All posts in Uncategorized

Gallery Opening at Broadway Bike School

June 10, 2008

What I know for sure is that this week, there will be a gallery opening at the peerless (in Cambridge at least) Broadway Bike School featuring art by two of the bike mechanics, around 8 pm. Wine and cheese will reportedly be on hand.

What I don’t know is what day. My friend who is friends with people there says it’s Wednesday, and this blog says it’s Thursday. So to be on the safe side you should come tomorrow, and the worst thing that will happen is you’ll have to buy a patch kit or something to not feel like a jerk. And then come back the next day.

Update: Thursday.

Yves Saint Laurent, 1936-2008

June 2, 2008

A strange coincidence: this afternoon I was looking at a major Yves Saint Laurent exhibit, and around the same time the man himself died in Paris. It was already fabulous, but now there’s even more reason to go (ends 9/28).

(Image from the MMFA)

Free hardcore band logo

May 28, 2008

(It might even work for a post-hardcore band)

I printed the following letters at Heavenly Letterpress Workshop for a freelance design project last weekend, but ended up not needing them. They were so gorgeous looking that I thought I’d rearrange them into an appropriately brutal-sounding nonsense word…

La presse!

May 16, 2008

The lamentable lack of official gayness at Gordon College was covered by the Hamilton Chronicle this week, and I hear a Boston Globe story may be coming…

Ain’t easy being queer at Gordon College

May 11, 2008

Wrote a little post at Mind on Fire about a dustup at Gordon College over a LGBT support group that was voted down last week by student government.

The first thing that struck me was the way the article, glossing as a newspaper must over the hard theological issues, can only treat it as an emotional issue, tut-tutting the Student Association for not being more compassionate. The solution, one would suppose, would be for them to let their hearts grow a few sizes and hold a revote, and all would be well.

But it’s not that easy, because it’s not just about homophobia in the emotional sense, like it would be at most schools. It’s also about a millennia-old intellectual system that denigrates queerness (at least in most versions). And someone who give serious assent to that system with their head cannot accept queerness even if their heart wants to. (more…)

Newbury Street markup

April 19, 2008

So I’m getting a belt at Rick Walker’s (“Rock N’ Roll Cowboy Clothes since 1932″), and have the following conversation.

“Those are nice boots,” says a man who appears to be the owner.

I thank him for his kindness.

“Where’d you get them?” he asks.

I give him the name of a vintage store in my neighborhood.

“Do you mind if I ask how much their boots are?” he asks.

“I think from $20 to $50 or so — I got these for about $20,” I reply.

“Fuck… fuck,” he mutters, and jokes about doing them violence.

* * *

Later, as I’m checking out, he compliments me on my purple rodeo shirt. The sales girl I was talking to informs him that I got it at the same place.

“Really? And how much was it?”

“Also $20.” Rick Walker’s shirts are more in the $75 range.

“Fuck. Motherfuckers.”

“I don’t think a lot of people know about them,” I said as I left.

This is fantastic.

April 12, 2008

I was tempted to take this on myself, but instead I’ll notify others: the Boston Guerilla Queer Bar is having a T-shirt design contest (specs).

They want to use this lo-res Cher Gueveara logo, so you’ll probably want a recent version of Illu$trator with AutoTrace… OR the free, online Vector Magic. (Thanks, internet!)

On eccentric glamour

April 8, 2008

On the plane from Chicago I read the following in an interview with Simon Doonan, author of Eccentric Glamour –

Eccentric glamoristas love fashion but are not dictated to by trends. They treat clothing as a form of personal expression and are less about layering designer labels than the creative manner of mix-and-matching to achieve a look. [Our customers have] a high tolerance for eccentricity. She is looking for quirk. She does not dress head-to-toe in one designer.

Which sums up my general approach to clothes, though my practical application has varied.

But “lately/there’s been a lot going on.”

Psychologically, after years of androgyny I’ve become more comfortable with traditional expressions of “masculinity,” as my friends and private-blog readers already know. And this has thrown my whole aesthetic into confusion. There’s a tension — not a contradiction, but I think a tension — between “eccentric glamor” and the implicit conformity of mainstream masculine self-presentation.

While we’re on the subject, I do feel some qualms about spending tons of time and/or money on clothes. I’m far from my days of Quaker plain dress, but I still hanker sometimes for a simple wardrobe, made of a small number of fantastic things.

But can a wardrobe be small, durable and fantastic at the same time?

Website note

March 30, 2008

Loyal readers have notified me that only the front page of this blog is working, and everything else is not.

This seems to be due to a system-wide setting that was changed at my webhost. I’ll look into it in the next day or two.

While the “About” page is down, if anyone wants to get in touch, my email is: hello@zachalexander.com

Old houses, new homes

March 27, 2008

So on Easter Sunday I moved from Seedpod Co-op to a friend’s house in Cambridge near Central Square.

Pretty stoked.

Settling into the room for the first time tonight.* Although instead of unpacking, I’m mostly writing emails and blog posts.

To end on a positive note, first a few reasons I’m sad to have left Seedpod.

No longer being with the totally awesome people who live there. If you don’t believe me, consider that they do things like this. (Note the next show.) Seriously, if you don’t mind the commute, check them out for vacancies, which are more frequent around summertime.
No longer having an amazingly well-stocked kitchen, at a reasonable cost, without having to personally shop all the time.
No longer living in the most diverse neighborhood of Boston.** And not just because of all the good pho on Dot Ave. One part of why I wanted to move there was unease with the almost unconscious tendency of college-educated white kids like me to stick to mostly-white neighborhoods.

And a few random reasons I’m happy to live on Laurel St.:

I’m a short walk away from such vintage and thrift establishments as the Great Eastern Trading Co. and (a bit further) The Garment District, even though the men’s section at the former is mostly just polyester disco shirts you want to buy but can hardly ever wear.
Shopping for myself, which means I can eat (a) what I want, and (b) at the level of frugality/expense that I want, which tends to be more polarized than how the average coop eats. Though I’m not off to a great start. I did my first grocery shopping tonight, and I think I didn’t fully realize that, when I went home, I wouldn’t have anything to eat but what I bought. My dinner ended up consisting of chocolate, Irish Breakfast and Hennepin. I suppose you could do worse.
Being. so. close. to. Cen. tral. and. Har. vard. and. Da. vis. and. M.I.T. and. down. town.

(No, that’s not my house pictured, it’s just some random photo from St. Louis “Hotness Confirmed” Missouri.)

–
*I haven’t unpacked since then because I’ve been doing a freelance book design project, which I think might be my last. I loooove me some typography, but I find it a bit unsatisfying as paid work. I need a lot of time to really suss out creative ideas, and that’s difficult with commercial projects that have, you know, deadlines. And it’s perhaps inherently frustrating as art because you can’t easily be creative without distracting the reader from the words themselves, which results in a constant battle to be normal without being boring. I’m happy I once got to set a book with Sauna however.

**Because Dorchester is so huge, it’s divided up into multiple other neighborhoods, so should the whole thing really be called a “neighborhood”? It’s more like a borough. Except we don’t have boroughs.