by Jia Tolentino

The unflinching, prodigious Andrea Elliott New York Times story on child homelessness in NYC is generating a lot of talk already and I bet you've all seen it already, but in case you haven't, here it is. The story is centered on an 11-year-old girl:

Her name, Dasani, speaks of a certain reach. The bottled water had come to Brooklyn’s bodegas just before she was born, catching the fancy of her mother, who could not afford such indulgences. It hinted at a different, upwardly mobile clientele, a set of newcomers who over the next decade would transform the borough.

Dasani’s own neighborhood, Fort Greene, is now one of gentrification’s gems. Her family lives in the Auburn Family Residence, a decrepit city-run shelter for the homeless. It is a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers.

It is no place for children. Yet Dasani is among 280 children at the shelter. Beyond its walls, she belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America.

It's a long one (five parts; it might eat the remainder of your workday), but it's the length and the level of detail and nuance in the reporting that do justice for the dizzying subject. [NYTimes]

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“While my hubby, son, and I were playing Minecraft, my 2.5 year old daughter was playing in the playroom behind me.  After a while I noticed the absence of noise, turned around, and found this sight.  She had fallen asleep in the last position she had been playing in which happened to be laid out on top of my Corgi.  The dog is not very intelligent and just laid there with a 35 lb toddler on top of her for what must have been 20 minutes or more.  After snapping the pic I took the baby to her own bed and the dog acted like nothing happened.”

(submitted by Anna)

We’re very excited. Today Amazon launched Kindle MatchBook, which lets you upgrade your previous Amazon.com print-edition book purchases for select titles to the corresponding ebook versions. The upgrade pricing varies. Some titles have free upgrades, while others are priced as high as $2.99.

This is a great way to reduce the physical space required for storing books you currently own. Having your books in an ebook format also allows you to reference them while on-the-go.

A relatively small number of titles are currently available for upgrade, but more are sure to be released in the coming months.

If you don’t already own an ebook reader, our current pick is the new Kindle Paperwhite. The new next-gen backlight is very easy on the eyes.

Let Unclutterer help you get your home or office organized. Subscribe to our helpful product shipments from Quarterly today.

One of the highlights was taking the four dogs to this great park with a creek running through it where they could be off-leash. It was really beautiful.

I've got good news and bad news. Well, not bad -- more like disappointing. Let's start with that.

I entered this smoked sausage pizza in a contest recently. I didn't win. Now, I believe it was due in part to some seemingly suspicious last-minute rule-changing, but we won't go there. Because ninjas are gracious non-winners.

Now for the good news: Not winning the contest means I'm free to share all the how-to details of this pizza recipe with you!

So I may not have won but you certainly did.

Every Friday night is pizza night at Casa de Ninj. I know this is not very original but I can say that we have observed this tradition every Friday that we have been home for over 12 years.

Part of the fun of pizza night for me is that I don't plan it in advance, as I do with all our other weeknight meals. I simply make up the topping combination each week, based on what I have on hand. It's an end-of-the-week creative challenge I give to myself. One of my favorite tricks is taking some leftovers from the week and turning them into a pizza. Yep, almost anything you ate earlier in the week can be turned into a pizza (including salad!).

If you're skeptical about my leftovers, don't worry -- they aren't included in this smoked sausage pizza with caramelized onion sauce (although there is practically a salad sitting on top, with all the arugula that I add).

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Let's start with the dull stuff, because pragmatism.

The word "because," in standard English usage, is a subordinating conjunction, which means that it connects two parts of a sentence in which one (the subordinate) explains the other. In that capacity, "because" has two distinct forms. It can be followed either by a finite clause (I'm reading this because [I saw it on the web]) or by a prepositional phrase (I'm reading this because [of the web]). These two forms are, traditionally, the only ones to which "because" lends itself.

I mention all that ... because language. Because evolution. Because there is another way to use "because." Linguists are calling it the "prepositional-because." Or the "because-noun."

You probably know it better, however, as explanation by way of Internet—explanation that maximizes efficiency and irony in equal measure. I'm late because YouTube. You're reading this because procrastination. As the linguist Stan Carey delightfully sums it up: "'Because' has become a preposition, because grammar." 

Indeed. So we get uses like this, from Wonkette: 

Well here is a nice young man, Fred E. Ray Smith, running for Oklahoma state Senate, from jail, where he was taken for warrants and drunk driving and driving without a license or registration, and also he owes so much child support and his ex has a protective order out against him. We assume he is going to win, because “R-Oklahoma.”

And like this, from the Daily Kos:

 If due north was good enough for that chicken's parents and grandparents and great-great-great-great-grandparents, it's good enough for that chicken too, damn it. But Iowa still wants to sell eggs to California, because money.

And like this, from Lindy West and Jezebel:

Did you hear the big news? Men are going extinct. Really really slowly, and probably only in theory, but extinct nonetheless! [...]

Lame! RIP, dudes! Now, I'm sure kneejerk anti-feminist dickwads think that the eradication of men is exactly what we women mean by "plz can we have equal rights now thx." Because logic.

It's a usage, in other words, that is exceptionally bloggy and aggressively casual and implicitly ironic. And also highly adaptable. Carey has unearthed instances of the "because-noun" construction with the noun in question being, among other terms, "science, math, people, art, reasons, comedy, bacon, ineptitude, fun, patriarchy, politics, school, intersectionality, and winner." (Intersectionality! Because THEORY. Bacon! Because BACON.)

But the formulation isn't simply limited to nouns. Carey again:

The construction is more versatile than “because+noun” suggests. Prepositional because can be yoked to verbs (Can’t talk now because cooking), adjectives (making up examples because lazy), interjections (Because yay!), and maybe adverbs too, though in strings like Because honestly., the adverb is functioning more as an exclamation. The resulting phrases are all similarly succinct and expressive.

Which is to say, the "because-noun" form is limited only to the confines of your own imagination. It can be anything you want it to be. So we get comments like these, with people using "because" not just to explain, but also to criticize, and sensationalize, and ironize:

Skipping lunch today because sleep.

— Jodi Sipes (@jodi_sipes) November 18, 2013

Because #math RT @DonnieWahlberg: Why dump 600,000,000 taxpayer $ into HC website? Why not $2,000,000 in pockets of 300,000,000 US taxpayers

— Ryan O. Ferguson (@ryanoferguson) November 15, 2013

Putting Root Beer in a square cup makes it regular beer because math. I knew this stuff would come in handy one day.

