DIY, Oz and Alphabetical Order

[fauxklore]

Monday evening, I went to the Australian Embassy (hence, the Oz in the entry title) for a program on "Contemporary Perspectives on Fiber and the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef." There were four speakers - three museum curators and an artist - who discussed textile art, the DIY movement (especially things like yarn bombing), and the reef. Mostly there were pretty pictures, though there was some discussion of using fiber art to increase environmental awareness and everyone gave at least lip service to the intersections between art and science. The most interesting speaker was Matilda McQuaid from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum who talked about similarity of technique between fiber used for art and fiber used in industrial applications.

Afterwards, there was a reception - cheese and crackers and fruit and little sandwiches and heart-shaped cookies, plus Australian wines. I talked with some other people who had worked on the reef, mostly about how much fun it was. I had a more serious conversation with a group of other women about the denigration of artwork by women ad how craft gets characterized as less important than non-functional art. All in all, it was a pretty interesting evening.

By the way, for those of you who haven't seen it, the reef is at the Museum of Natural History on the Mall until 24 April. The museum is free so you really have no excuse for missing it if you're in Washington.

I also wanted to mention this article about the impact of last names on people's behavior. I sent the article to Robert, who hates waiting in lines and told him perhaps he is just one of those poor, impatient Z folks. He was dismissive of the whole thing and claimed he could not remember any impact of his last name on anything in school, except possibly sitting in the back of the room. When I thought about it, the only time I remember choosing anything based on alphabetical order had to do with choosing gym classes in high school. Some classes would fill up and I suppose that one could be traumatized by having to take folk dance instead of tennis. (Actually, I recall being equally traumatized by all gym classes except for folk dance. I also remember folk dance including the hustle and the bus stop, but I don't want to think about what that says about my high school and/or the 1970's.) Anyway they alternated which end of the alphabet they started with, so it was us folks with nice sensible names in the middle of the alphabet who got scarred for life.

What was your experience of alphabetical order when you grew up?

Comments

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

The only alphabetical order thing I can remember is seating charts. Not every class went that route, of course, but of the ones that did, they generally went up and down rows rather than across, so having a high-letter name didn't mean you were in the back.

The only time this was an issue was in 7th grade humanities. That teacher did the alphabetical order thing, which meant I (last name starting with Spa) was seated immediately in front of a boy (last name starting with Spe), and this boy was a cruel bastard who made junior high a living hell (not just in that class, but that class was particularly miserable because he was right behind me). After a few weeks, a couple girls seated near me told the teacher what was going on and she moved everyone around so he and I were on opposite sides of the room.

Oh, and I just remembered that in 8th and 9th grade he and I had lockers right next to each other because they were assigned alphabetically and he would write all kinds of vulgarities and random cruel things on my locker.

I always wondered what happened to him since school. In high school he stopped tormenting me and when we would pass in the hallway he always looked sort of freaked out when he'd see me. I wondered if he'd finally developed a conscience or if something else happened in his life.

[bugsybanana.livejournal.com]

My last name begins with Q, so I'm used to being unique. Generally when I have to be found on a list, I will tell whoever "last name Quinones, with a Q," and they find me easily.


I had the very odd experience in my leadership class of being one of 3 Qs out of 42 in the class. I was the only Q in my elementary and high school graduating classes, both over 200 in size.

My best friend in HS's last name begins with R, and I think he and I would not have been as well acquainted if we hadn't been seated next to one another in most of our classes in seventh grade. So that's one thing.

[cellio]

My husband is not only a Z but a Zw. In one way it's handy: in any sort of registration-list situation it's a pretty safe bet that he's the last entry on the list, so easily findable.

The custom in the schools I attended as a child was to seat alphabetically but going front-to-back, not across (so A1 sits in the front position on the left, A2 sits behind A1, etc until you get to the back seat, and then you go to the front position in rank 2 and continue). As a C this often landed me in the back, which definitely didn't work with my vision so then the teacher's nice tidy plan got messed up. What I remember is that after many iterations of this (same school system all the way through), not one teacher pre-emptively gave me that A1 seat and then proceeded normally. Not one.

All that said, I haven't noticed any significant differences between my husband and me with respect to jumping on purchases versus not. What differences there are are more likely to be explained by personality differences -- I am a little more likely to stop shopping when I find something acceptable without hunting down every last option.