The Underside
It was a slow week for reading around here and several books went back to the library unfinished. From the portion I read, I’d say Mary Gaitskill’s Two Girls Fat and Thin covers similar ground as Veronica in its exploration of two unlikely friends. The reworking of similar characters was part of why I wanted to read it. I may borrow it again when I’m in the mood to put up with the Ayn Rand character that drives the early parts of the plot.
The most interesting thing I did finish was Gather Beneath the Banner, a catalogue from a 1999 Textile Museum. The catalog is strong on the images; high-level on the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; and oddly light on the details of the construction of the banners. Not a single photo of the back of a banner. (Why, yes, I have made security guards nervous by trying to peep around at the backings of tapestries. Looking very closely is not touching.)
While my great-grandmother belonged to a temperance society (somewhere around here I have her pledge card), it’s unlikely that I’d ever pass muster. Even so, I’m curious about the contradictions at the heart of the nineteenth-century WCTU: I’d like to better understand how its members sustained the contradiction between arguments for equality when it came to female suffrage and arguments of difference with when it came to race and eugenics.
(Note to self: some research possibilities identified here.)
(Another note to self: wonder if there’s a text out there somewhere that talks about the way politics and textiles intersect in public spaces (banners, expedition flags, badges). Must be. )