— Tony Huggins (@homeless_duck) November 13, 2013

The Sun is about to flip upside down… but don’t panic it's all going to be fine because science http://t.co/pw0SlAYgJA

— Metro (@MetroUK) November 18, 2013

NSF cancels new political science grants because ... politics. http://t.co/U4ZEHEJMLa

— Sean Carroll (@seanmcarroll) August 5, 2013

So how did people start using "because" like this? Unclear. There are certainly connections to memes, as in 2001's elegantly straightforward "Because fuck you," and 2011's "because race car." The construction could also be, as the linguist Neal Whitman speculates, a shortened version of "because, hey, [noun]"—as in, NSF cancels new political science grants, because, hey, politics—with people dropping the "hey" while keeping the rest of the construction intact. (In this case, hey functions "like an adaptor, letting you shift from the ordinary speech register to this casual and condensed register.") There could also be echoes, Carey points out, of parent-child exchanges (kid: Why? Parent: Because). A comment on the blog Language Log also mentions the intriguing, though likely unrelated, fact that in Spanish, "because" (porque) and "why" (¿por qué?) are close to synonymous.  

However it originated, though, the usage of "because-noun" (and of "because-adjective" and "because-gerund") is one of those distinctly of-the-Internet, by-the-Internet movements of language. It conveys focus (linguist Gretchen McCulloch: "It means something like 'I'm so busy being totally absorbed by X that I don’t need to explain further, and you should know about this because it's a completely valid incredibly important thing to be doing'"). It conveys brevity (Carey: "It has a snappy, jocular feel, with a syntactic jolt that allows long explanations to be forgone").

But it also conveys a certain universality. When I say, for example, "The talks broke down because politics," I'm not just describing a circumstance. I'm also describing a category. I'm making grand and yet ironized claims, announcing a situation and commenting on that situation at the same time. I'm offering an explanation and rolling my eyes—and I'm able to do it with one little word. Because variety. Because Internet. Because language. 

Novelist Doris Lessing passed away yesterday, aged 94, following an impressive career during which she wrote, most notably, The Golden Notebook, won numerous awards for her work, and never minced her words. In 2007, when informed by reporters outside her home that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, she famously reacted with an endearing indifference that has since been replayed by thousands. Indeed, she later called winning the award a "bloody disaster." 15 years before that, in 1992, she was offered the chance to become a Dame—an opportunity Lessing, who was brought up in Southern Rhodesia, rejected with the letter below, sent to then-Prime Minister John Major's Principal Private Secretary, Alex Allan.

(Source: University of East Anglia; Image: Doris Lessing, via.)

24th November, 1992

Dear Alex Allan,

I am sorry I did not reply earlier, but I was in the States.

Thank you for offering me this honour: I am very pleased. But for some time now I have been wondering, "But where is this British Empire?" Surely, there isn't one. And now I see that I am not the only one saying the same.

There is something ruritannical about honours given in the name of a non-existent Empire.

And there is another thing. When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia.

And surely there is something unlikeable about a person, when old, accepting honours from a institution she attacked when young?

And yet...how pleasant to be a dame! I would adore it. Dame of what?

Dame of Britain? Dame of the British Islands? Dame of the British Commonwealth? Dame of ....? Never mind.

Please forgive my churlishness. I am sorry, I really am.

Yours sincerely,

Doris Lessing

If one of your cats and a stranger cat are having a catfight outside in the dark, and you want to break them up, shine a flashlight into your cat’s eyes while shooing the stranger cat away. That way your cat won’t see where the other cat is going and then attempt to follow it for a continuing beatdown.

You’re welcome.

by Amanda Lewis

As a rule, I don’t download time-sucking games onto my phone. Tinder is the exception. Back in May, when I first made space on my screen for that little red flame icon, I didn’t realize the latest online dating app craze was a game. But now I know. Last night my roommate, who met his boyfriend on Tinder, perched beside me for some vicarious swiping. “I miss this!” he said, as we watched the weirdos fly by.

That’s right: they’ve finally made an online dating service that is fun—nay, addictive—to use.

Like Zuckerberg’s original, verboten pleasure, FaceSmash, which asked Harvard douchebags to choose the hotter classmate between two photos, Tinder offers players a simple, visceral choice. Do you want to hook up with the person in this photograph: YES or NO. As a result, Tindering feels a little bit like this: NO NO NO NO NO YES NO YES NO NO YES NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES NO YES YES NO. And on and on.

The design is simple but the strategy is not. I know how much you marrieds want to know WHAT IT’S LIKE OUT THERE, so let me share the fruits of my obsession. Here’s how it works. 

KEY TERMS

Block

To delete a match, preventing him from seeing your profile or sending you any more messages about wanting you to sit on his face.

Calling card

A player’s all-important first photo. The wrong one will be immediately left-swiped. The right one will prompt other players to click through to see your tagline and up to four other photos.

Delayed match

To receive a push notification at an unexpected moment saying you’ve matched with someone many hours or days after your initial right-swipe. If a delayed match occurs during the day, a player will often worry that the new match is unemployed. If a delayed match occurs at night, a player will often worry that the new match is blackout drunk.

Instant match

To match with someone as soon as you right-swipe, meaning that player had already right-swiped you.

Left-swipe

To reject someone, causing his photo to sail off into the irretrievable ether, never to be seen again.

Match list

All of the cuties you’ve matched with since joining Tinder. Can be scrolled through during dark times for reassurance that some players out there do appreciate your ability to power-clash.

Mutually assured attraction

The guarantee that any person you talk to has already right-swiped you, giving each interaction a flirtatious edge, especially when compared to the desperate messaging on OKCupid, the previous reigning online-dating option for the young and the broke.

Player

Anyone who plays Tinder.

Right-swipe

To “like” someone, causing her photo to sail off into the irretrievable ether, only to be seen again if she likes you back.

Tagline

The open-ended area for text below a player’s photos. There is no character limit.

Tinder out

To Tinder for so long that you slowly lose your sense that a world exists outside your screen. Players have been known to look up and find hours passed, bus stops missed, bills unpaid and pets dead.

ADVANCED TERMS

20th century fossils

Players who suggest lying about “where we met” in their taglines.

Acceleration error

A mistaken left-swipe that occurs because the player is Tindering out at top speed and has lost focus. Often associated with persistent delusions that the erroneously rejected player would have been an ideal spouse. (Accidental right-swipes are easily rectified. See block)

Background check

When you text your mutual Facebook friend Jenny a screenshot of a player’s calling card and she admits she’s heard he really likes to pee in girls’ mouths.

