He looked on the lake, a swan glided by

[sovay]

I have been dedicating myself to recuperative and totally non-productive activities: I sat out in the sun, I read Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun (2020) and W. Bolingbroke Johnson's The Widening Stain (1941) and a selection of The Big Book of Reel Murders: Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (2019), I saw my parents, I did impromptu astronomy, I baked a peach crumble with cherries. I slept ten hours last night, which means I have no idea if I'll sleep at all tonight, but it was a nice change of pace. I am feeling bitter about streaming services and missing the range and accessibility of libraries. Have some links.

1. Courtesy of handful_ofdust: British Pathé's "Waistcoat Club aka Waistcoats for Women" (1955). The narrator is a bit of a twerp, but the waistcoats of all genders are pretty sweet. "Jon Pertwee has a collection dating back three hundred years." I would expect nothing less of a Time Lord who owned an opera cape. Peter Cushing, by contrast, is obviously some kind of Element. thisbluespirit, is Palladium taken? I thought of Titanium first, but then I liked the scholar-association with Athene better. It is silvery, rare, and untarnishing.

2. I had never heard of The Duke (2020) before this review by the Guardian, but: "In an earlier era, the role of Kempton would have been played by Denholm Elliott or Alastair Sim." JUST STREAM IT SOMEWHERE I CAN SEE IT AND TAKE MY MONEY OKAY.

3. I am much less likely to see Hope Gap (2019), even though I enjoyed this interview with the writer-director and all three principals. I was especially struck by Josh O'Connor's comments about vulnerability and Bill Nighy's about gender.

4. Courtesy of silveradept: Amanda E. Herbert, "Treble Hearted': Queer Intimacies in Early Modern Britain." tl;dr seventeenth-century triad with a pair of siblings and a marriage as the hinge: "Constance and Katherine's own descriptions of the bonds that all three people shared make it clear that the marriage between Herbert and Katherine was not a coverup or a sham; rather, the three wrote of their bond as tripartite."

5. This is just a very nice post about pockets: "I made some trousers with unusual pockets, and I think they're good."

Comments

[anna_wing]

Thank you for that post about pockets, it's a really good idea! Something that a pickpocket wouldn't be expecting either. I have an ankle skirt that has its pockets at the hem, entry from the top, which is surprisingly convenient when one is sitting down.

One of the few things I miss about living in New York was being able to buy summer fruit by the kilo at the Union Square greenmarket. In most places that I've lived since, buying enough peaches for a peach crumble (or cherries!) would cost more than the week's groceries.

[sovay]

Thank you for that post about pockets, it's a really good idea!

You're welcome! It hadn't occurred to me and I loved the diagram.

Something that a pickpocket wouldn't be expecting either.

I bet it is a lot harder to unobtrusively burgle someone's knee.

I have an ankle skirt that has its pockets at the hem, entry from the top, which is surprisingly convenient when one is sitting down.

That's clever and I don't think I've ever seen it in the wild. Do you have photos?

[asakiyume]

I bet it is a lot harder to unobtrusively burgle someone's knee.

This is a hilarious image. Now I'm imagining thieves developing little hooks at the end of a flexible pole or something ... and yet even those seem hard to deploy without someone noticing.

[moon_custafer]

I’m sure mid-19th-century Gangs of New York crooks could not only have managed it, but would have had a special technical name for the practice: “shinbone-fishing” or something like that.

[asakiyume]

Love it! Gonna have to try illustrating it.

[anna_wing]

I've never got round to putting photos on the internet, so no, but if you imagine a loose A-line skirt that goes down to the ankle, with a wide outside turn-up hem, stitched down a couple of times front and back to make pockets, that's it. Japanese, of course.If I wanted to make them really secure I'd put in snaps or velcro or buttons, but for small flattish things they've really rather handy.