I should crochet an utterly sincere, non-ironic tea cozy in protest

Edit: I don’t want to be an asshole. I want to be clear that I am not criticizing the article or the author or the artists profiled. I’m bitching about scenesters.

More of the c-word today.

So I haven’t been picking up the City Paper lately, but today something told me to look at the newstand this morning. “They’re Crafty” was the headline to change my mind today (as I was walking to work with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook in my bag, my neck wrapped in a handmade scarf).

Briefly: the article would like to remind us that the “Baltimore Craft Community” is thriving. Sweet! But I get the feeling they don’t mean at church bazaars, they mean the kind of indie craft that is Okay For Young People: you know, people with nose rings. Cool people. “Indie” people. Punk Rock Crafters, that sort of crowd.

Was anybody really concerned? Who could think that the indie-punk-DIY fad was fading already? I mean, I suppose there’s a chance that the hipsters and yippies have run out of yarn, or something, or moved on to woodworking, but I really don’t think so.

Though I was interested to see that there’s now a Charm City Craft Mafia (I remember thinking of starting one ages ago), my first reaction to the article was a big roll of the eyes. I think it’s because of my brief experience with some of Baltimore’s larger (not just craft) “indie scene.”

When I first moved here from Corn Town I just loved how crazy and artsy and liberal this city was. I thought it was quite refreshing to see a new aesthetic that actually had some weight and support behind it. But after a while, I found a sour taste in my mouth (and it wasn’t the homebrewed beer talking, either): aesthetic was the only thing. Not talent or passion or love of the arts, just whether or not you were “indie” enough.

It’s possible that I just happened to meet the wrong people, the nasty, puckered, nervous gatekeepers instead of the truly passionate. But that’s who I met. And boy, they did a nice job of changing my mind. I thought college was the time for posing hipper-than-thou (goddamn art majors), silly me, but apparently that’s just the training.

Anyway. My take, at first glance this morning was this: As far as I’m concerned the craft community is thriving, yes. But the WHOLE craft community. Even the ones who make things like pastel granny-square afghans or angels out of styrofoam and yarn. Even the ones who wear, say, generic maternity apparel and have shaggy, growing-out haircuts and no visible piercings (who, me?). People who don’t have the street cred and have outgrown caring about it.

To me, there’s value in anything handmade; it doesn’t have to be featured in a “knitty-gritty” sort of collection to suddenly become worthwhile.

February 28, 2007 | Filed Under baltimore, check it out, create, geek, journalism | 16 Comments

You can call me a lady blockhead

I’m reading a collection of Mike Royko’s columns (“One More Time,” definitely worth checking out), and on page 211 he quotes Samuel Johnson:

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

I guess I’m a blockhead. Or does this quote not apply to women?

June 21, 2006 | Filed Under journalism | 3 Comments

Sneak preview of the Baltimore Sun’s redesign

Or, the “Sunpaper’s” redesign, if you’re from around these parts. It launches Monday and I’m very, very interested.

Newsdesigner, my favorite source for news design news, has a couple posts up: Preview pages, the Sun’s new fonts [named after H.L. Mencken, how clever] and a snippet from an advertising PDF.

September 14, 2005 | Filed Under journalism | Leave a Comment

Priorities

I guess I was just a little surprised that Baltimore’s news channels chose the weather to throw an unscheduled fit about, when an American ally is reeling from a terrorist attack [idle type has some links].

Just seemed … a little odd.

July 7, 2005 | Filed Under journalism | 3 Comments

Oh My God! Kenney’s Moving!

For the few news-design nerds out there, or people who know Kenney [usually the two groups are one and the same], Newsdesigner had this little tidbit.

I was all, Hey! I know Kenney! In that interweb way, anyway.

So he’s going to Indy, leaving Jeffro and the Merc behind but returning to the Midwest, which everyone knows is better anyhow.

June 17, 2005 | Filed Under journalism | 2 Comments

Hometown paper makes good. Again.

From Editor and Publisher: “Holy Toledo: ‘Blade’ Series Uncovers Rare-Coin Scam”. They’re getting almost as much attention for this as for their award-winning beryllium series or last year’s Pulitzer.

May 24, 2005 | Filed Under journalism | Leave a Comment

“Hey, breeding hipster”

The City Paper finally wises up to Sweetney’s Rock’n’Romp gigs for this summer.

I like when good ideas get good press.

May 18, 2005 | Filed Under check it out, journalism | 2 Comments

City Paper loves your Bitchin’

Whilst perusing the latest issue of Bitch, I caught a letter to the editor from the City Paper’s own Wendy Ward:

“I kinda thought I’d send you a letter about content at some point, but instead I’m writing you cuz you rock wid letters. I work at the Baltimore City Paper and love our mail page because it means folks are not just reading us, but caring enough to respond. You all give column after column — which I know means a lot to editorial cuz you gots to give it up — to the mail readers send in. I appreciate it and it is a perfect way to cocktail my way into the meal that is every issue of Bitch. “Dear Bitch” is the aperitif to the yummy issues I look forward to.”

I, too, love how seriously Baltimoreans take their City Paper. I was even mentioned in the MAIL section one time:

Boy, I bet you hear all about your crummy picks the week after your Best of Baltimore edition comes out. My gripe is with your “Best Local Online Addiction” [That was me, Supafine] and why you didn’t recognize the guys over on Madison Avenue (www.rebuildingmadison.info) who are fighting the good fight. …

See? I was a crummy pick! Famous twice over.

Anyway. Another quality issue of Bitch [pick up Bust too, while you’re at it] and some love for Baltimore from the CP. Who doesn’t love independent media?

February 27, 2005 | Filed Under check it out, journalism | Leave a Comment

Busy, cubed

Moving begun — no time to write — shall update, maybe, later.

Today in the City Paper —

Race to the Bottom: Just when world events have made quality intelligence reporting a hot commodity, The Sun this past week lost its primary national security reporter. Scott Shane, a 21-year Sun veteran who has been writing about terrorism and intelligence issues since Sept. 11, 2001, left the paper to join the New York Timesí Washington bureau, where he expects his open-ended enterprise-reporting assignment to center on national security and terrorism-related issues.

Shaneís departure comes on the heels of at least 18 other reporters, editors, support staff, and managers who took part in a controversial voluntary contract buyout thrust upon The Sun and its sister papers in the middle of June by parent Tribune Co. (Mobtown Beat,ìAll the News That Fits,î June 16). The contract buyouts, offered to longtime Sun employees, were implemented along with other cost-cutting initiatives at The Sun and other Tribune papers after the company reported low first-quarter profits on June 7. …..

August 11, 2004 | Filed Under journalism | Leave a Comment

No comment.

The Tribune Co., which owns The Baltimore Sun and other local interests, is cutting 200 jobs. According to Editor & Publisher, they offered buyouts to 63 folks at the Sun, 18 of which appear to be accepted.

I have no further comment at this time.

In a totally unrelated musing: The City Paper appears to have cut their own blog. Crablogs says it was updated 48 minutes ago, but mine eyes have seen the vacancy — no longer even a 404 to console a lonely visitor. A shame, truly, because it had potential. Of course, I’ve been off the blog circuit for several weeks now, so perhaps someone noted this previously and has already discovered the reason, yet I am to lazy to Google-find the answer.

June 10, 2004 | Filed Under journalism | 4 Comments