Bad joke consequence, the

Because Tinder inputs information from Facebook, any player who once ironically claimed to be born in 1925 (even more hilarious than “marrying” your best friend!) now finds that age irrevocably attached to her Tinder profile. A surprising number of players identify their correct ages in their taglines.

Child repulsion principle

Most players reflexively swipe left at the sight of a toddler or baby, especially in a calling card. Few will click through to see your tagline explanation that the kid is your niece.

Den of Tinder

A party that turns silent, with everyone staring deeply into his phone, because one person suggested uninitiated singles join Tinder.

Downside of flight-or-fight, the

When the instinctive and instantaneous left-swiping of your ex regrettably prevents you from seeing what her stupid tagline says or which stupid photos she chose to show off her stupid new haircut. (You would think the algorithm would know not to show you a player with whom you have previously been in a Facebook relationship. You would be wrong.)

Expired match in the back of the fridge, the

That slick dude in the suit that you matched with months ago but never ended up messaging. Too much time has passed for starting a conversation now to seem natural, but you keep him on your match list to track how he alters his profile to emphasize his finance job and minimize his greasiness.

Finger error

A mistaken swipe that occurs because you have fat thumbs and no hand-eye coordination.

Flake-out, the

When two players agree on a date, time and location for a drink or a meal IRL but then someone ignores a confirmation text or both parties simply forget to follow up and the date passes and nothing happens. Occurs more frequently on Tinder than on other sites, frustrating older users who are not accustomed to the millennial habit of making multiple plans and choosing the best option at the last minute.

“Grindr for straights” claim, the

False, false, false. First of all, reports of Grindr being only for no-strings-attached sex are overblown. Descriptions of Tinder as same are even more exaggerated. Meeting on Tinder does not make a couple any more likely to have sex on the first date than meeting on OKCupid or meeting at a Starbucks. Why does the press always conflate convenience and promiscuity? See also limerence defense mechanism and mutually assured attraction.

Groucho

To reject an otherwise normal person because your mutual Facebook friend, that guy Brad who works with your brother, is too loud and wears cartoon-character ties.

High ROI guarantee, the

The more time you spend on Tinder, the more matches you’ll get, the more dates you can arrange, the higher the chances you’ll find someone else in the world who gives a shit about you. Or at the very least wants to bone.

Horizontal hallucination

When Tinder’s buggy code causes that wrinkled lady in the purple fedora you left-swiped a few minutes earlier to slide sideways across your screen and then vanish.

Indiscriminate narcissists

Players who employ the legitimate but obnoxious strategy of right-swiping every single person and then blocking the matches they dislike.

Indiscriminate narcissists, despair brought on by

The surge of hopelessness and anger that comes when a new match disappears within seconds.

Insta-tease

A player who provides an Instagram username in his tagline but keeps his account private.

‘Less is more’ principle, the

You may think all Tinder users are superficial, screened-out hipster millennials, but reducing an online dating profile to five photos, a short snippet of text, and mutual Facebook friends and interests helps a player make quick, open-minded decisions. Serial online daters scour profiles for irrelevant nitpicky details, but who cares whether she thinks nuclear war might be exciting in a certain light? Most online dating sites connect people who have interests or beliefs in common, but UCLA’s Relationship Institute has found little correlation between similarities and forming a romantic connection, although couples will identify and emphasize shared traits and passions after getting together. Plus, it’s not like we’re talking about passport photos here. Setting tells a story.

Limerence defense mechanism

Tinder upends the traditional user experience of most social media and online dating sites, where you browse a static museum of images and can linger on crushes without consequence. By keeping the profiles of non-matches inaccessible, the app prevents players from projecting their hopes and desires onto hotties who could care less. This, more than anything else, makes Tinder more fun than stressful.

Misdirection, effective

Using a photograph of yourself with an adorable Labrador retriever as your calling card.

Misdirection, ineffective

Using a photograph of yourself with Dr. Dre or Adam Sandler as your calling card.

Opening gambit

A line or stratagem used by a player to initiate contact. Can be customized but often is copy-pasted and sent out en masse. For example: “Well hi,” “Hey there,” “‹bouquet of flowers emoji›” etc.

Outward/inward disgust sequence, the

The initial horror that comes after you accidentally right-swipe a Geraldo-quality selfie, followed a week later by a new nadir of self-esteem when you realize the creeper must have rejected you, as you never matched.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain rule, the

95% of players who choose a calling card that does not include a clear shot of their face are unattractive.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain rule, exceptions to the

A small subset of extremely attractive people, presumably fed up with the shallowness of the rest of us, choose misleading photos of pandas, baseball games, sunsets or Darth Vader as their calling cards. Only the most devoted of players will click through to find these pots of gold.

Pivot, the

When Tinder’s crappy messaging technology jams up and you use it as an excuse to give that Rihanna lookalike your phone number and continue the conversation over text.

Proof of prior use

When a player includes multiple photographs with an ex to illustrate the type of match she is looking for or to prove his ability to commit. This strategy often backfires by making potential matches feel jealous or concerned the player might not be over the ex.

Rock bottom

The screen announcing that there is no one new in your area, which pops up when a player has flipped through every single potential match in her age range and location radius. Often accompanied by heart palpitations, sweating, nausea, and other symptoms of withdrawal.

Tagline logorrhea

When players who otherwise seem attractive write thousand-word tagline essays about their life philosophy of loving and living and laughing.

Tindernoia

The fear that every person you see on the street, in the drugstore and at the bar is someone who has rejected you on Tinder.

Tinder memes

Places or objects that show up again and again in Tinder photos, such as tigers, Machu Picchu, Coachella and cartoon mustaches. Extended exposure may prompt a player to recognize that no one is a special flower.

Tinder promotion

Semi-famous television stars and obscure snowboarding companies sometimes use Tinder to advertise. So just to clear things up, Lamorne Morris (Winston from "New Girl") doesn’t actually want to date you.

Tinder-tease

That bespectacled lawyer guy who chats you up all day but tells you to find him on OKCupid when you suggest drinks because he “trusts that site more.”

Thursday flurry, the

The burst of Tinder activity that takes place when the average player realizes he has no weekend plans, or at least no late-night weekend plans, or perhaps simply not enough late-night weekend plan options.

