I briefly mentioned power dressing last week, in context of scarves as accessories.  Now, power dressing—a very formalised approach to business attire that reached a peak in the mid to late 1980s—had textbooks of sorts, one both men and one for women, written in 1975 and 1977, respectively—Dress For Success and The Woman’s Dress For Success Book, both written by John T. Molloy.  He also wrote updates for each, some 15-20 years later.  Molloy’s approach was stridently research-based, as a consultant for unnamed big name corporations he’d built up seventeen years’ worth of data on clothing (nine in women’s clothing) by the time he was writing The Woman’s Dress For Success Book.  What is amazing is that this one man and his research team were part of the small group whose work snowballed into creating the look of the yuppie and, in doing so, further embedding subconscious and conscious class divisions that affect us to this day.  Here’s the opening of Molloy’s book for ladies:

This is the most important book ever written about women’s clothes because it is based on scientific research, not on opinion.

The advice in this book will help women make substantial gains in business and in their social lives.  It should also revolutionize their clothes-buying habits.

Most American women dress for failure.  I have said that before about men, and research shows that it applies equally to women.  Women dress for failure because they make three mistakes.

1. They let the fashion industry influence their choice of business clothes.
2. They often still view themselves mainly as sex objects.
3. They let their socioeconomic background influence their choice of clothing.

The only reasonable alternative is for women to let science help them choose their clothes.[i]

I’m not even going to get into the paternalistic aspects of this, because using his data and word as law is something that is present in his book for guys as well (and because they’re endless and depressing).  As Molloy says himself later on in the same chapter—

It is a stark reality that men dominate the power structure—in business, in government, in education.  I am not suggesting that women dress to impress men simply because they are men.  My advice to women is based on the same principle as my advice to men: Your clothes should move you up socially and in business, not hold you back.[ii]

So, we’re going to ignore gems like “In summer women have always worn light and brightly coloured dresses to the office.  Do this only if you wish to be or remain a secretary.”[iii] and focus instead on the sea change in professional fashion Molloy encouraged with these two sentences:

There is one firm and dramatic step women can take toward professional equality with men. They can adopt a business uniform.[iv]

Illustrations from Molloy’s ‘The Woman’s Dress For Success Book’, 1977.

Expectations of “The Man”

Based on his own numbers, Molloy began gathering his data on influential business dress in 1960.  A generally turbulent cultural time, to say the least, there was a growing relaxed attitude among youth in regards to clothing.  “The values expressed by the business suit no longer matched those of the typical college student”[v].  Though those already firmly entrenched in the business world valued the suit and the status inherent in a good suit, the new blood was rocking bright jackets and fanciful ties in their leisure and formal wear[vi] and were most probably not making the best impressions with corporate.  In his research, showing pictures and photographs of folks in different ensembles to CEOs, Molloy was most probably finding that the older men, the decision makers, wanted suits and “authoritative” looks.

Running through guides like Molloy’s was the sharp awareness of clothing’s ability to portray the wearer as someone of and with power.  Here’s one more of his gems:

At one large corporation someone asked what I thought a woman should do if the boss sent her for coffee.  My response was, “If you have to tell your boss not to send you for coffee, you must have already told him nonverbally that you were ready to go.”

I went on to say that the problem was being approached from the wrong perspective.

Women who want to be taken seriously and who want to succeed must dress in a way that says, “I am important.  I am a business professional and don’t you dare send me for coffee!”

There were two extremely successful women in the room at the time.  Both agreed with me.  And they said the reason most young women wouldn’t succeed was because they didn’t look like they wanted to succeed.[vii]

Reinforcement through style guides

Molloy wasn’t the only one aware of this.  Armloads of guides on dressing were popping up in the mid to late 1970s as part of the reaction against the “anything goes” stylings of the 1960s and in response to the influx of professional women workers who were searching for some way to get a foot up the corporate ladder.  They ranged from articles in Newsweek and women’s mags[viii] to tomes like Elegance: A Guide to Quality Menswear by Bruce Boyer, referenced oh so nicely in the time capsule American Psycho.

You’re a clod.  It’s an excellent book.  His theory remains we shouldn’t feel restricted from wearing a sweater vest with a suit,” I say.  “Did you hear me call you a clod?”

“Yeah.”

“But doesn’t he point out that a vest shouldn’t overpower the suit?”  Van Patten offers tentatively.

“Yes . . .” I’m mildly irritated that Van Patten has done his homework but asks for advice nonetheless.  I calmly continue.  “With discrete pinstripes you should wear a subdued blue or charcoal gray vest.  A plaid suit would call for a bolder vest.”

“And remember,” McDermott adds, “with a regular vest the last button should be left undone.”

I glance sharply at McDermott.  He smiles, sips his drink and then smacks his lips, satisfied.[ix]

What began as aspirational dressing and a search for a uniform was honed through the guides into as complex a set of rules as had been followed at the turn of the century.  Limitations on colours, cut, pattern, material were the heavy skeleton a person’s business wardrobe was built on.  The rules were the rules, even if they didn’t apply to you.  Research and the guides said that glasses created a stronger sense of authority[x], so one wore “non-prescription Oliver Peoples redwood-framed glasses,”[xi] or some equivalent.

