Unexpected embroidery

This is a book we got in recently at Special Collections. Pretty interesting stuff, showcasing guerrilla styled stitch-art that challenges the traditions of textile crafts, and brings new, unexpected life to the ordinary.  I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, but from what I saw, it looked pretty cool. So allow me to share with you some examples of unexpected embroidery, in which the ordinary is made extraordinary:

        \
 

But this isn't a post about embroidery, this is a post about poetry. It is a post about how poetry is its own kind of embroidery--and the more unexpected, the better it is (imo, anyway). To borrow a notion from H.G. Widdowson, most poetry is, at its heart, about some very general, very basic theme. Like "love hurts" or "flowers are pretty". What makes the words worth reading at all, much like what makes the piece of bread above worth looking at, is the embroidery.

Take a rather dull, straightforward theme like "my life sucks and is meaningless". We've all felt this, but phrasing it in this way doesn't even come close to describing it, and is certainly not entertaining. Put this sentiment in a poet's hands, however, and we get:

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                       50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

  And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                    60
  And how should I presume?

(Prufrock, ladies and gentlemen)

Captures the essence of the rather simple dull sentiment much better, doesn't it?

So whether you're doing it with a needle and thread, or with words, I sort of feel like embroidery is at the heart of creation, and the more unexpected the embroidery is--sometimes the more unlike embroidery it becomes--the more interesting the creation can be.

Women and Play in the Modern Day

Something that came up in one of my classes the other day was the notion of modern gamespaces as being male-dominated. Obviously, this is, and has been the case in a number of sports through history (Football being the big one that comes to mind). But some of this seems to have transferred over into the virtual gamespace as well. Spending hours and hours every day playing video games (be they PC or console) has come to be viewed as a masculine trait, adopted by a few "cool" avante garde "gamer" females. A girl who can kick your ass gaming is seen as "hot" in the same way a girl who can fix your car is: its unique, and therefore sexy.

 =

The rest of the gender, those who aren't deep into the FPS, the MMO RPG's, have been relegated to Angry Birds and The Sims, stereotypically more "female" games. Games which, by the way, tend to be seen as more mindless, or requiring less skill.

So why is there this polarization between skillful "male" game spaces, and less skilled "female" game spaces. Is it time for women to claim the male game space as their own, or perhaps we should just acknowledge that men and women game in different ways for different reasons? Or do they?

I don't have the answers. Its interesting to note that during the women's suffrage movement, according to this article, suffragettes set out to make their own game space. 
"Interestingly, these games were not simply a way to convey their ideas about womensʼ rights but it was also a strategy for financing their struggle"
The connection between women's rights and game spaces seems to have a history, then. I can't quite put my finger on why there is this important connection between play and gender issues, but there does seem to be. Maybe this is something I will explore more at a later date.

Your brain is not a penis, quit jerking it off.

Rant time! I know how fun it can be to get lost in one's own mental catacombs. Digging up treasures, expending large amounts of mental energy to formulate some sort of a mental structure whereby you believe the universe and all in it operates. 

But, no matter how fun it is, how productive it may feel, it is important to remember that thought does not make reality. No matter how hard you think, and how sure you are that you've got the whole universe figured out and lying prone at your feet, back in reality where people have to work to put bread in their mouths, all you've really accomplished is a whole lot of mental masturbation. Thought, while it is an important component in grounding ourselves in our human realities, when taken too far, can have the opposite effect, transforming what might be useful members of society into abstract philosophers who have their heads so far up their asses they are mistaking their stomachs for an ultimate Truth. 

In the end, your brain is not a penis. There are more flattering ways to use it than mentally jerking off and having your own psychic cum dribbling down your face. 

/ end rant. 

Statistics

Moving from Saskatchewan to Montreal, Quebec, has given me a bit of culture shock here and there. Today, I am going to explore some of these areas of culture shock via statistics, to amuse myself. Stats Canada, here I come!

Population:

Saskatchewan: 

Total (2011)	1,033,381 [2]
Density (2011)	1.75 /km2 (4.5 /sq mi)

Quebec: 

Total (2011)	7,903,001 [3]
Density (2011)	5.79 /km2 (15.0 /sq mi)

(bear in mind I am in Montreal, where: 

• City	1,649,519 (2nd)
• Density	4,517/km2 (11,700/sq mi)

That's right, the city I am in now has more people than my entire home province. How mind boggling is *that*?)

$$$$$

Saskatchewan: 

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010p
	$ millions
Sask.
Operating revenue	228.4	243.6	264.2	303.3	334.9
Operating expenses	151.7	162.7	178.0	204.1	231.7
Salaries, wages and benefits	81.6	88.5	94.7	106.7	113.1
	%
Operating profit margin	33.6	33.2	32.6	32.7	30.8

Quebec: 

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010p
	$ millions
Que.
Operating revenue	2,118.2	2,119.9	2,279.6	2,564.7	2,775.4
Operating expenses	1,480.5	1,506.3	1,596.2	1,761.2	1,917.9
Salaries, wages and benefits	766.7	773.9	860.6	947.6	1,035.5
	%
Operating profit margin	30.1	28.9	30.0	31.3	30.9

Interesting how close the operating profit margins are, despite the obvious differences in volume of money. Go saskatchewan? 