Weakness in numbers

When a player cannot accurately evaluate the hotness of another player because every single one of her photographs is of her entire group of friends.

Amanda Lewis’ Tinder calling card is as twee as can be: a photo of her running joyously through a field. She mostly writes for LA Weekly and tweets @msamandalewis.

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Birdy's blanket. I am still supposed to be making a small version for Strawberry.

I have been promising this sweaters-to-blanket tutorial for a long time. (Very slight Owl Moon reference. "I had been waiting to go owling for a long time." Sigh.) But this is the perfect, cozy time of year to hole up with some wool, a glass of wine, and a nice, rewarding sewing project. Plus, if you start now, you can make one for a very special Christmas present. The kind of Christmas present where you maybe have to say, "Can you believe I made that?" and redirect the person's attention from the newly unwrapped knife sharpener back to the blanket, because maybe they don't understand quite all what was involved. Be sure to tell them.

Are you ready? It goes like this.

Ben's blanket.

1. Get the sweaters. Dig through your closets, hit up friends and relatives, and go to thrift shops and hospice shops to find 100% wool sweaters. Lambswool is my absolute favorite. Merino is excellent. Shetland is finicky but will, with persistence, felt. Cashmere is lovely when it works, but also a bit finicky. Some percentage of angora is terrific, but do not go with sweaters that are even 20% nylon because they will pill. I speak from experience, having used them and regretted it. 100% wool. The bigger the better because they will get very small. Nothing that says "washable," because then it won't shrink and felt up. Don't worry about small holes, which will disappear, or rips or stains, which can be simply cut away. Cardigans are fine. (I even sometimes use the buttons.)

My approach is always the same, which is to pick a color family and stick with it. Purples, greens, pinks, blues. But you could make a motley one if you prefer. If you are finding fantastic and inexpensive sweaters in multiple colors, you could consider making two blankets! I would budget $35 for the sweaters--and less if your thrift store has a half-off day.

Reds, pinks, oranges, with a black border. One snuggle beneath, then we gave it away to dear friends, where I can still visit with it.

A note: this part--the amassing of the sweaters--usually takes me a couple of weeks. You need 8-12 sweaters, depending on how big they are, plus 3 or so in a different color if you want to edge it.


2. Felt the sweaters. When you wash and dry it, pure wool will shrink and get nice and tight, with all the fibers matted together so that you can cut it and it won't stretch or fray. However, this won't necessarily happen the first time you wash and dry it, so be patient. Some sweaters require multiple trips through the washer and dryer. Here's how:

• Wash them. Put the sweaters in the washing machine with a cup of dish-washing detergent. I know! But it's harsh and abrasive, and works well. I also put in a pair of jeans or two, for abrasiveness, and the Velcro paddles from this game, for added fiber-matting! I really do. Do a hot wash with a cold rinse--the temperature swing is supposed to help seize up the fibers extra much. Lots of people recommend putting them in a pillow case first, to protect your machines.
• Dry them. Put the sweaters in the dryer and dry them on high.
• Evaluate them. If they are still stretchy, or you can really see the knit stitches in the body of it, then they're not felted. Back into your washer. Keep at it. Some will give in eventually and others won't. I have even boiled sweaters in a big pot of water, which makes the house smell like a sheep in a thunderstorm, but I am just that devoted to my art. If you have sweaters that don't seem thick and felted do not use them. No matter how gorgeous they may be. I speak from experience here: a sweater that is fraying or stretching will have you ruing the day.
• Worry about your machines. Which may get clogged with lint. I don't know what to tell you. I do it anyway.

 3. Make a plan. Should this have been Step 1? Probably. But this is how it is. I pretty much do all my sweaters the same way: a 7 by 10 grid of 6-inch squares. This makes a generous throw blanket. If you are making a baby blanket or a bed blanket, adjust accordingly. Knowing that I need 70 (6-inch) squares is as far as my planning goes.

I made a baby blanket with 3-inch squares, and it was very cute. You can hardly see how cute it is, what with that baby plunked right on it!

4. Cut the squares. I cannot enough recommend that you get a rotary cutter for this job--and for all your sewing, actually. This is the one I have, and I swear it has paid for itself in inexpensive sewn items that make beautiful gifts. But it also means that you'll need a large cutting mat. And, if you give a mouse a cookie, while we're at it, you should go ahead and get a transparent quilter's ruler (mine is 6- by 12-inches) which, again, will make everything so much easier. You can do this with a pair of scissors and a 6-inch cardboard square that you trace around with a disappearing pen or tailor's chalk, but it will be much more difficult and frustrating.


I cut all my sweaters the same way: I cut the arms off. Then I cut up each side of the body and across the shoulders to make 2 piece that I can lay flat on my cutting mat. I then try to get as many 6- by 12-inch pieces out of them as I can by pressing and holding the cutting mat on the sweater and cutting around it with the rotary cutter. (I cut these in half.) Eventually, I cut 6-inch squares from what's left and, finally, I cut the sleeves open and get what I can from them. I don't worry too much about seams running through my squares, as long as they're not too close to the edge, which can make sewing hard later. I also happily use ribbed parts, assuming they have felted well, which they are inclined not to do. If they aren't felted, don't use them. Pockets are fun to include.

pocket detail

Cut all the sweaters (and then some) until you have enough squares.


5. Arrange your squares. This is the fun part.

I would never! Oh, wait. I did. (This is a different blanket.)

I lay them all out on the floor, and then the kitty runs through them and I curse at him and tip the wine bottle to see if there's any fucking wine left, which there's not, while the kids make fun of me for being such a weird mix of crafty and crass.


Take your time, because this is the blanket you're going to make! I usually go for random, but kind of spaced out evenly, if that makes sense. Usually there's more of one thing than another, and it's all a bit of a challenge, getting it to look right. If there's a color or pattern you are turning out not to like, now is the time to be honest with yourself, even if it means another trip to the Salvation Army.


6. Pile your columns. This has taken me a long time to codify, but I really think this method works to keep the squares organized and in the design you arranged: Pile all the squares from one column, bottom to top, keeping them in order, and ending with the top square on top. Label it with a piece of tape that says which column number it is, starting with 1 at the far left. (As you can see, in the spread-out version above, I number my columns with tape before i even pile them.)

