Clothes and Character

Part 1: Books

In books that bother to describe their characters’ clothing, readers are generally assumed to be learning from the fact of the fine silk, smooth and deep red, or from the well cut suit that has been worn heavily, or from the pink crop top. Words ostensibly can’t be wasted on such details as the color of the ribbon on the sun hat or the cashmere blend of the baby’s hand-knitted blanket in shades of forest green. No, if we know that the elderly gentleman in the front row has just divested himself of an ill-fitting black raincoat in the cloakroom, it’s either a plot point or a judgment on his character or his finances. When we’re learning that the young woman is, say, dressed appropriately for the weather, it is something far more significant than dressing for the weather is in typical life conditions. If she is, that is probably a good sign. Your character is paying attention to the right things or is perhaps meant to be read as prudent, practical, smart. Or just lucky, though in my unscientific observation, this is not likely.

Perhaps your character is a beautiful young woman, which is unfortunate for her because beauty is as beauty does. Perhaps, your character is like the most beautiful but rather boring oldest Bennet sister Jane in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen lets her be beautiful because she is not as interesting, not as clever, and not as central to the story as Elizabeth.

One of my favorite literary characters in terms of clothing as a means of characterization is Helga Crane in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (or a free PDF). “In vivid green and gold negligee and glistening brocaded mules,” Helga is beautiful and loves beauty. She is more interested in aesthetics than those around her in the earnest yet vicious and prescriptive Naxos and it damns her, first simply to banishment from that particular place and movement. Eventually, as the aptly named and therefore inevitably downward and smothering tale progresses, of course, that aesthetic sense is lost. As the bitter end of the novel approaches, “Herself, Helga had come to look upon as a finicky, showy thing of unnecessary prejudices and fripperies.” So which is it? Is Helga damned because she cares too much about beauty or damned when she abandons this essential part of her being?

Of course, in Quicksand, it’s both: Helga is the quintessential damned if you do and damned if you don’t character. That’s because this is a book that is most obviously about race and class and gender. And beauty is as beauty does, or something not quite like that. Beauty at least means way too much, whether the character’s beauty or that of her negligee.

In part two, I’ll consider what quarantine clothes say about us. If you’re not seeing anyone, or rather no one is going to see you, what do you wear and how does it matter?

Strawberry Season

When local strawberries are ripe, it’s a brief opportunity to indulge in everything strawberry. I’ve had strawberries plain countless times. I’ve made strawberry shortcake (old fashioned, with biscuits, but not my usual buttermilk biscuit recipe), and strawberries and cream with genoise (this is such a difficult yet simple cake that I’m kind of obsessed with it).

I’m making one batch of no-cook strawberry syrup now, and I’m planning a few more strawberry endeavors.

Here is Strawberry Syrup 1:

I used local soft, ripe strawberries, an abundance of which is the reason I made this syrup.

1 cup strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered

1/2 cup sugar

Put strawberries and sugar in jar. Put the lid on and shake well. Refrigerate until you get a nice syrup. You can shake periodically while you wait for the syrup to develop. If you leave it for about a day, you can then just give it a shake for a minute or so and be done.

If you’re in a hurry, don’t refrigerate and shake often. If you have really ripe, soft, juicy strawberries, you’ll get something in 30-60 minutes.

Strain, probably twice to remove all solids

The key to this recipe, for me, is that it is based on fresh berries, berries potentially even just beyond ripe ones. It will work more quickly that way, and takes advantage of the way strawberries suddenly come in at once and then disappear. You can preserve that freshness for a while.

You could try this using commercial strawberries. You won’t get as much syrup and it’s kind of missing the point, but I’ll share some ideas anyway: You could add a pinch of salt and a bit of lemon or even cook your berries and sugar a bit if you have really firm berries. Cooking the berries will change the flavor the most. The syrup will quickly become jammy. I would not bother.

What I would do if I were really interested in this whole idea and had no access to the ideal fresh berries for the job is use frozen berries. If they’re good enough frozen berries, your syrup will taste like a strawberry field on a warm day.

That is definitely cheating, but I support you.

