Isn’t it lovely.
You know the book The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón? I love it, no, I freakin adore it. It’s right up there in my top reads along with Lolita, Dracula, Our Man in Havana and something by Jilly Cooper ( under rated genius). Zafón, beautiful, words.
Central to the story is the ‘cemetery of lost books’, described as
a mysterious labyrinthine repository of books in the underground heart of old Barcelona – watched over by the gruff guardian Isaac
Read more at Suite101: The Cemetery of Forgotten Books of Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I can’t say much more than that with out doing a spoiler.
The other day my love of The Shadow of the Wind lead me to an online conversation in October with 2 friends who live abroad. One of my friends runs a beautiful book shop in Athens, so one thing lead to another and we were soon arranging to meet up in her city this Novemeber.
Think fashion capital, think Athens? Probably not, but let me tell you it’s phenomenal for designer bargains, flash sales and 2nd hand stuff.
And, and, and, I was so excited to be taken through the winding streets of Plaka, because, under the shadow of the Acropolis, hidden in a narrow cobbled street, there is a shop which I christened the cemetery of forgotten Italian shoes. A tiny door takes you through to a labyrinth of joining rooms filled with end of line, and from a few seasons ago – it’s magic. I have been. I have chosen.
I’m wondering if there is potential market for a gothic/chick lit hybrid novel?
Part of the joy of being a researcher is being with books. Forget the kindle, give me a stack of books, a penguin donkey or a musty library room any day.
I had this sent down from The British Library a few weeks ago. The look and feel is so lovely. It includes Peirce’s “What is a sign?”, where the trichotomy of the sign first appeared written up, composed around 1894. Amazing.
The slip inside tells me it’s been taken out 10xs in the last 13 years. No sooner had I picked it up, can you believe it – it got recalled; someone else wants it.
The Essential Peirce. Selected Philosophical Writings Vol II 1893-1919 1998 India University Press
After a little procrastination and fashion chat here is the 1st of a series of the promised posts about making corrections to a thesis. As you can see I’ve begun with a cheery title: PhD & Depression. Please stick with reading this post. There’ll be a few paragraphs of woe and misery as context but there is advice and cheer at the end 
When I was starting to think about what I wanted to say, I came across and incredibly sad blog post. The author begins by saying something along the lines of ” My PhD has literally been an emotional rollercoaster — sometimes, I feel like a manic-depressive.” But, the real tragedy is the many comments which run from 2006 until October of this year from people stuck in a 5 year or 6 year black hole of revision, corrections, fallings out, rejections, bad advice and isolation. That’s 4 years of comments people. 4 YEARS OF COMMENTS from PhD students with pretty much nowhere else to go to articulate their very real woes. I can’t express how much reading it both touched and saddened me. It made me muster up all the loving kindness I can manage and send it out into the t’interweb of dreams.
Here’s a sample of what people said
I have come to terms with realizing the most difficult part of a PhD is coming face forward with one’s own weaknesses (loneliness, procrastination, fear of rejection). I think we all go through it.
I am into severe depression phase. I am just wondering can I get out of it someday, I feel like its just increasing day by day.
I’ve just been agonizing over endless visions and revisions. I’ve poured so much of my life into preparing for an academic vocation that abandonning the degree is out of the question. I would rather die than not finish
This has been a nightmare that is hopefully coming to an end now that I am letting go of it, but god it is painful, still.
The worse thing for me in this whole process has been the isolation
PhD depression has hit hard and I’ve contemplated quitting
I’ve become severely disillusioned by the way things work in academia and i’m becoming more and more cynical by the day
I so desperately want to say something positive and helpful now about the experience of doing revisions. At the beginning of the year a few people said to me “this will make you stronger and a better researcher” and ” you’ll realise that at the end of this process you’ll have a better thesis” . I’m sure these things are true, but to be honest I don’t feel them…yet. My experience has been emotional and lonely. Before gathering the strength to carry on I looked humiliation and doubt in the face. The treatment I received from one of the examiners, particularly after the viva, was so deeply unkind that it caused weeks of misery and insomnia, followed by a total crisis of confidence. Their behavior led me to question my own beliefs about anger and compassion and that is to say nothing of the effects on my finances, research, career plans, relationships and even the roof over my head. But it is possible to acknowledge these negative emotions and not respond and thus give into them. So let me really begin here by telling you a few things I’ve done to cope with the sadness and fustration in the hope they may help.