7. Stitch the squares together. I do this on a sewing machine, and can't quite imagine doing it by hand. What you'll want to do is set your machine to do a nice wide zigzag and then, this is kind of crazy and fun, you're simply going to hold two squares with their edges bumped up against each other, and you're going to zigzag them together, doing a little back stitch at the start and end to secure the thread. (If one piece is much thinner than another, you can overlap them the teeniest bit as you're sewing.) You won't want, or be able, to pin them--which means that you'll be able to adjust a little as you go--pulling this square a little, or pushing that one, so that they stay lined up.


Does that make sense? So, for each column, you're going to start with the top square and sew the square underneath it (in the pile) to the right edge of it (back stitch, cut the thread), then the next square underneath (in the pile) to the right edge of that second one (back stitch, cut the thread), etc. until you've got your whole column sewn together. You have to do a lot of stopping and starting, but that's okay, right? Take your time, breathe deeply, and relax.

You'll do this for each column, until you've got 7 columns of ten sewn-together squares (or whatever numbers you chose). Arrange these on the floor again, in the correct order. Knot and trim extra threads at this point so they don't get caught in your machine when you stitch the columns together.


8. Stitch the columns together. Sew top to bottom, starting by stitching column 2 to the right of column 1, then 3 to 2, etc. This is my favorite part, because you get to do nice, long swaths of stitching. Adjust as you go so that the rows end up lining up more or less. Back stitch a little at the beginnings and ends to secure the stitching.

9. Fuss with it. Lay your blanket back out and knot and /or trim all the stray threads (there will be many). Peel off the tape. Hold it up to the light to determine if there are any holes or gaps in your stitching, and sew them up on the machine. (Neatness is not my great strength.) Decide if you want to make a border for it or if you've had about all you can take at this point.


10. Make a border. You might as well. I often do this in black, since it's easy to find a lot of black sweaters, but Birdy wanted hers to match. I cut two-inch-wide strips, as long as I can, from the sweaters and sleeves and scraps, then sew these together, then cut them again to the right size for each side of the blanket. You will need to do some math, so ask a child to help you. You'll need two 42-inch lengths (7 X 6) plus 2 64-inch lengths ((10 X 6) + (2 X 2)). Which is a lot of fucking border, so maybe skip it. Sew the border on the same way you sewed the rest of it, overlapping very slightly if there are places where the edge is uneven.

11. Feel wildly satisfied. You really will, I'm not kidding. In part because you've made such a lovely spot for the cat to sleep.

Did you want to use leftover scraps to make a pillow? Or have you kind of, you know, had enough?

We machine wash and dry ours, on the assumption that whatever is going to happen has happened already, but you could be more careful, if you like!

Have fun, if you make one! Or enjoy *not* making one.

xo

How not to do it: home page of the NYT just now. [And see intriguing update below.]

Careful students can follow along as we review what's wrong here:

1) "Necessary 60-vote threshold" implies some regular Constitutional requirement, like the super-majorities necessary for impeachment trials or treaty approval. In fact incessant use of the filibuster is a recent, shift-of-norms phenomenon -- and one of the goals of its practitioners is "defining obstructionism down" precisely so that its abuse will be treated as "necessary" and routine. 

2) "Fell short" and "stalled" are intransitive verbs suggesting a weakness, failure, or insufficiency. In fact the nomination received a clear majority of 56 Senators, who as it happens probably represent about two-thirds of the population, but it was actively blocked rather than petering out on its own. To be fair, the headline uses the word "reject." 

Courtesy of the WaPo, here is a how-to illustration of the way a lead story can note these realities:

 On point #1, we've got the plain word "filibuster." On point #2, we've got the transitive verbs "blocked" and "denied."

What's really going on here? Below you see the current lineup of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, usually considered to be the most important appeals court not simply because of its jurisdiction over many Federal regulatory cases but also because so many Supreme Court nominees come from there. 

You'll see that the twice-elected Bill Clinton has three appointees on the court, as does the twice-elected George W. Bush. The single-term George H.W. Bush has one appointee, as does the current, twice-elected Barack Obama. The Republican filibuster strategy is an attempt to stall as long as possible before allowing Obama to fill those vacant seats. It's a kind of reverse court-packing, as Garrett Epps has explained; by extension, it's an attempt to spread abuse of the minority-blocking power in the Senate to another branch of government. Agree with the policy or disagree, but call it what it is. Please.

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I take it back! Or something. Two minutes after posting, as I check the NYT story again to add its URL link, I see this quite hearteningly different first paragraph:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s latest choice to fill one of the vacancies on a powerful appeals court went down in a filibuster on Tuesday as Senate Republicans blocked another White House nominee — the third in two weeks — and deepened a growing conflict with Democrats over presidential appointments.

 On the one hand, the previous version was up there for quite a while. Its posting time said 8:06pm; I did a screen grab three+ hours later. On the other hand, it's different now. However this came about, thanks.

by Jia Tolentino

Via the Rumpus, here's the beginning of a beautiful graphic adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by illustrator Julian Peters. (The title page, and the panel with the yellow smoke that "rubs its muzzle on the windowpanes/ licked its tongue into the corners of the evening" are especially beautiful.)

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If Ariel had normal-sized eyes, we might be less endeared to her—forced to focus more immediately on her disconcerting scaly tail.

If Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg were a Disney Princess, as one artist recently rendered her, she'd have no wrinkles, a smirk on her face, and some décolletage.

And when Pixar redesigned Merida, the star of Brave, in May, she got a smaller waist and bigger hair.

The debate over the merits of Disney princesses is as old as time, but it's fairly undeniable that the animated films' female leads tend to look like a "pretty girl" cliche. 

There's some research behind why the princess formula is so effective: Enlarged eyes, tiny chins, and short noses make them look more like babies, which creates an air of innocence and vulnerability. There's evidence that adults who have such "babyfacedness" characteristics are seen as less smart, more congenial, and less likely to be guilty of crimes. 

It's true that female Disney characters' personalities have become bolder and more adventurous over time, but they still look comically homogenous, a fact highlighted by images such as this, created by the Tumblr MoopFlop and depicting the leads of the Disney movies Tangled and Frozen:

Brenda Chapman, the creator and co-director of the 2012 Pixar movie Brave, said she came under fire for attempting to make certain characters more realistic-looking.

“At one point they thought I was making the mom too big, her bum too big,” she told Time. “And that was frustrating for me because I wanted her to feel like a real middle aged woman.” 

So what explains the company's emphasis on hackneyed female attractiveness?

