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New Room and Old Stuff
Nov. 30th, 2019 10:18 amThe sewing room is finally, finally done! By which I mean "it has an intact floor, and painted walls, and all my shit is thrown haphazardly into it". Anyway, it feels so good to have it back, and to have all my sewing crap out of my bedroom. I'm knee deep in boxes right now, sorting things out. I'm going to have to take a close look at things like "the pile of fabrics I never use because they aren't quilting cotton" and do the math on whether I want to keep all that shit "just in case". It is hard for me to throw away fabric, because it's good for making patterns and I do make dolls sometimes, and you want more textures than quilting cotton in dolls, but I just haven't been in a doll groove.
I have stumbled across the Thorndyke mysteries. They're very blatantly Sherlock Holmes fanfic, written in the 1910s. They're pretty good mysteries, leaning heavily towards forensics, and often involve cameras or microscopes or chemical analysis. And I adore how affectionate the characters are towards each other - so many Holmes adaptations make their characters snippy assholes who "banter" by putting each other down and don't seem to respect each other or enjoy each other's company at all. Thorndyke and Jervis are thoughtful and considerate of each other, crack jokes and laugh at each other's jokes all the time, compliment each other, and love spending time together.
Unfortunately, these are old timey mysteries written by a man born in 1862 and boy howdy are they racist. It's easy to dismiss Doyle (born 1859) as racist for some of the questionable "foreign stuff is exotic and evil and magical" stuff he did, but Doyle was actually a good person and way ahead of his time. Look at his real life behavior with George Edalji, and look at how his stories like the Adventure of the Yellow Face portray mixed race relationships positively, and end with a biracial kid being loved and accepted by her mom's new husband. Look at Irene Adler's happily ever after. The dude was actively trying. This author, not so much. The books have an uncomfortable amount of racism, anti-semitism, and sexism, and from the Wiki article I browsed I learned that the author had plenty more horrible conservative views. Which really sucks for me, because I want to read these books and it's like eating fudge and never knowing when the next bite will be a blob of poop. It's always like this! I read a lot of historical mysteries and they're always fucking racist! Okay, not all, and I'm exceedingly grateful for the ones who aren't, but I'm always poised for a new slap in the face. Even from the ones who are held up as the best mystery writers. I'm very tired of learning new racial slurs and stereotypes.
I'm going to get back to my quilt stuff. I have been given orange fabric by some of the quilters in the second sewing circle I taught paper piecing to, and I have boxes to sort and dwarves to make.
I have stumbled across the Thorndyke mysteries. They're very blatantly Sherlock Holmes fanfic, written in the 1910s. They're pretty good mysteries, leaning heavily towards forensics, and often involve cameras or microscopes or chemical analysis. And I adore how affectionate the characters are towards each other - so many Holmes adaptations make their characters snippy assholes who "banter" by putting each other down and don't seem to respect each other or enjoy each other's company at all. Thorndyke and Jervis are thoughtful and considerate of each other, crack jokes and laugh at each other's jokes all the time, compliment each other, and love spending time together.
Unfortunately, these are old timey mysteries written by a man born in 1862 and boy howdy are they racist. It's easy to dismiss Doyle (born 1859) as racist for some of the questionable "foreign stuff is exotic and evil and magical" stuff he did, but Doyle was actually a good person and way ahead of his time. Look at his real life behavior with George Edalji, and look at how his stories like the Adventure of the Yellow Face portray mixed race relationships positively, and end with a biracial kid being loved and accepted by her mom's new husband. Look at Irene Adler's happily ever after. The dude was actively trying. This author, not so much. The books have an uncomfortable amount of racism, anti-semitism, and sexism, and from the Wiki article I browsed I learned that the author had plenty more horrible conservative views. Which really sucks for me, because I want to read these books and it's like eating fudge and never knowing when the next bite will be a blob of poop. It's always like this! I read a lot of historical mysteries and they're always fucking racist! Okay, not all, and I'm exceedingly grateful for the ones who aren't, but I'm always poised for a new slap in the face. Even from the ones who are held up as the best mystery writers. I'm very tired of learning new racial slurs and stereotypes.
I'm going to get back to my quilt stuff. I have been given orange fabric by some of the quilters in the second sewing circle I taught paper piecing to, and I have boxes to sort and dwarves to make.