Overwhelming assimilation of style

Conveniently, changes in suit fabric manufacture were making the designer suit more accessible to the common man.  In the 1970s Italian textile industries began switching from high virgin wool content to using waste wool, creating a cheaper suit fabric that “accommodated the fashion industry whereby new collections, new ideas, new colours and new patterns are presented each season.”[xii] Between 1975 and 1985 the profits of men’s ready-to-wear increased 12%, and in the 1980’s all major designer’s houses were carrying a men’s line.[xiii]

The awareness of fashion labels that began in the 1970s (with denim, funnily enough[xiv]), the availability—or seeming availability— of the clothing, “a swing back to the political right”[xv] and a money boom that had combined with credit to make everything seem possible all mixed together in a power shake that coloured the 1980s in suits and immobile hair and brand names.  You either Were or you Weren’t.  The soft steps towards blurring the class lines were halted.  Sure, one could “cross-shop”, but the objective was still to buy clothes that “come across as upper middle class.”[xvi]

Of course, when a mass of society and fashion push one way, there will be a faction pushing against, and oh dang the things that were created to be anti-suit!  Creativity and risk-taking styles are better as retaliation, and if you look, the highs of fashion and the arts are commonly seen when one side is reacting against another.  Each group spurs the other into higher and higher caricature as they refine themselves to a pure thesis.

So, I acknowledge that other things besides power dressing were going on in the 1980’s.  And it was exactly that, combined with some more worldly affairs, that left the power suit stranded on the pedestal of caricature.

[ii] Molloy p. 32

[iii] Molloy p. 66

[iv] Molloy p. 34

[v] Fashion and Its Social Agendas, Diana Crane, 2000. p.175

[vi] http://www.blacktieguide.com/History/07.htm

[vii] Molloy p. 26-27

[viii] “One magazine ran a piece on “power dressing.”  Another reported on how women were being advised to “dress the trip to the top.”  And a third discussed how “clothes mean business,” . . . Fashion Power, Jeanette C. Lauer, Robert H. Lauer, 1981. p. 163 & 170

[ix] American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis, 1991. p. 154-155

[x] Molloy p. 88

[xi] Ellis p. 109

[xii] Men’s Fashion in the Twentieth Century, Maria Costantino, 1997. p. 127

[xiii] Costantino p. 121-123

[xiv] Costantino p. 111

[xv] Costantino p. 127

[xvi] Molloy p. 171

Questions, questions

Edited by: Jennine Jacob, IFB

They say the only dumb question is one you don’t ask, and these days the questions keep coming and the answers? Well, we try. In the fashion world… Lady Gaga, is she really doing it for the girls? What does working with Terry Richardson do for/against her cred? Should we question the ethnic headdress trend? Has fashion blogging become overloaded and narcissistic? What’s the real price of our clothing? And more importantly what should we wear to a movie date!?! Oh man, the questions they keep coming. Luckily this week’s roundup has some answers.

Links à la Mode: July 8

• 365 Fashion Rehab: Nautical Stripe Shorts 4 Ways
• Denimaniac: Paris Fashion Week SS11 Denim Looks
• Fashion Butter: Beach wear, street wear
• Fashion Cents: What to wear to a movie date.
• Fashionista Lab: Traveling light: Plan ahead
• Fete a Fete: Nars Summer 2010 Colors
• Hello Beauty! Urban Decay Summer of Love set offers a palette that’s all about gorgeous sparkle and a vibrant pop of purple
• Holier than Now: The New Hipster Headdress – fun fashion or not-funny appropriation?
• I’m the It Girl: Master Control: Q&A with Design + Conquer
• I like socks: The price that we are willing and able to pay for our clothing.
• Oranges and Apples: My fiancee made me a dress! Lots of pictures and some thoughts on gender divisions in the crafting world.
• Rocker Repro: Lady GaGa: Yeah, but what is she doing for her female fans?
• Rah! Rah! Style Revolt: Information Overload: 2010 & The Blogging Revolution
• Retro Chick: Love yourself, Love others, Love Vintage Challenge
• Return to Sender: Losing some weight! (but not from where you’d think)
• Shrimp Salad Circus: Greta Pollman handmade feature and giveaway
• The Coveted: American Living Preview
• The Fish Tank: Gothic, grunge Jewelry
• The Thrify Poet: Is fashion blogging narcissistic?
• Wicked Whimsy: Fashion & Accessibility

It is clear that women throughout the centuries have molded their figures into many strange and different shapes. Each seemed beautiful in its day, but most of us are inclined to think none quite so lovely as today’s.

The Arts of Costume and Personal Appearance, Grace Margaret Morton, 1943. (p 234)

Later on in the chapter (Contemporary Figure Ideals), Morton lets us know that the ideal weight for five feet is 110, and approximately five pounds for each additional inch taller, “depending on the scale of the figure.” The entire chapter is very much your standard hide-the-’bad’-work-the-’good’ stuff of fashion books—pushing vertical movement of line for the “stout” and emphasising an “uplifted bosom and upstanding posture, with abdomen and posterior flat.”  But Morton also quotes an article from the June 1927 Ladies Home Journal:

The popular conception of beauty is wrong, because its basis is that everybody shall look like everybody else . . . Life would gain enormously in interest if women emphasized their differences from each other.