Crime

Saskatchewan: 

Incarceration rates per 100,000 adults2,3	179.37	178.40	185.68	190.45	188.17
	number of persons

Probation counts per 100,000 adults3

519.18

511.98

495.44

502.60

530.72

Quebec: 

Incarceration rates per 100,000 adults2,3	68.92	72.20	72.20	72.89	71.91
	number of persons

Probation counts per 100,000 adults3

152.57

176.48

174.55

178.10

174.97

lol, ooooh saskatchewan

Smoking and Drinking

** bear in mind the total populations on these ones**

Saskatchewan:

Heavy Drinking, By Sex

Saskatchewan	153,633	146,874	148,567	150,474	153,900
Males	110,152	99,561	96,975	106,231	106,350
Females	43,481	47,313	51,592	44,243	47,550

                      2005        2007         2008       2009       2010
Smoking, by sex

Saskatchewan	187,522	204,209	201,824	175,651	188,275
Males	96,579	103,414	112,615	94,834	101,778
Females	90,943	100,795	89,209	80,817	86,498

Quebec: 

Heavy drinking, by sex:

Quebec	1,072,661	1,125,948	1,134,567	1,231,436	1,181,758
Males	765,089	796,057	829,556	858,802	825,150
Females	307,572	329,891	305,010	372,633	356,607

                           2005         2007           2008             2009            2010

Smokers, by sex:

Quebec	1,577,008	1,650,863	1,542,295	1,499,501	1,570,677
Males	807,396	889,644	832,206	780,823	890,712
Females	769,611	761,219	710,090	718,678	679,965

Mace Bearer

The mace bearer, once upon a time a bodyguard carrying an actual brain-bashing mace for close combat, now a symbolic carrier of often absurdly designed mace-like-things during the ceremonies of an office or institution. Here are some random types of mace bearer, culled from around the internet for your Wednesday.

Old Skool Mace Bearer

New Skool Mace Bearer

Naval Mace Bearer

Its Bigger Than Me Mace Bearer

Nerd Mace Bearer

Closet Mace Bearer

She Mace Bearer

Unimpressed Mace Bearer

Way Too Happy To Be A
Mace Bearer

LARP Mace Bearer

I think that about covers all the bases.

Interesting Correlations

Just doing some random Wikipedia searching this morning, and I noticed an interesting correlation among some of history's most infamous dictators. Many of them are dropouts/rejects. I'm sure studies have been done on this which I am too lazy to do a proper academic search on right now, but I am going to throw down my examples anyway.

Name: Joseph Stalin

Title: General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR.
Education: Performed well at the Georgian Orthodox Seminary, but was expelled for not writing his final exams.
Career: Was a major leader within the soviet union during the second world war, and was its head from 1953 until his death. Over 3 million were killed during his regime, with some historians estimating as many as ten million deaths due to executions, massacres, deportations, and mass shootings.

Name: Pol Pot

Title: General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Cambodia)

Education: Flunked out of the exclusive Lisee Sisowath school. Attended EFR in Paris, failed exams for three successive years and was sent back to Cambodia. 

Career: Communist Leader in Cambodia from 1963-1981, a period during which approximately 21% of the population died due to forced labour, malnutrition, poor health care, and executions.

Name: Benito Mussolini

Title: Head of the National Fascist Party in Italy

Education: Expelled from boarding school after "a series of behaviour related incidents".

Career: Established a police state in Italy, which he enforced with an iron fist. Led Italy through the Second World War as a member of the Axis. Was able to do some good things for Italy, however ultimately led them to defeat in the war, and was executed in late April, 1945. 

Name: Adolf Hitler

Title: Fuhrer of Germany

Education: Rejected from Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice. Lacked the academic credentials for architectural school. Became worlds most infamous dictator instead? 

Career: Don't need much explanation here. Hitler's policies resulted in the death of about 40 million people, including the fourteen million killed during the holocaust. 

So what does it all mean? Trouble with authority? Narrow, unacademic thinking? Intelligence in certain areas, and a great deal of idiocy in others makes for a great authoritarian leader? What do you think?