It's that time of year. Again.
- This would be my reaction if the Fashion Police were to arrest me at the Oscars this evening:
That's right: I'm one of those silly people for whom function comes before form... and I'm really not buying the fashion industry's various imprecations that:
- Men don't actually put anything in shirt pockets any more, so we can just do away with shirt pockets... except for the one type of men's shirt (the broadcloth dress shirt) in which men really don't put anything in the pocket, so we'll keep those.
- Everyone is the fashion industry's bloody billboard and really wants and needs to proclaim — with a logo (usually some combination of ugly, pretentious, and just plain stupid) — exactly what brands of clothing one is wearing at all times. Especially for anything that is intended primarily for wear outside of an office building in Manhattan.
- That goes double for shoes, and even includes shoes suitable for business-travel wear. And shoes are not for actually walking in, let alone running in — especially not if one's foot size is not more appropriate for Sasquatch (and this in an area with a high proportion of shorter-than-Vikings Asian men and women).
- Despite the name, men actually do not do anything that might cause one to break a sweat in "active wear," so none of it needs to breathe at all — especially not on the sleeves, because nobody ever gets distracted or loses a grip on something when sweat drips down one's sleeves. And it's even more important to proclaim clothing brands when being inactively active!
- Every belt that is not a hard-lacquer-finish strip of leather must stretch and must have an awkwardly prominent buckle.
- Even in an area purportedly renowned for sudden chills, heavier-weight shirting materials are just too much; instead, we'll deal with any tendency to feel too hot with ever-thinner and ever-shinier polyester blends (yeah, that's going to help comfort).
Although I seriously doubt anyone in the fashion industry could approach the real one, on the evidence of what I've seen of late dick levels typically exceed 80%. And that's not a good thing, even given the purportedly ambiguous gender roles in the fashion industry... because "being a dick" is not a gender role.
The fashion police themselves? Should dial it back to just being a-holes.
- Speaking of the Oscars, I probably won't be watching. I definitely won't be watching any pre-shows — not even in the background while I do something productive like picking burrs out of the dog's fur. I just can't build up any enthusiasm for an awards show for films most of which I have not seen thanks to the inconvenience and downright torture of going to cinema in this area. And the less said about fundamental credibility problems with the academy (and the entire film industry), the better: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences makes the typical research-university faculty look incredibly representative, diverse, and protective of the next generation!
- Congratulations to the nominees for the Nebula Awards for best speculative fiction published/presented in 2014. Not to be a broken record or anything, but the Nebulas have one of the same damned problems as the Oscars: It's far, far too soon after the close of the eligibility period. I'm still on the hold list at the library for two of the nominees for novel (and expecting me to get them at the pathetic bookstores in this area is a bit arrogant and class-warfarish when it approaches impossibility to even get to the one store that might — and I emphasize "might," given the questionable taste of the staff — have stocked them on initial release... and actually finding things at the Big Brazilian River is no better).
And in about a month, I get to lather, rinse, and repeat regarding the Hugos... because there will be an egregious fault with the Hugo nominations; the only question is its nature.