When I was young, maybe between ten and thirteen, I used to love to root around in my mum's jewellery box. One item of particular fascination to me was a string of millefiore beads. This was fascinating to me, at least in part, because it was broken, the string on which they were threaded had frayed. I and my cousin used to pester my mum to let us take it apart properly and use the beads in our own jewellery, and she used to say no (obviously she used to say no!) on the grounds that she was going to get it fixed at some point in the future and didn't want us mucking around with it.
When I inherited my mum's jewellery I continued in the beautiful family tradition of not getting the millefiore necklace fixed. Until this year! A friend got me a necklace making kit and I finally took it apart properly and put it back together again. Here it is:
So this Fem Fri is all about the women of millefiore and Murano glass.
Here's a history of the technique by Layl McDill, whose art practice uses millefiore extensively:
But I'm getting ahead of myself because the technique was used long before it got its name. In fact, it was originally called "mosaic glass." It actually dates back as far as Egyptian times […] In 2014, when I went to the Louvre in Paris, there was this chunk of glass with a cow in it! It was an amazingly detailed millefiori glass and it's many hundreds of years old. Egyptians were using the millefiori technique as far back as 1400 BCE.
Turns out Murano glass is a pretty male dominated world, here's an article on women who are breaking the mould there:
women glassmakers have had to seek alternative means of production. Many use the technique of lampworking, common since the 13th century, in which glass is melted and worked in the flame of a blowtorch. These glass artists tend to work alone in small studios. One such artist is Cristina Sfriso, who creates intricate, small-scale statues using lampworking.
Finally, unrelated to today's theme, but have you heard Fiona Apple's cover of The Whole of the Moon? I can't stop listening to this. It's phenomenal. Many thanks to the friend and subscriber who sent it to me. Also if you watch to the end you get to see her do a silly little dance:
How are you doing this morning? Well, I hope, and I hope you're looking forward to reading about some modernist women this morning.
I've been reading about the literary magazines of the 1920s, and of course it all feels very distant. Firstly because it was a hundred years ago and secondly because those magazines were not particularly financially stable even at the time and you sort of cheer when they make it past their fifth year. Except! for! one! Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine, which she ran in a fairly financially and marketing savvy way, has become Poetry Foundation, beloved online poetry resource. The work that she did to make poetry a mainstream art form is still ongoing a hundred years later:
Monroe established an editorial policy independent of editorial preference or literary movements. According to Judith Paterson in a separate Dictionary of Literary Biography entry, Monroe’s commitment to such a policy ensured the magazine’s success. Paterson quoted the new editorial policy that appeared in the second issue of Poetry: “Open Door will be the policy of this magazine—may the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the editors … desire to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written.”
Margaret Anderson was more… how can I say this… really significantly more nasty to her contributors than Harriet Monroe was. She'd rip into people whose work she had actually published in her magazine, the Little Review, telling Helen Hoyt for example that "you have a poem in this issue […] it is not Art; it is merely a rather good poem. You could have made it Art." The following month she issued 13 blank pages where usually there would be contributions (stories, poems etc) because nothing she received for that issue was good (or Art) enough. There's also a theory that she did this because she was just back from the summer hols and cba. Could go either way. Anyway, happy Pride month:
The Little Review is known both for its role in solidifying this modernist coterie and for its early championing of a variety of socio-political causes, including anarchism, gay rights, and workers’ rights. In the March 1915 issue, Anderson published what biographer Holly Baggett calls, according to the Chicago Tribune, “the first editorial by a lesbian on the treatment of gay people.” Anderson wrote, “With us love is just as punishable as murder or robbery.”
Finally, Nella Larsen, whose superb (and btw short) novel Passing you would definitely enjoy if you have not already. Here's a good, long piece on her in the LRB. Some lovely details here:
Did Larsen take clothes too seriously? She added a purple cape to her nurse’s uniform, and wore antique necklaces and jade earrings on the hospital ward. According to Mary McCarthy, her stories always contained the sentence: ‘And there I was in the fullest of full evening dress.’
Hope your day is off to a good start. I set myself up for success last night by watching Clueless, which remains a perfect movie. It does all the things you want it to and in only 90 minutes. Let's enjoy some time together this morning thinking about and reading about this classic film.
We start with an oral history of Clueless in Vanity Fair. What a charming description of Cher by Alicia Silverstone below. "ridiculous and lovely"! Those are exactly the words. Anyway, this is a really long piece that you can enjoy sipping throughout the morning:
I loved how seriously she took everything. That’s essentially how I played it… I felt like that was [who] Cher was. She was so sincere and so serious. And that’s what I think makes her so ridiculous and lovely all the time.
