Author: Deborah Makarios

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Who Made This?

The nature of creativity has been given a bit of extra scrutiny lately, with the rise of AI art. Which (you may be relieved to hear) I do not propose to discuss. But the question of who is the creator of a work – or what involvement counts as creation – is one that isn’t limited to interactions with bots, algorithms, or any of that other techy stuff.

I read a book recently, about a garden called Federal Twist. James Golden, the man who wrote the book, lives in the house in the garden (at least part-time; I wasn’t sure if it’s just a weekend place or what), and designed the garden. And he identifies very closely with the garden. So much so that he says, “I am Federal Twist.” Well, he wouldn’t be the first human to identify with place, and he’ll be far from the last.

But.

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A Really Good Homemade Mask

Maybe you can’t afford N-95 masks. Maybe you don’t like sending so many disposable masks to landfill. Maybe you can’t get masks that fit you properly. (I find the blue/white ones always slide about and poke me in the eyes, no matter what contortions I inflict on them beforehand.) Maybe you find fabric masks comfortable but are a bit uncertain about how much protection they’re really providing.

On the grounds that the best mask is the one you wear, and which actually fits well enough to form a barrier between your breath and everyone else’s, I have been wearing reusable homemade fabric masks. But these are not your ordinary fabric masks! No, these leap tall buildings in a…sorry, turned over two pages at once. These are WHO-style triple-layer fabric masks!

There are, it turns out, two secrets to getting a mask that works and wears comfortably, whether you make it or buy it. The first secret is to get the right shape of mask. For example, the ones I make for the Caped Gooseberry have a special nose-piece to avoid glasses getting fogged. And the ones I make for myself are child-sized, because it turns out I have a child-sized face, which is why my whole head was being swallowed in a single gulp by your average standard masks. (We’ll get to the second secret soon.)

The good news is that if you have a mask pattern you like, you can still use it to make a mask that’s a bit more beefy in the protection area. For myself, I use this pattern from the Spruce, and for the Caped Gooseberry I use this one from Made By Barb – with certain alterations.

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Those Little Delicate Compliments

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an icky compliment is worse than no compliment at all. Exhibit A: Mr Collins, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As he tells Mr Bennet, “…you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies.”

In this case, suggesting to Lady Catherine de Bourgh that her insipid daughter (who has no conversation, no skills, no hobbies, and whose only recorded ability is playing the card game Casino) would be the “brightest ornament” of the royal court if she’d ever gone to London, and would be doing any duke a favour by accepting his hand and the highest available rank outside the actual royal family.

A drawing of two well-dressed ladies sitting in an open four-wheeled carriage by a high fence backed with tall trees. In the foreground, a black-clad Mr Collins speaks, with his wife daintily dressed beside him. In the background, a small coachman stands in front of the horses, his stance uncomfortable.
Mr Collins blethers on while the young coachman becomes more and more desperate for a pee.
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