hand corner of the recipe page.

The Recipe

66. Beer Cakes

a Pound of Flour, 1/2 Pd. Butter, 1/2 Pd. Sugar, a few
Seeds, mix all together into a very stiff Paste, with
old Beer, roll and bake them on Tin Sheets.

Our Recipe

[halved from the original]

1/2 lb. flour (I used half white whole wheat and half all-purpose flour, about a scant 1 c. each)
1/4 lb. sugar (1/2 c.)
1/4 lb. butter (1 stick), room temp.
1 tsp. caraway seeds*
scant 1/2 c. beer, added in increments**

Heat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Combine all ingredients except the beer in a large bowl and mix with a spatula until relatively smooth. (You could easily do this in a stand mixer. I was feeling old school.) Add about half the beer and blend, gradually adding more as needed until you have a cohesive, stiff dough. It should be just wet enough to hold together but not so wet that it becomes soft and sticky. If it’s too wet, just add a bit more flour.

Lightly flour your surface and rolling pin, then roll out the dough to about 1/4″ thickness. (The day I made these was pretty humid – see: Philadelphia summertime – so I found that refrigerating the dough for about 10 mins. before rolling it out made the process of transferring cookies onto the baking sheets much easier.) Cut them out in shapes of your choice. My handy 2″ circle yielded 46 cookies. Transfer to lined baking sheets and bake for 12 mins., or until dry to the touch and golden brown on the bottom. (Your kitchen will smell like beer. Not at all unpleasant.) Remove to a wire rack and let cool.

*A note about “a few Seeds”: Other “seeded” recipes we’ve made have called for caraway seeds. I also looked at several print and manuscript recipes for Seed Cakes, all of which use caraway. So, I feel fairly certain that caraway seeds are accurate for the Beer Cakes. However, you could certainly experiment – poppy? Sesame?

**A note about the beer: I didn’t have any “old Beer” lurking at the back of my fridge – just as well, because I knew exactly which beer I wanted to use for this recipe. Philadelphia’s very own Yards Brewing Company produces three Ales of the Revolution, based on colonial brewing recipes. I was curious about how much the flavor of the beer would come out in the cookies, so I experimented by splitting the batch and making half with Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale and half with Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce. (I also made another batch with a lager, for additional experimentation. Same results.) I couldn’t really taste a difference, probably because the amount of beer in the recipe isn’t that large and the caraway seeds dominate; I definitely couldn’t taste the piney-ness that characterizes the Tavern Spruce. But I didn’t mind having the leftover beer with my cookies.

The Results

Favorite recipe since Maccarony Cheese! Of the other “cakes” recipes we’ve tried, they’re most similar to the Desart Cakes, which I also liked very much. But the addition of butter and especially of beer give these a depth and richness that can be unusual for early modern cookie-cakes. (They’re still beige, of course. Marissa and I have started thinking of this project as the realm of beige baked goods.) They don’t really taste like beer, but they have a richness and a nice crumb that’s less dense than the Desart Cakes. I’ll be making these again.

Esther Aresty, I raise a beer cake to you and your adventuring. Thank you.

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Yeah, Yeah...

Realizing that it's the killer-combo of being not only unimportant in the real goings-on of the world but also, in the ever-going back&forth of "it's almost done, this part is done" etc., both hard to keep up track of and in those details especially, really pretty boring...

but in my dumb mission to post updates on some tiny portion of the everyday work on the record (and believe me, although arguably it shouldn't be, it really is every damned day), Sunday morning I finished & sent off the final-of-many versions of the last song to mastering. Which means that in spite of me saying I was done working on it in Dec. due illness, or that things were winding up in April (or Feb..or 2011...) it is, from our end, completely as-satan's-my-witnessy all done and all off to mastering. More shockingly, I think (stress 'think') that it actually came out ok. And that's me saying that. And I hate everything I'm involved in.

An hour later I left on a week vacation w/ the family and although it's still sinking in, haven't felt this relieved, this unburdened & happy, in well over the five years spent making/resenting it. Put technically, holy fuck.

So what's left before you can bit-torrent the crap out of it from some obscure file-sharing site on the dark web?

- Well, it means that the demo-ing is officially over now and actual recording of the album can begin ASAP.
- kidding
- Ok really, so everything's being mastered now. That's where they assemble the individually mixed songs into the actual album format, connect the running order the way you want, dot some sonic 'i's and cross 't's that you (read: me) messed up making the thing in your (my/our) house, match the levels to make all of the tracks sound like they belong on the same album...that sorta thing. The mastered v. of it will be done by the time I'm home next weekend awaiting a thumbs-up approval, then that goes to the label and they manufacture from there.
- in the meantime some quick artwork will be hashed out.
- After the label gets all that in the next week or two, they'll set a release date and any number of fancy wheels start turning, not the least of which is that the label, having an actual record in hand, will be comfortable announcing they're officially gonna put it out and I can stop referring to them as 'the label' ("the wrens" herein and forthwith referred to as "Artist").
- then in some pan-geologic timeframe: record comes out, we tour for a weekend, we "go away", ill-chosen solo projects surface, vanity plates are issued, 60th birthdays are feted, reunion tours are scrapped, another documentary about the making of the documentary is announced, Kardashians come & go...the usual.

But yeah, really though, thank you as always for reading, for being at all interested in a next album, for saying 'hi' and for your patience.

the wrens

The Guardian’s Oliver Milman reports that when they rolled out a program that assigned email addresses to trees in a bid to help identify damage and issues, they discovered that city residents preferred to write them love letters instead.

In June 1891, a young couple married under an oak tree in Germany's Dodauer Forst. The newlyweds and the tree shared an undeniably romantic bond; during their courtship, they exchanged secret letters by dropping them into a knothole on the tree's trunk. Their story spread by word of mouth, and within decades, others began sending letters too. In 1927, Germany assigned the tree its own postal code. The legend of the "Bridegroom's Oak" was born.

The problem with making videos “central” to the student experience is that it comes at the expense of higher-order learning activities. More worrying is that students will spend almost all their time watching videos, as if that could magically elicit learning, without the hard work.

A woman, young, beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have power over men. But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Look here — Nietzsche says, “All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation.” That’s what I’m telling you. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities! Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!

Editor Lauren Clark said another goal of Take is being a sort of one-stop destination for creatives. "One of the challenges of being a creative person in New England is finding out what is happening around you," she said. "To keep up with what is happening in six different states, you would need to subscribe to a dozen or so local magazines or arts weeklies and curate your own list. Our goal is to be the new resource that seeks out and chronicles the newest in the region for the readers of our website and magazine."

The Masons of Amicable Lodge have tattoos curling out from under their button-down shirts. They wear giant rings and waist aprons that look like oversize satin envelopes. They wear ties and medals and amulets. They carry staffs. Each month, they gather to practice secret rituals in Porter Square. Once, they played in Boston bands like Slapshot, Crash and Burn, Sam Black Church, Victory at Sea, the Men, and Cradle to the Grave. Back then, none of them would have dreamed of joining the Masons.

SMILE TYLER GOD DAMMIT