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A Prompt and a Catalogue

Sometimes you need a prompt, right? As I know from teaching, a good prompt sets the stage and evokes something’s making it easier to find a creative path. I recently received a collage card from a friend. Her creativity was a delightful prompt for my own. I would not have thought to make a collage at all, and I opted to reply in kind: she made a stylized flower garden and I replied in kind.

I went my own way, too. I developed the prompt for myself by limiting my materials to orange construction paper and a catalogue called Cuddledown: Devoted to your luxurious comfort and style. I am not kidding.

This catalogue is filled with pastel sheets with high thread counts, cozy robes, richly patterned bedspreads. The blue rosettes with cream, the modernized paisley in magenta, chartreuse and ecru (it’s not as outrageous as it sounds!), the watercoloresque impressionistic meadows made the project almost too easy. Sometimes that is the point.

It made for a fun card collage, and now suddenly my white on white sheets and comforter (in my gray bedroom no less!) seems unspeakably boring.

What Day is this?

I know I’m not alone in finding my relationship to time altered in recent days. Or weeks. Or is it months?

This week, I’m trying a new way to mark the days of the week: each day, I’m reading a poem related to that day of the week.

On Sunday, I read Sunday Morning by Bonnie St. Andrews.

That got the song Sunday Morning (Nico with the Velvet Underground) in my head. For the entire day. Which meant that I definitely knew it was Sunday. The problem is that the song is still in my head, and it’s Monday. I’m more or less back where I started.

Writing as Frustrating and Satisfying

Having said I was back to daily posts, I immediately failed to post daily. The reason for that is more interesting than the usual business.

Here is what happened: I wrote, in an unpostable way, in a notebook. Because I had written, and felt that I had written, I failed to notice that I hadn’t posted until it was too late.

There is a sense of frustration and satisfaction that comes from writing, and my day felt complete yesterday, with my daily measure of frustration: as I have been known to say to my students in writing classes, to write is to try. An essay is what you’re writing and it is an attempt. See—words are fun.

A bit of daily writing is like a daily walk or jog. You try it, and in the trying, you do it.

Re-reading A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book

One of the great decisions readers must make, often by default, is whether to re-read books. Perhaps thanks to Ann Fadiman, the carnal vs courtly lover of books controversy is widely recognized. You may already guess my approach to that controversy by my interest in the question of re-reading: Is re-reading a waste of time? 

I’m not referring to re-reading a book for study, which is necessary and obviously a done thing. No. I’m thinking here about rereading as a luxury. 

Our inevitable mortality, as Wordsworth doesn’t quite put it (which I remember because a couple of lines from his Ode: Intimations of Immortality popped into my head three days ago, so I re-read the poem) makes unjustified re-reading a luxury. Or that’s how I’ve come to think about it. Maybe it’s some kind of guilt at being unproductive. Even being high-minded and abstract enough to see reading as worthwhile and reading for a job as meaningful is not, apparently, enough to justify reading a book for pleasure alone when there are endless new books to be read for pleasure. 

And why did Wordsworth’d aforementioned ode come to mind? I could answer that several ways, and I’m not sure which is the most complete, but here’s one thing I am sure of: I thought of that quintessential Romantic poem not because I read it once, but because I’ve read it many times, here and there, for one reason or another. For this class or that, or for fun, or when I want to re-remember Romanticism, or when it’s referenced elsewhere and I take another look. That’s one of the answers here: I’m re-reading AS Byatt’s The Children’s book for several obscure reasons and one straightforward one: that book captures beautifully the feeling of decadence and then disaster that seems inevitable in retrospect because it’s a narrative we relate to but don’t, somehow, quite expect to crash around us. Or we do expect it, with a sense of its inevitability. Either way, there is nothing we can do, nothing that could have been done. Boom. The economic corruption and inequity and instability preceding WWI, the sense of changing times, the mines in the North as a specter, the World’s Fair in Paris, art nouveau, suffrage, the end of the Victorian Era—this is what, among other things, the Children’s Book is made of. And one of those other things is poetry and Romanticism, which while not openly critiqued in this nothing if not pretending to be even-handed compendium, is certainly not as appreciated as nature itself. 