Obviously the costume design is incredible and the clothes are so much fun to look at. I was happy to find an interview with the costume designer, which is illustrated with a very cute photo from the set:
'She’s in the quad, there’s going to be a lot of green and a lot of people crossing so she needed to pop, and the blue just wasn’t popping. We also tried a red one but it felt like it was trying too hard and not quite right. You get this almost visceral feeling and you can see them changing into the character and that was the case of the yellow suit, we were all like "Yes! This is it! She’s a ray of sunshine, she’s the queen!"'
Maybe I just fundamentally really like things that are or are based on Jane Austen's Emma? I remember the last time I watched a film of Emma I did a Fem Fri about it as well. There's no bad time to reread this delightful book:
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
How are you doing on this wet and windy May day. It's wet and windy in London at least, but I hope that you personally are warm and happy and looking forward to a newsletter of women doing cool stuff with computers. Thank you to the friend and subscriber who provided the inspiration for this one. Let's get going!
We start with this interview with Elizabeth Feinler, who was an early internet innovator! This is an great interview, really long and detailed, so if you've got a meeting you can zone out in coming up I'd bookmark it for then. If you're a colleague of mine who is reading this, I never zone out in the meetings you organise, but I read in a think piece that it's something people do sometimes:
I read […] about a group being created at SRI that paired information specialists, in my case chemistry, with research teams. The specialists searched the technical literature, then gathered, and organized the information pertinent to the research team’s needs. This appealed to me and California seemed like a happening place, so I wrote and asked them to hire me. They wrote back to say they were interested, but did not have a job at the time. It was a long shot, so I forgot about it and decided to go off on a grand tour of Europe with my roommate. Right before we left for Europe though, I received an offer from SRI, which I accepted starting a week after we returned from our trip. When I first got to California, I couldn’t remember where I was, because I had been in so many strange cities in such a short time.
Now we have Tiny, who makes almost impossibly cute custom keycaps. I am sure I was sent this article because of the Kirby content (I love Kirby) but I stuck around for her facts on how mechanical keyboards don't have to be the loudest and most annoying thing within a five mile radius:
One of the big things that drew me into it was that I can customize this keyboard however I want to, like I can do different colors for the keycaps, I can make it whatever layout I want it to be. I worked in an office, I typed on a computer like eight hours a day, so it made sense for something that I use so often, for me to customize it, decorate it, and for it to actually have very practical benefits.
How's it going? Of course, I hope that well, but in any case we have made it to Friday so let's enjoy that together. I feel like it's been a while since I recommended any music. There are two albums by women that I've been engaging with incredibly deeply these last few weeks so here are some recommendations from those.
Let's start with The Weather Station, whose new album is already my favourite of hers. It's got the coolness and the dryness of her previous albums but there's also this lovely confidence in it. She's great. Here's Tried To Tell You, which is for me the standout track, but it's all excellent:
Here's Arooj Aftab with a track from her wildly beautiful album Vulture Prince. She has the most incredible voice, and also the album has an accompanying perfume. You don't need that to enjoy Mohabbat though:
How are you doing, alright? I hope so. Just two articles today, on a really nice theme – of honesty, with others and also with oneself.
We start with a really short Sara Hendren piece on a response she got from a talk. This has been a huge source of strength for me this week. I have read it several times and also sent it to lots of people. Maybe it's got a message for you too! Here you go:
It costs us something to be the beginner. Our minds opt for intellectual ejector seats, taking us away from new ideas. But “I hadn’t thought of that before” is actually the experience of joy trying to reach us.
On a new topic, here's Drew Gregory talking about how much Friends meant to her as a young transwoman. I really love this reminder that stories mean different things to different people and that for better or worse, we can never really know what our words are going to mean to someone else:
The first time I read an article about how Friends was actually homophobic and that meant it was actually bad and that actually we should all hate it, this line was included. I was horrified. I wanted so badly to be a good ally to women and gay people — I was literally in college on a scholarship for queer activism — and yet apparently this line that had meant so much to me was homophobic. I didn’t understand why.
It's been a fairly intense work week so I hope you're looking forward to an episode in the grand tradition of Fem Fris When I Am Tired, which is lots of nice pictures and not too much text.