If you’ve had a nasty set-to like me, listen to The Harder they Come track first: feel cross, imagine retribution etc etc and then come out the other side with an I’ll show you attitude, and by this I mean I’ll show you with the quality of my work not argy bargy. Draw your strength at Draw your breaks. Wallow in procrastination or marvel at the ineptitude of the university system during Sitting in Limbo. Purge yourself of desolation by listening to the achingly beautiful version of Many Rivers to Cross. Feel the stress and frustration at Pressure Drop – finally the grande finale: You can get it if you really want. I defy anyone to listen to this track and not feel even a tiny murmur of motivation
Some more comprehensive and great tips on staying sane during a PhD & depression to be found here too.
I hope this helps someone a little bit. There is more to come I promise, especially on dealing with fear and procrastination, but meanwhile if there is anyone reading this who feels anything like some of the comments from the other blog post on depression I mentioned, remember you are not alone. I wish you the best.
Look at these beauties. Marks & Spencer £35. That’s right, M&S.
In a word – HOT.
Last week I trawled the shops looking for a pair of black shoes. IMHO Brighton is woefully lacking in shoe shops. OK we’ve all the usual suspects: Office, Aldo, Moda in Pelle, Kurt Geiger, L.K Bennet. This season they are filled with what I can only describe as hooker shoes; if you’re a professional pole dancer there is an abundance of choice. I won’t pay £70-200 on mass produced high street shoes. I’d rather throw another £100 in the pot and buy a well-made designer shoe for life, but alas this is not an option on my budget . So, as I trudged home empty handed, almost seething and seriously considering opening my own shoe shop, I thought I would at least pop into M&S and buy some hold ups. Whilst in hosiery, maybe just maybe I thought … and so I drifted into the shoe section. Ohmydays, congrats to M&S, their collection is full of reasonably priced Jimmy Choo, D&G and Pedro Garcia inspired loveliness.
The next day I dragged a friend in to a branch to show her and we both came out with a pair of these (£25).
Cue facebook update to spread the word, followed by derision and scoffing by my following that M&S are not trendy; I’m just getting older.
M&S have done so well building a myth of sensuality around their food product line and as for the clothing, have enjoyed the Twiggy effect. They now have a new million pound campaign with Mylene Klass, VV Brown, Danni Minogue and Lisa Butcher. The message is glamorous and glossy, yet with connotations of bland Saturday night family entertainment and a Daily Mail readership it’s confusing to me. It’s not fashion. They traverse all demographics offending no one with their middle ground signification; not exactly edgy and definitely not style. And yet M&S have collaborated with the likes of fashionista favourite Patricia Field in the past ( 2008 I think?) and attempted brand synergy through their association with Vogues Fashion night out in September. I do wonder about this? What do regular M&S shoppers make of it all and is the brand mediating confusing mixed messages?
I had a quick scan on the interweb of dreams and found folk think of M&S as the grande dame of the high street. It carries connotations of heritage, britishness, value and quality. All good. However, Per Una is loathed by stylists. I read a few scathing comments about how in the wake of the Madonna effect on the 50+ market M&S should just do away with it. “Oh look there’s Twiggy, aww love her” can’t sustain the brand forever and one camel coloured leather skirt does not a new myth make.
As for me, am I get older? Of course. Less stylish, mais non! And as Coco Channel once said “style never goes out of fashion”.
I was lucky that I signed up early and managed to get a seat at The Web Science event at The Royal Society this week. I’m really glad I was there, although there was a web cast, which will be available for about 3 weeks. The speakers included Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and Professor Manuel Castells amongst others, so it was a pretty big deal as far as I’m concerned.
This is not a description of the contents of neither the talks nor a depth analysis. Others were much more prompt in their reporting and can provide you with more detail. Unfortunately the webcast was unable to show the speakers slides, and this is something I’ll come back to in a moment.
As a humanities / social science bod, I struggled a bit on day one with some of the maths and scientific discourse, but day two was much more up my alley. I certainly was not the only person who had this experience and I loved the social scientists in the audience who were frequently tweeting “where’s the social science” and asking questions over the roaming mike about power structures, agents and agency. That said, it was clear that at the same time there were plenty of audience members who did follow and enjoy these day one talks and who have engineering, physics and mathematics backgrounds.