In short, I’m re-reading this particular book because it’s cataloguing and contrast and time period and sense of narrative and detachment appealed at the moment. My usual re-reads are shorter and give me either a plot with some action or characters I want to hang out with.  This one does not.

What it managed to do is stick in my head as an unusual read, in let because it is in its way unusual and in let because I tend to feel frustrated and alienated by epic novels detached from character and plot and stuffed beyond the gills with an excess of description and fact and lecture. So for me, to finish such a book (yes—I’ll quit a book. More on that another time) makes it memorable. For example, I have checked out Pachinko from the virtual library three times and read a bit each time, and I’d say it’s 50/50 whether I’ll check it out again or whether I’ll ever finish. 

What re-reading this sort of book has done, as re-reading always does in some way, is serve as a mirror for my interests and mood at the moment. One aspect of this re-reading is that I’m enjoying the overwhelming amount of descriptive detail more than usual. It feels like reading Walt Whitman. Which I should maybe re-read. 

Blueberry Syrup

Blueberry Syrup

This blueberry syrup is extremely easy to make and perfect for drinks, thin and ready to disperse. It is not a pancake syrup.

1 part sugar

1 part water

2 parts blueberries

Cook, stirring, over medium high heat just until sugar has dissolved. If using fresh berries, they will still be whole. Crush the berries and stir thoroughly. Strain syrup.

Ideally, strain first through a standard mesh sieve and then a second time through a very fine mesh OR strain through a fine cloth.

Blueberry Lime Thyme Cocktail or Mocktail Idea

This evening, as I put together my daily cocktail / mocktail, I wanted something pretty that would balance either with the alcohol or without, and I wanted something both refreshing and smoky. Here’s what I came up with:

Idea / Recipe hybrid:

Blueberry Lime Thyme Cocktail / Mocktail

1 tablespoon blueberry syrup (recipe follows)

1/2 teaspoon orgeat (no recipe follows, though a friend made mine)

1 ounce lime juice

1 twist lime

1 sprig thyme, crushed, left in the drink to taste

Bourbon to taste

Water to taste

If you’re more of a recipe person or just too worn out from decision-making:

Add 2 oz bourbon for an actual cocktail

Add 1 tablespoon bourbon and 2 oz water for a hint of bourbon

Add 2 oz water for a Mocktail

Stir and serve over ice.

Yes, this is what I came up with after nearly a month off from daily posts, or rather, in the twenty minutes before writing. You might think after a hiatus from daily posts that I would have beautifully crafted essays or at least something worth posting. The fact that I don’t is testament to the power of the daily post: it enables writing and posting that doesn’t have to be “good enough.”

The last few weeks have been somewhat impossible, and I enjoyed not posting. And I missed posting. The idea of a weekly post resulted in bigger ideas but not in completion. So now that I have more or less wrapped up the semester of crisis, I’m back to the daily, not-necessarily-worth-posting posts.

Today’s recipe idea seems strangely perfect.

Weekly posts: a Productivity Pause

As my almost non-existent audience may have noticed, I’ve paused my daily blog project. Here are some possible reasons: Most aspects of my life have become exponentially more difficult, even though my immediate family is well, for the most part still employed in not-front-line occupations. First, remote work is, for me as a teaching-focused faculty member at a suddenly fully remote institution, very difficult. I’m not just doing my regular job: I’m doing a much more frustrating, more exhausting, and less satisfying job. Next, our regular childcare situation is of course not functioning. It is literally impossible to do the full time childcare and child rearing while doing the full time other job.

But the more important reason that I’ve paused my daily blogging is that I am in a processing phase. Posts I’ve written or started feel irrelevant in this moment, and it’s hard to know what feels relevant.

I’m processing a new reality, and I’m deliberately removing the daily post project from my to-do-list. I don’t want this project to be just one more thing I need to do. So I’ll be posting, but probably weekly. Maybe when I’m not trying to do too many things at once I’ll be able to do that more effectively and efficiently.

Because an unexpectedly high percentage of my posts have been about tulips, I’ll wrap this up with this: after a hard frost last night, the tulips were frozen and drooping. They thawed. The perked back up. They look a bit wilder, a bit burnt around the edges, a few petal bent back prematurely, but not less spectacular.