Context of Rock Star
Sep. 27th, 2010 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueDiscovery 1 (bad):
I've been trying for the last three years to track down a cape gooseberry in the U.S., having picked up a taste for them in London. This quest was met mainly with confusion by produce dealers who wanted to make sure I didn't mean kiwi or kumquat. Accidentally, through seeing a photo online and following it, I determined today that they are perhaps better known as ground cherries here, despite not growing on the ground or looking or tasting like cherries. (They're a small, tart golden fruit related to the tomatillo.) I still do not expect to be able to find any, but am now disgruntled over the name ground cherries, which sounds terribly unappealing.
Discovery 2 (good):
During a tangent while researching letterpresses in the Boston area, I discovered gyotaku, which is (I quote wikipedia) "a traditional form of Japanese fish printing." As in "smear a fish with ink and slap it on a piece of paper." This is maybe my favorite thing ever. I am never finger painting again; I now have superior technology at my disposal.
and so on
I had forgotten that I have a much easier time acting friendly when my hair is unnaturally colored, mainly because it places me contiguous to a punk/drag/black context and a history of left-identified resistance, which roughly means that it scares off the kind of people I don't want to talk to and gives fair warning to everyone else that I am willing to create social discomfort if I don't like how things are going . . . which means I can be nice and friendly to everyone without having to worry that it will turn into a perception that I'm a pushover and "nice girl," with all the baggage of "nice girl." Instead of nice girl, I can just be nice, and I can talk to people much further outside my social circle without them tripping up and saying something casually offensive about minorities.
Otherwise, it gets confusing, because I look like I belong to a certain culture that I don't belong to, and everyone feels awkward and disappointed. It's easier when I look too clean-scrubbed to be a rock star, but not really ordinary enough to be not a rock star. I may be over-analyzing this.
I've been trying for the last three years to track down a cape gooseberry in the U.S., having picked up a taste for them in London. This quest was met mainly with confusion by produce dealers who wanted to make sure I didn't mean kiwi or kumquat. Accidentally, through seeing a photo online and following it, I determined today that they are perhaps better known as ground cherries here, despite not growing on the ground or looking or tasting like cherries. (They're a small, tart golden fruit related to the tomatillo.) I still do not expect to be able to find any, but am now disgruntled over the name ground cherries, which sounds terribly unappealing.
Discovery 2 (good):
During a tangent while researching letterpresses in the Boston area, I discovered gyotaku, which is (I quote wikipedia) "a traditional form of Japanese fish printing." As in "smear a fish with ink and slap it on a piece of paper." This is maybe my favorite thing ever. I am never finger painting again; I now have superior technology at my disposal.
and so on
I had forgotten that I have a much easier time acting friendly when my hair is unnaturally colored, mainly because it places me contiguous to a punk/drag/black context and a history of left-identified resistance, which roughly means that it scares off the kind of people I don't want to talk to and gives fair warning to everyone else that I am willing to create social discomfort if I don't like how things are going . . . which means I can be nice and friendly to everyone without having to worry that it will turn into a perception that I'm a pushover and "nice girl," with all the baggage of "nice girl." Instead of nice girl, I can just be nice, and I can talk to people much further outside my social circle without them tripping up and saying something casually offensive about minorities.
Otherwise, it gets confusing, because I look like I belong to a certain culture that I don't belong to, and everyone feels awkward and disappointed. It's easier when I look too clean-scrubbed to be a rock star, but not really ordinary enough to be not a rock star. I may be over-analyzing this.