In his extensive Disney history, Tinker Belles and Evil Queens, Sean Griffin describes Disney's transformation from a churner of slapstick, often raunchy, cartoon shorts to a producer of values-oriented animated features as it chased after box-office success.

One of the earliest Disney heroines was, in fact, anything but a fair damsel who dreamed only of taking a pumpkin-coach ride with her prince.

The star of Disney's 1920s cartoons was a spunky, live-action 5-year-old named Alice, played by Virginia Davis, who was constantly getting into scrapes and challenging authority. Her antics were captured on film and then spliced into a cartoon world filled with zany, cartoon friends. (Think proto-Blue's Clues).

In the 1924 cartoon Alice Gets in Dutch, for example, the heroine daydreams about battling her dour schoolteacher, Griffin notes. In 1925's Alice the Jail Bird, she goes to jail for stealing a pie and takes part in a prison riot.

Disney often infused these films with "butt humor," as Griffin puts it, with characters sustaining multiple gluteal injuries in a single cartoon.

In the 1930s, however, the country's new Production Code pushed studios to tone down the slapstick and appeal more to virtuous scruples.

Magazines ran "Family Movie Guides" and admonished parents against allowing children to see movies that are "harmful," Griffin notes. Disney seemed happy to fill this new niche, and journalists began to promote the company as a reliable source of family entertainment.

"By 1935, the conversation was absolute, and Walt was considered America's mythmaker in residence," Griffin writes.

The wholesome aesthetic permeated Disney offices, too, as the company tried to brand itself as purer than the rest of Hollywood. A 1936 Harper's Bazaar article noted "Law and Order reign[ed] there, without seeming unattractive."

The dress code mandated that men wear coats and ties, and it prohibited pants for women. Disney didn't employ women in creative work, only in "inking and painting" the cartoons after they're drawn. (Some researchers point out, though, that this was not inconsistent with hiring practices at the time.) At Disney, women were physically separated from the men, and their department was nicknamed the "Nunnery." 

A 1937 promotional film for the Disney animation studio describes "hundreds of pretty girls" toiling "in a comfortable building all their own," coloring and tracing using sheets of transparent celluloid.

As a worker, Disney biographer Leonard Mosley wrote, "you did not carouse, raise your voice off the set, look lecherously at a member of the opposite sex, or in fact, indulge in any kind of hanky-panky."

At the same time, Disney began to promote his "illusion of life," a more realistic style of animation. It was both the moral code and this new realism that drove the company's "Golden Age" features, Griffin writes, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, Pinocchio in 1940, and Bambi in 1942.

Walt Disney attempted to reinforce traditional American values through his work, and his female characters became more traditional—in both actions and appearance—as a result.

In the 40s and 50s, Disney also began creating educational cartoons such as The Story of Menstruation, which was geared toward pre-teen girls watching in school. As Janice Delaney writes in The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, the company's sterile culture prevailed over the messiness of reality in that case, too:

"In the Disney world, the menstrual flow is not blood read but snow white. The vaginal drawings look more like a cross section of a kitchen sink than the inside and outside of woman's body. There are no hymen, no clitoris, no labia; all focus is on the little nest and its potentially lush lining."

Although smaller Disney productions in the 1940s and early 50s experimented with edgier material, including sex and comedic violence, what brought it continued commercial success were still hereto-normative family movies with dainty heroines, such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, at their center. By the time he died in 1966, Walt Disney had solidified his reputation as "The Greatest Pedagogue of Them All," as the Los Angeles Times put it.

In recent years, Disney, and its subsidiary Pixar, seem to have largely dropped the "illusion of life" directive in favor of characters that simply look more visually appealing when animated.

A study of 21 animated Disney movies published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology in 2010 found that, "Attractive characters displayed higher intelligence, lower aggressiveness, and greater moral virtue. Moreover, physically attractive characters were more likely to achieve positive life outcomes at the film's end."

What's more, the company has continued to focus mostly on morally unobjectionable, centuries-old fairy tales, whose plots already emphasize female beauty as a positive characteristic. The Grimm brothers regularly peppered their stories with phrases like, "so beautiful the entire world considered her a miracle." One 2003 study in the journal Gender and Society found that fairy tales that promote female beauty are the ones that have been reproduced the most frequently and thus have survived into modernity. You can partly thank Disney for that.

I have spent a spectacular amount of time over the last seven years lying to you, pretending to care about soup when I, in fact, did not. I had good intentions, I mean, I get it: Soup is Healthy and Wholesome and Good For You and Warming and Comforting and all sorts of other Hallmark card-like sentiments that I’m not immune to the charms of, but the fact is, I wasn’t a soup person (so many spoonfuls exactly like the one before until I died of boredom may have been a description I’d have used, if I was being honest) and most of the soup recipes I shared here stemmed from attempts at changing this, with varying degrees of success. Most were only temporary.

Yet despite my repeated efforts at recipe-based solutions, it was not a specific combination of ingredients that turned me into the not-even-faking-it soup booster I am today, but two structural shifts. The first was an appreciation of garnishes, and I don’t mean a flurry of chopped parsley, but real, substantial ones, like crisped chickpeas, broiled cheddar, toasted cumin seed crema, and baked potato fixings. With these things half-stirred into the soup below them, no two spoonfuls were exactly alike again, and I felt I’d been released from soup monotony.

... Read the rest of perfect, uncluttered chicken stock on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to perfect, uncluttered chicken stock | 324 comments to date | see more: Photo, Poultry, Slow Cooker, Soup

    Behold the big hairy ball.  The Pièce de résistance  of my fall flower arrangement. Part of the reason I love the town I live in and this time of year is the farmer’s market.  I featured it a […]

Late-1946, English novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner received a Christmas present from friend and fellow writer, Alyse Gregory, that was to inspire what must surely be one of the most exquisite thank you letters ever written. The gift in question was an empty matchbox; Warner's magnificent response can be read below.

(Source: The Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner; Image: Sylvia Townsend Warner, via NYRB Classics.)

23:xii:1946

Dearest Alyse,

Usually one begins a thank-letter by some graceless comparison, by saying, I have never been given such a very scarlet muffler, or, This is the largest horse I have ever been sent for Christmas. But your matchbox is a nonpareil, for never in my life have I been given a matchbox. Stamps, yes, drawing-pins, yes, balls of string, yes, yes, menacingly too often; but never a matchbox. Now that it has happened I ask myself why it has never happened before. They are such charming things, neat as wrens, and what a deal of ingenuity and human artfulness has gone into their construction; for if they were like the ordinary box with a lid they would not be one half so convenient. This one though is especially neat, charming, and ingenious, and the tray slides in and out as though Chippendale had made it.

