How to use this Page

In the long forgotten year of 2008, Captain America: White #0 washed up against the shores of time.  Traditionally, zero issues herald the arrival of #1s (or in the case of the New 52, insert themselves into the time stream a year after the reboot).  White, however, never got a #1.  Until now.

Today, Marvel announced that Captain America: White would begin this September.  The spiritual sequel to Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Grey, Captain America: White will be a retelling of Steve Roger’s origin story, detailing how he came to be a super soldier, his relationship with Bucky Barnes, and how he grapples with being a man out of time.

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are responsible for some of the most beloved stories in modern superhero comics, including Batman: Long Halloween, Superman for All Seasons, and the aforementioned Marvel Color books.  While Loeb’s writing has received its fair share of criticism in recent years, he has always shown a knack for finding innovative ways to revolutionize superhero origin stories.    Sale’s art is timeless and will be colored by Dave Stewart, a visionary who is responsible for the innovative coloring styles of books such as the Moon Twins’ Daytripper and Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy.  Interestingly, there seem to be two coloring methods present in the preview pages, with the above reflecting a painterly style and the image below reflecting a blocked inking method reminiscent of the coloring in Loeb and Sale’s Batman books.

Solicitations for the first two issues follow:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #1 & 2 (of 5)
Writer: JEPH LOEB
Art & Cover: TIM SALE

ISSUE #1
• From his re-awakening in the present day to his days on the battlefield during World War II, follow CAPTAIN AMERICA as he recalls a special mission during THE BIG ONE!
• It’s 1941 and the HOWLING COMMANDOS are just looking to kick back and relax….
• But CAP and BUCKY are about to make their night a whole lot worse!
• The EISNER AWARD-WINNING team of JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE reunite to tell a shocking story of CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY!
• Extra-sized issue featuring CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #0
64 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

ISSUE #2
BULLETS! BOMBS! EXPLOSIVE REVELATIONS!
• CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY are ready to lead the HOWLING COMMANDOS, but are the HOWLING COMMANDOS ready to follow?
• Things go from bad to worse and only Bucky can save the day!
• Will a shocking appearance from an old ally turn the tide of battle?
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

There is a “Dear Teen Me,” meme that I have not done, but if I were to do it now, I might invoke my young self to stop reading Vonnegut, to read maybe one book each by Nabokov, Auster, and Delillo but not read them obsessively, so that my own writing become paralyzed with self-consciousness.

There’s nothing wrong with those writers, but every high-school aged boys with aspirations to write discovers Vonnegut, imagines himself to be the next great wit, and writes Vonnegut-tainted stories for a time, and emerges from the smothering style only when, as an upperclassman, he discovers the likes of Nabokov, Auster, and Delillo. And so, for a time, he begins soon abandoned self-conscious novels, talks about metafiction at parties to anyone who pretend to listen, and wonders if he needs to read more Thomas Mann to have literary street cred. I would like to stop teen me from taking those perilous steps and losing a decade to misdirection.

I would allow the Hawthorn, the Poe, the Steinbeck and Twain but only to have an anchor in Americana. I would discourage an scholarly inclination toward anything — if a story works, it works on instincts, not on explanations. I might even caution him to major in something besides English. Vonnegut was a mechanical engineer, after all, and Nabokov an entomologist. Major in geology or anthropology, I’d tell myself. Something that gets you outside and mucking around in the soil.

Literature built atop a tower of literature is the right road for someone else, but not for you. Your way into a story is the story, not the language. Your strengths are emotional, not cerebral. Find an anchor, a patch of soil to plant yourself, a way to see the world without words.

I would tell my young self to discover Sigurd Olson and Annie Dillard and the poetry of William Stafford and the essays of E.B. White, not because they tell me how to write, but because they tell me how to live.

I would tell myself to go for more walks.

I would tell myself to talk less and listen more.

I would tell myself to learn the names of trees and bugs.

I would tell myself to appreciate silence and the immense value of free time.

But knowing that teen me as I do, I know he wouldn’t listen to any of this.

Last year I picked up a couple of vintage dresses that needed some serious altering before I could wear them.  Recently I decided to take a break from fall sewing to make the necessary changes; I don’t buy vintage to simply admire or learn from them but to actually use them and these were hanging in the to-do section of my closet for too long!   They are somewhat delicate but I don’t mind, I’ll wear clothes until they fall apart (much to my mom’s chagrin).

One of the frocks mentioned I’ll share with you here.  Post-alterations it’s now my favorite vintage dress!  Once a 1930s floor-length gown it’s now a saucy, ethereal thing.   It has its original hem; I just moved the whole skirt up to preserve the ruffle whilst moving up the waistline too.  The waist before was more fitted (with a side snap closure) but now I can just slip it over my head. (Yay.)  Lately I’ve been making or altering dresses/skirts to make them hit above my knees–a more flattering length for me–but I didn’t want this to be too short.   Since the dress is sheer, my solution was to wear a slip underneath that was quite a bit shorter.  And don’t you love the capelet?  That tie!

Oh, yes, I added some thread belt loops so I can wear a ribbon when it suits my fancy.  (I just read on Coletterie a great post about how to make such belt loops by machine although I make mine by hand.)

I love the look of winter white or cream during the cooler months.  There is almost celebratory about it, especially when contrasted with dark or jewel tones.  (The starry stockings, by the way, are J.Crew tights from the girls’ section that I refashioned.  I no longer have a garter belt and for now they are staying up by sheer willpower.)

