>
>It could probably be prettied up, but I find it pretty clean all in
>all....not that hard to read. At any rate, I think it deserves high praise
>for the quality of the writing: clear, fairly jargon-free, often funny.
Of course he does. I didn't say he didn't and I don't think I should have to flatter his ego in order to point out that LBO is ugly. NOT because he needs some purty graphics, but becasue it violates the very basics of typesetting. Of course, I assume that Doug neither has the time nor wherewithal to bother. But I don't assume that he doesn't care, just that he doesn't know, doesn't have time, can't see the value in it given the time/money. I could say something like, "Geez, how could you not know that a 6 column grid doesn't work with the way the graphics are placed and how could you be clueless about the bodytext font and negative space? Can't you look around you and see that the leading is all wrong, that the flag is too large in contrast to the heads and subheads. Can't you see what looks nice elsewhere and reproduce yourself, all at the cost of maybe 25 hrs of your time.?"
But see, Doug has just so much money and time and charges a pittance for the newsletter -- and probably wants to save on priting and mailing costs. Certainly, you'd have to add two pages to the newsletter to get it up to speed. So, who the fuck am I to say!
But, at least I can tell you exactly why, [1] which is a lot better than mentioning "left pubs suck" and then not mentioning the pub, what the pub hopes to accomplish (who its audience is), what kind of money and resources they have, what kind of trained talent they can afford or not. Not to mention explaining exactly what it is that makes the pub suck on the view of the individual making the claim.
LBO is an otherwise beautiful publication. Doug made it clear when I asked that he had no interest in an upgrade, so it's not that I'm making a pitch for a job! And I'm very unlikely to get one now cause I imagine he's pissed off. I'm just damn tired of these amorphous claims about beauty and ugliness that have utterly no grounding. You can't really debate it without an example of what you're talking about.
And then you might actually have to talk about individuals and cite very specific examples. Which no one wants to do. Like no one wants to talk about their salary in this country. It's in bad taste. WEll, this bad taste bizzo is just exaxtly the problem. it's exactly how status inequality is reproduced. Taste becomes like "porn" you're just supposed to know it when you see it. Shhhhh. Don't talk about it. But, it's ok to make broad brush claims about how people look, without ever explaining that this particular hat looks nice and this particular Sari is beautiful to you.
I told Mike Ferro that I was saving up stuff to make a mosaic house number for you or maybe a mobile, which I've wanted to try my hand at turning metal, like R does. But I shudder to think who on this list would think it's a piece of trash! In spite of the fact that I imagine you would much prefer something I made by hand. Or maybe not. I'll always cherish my beautiful folder, puppy dog and lettering on that note y'all sent. That means more to me than anything anyone ever bought me at a store or any fifty dollar bill tucked into a money holder and Helen Steiner Rice card. I haven't touched what else came in that package, btw. I figure if I get through this on my own, it should go to someone else who needs it.
Liza and Doug may be really nice people. They seem so to me. It doesn't follow that they would still be interested in what someone's shoes look like. I honestly can't understand why anyone _notices_ this stuff to begin with.
And I agree with B. People in the city look pretty hagard and worn, their clothes not especially stylish. Go shopping in some high end grocery store, though, and it's all flash and appearance. Which is fine, but it doesn't comport with my experience to make such huge broadbruch claims.
And it doesn't fly with me, because it's just what Woj is talking about. I don't care if you want to romanticize the working class and poor by finding some sort of beauty in what they wear and paint your position as somehow more palatable b/c you're actually attacking the well-to-do. Who cares. Data will fly with me and that requires that you actually flesh out your theory with some way to measure these things. As it stands, it's all subjective blah blahing. Who. The. Fuck. Cares.
And, Dwayne, can't say that I notice kids in h.s. not giving a shit about what they look like. They care very deeply, including the guys. And it doesn't seem to translate into looking sloppy as far as I can see. It's _all_ about wearing the right look at my son's high school. They look down on the kids who wear goth clothes. They look down on kids in tee shirts and ripped jeans. They're mainly white and from extremely wealthy families.
And really, I didn't notice that when I taught college, either. When I taught at Colgate, even my nice clothes looked declass in contrast to what the women wore. Guys a little more sloppy, but not much. Very preppy, J Crew, clean cut stuff.
And really, what teens think it's about social revolution? I don't buy it. They're just experimenting with clothes. Like I did, transforming boxer shorts into shorts. Wearing hiking boots and army khakis one day, a 1930ish dress from the Sally the next complete with blue Navy surplus pumps. I sure didn't think it was revolution.
So, name me some group or a tract or something that says that dressing like a slob is about anything other than dressing the way you're dressing. If I've learned anything from the makeover show it's just that the person 1. doesn't have the money and then takes pride in being a slob and 2. has some shame about thei5r body they picked up somewhere or 3. just doesn't have a clue about how to shop for clothes that fit them.
None of them appear to be people who don't care. Like that black woman who wore her tee-shirt collection to work, an exec at a record company. She thought what she wore looked nice.
You can say they're happier in the end. But, if you watch that show, you can also watch the sociological mechanisms through which people are also brainwashed. !
Kelley