But what I like best of all about my matchbox is that it is an empty one. I have often thought how much I should enjoy being given an empty house in Norway, what pleasure it would be to walk into those bare wood-smelling chambers, walls, floor, ceiling, all wood, which is after all the natural shelter of man, or at any rate the most congenial. And when I opened your matchbox which is now my matchbox and saw that beautiful clean sweet-smelling empty rectangular expanse it was exactly as though my house in Norway had come true; with the added advantage of being just the right size to carry in my hand. I shut my imagination up in it instantly, and it is still sitting there, listening to the wind in the firwood outside. Sitting there in a couple of days time I shall hear the Lutheran bell calling me to go and sing Lutheran hymns while the pastor's wife gazes abstractedly at her husband in a bower of evergreen while she wonders if she remembered to put pepper in the goose-stuffing; but I shan't go, I shall be far too happy sitting in my house that Alyse gave me for Christmas.

Oh, I must tell you I have finished my book—begun in 1941 and a hundred times imperilled but finished at last. So I can give an undivided mind to enjoying my matchbox.

(Signed)

P.S. There is still so much to say...carried away by my delight in form and texture I forgot to praise the picture on the back. I have never seen such an agreeable likeness of a hedgehog, and the volcano in the background is magnificent.

Well then.

related: NO CANDY GO AWAY!

Edited to Add: Relevant to our interests, here is the great Mikki Kendall, who recently co-launched a blog at Hood Feminism, writing at The Toast about the problem of abusers & enablers in progressive spaces.  /Edit

There is a lot of violence and rape culture stuff discussed at these links, so if that’s not stuff you can read about, be warned and do not click the links!

Did anyone else read this piece by Jay Roberts, I Met A Convicted Serial Killer, and He Made Me Feel More Loved Than Anyone Else In My Life?  

As a young Marine, Roberts met Randy Kraft, who is now believed to have murdered as many as 100 people between 1971 and 1983. Roberts survived the encounter, and actually had no idea at the time that he was in any danger, realizing only much later when Kraft was caught that he was the extremely charismatic stranger he’d spent a day with long ago.

Serial murder is darker stuff than we usually deal with at CaptainAwkwardDotCom enterprises, and don’t worry, it’s not a place I want to dwell. However, the piece is really well-written, and it also fascinated me because here was a violent predator using all of the tactics that predators use: alcohol, isolation (both in selecting a target and in getting the target on his own), testing boundaries and then systematically escalating behaviors, choosing someone who will be unlikely to tell, or, if they do, unlikely to be believed. It was like a textbook case of what predators do. Kraft also did what many predators do, which is to groom their victims with attention and flattery.  He got Roberts, a straight, strapping male Marine to pose for sexy photos and even consider a sexual encounter, and he did it by making the guy feel, in his own words, *loved.* Such was Kraft’s charisma that years later, despite evidence that AN EXTREMELY BIG NUMBER OF OTHER TIMES this guy murdered people exactly like the writer in situations exactly like that one, even recognizing that the guy was manipulating him, had likely stalked & selected him as a good victim, he *still* questions whether that “really” would have happened to him and still has complicated feelings about the guy.

Predators & abusers fuck with our heads. They do it on purpose and according to a predictable pattern. The pattern is designed to disorient you and confuse you. It’s often designed to mimic what “love” or “caring” or “passion” or “intense connection” feels like, at least in the beginning. It leaves you confused and doubting your own feelings or right to protest. When it goes bad, by the predator’s design, it leaves you ashamed, like you “let” something happen to you. It doesn’t matter who you are. It is not your fault. They do it on purpose.

Another great piece I read last week touches on some of the same themes. Thomas at Yes Means Yes wrote “Cockblocking Rapists is a Moral Obligation, or, How To Stop Rape*** Right Now.“

***Thomas qualifies it in the post, but it’s worth doing here: He is talking about a certain kind of acquaintance-rape, the type where perpetrator and victim are known to each other and part of the same social scene. He is also talking specifically about what friends/bystanders can do, NOT about how victims can stop their own attacks (by the way, fuck you forever, Emily Yoffe) and NOT putting responsibility on survivors (in fact, the last section of the piece is called “It Can’t All Be On The Survivors”) to make the social circle safer.***

Our post here on creepy dudes in friend circles is by far the most-viewed thing on the site, with over 322,000 views. Next top post? Also about creepy dudes, with 44,000 views. Followed by The Art of No When You’ve Already Said Yes, with roughly the same number. You could say that banishing predatory behavior has been on our minds a little bit. Which is why I love Thomas’s post so much, because he goes step-by-step through what you can do when you know about/see/witness creepy behavior and translates a lot of the discussions we’ve had here into action. First order of business:

“Spot The Boundary Testing

…What the rapists do is target selection. They are looking for someone whose boundaries they can violate, and who won’t or can’t stand up for themselves.  The best targets, the ones who offer the rapists the best chance of getting away with it, are those who won’t report — or who will never even admit to themselves that what happened was rape.  The way the rapist finds those people is to cross their boundaries again and again, progressively testing and looking for resistance.

That’s the pattern to look for.  If somebody seems to be testing to see if one of your friends can be pushed off of “no,” has a limited ability to stand up for themselves, that’s the red flag.

The most important thing you can do if you see this pattern is tell the target you see it.  Forewarned is forearmed.  In fact, somebody who is being targeted and pushed and tested may think they see the pattern, but may not trust their own instincts.  If they know you see it, too, then they may trust a bad feeling that they are already feeling.”

Boundaries are your friends. Defend them and help your friends defend theirs. It can be as simple as “It looked like you were not enjoying that backrub/seventh beer/tickling/hug. Do you want to come sit by me for a while?” or signal-boosting your friend’s no. “She doesn’t want any, thanks.” It doesn’t have to be a big scene or an accusation.

There’s more at the link, including offering options (a ride home, a place to stay, cab fare, “Here, you can use my phone!”) and watching over drunk and high friends. If you’d take away a friend’s keys to drive home, isn’t it okay to say “You seem too fucked up to really consent well to sex right now, and your new makeout partner DEFINITELY does. How about you get their number for later, and we call a cab now?” That probably seems weird and like overstepping, except, 30 years or so ago people revived the concept of the designated driver and made a media campaign and conscious effort to make that into a thing that we know about and do.