Firstly, did you know that a woman has done a comic book version of The Great Gatsby in which all of the characters are sea creatures? This is the next level, as I love both Gatsby and sea creatures. Look at Jordan Baker! Squid Jordan Baker:
So I drew Jordan as a squidlike creature: cold, inscrutable and sleek with her sinuous tentacles always under control. The interesting thing is that this portrayal has given rise to reactions that I did not contemplate or expect. In hindsight, this makes perfect sense though - Jordan is a rather "blank" character who presents a deliberately smooth, guarded face to the world. This means that we are almost obliged to paint our own interpretations onto her, according to our own feelings and predilections.
I've highlighted the lovely comics of Bird and Moon before, this one is not strictly relevant to the season but you know what, it's a beautiful message for the person you love at any time. I'm sure you can photoshop in "birthday" or "international workers' day" where here it says "valentine's day":
As you know, I usually like to showcase several women per Fem Fri to keep things fresh and relevant and to ensure a wide range of viewpoints. Sometimes, though, there's a woman… sometimes there's a woman. This is one of those weeks. I want us to spend this time together with Susan Bacon.
Susan Bacon was an 18th century housewife who commissioned this as a portrait of her husband. It's called Francis Matthew Schutz in His Bed:
She commissioned it from Hogarth! I just can't stop thinking about it.
SB: Hi, yes, I'd like to commission a portrait of my husband
WH: Do you have any ideas for the sort of thing you want
SB: Oils. Huge.
WH: What you want him to be doing
SB: Oh uhhhhhh vomiting red wine into a chamberpot
WH: Sure sounds fun. Some ladies like to include a classical reference, were you thinking…
SB: Something about how he used to be cool and hot*
WH: Great got it, think I have just the thing :)
SB: Make sure he looks like utter shit
WH: Yeah I have a sense of the piece already actually
SB: Just straight up dead inside
Enjoy art responsibly this weekend!
Alex.
*Apparently the Latin is from a poem of Horace's and the meaning boils down to 'Not long ago I kept in shape for the girls' 👀
How are you? Pumped for the weekend, I hope. Maybe you're looking forward to some cocktails to chill out with on a Friday night, and if that's so hoo boy do I have the Fem Fri for you, it's all about amazing woman bartenders. It's also replete with recipes. ENJOY.
Here's Jillian Vose on how she got her start. She is now one of the best renowned bartenders in the world but it all began with her making a Long Island Iced Tea look the right colour. The joke is on her colleagues really, because I couldn't even tell you the right colour for a Long Island Iced Tea. Sort of like coke? Like diluted coke maybe? Anyway:
When I asked my colleagues how to make something, they would just tell me to make it look a certain colour. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to learn that way, but it made me figure it out -I bought a Mr. Boston book shortly after that.
Finally, enjoy Eryn Reece's recipe for a Negroni that won't get you tooooo drunk, just pumped for the weekend:
"While I love a classic, equal parts Negroni, I tend to enjoy mine a touch more spirited, making the drink less viscous. I feel this way all the ingredients get a fighting chance to shine," Reece says.
I learned from the above that there is actually a thing called Negroni Week, but it was instituted after the legendary The Awl piece on Negroni Season. Perhaps we would all enjoy reading that together again. It also serves as a warning against overclocking on any of these drinks:
“I’m really really sorry I put you through so much worry,” he said.
We're into proper spring now, which means that I'm getting well into running and you get to enjoy the traditional springtime Fem Fri that is all about women who are really good at running!
Let's start with Kathrine Switzer, who was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. She had a set-to with an official as well who wanted it to be a men only activity. Well, obviously that didn't work out well for him because women run marathons and are great at them:
women are ideally suited for any endurance activity – endurance and stamina are the things that women excel at, along with stability and balance.” For the longest time, she explains, sport has been about traditionally 'male' physical capabilities like speed, power and strength, but now, it’s edging towards being about endurance and flexibility.
I'm also consistently fascinated by ultrarunning. I asked someone what the appeal was once and they said, aaaah you know how it is when you're running a marathon and you know you won't get a personal best? Well, ultra running removes that problem. If you have this problem (I do not) maybe this is going to be your sport. Here's an interview with Helene Diamantides Whitaker who won an ultra so brutal they cancelled it for 20 years after she won its first instance:
If you can run 6 miles, you can run 60. The only difference is wanting to. Therefore the preparation is as much mental as physical. Ultra races are tiring. You have to anticipate this and know how to keep going physically and mentally when tired. You learn this by training, having confidence in knowing what preparation you have done is right for you. Read books and listen to others, but at the end of the day, you have to do what you need to do to get to the finish line.