Tweet

By Michael Biggs and Steven Knauss

The BNP’s membership list was leaked in November 2008 by a disgruntled activist who had been expelled late in 2007; he has since admitted responsibility and been convicted. The BNP never challenged the list’s authenticity, merely stating that it was out of date. The list is apparently a complete record of membership at November–December 2007. Of the 13,009 individuals listed, 30 were missing a current address, 138 had a foreign address, and 41 lived in Northern Ireland. Of the remaining members, 12,536 (97.9 per cent) can be precisely located in Britain using the postcode field of their address (Office of National Statistics, 2004, 2008). Postcodes provide exceptionally fine resolution, down to the street level.

The distribution of members diverges significantly from the distribution of voters.  The correlation of votes with membership, across the 628 constituencies in Britain, is surprisingly modest (r ¼ 0.46). The party contested only one in five seats, but the correlation is scarcely higher in those alone. Voting also gives a misleading impression of the national distribution of the party’s support. Wales and Scotland provide over three times the proportion of members compared with voters.

Members must be matched with a population denominator. Data come from the 2001 Census, conducted in April. The great majority of members on the leaked list had joined since this date, as the BNP had 2,173 members in November 2001 (Copsey, 2008: 137). The BNP recruited only ‘indigenous Caucasian’ people (Copsey, 2008: 238). We count adults who defined their ethnicity as ‘White British’, including ‘White Scottish’. The proportion of white British adults belonging to the BNP was 0.032 per cent across Britain.

For statistical analysis, we use the finest geographical unit defined by the Census, the ‘output area’. This is a very small neighbourhood; the median covers an area of 6 hectares and contains 280 people. There are 218,038 neighbourhoods (as they will be termed) in Britain: the BNP was present in 10,165 (4.7 per cent) of them. Most of those had a single member; 11 was the maximum. The highest proportion was 5.7 per cent.

We begin with independent variables capturing economic insecurity. These are measured ecologically, as the fraction of people in the neighbourhood with a particular characteristic, though they are proxies for individual characteristics predicting support for the BNP. Education is divided into three categories: no qualifications, qualifications below university degree, and degree (denominated by people aged 16–74 years). Class is divided into five categories, from routine and semi-routine to managerial and professional (denominated by occupied population). The unemployment rate is also measured (denominated by the economically active). Alongside these sociological staples, housing is included because the BNP promotes the myth that foreigners are given privileged access to public housing. Housing tenure is divided into three categories: owned or mortgaged, rented from the local authority, and private rental (including other arrangements). Overcrowding, as defined by the Census, is also measured. (In both cases the denominator is households.) We expect, then, that white British adults are more likely to belong to the BNP in neighbourhoods with lower education, lower social class, higher unemployment, more private renting, and greater overcrowding. Control variables are entered to reflect findings that BNP voters are disproportionately male and middle aged (Ford and Goodwin, 2010; Cutts et al., 2011). Additional controls are population density and the proportion of people living in communal establishments like prisons.

For Hypotheses 1–3, we defin

I mentioned the other day on Facebook that I was going to start going through my sewing to-do pile.  I can’t help but collect pretty vintage things that need repair or alterations, or start and stop sewing projects.  But then I end up with many garments (things that languish at the bottom of my fabric stash for months, years even) that could be rather fetching when done–eep, if they ever do!  It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break; alas, it’s difficult since I get so excited by new ideas and outfits.

Please excuse the crappiness of these photos.  Taking pictures of one’s self can be quite the challenge and it’s something I haven’t taken the time to master.  I’m for sure making the goofiest faces in these so I must continue to bombard you with headless images.  (Oh, but don’t you love this bag?  It was a bargain and a birthday gift to myself last year!)

First up: this $5 1960s blouse.

I don’t like long sleeved blouses and there was a stain near one cuff anyway so I just chopped the sleeves off to create short ones.  The hems stuck out in a funny way so I threaded some 1/4″ elastic through them.  I thought about changing the buttons and maybe even widening the neckline but that’s a lot of work and I think it looks OK as is, especially if I leave the top button undone. (I don’t like tight necklines; I feel too closed up!)  The rows of lace and eyelet are the best parts.

Now the skirt:  I started to make this before Christmas, from vintage Simplicity pattern #7869 (View 5, specifically):

It’s of fine wale red corduroy.  I didn’t finish it in time for the holidays because, ha, I gained some weight and could not zip it up!  (Yes, before the sugar cookies and turkey and such.)  Shame-faced, I tucked it away only to find it again while reorganizing my fabric stash.  (Which is something I have to do periodically as it can get quite messy and chaotic in there.)  Thankfully I’ve lost that extra cushion around my middle and was delighted to find that the skirt fit; all I had to do was hem it.  The hips seem a bit big now and I wish I had clipped and notched the seams of the waistband  a lot more (especially in the front) since the thickness of the fabric is creating a ridge that is a little too obvious for my liking.  Oh well, not all my projects need to turn out perfectly and at least it’s wearable!  (I was, however, able to install the zipper in one take which is pretty darn fantastic as that’s one of my least favorite things to do and it’s always a headache for me.)

I do like how the vintage ivory and gold buttons look against the red:

0 Comments on To-Dos Checked Off My List {’60s Red & White} as of 1/1/1900