Could we make a similar push around sex? Not a stupid judgy “don’t drink, ladies” one (Emily Yoffe, if you’re reading, this, fuck you), but a Too Drunk to Drive is Probably Too Drunk To Fuck one. Prince is really making a push for the beauty of morning sex lately, maybe he can be our spokesman for “Let’s sober up and do it properly, and then go to brunch” campaign for horny party people.

Some of the boldest advice in the piece is to make sure people know who the rapists & suspected rapists are and openly take sides against them. It’s the advice that is probably going to get the most pushback from MRA- types obsessed with “false accusations.” Watch for lots of appeals to fairness and privacy and “innocent until proven guilty.” Hell, I fell more than halfway into this trap myself when answering this question. Not cool, me.

In a court of law, if you are the judge or the jury, a defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s it. No one else is held to that standard. To even investigate the crime & make charges, the cops and DA have made some presumptions that so and so is guilty. As Thomas says:

Some people will say that it’s unfair to do that, to simply take the survivor’s word, to say things about people without due process.  Well, due process is for the government, to limit their power to lock people up or take their property.  You don’t owe people due process when you decide whether to be friends with them.  You don’t have to have a hearing and invite them to bring a lawyer to decide whether to invite them to a party.  And let’s be honest, most of us repeat things that one person we know did to another person we know based on nothing more than that one participant told us and we believe them.  We do it all the time, it’s part of social interaction.

So if you want to do something, take the label, plant it on the missing stair in your social circle, and make it stick.

You don’t need a jury trial to kick Handsy Bob out of board games night. You really don’t. Handsy Bob makes people uncomfortable. He doesn’t have to actually rape someone to prove that you were right to kick him out of the group for making y’all uncomfortable.

The last section, called It Can’t All Be On The Survivors, builds on this responsibility.  Thomas calls out the total pointlessness and complete shittiness of the idea of neutrality and trying to remain friends with both abusers and their victims, another topic that has come up here  more than once.

It Can’t All Be On The Survivors

I’ve seen the following two things happen:

(1) someone gets sexually assaulted, whether raped or violated in another way, and people say to the survivor, “you have to do something!  If you don’t do something, who will protect the next victim?”

(2) someone gets sexually assaulted, whether raped or violated in another way, and the survivor yells and shouts for people to deal with it, and the people who are friendly with both the survivor and the violator shrug their shoulders and try to stay “neutral.”

What these two things have in common is that in each case, the people around the situation place all the responsibility on the person who most needs help and can least be expected to go it alone.

…Confronting people is emotionally taxing, and it often irreparably ends the friendship.  In fact, about something as serious as rape, it invariably irreparably alters the friendship.  If you believe that your friend raped your other friend, and you say, “hey, you raped my friend,” then the old friendship is gone forever as soon as the words leave your mouth.  What remains is either enmity, or a relationship of holding someone accountable, just as tough and taxing as staying friends with a substance abuser who is trying to get clean and sober.  That’s not easy.  That’s a lot of work, and most people are not up for it.

The option most people choose, because it gets them out of that, is to choose to not make up their minds about what happened…

…Just think about that.  ”Hey, you’re still friends with Boris.  But X said Boris raped her.”  ”Well yeah, but I don’t know what to believe.”  ”Well, but you know what Y said, and Y’s account was a lot like X’s.”  ”Yeah, but I don’t know what to believe.”  ”But Z said Boris violated consent, too, and that’s three people …” “Well, I’ve been friends with Boris a long time, so I kind of don’t know what to think …”  (Trust me when I tell you, folks, I’m not making that up.)

What can you do tomorrow?  Don’t let your communities do that shit.  Hold your friends to a higher standard.

If the current status quo is that survivors end up ceding social space and fleeing bad situations because they feel shame for “creating drama,” I would accept “rapists & creepy, boundary-violating people are shamed and shunned on the word of survivors” as an alternative.

In the comments,  in the aftermath of all the creepy dude posts here and “safe space at cons” discussions I’ve seen around the Internet, I’d be interested to know:

• Have your social groups taken steps to isolate Missing Stair-people? How did that go?
• Do you have stories of people intervening successfully in potentially creepy situations?
• Do you have a creeper who needs a good banishment and need moral support or advice on how to accomplish such?
• Those of you who go to cons or other events in geek-identified spaces, have you noticed changes in attitudes of organizers or changes in behavior?
• Do you have suggestions for other things we can do to make our social scenes safer from predators?

Ooh, one final link that I got from Twitter (Thanks, Twitter!), about cutting toxic people out of your life and the relief that can come from not having to deal them by errlix might be good to read today. S/he lays it out very clearly and beautifully.

by Jia Tolentino

At the New York Times, a cautionary tale:

In May, [Tracy] and six friends flew to Miami for a four-night extravaganza. Three of them were spent at a three-story “pool cabana” at the W South Beach that had a private roof deck. (“It was like a town house,” Tracy said.) Day 4, a “detox day” of spa services and relaxing meals, culminated at the St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort in a 2,800-square-foot suite. In between, the group dined on sushi at Katsuya and shared plates at the Soho Beach House. They shopped at boutiques and got their hair done. One woman arranged coordinated costumes for the party to wear while going out: gangsters, barbarians and sea creatures, the last involving shark, turtle and lobster hats that tied under their chins.

The cost for each attendee (including Tracy’s portion, which was shared between her fiancé and her friends): $4,000. And that was after Tracy’s fiancé paid for one night for everyone at the W hotel, which lowered the price.

Gangster costumes! But these ladies are small fry compared to the group of women who went (pre-recession) to Paris for a five-day shopping trip:

All attendees paid $20,000 to $25,000 for the trip, depending on whether they flew economy or business class, not including shopping. (The bride paid only for her flight and shopping.

A Zen koan for bachelorette parties: if a woman is paying $19,000 to go shopping for five days, does it even matter if she flies economy?

Oh, these stories, with their veneer of structural normality—these propositions, marauding under "fun and friendship" rather than consumption as a shorthand for the same. There are so many ways to express personal freedom that fall outside the lines of sugar-fueled credit card binging; at the very least, there are so many other things in your girlfriends' lives (promotions! dissertation defenses!) that don't get nearly enough attention in terms of Things Worth Bankrupting Yourself For. Shouts to those fake bachelorette party emails at the Toast, though.

[NYTimes]

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