It was a shame that Henrietta Moore the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge was unable to make it as she was due to present on ‘Smart Users and Social Networks. What’s Happening in Africa and Asia?’. This is because one of the things that troubled me was the general lack of discussion about techno-capital, access and the digital divide. When some of the speakers mentioned social transformations and the benefiting of humanity, there was either an implicit feeling of neutrality or equality in their analysis and little or no mention of social exclusion.
Moore’s abstract can be found here
In the last two decades we have witnessed the fastest technology adoption in human history. This talk discusses the processes that are driving changes to the web in Africa and Asia. The two continents show similarities and differences in processes of adoption and use, but in both cases recent developments challenge the idea that technological developments are necessarily bringing about unprecedented social transformations…(Moore, H 2010)
Anyhow, one of the most energetic and eloquent speakers was Luis von Ahn, who fyi also presented an excellent set of slides, which (ahem) can not be said of everybody. Luis Von Ahn developed the captcha and he has since built on this in re-captcha and a brilliant project which harness the man power and time spent in filling out captchas in the process of digitizing books. Von Ahn’s presentation was both funny and engaging, which meant that he was able to communicate his ideas to a willing audience .
I have no problem with people not using slides and just talking, but if you do use slides, even if you have a brilliant mind and are a senior academic in your field, it is still important that they capture the bones of what you’re saying and are readable, otherwise they detract from what you’re saying. (I witnessed some dreadful crimes against presentation over the course of the 2 days, dodgey template backgrounds, clip art (!) mixed and crazy colored fonts, and over snazzy screen wipes. These are no-nos I teach undergrads ).
Highlights for me were the inclusion of a slide from Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in the 1st 20mins, which showed all the different disciplines he sees in the development of web science and how and where they overlap. Castells’ optimistic talk on individuation, sociability and autonomy, Noshir Contractor‘s very brief mention in his talk of computational social-science (the study of social life on computer networks) and his raising the problem of technology producers and the curated experience of the user , and the power structures implicit in this.
All in all, an edifying, inspiring 2 days that has given me lots to think about.
I recently sported this sweater at the Vintage Festival at Goodwood in August. With the blue boots I was going for a Wincey Willis inspired look. I picked it up for a steal at Beyond Retro in Brighton ( about £14 I think). The jumper has developed a little cult following of it’s own. After using this snap as my profile picture on f.b I’ve been sent several emails regarding it’s origin.
But check this out. Jaeger a brand I worship, ( so elegant, so British), has recently launched Jaeger Boutique a younger funkier collection from it’s main line.
Look at this jumper & the corresponding price tag!?
Jaeger Boutique Stars & Stripes jumper £125
Forget aviator jackets and camel trousers this a/w. Take a tip from me – your style icons are Anita Dobson & Susan Tully circa ’89.
Scenes from the hard work this week. Back in the game.
A particular conundrum offered itself this week.
Orange Nike Dunks ?
A non verbal feminist resistance to the onset of old age?
Me. [thinks] I will rock these with a Twentyeighttwelve dress I’ve just bought. But are they inappropriate for the 30+?
Now my daily bread comes from posing difficult questions. Sometimes the Qs are in my head so it’s just me answering, but usually those Qs go out to large groups of students or marketingy creative folks. Normally I ask things like “ Discuss the limits of Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere using a case study of a new/ digital technology of your choice”.
As we were flicking through some old mags, my friend also in her 30s recently commented that she liked Alexa Chung’s style . “Hmmm” I said then thinking about Chung’s penchant for a patent loafa and side slung small handbag, ”but she’s a young woman, why be 30 when you’re 20?” You see I’m like the opposite of Alexa Chung. If I buy these sneaks am I one step a way from being the old lady with colbalt blue-hair and crazy leggings? (this statement is not directed at Zandra Rhodes I like her.)
Fans of Glee might say WWMD? But me, well it’s more likey to be ”What would Fiske the famous popular cultural theorist argue?” Bit much for an acronym isn’t it.
The problem I’ve with these shoes is to do with codes. These shoes operate as a symbolic ‘sign’ and my cultural capital allows me to make certain readings and draw on other referents in popular culture. Mainly that I associate with yoot & I am not yoot.
However in these shoes will I be committing a defiant act? Hegemony through footwear? In your face gender/ 30 + clothes nazis (such as Boden) ?
Castells, M. (2009) Communication Power. OUP