Beauty and Plain Women, Elisie Ferguson

There is not much to say about dudes except that they are.

Illustrations from ‘Sewing Made Easy’, 1952

Miu Miu had its coy collars that remind me of the chapters in mid-twentieth century sewing and fashion books, where a lady is encouraged to expand her wardrobe with cheap and changeable collars and cuffs.  We’re not seeing cuffs yet, which is a pity, but even the summer looks of Resort 2011 struck a claim in that most mutable of accessories, the scarf.

Resort and menswear have been approaching the scarf cautiously, not straying too far from simple wraps and loops—though folks like Gaultier are playing with shapes that invoke the Empire/Regency cravat.  But, like any accessory, there’s an endless possibility in a scarf.  In the era of power dressing they were integral to dressing up or altering a look and taking it from office to evening.  Though it can be difficult to get a hold of classics like Scarf Tying by Judy Reiman, the great web does hold pockets of how-to’s that offer more options than a couple basic loops and twists.  Unfortunately, none share quite the perfect balance of clear instructions and priceless photography of the scarves in action (modelled by various Miss Calgaries) as Scarf Tying.

To get you started, here is an awkward quickie video tutorial for a simple option to try before playing with search terms.  Start with a larger square:

And you’ll end up with something like this:

A lot of the scarves available at your local super-department like Fred Meyer or Target are of the long and loosely woven or square and fringed variety.  Thrift stores’ scarf bins—or, if you can sew, the remnant and discount bolt bins at sewing stores—have a sea of options that fulfil the classic silk-scarf style of easy drape and tighter weave.

Like Reiman says in Scarf Tying:

You too can look and feel like Cinderella at the ball without the help of a fairy godmother.  With creative scarf tying, your hands are magic wands.  A flick of the fingertips and a length of silk becomes a rose, a square of fabric appears as an evening gown.

I haven’t seen anything about this “Shanghai Collection” online, but I know for a fact that some of the colours in the display, like Ruby Ruby, existed before they decided to ride any coattails.  Overall, it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to completely copy OPI and are just attempting to package the same “feel” or “inspiration”.  Which, yes, totes copying, good for them.  I don’t like OPI’s application or price point, but I do love me some Sinful Colors.

When the first previews of the Hong Kong collection came out, All Lacquered Up showed a couple dupe possibilities, but found that there weren’t any good non-OPI options that carried the same colour qualities as this collection.  Though most of Sinful Colors Shanghai Nights is made up of their standard colours, there are some definite dupes, or attempts at them.

Sinful Colors: Rise and Shine (more turquoise)
OPI: Jade Is The New Black (more green)

Sinful Colors: Thimbleberry (slightly more coral)
OPI: Red My Fortune Cookie (more orangey)

The best dupe I went ahead and bought.  And now I have two bottles of exactly the same colour.

Sinful Colors: Big Daddy
OPI: A Good Mandarin Is Hard To Find

Under some indoor light, OPI’s shade is the barest touch more blue-red.  And Sinful Colors’ shade looked much thinner and orangey at one coat.  But after two coats they are essentially identical.  Same opacity, same colour.

Which, I am super into my nails and had to think, “does this fit what I am going for with this dumb blog?” And, I think maybe?

The search for good dupes in the nail world is interesting, because it is totally accepted. Why pay upwards of nine dollars for a bottle of polish when you can get pretty much the same thing for a dollar-fifty?  But copying a shoe or piece of clothing is a clear not cool (or is acknowledged as uncool while you are also like “Thank fucking goodness, I am not paying multiple hundreds for that”).  There are clear intellectual property issues with fashion design that do not apply for colours.  Because they’re, y’know, colours—though what goes into creating a colour, and dye vats and formulas are a clear proprietary thing.  But the science is not what you see, just the colours.

Nail polish, like other accessories (and I class it as an accessory, not makeup, because there is more freedom in how it can be used) is something that becomes more popular when folks aren’t as willing to spend money on clothes.  And those cycles fascinate me.

Left:  Portrait of Daniel la Motte of Baltimore, Tomas Sully 1812-1813. Via Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Right: Menswear, 2011.  Jean Paul Gaultier.

Oh, Brave New World…

Edited by: Ashe Mischief of Dramatis Personae That has such bloggers in it! From a ballsy and confident “I Like Being Fat” at Return to Sender to Awakened Aesthetics post on greenwashing & buying American to Cake Not Coke’s expose on Venus Williams’ controversial courtside fashion, fashion bloggers are brave and bold. Just the way I like them.

Links à la Mode: July 1

• Awakened Aesthetic: On Independence Day, we’re told to “buy American.” This eco girl is telling you to think twice.
• Bonne Vie discusses online auction sites; Are they frauds or a fair gamble?
• Cake Not Coke: Venus William’s Daring on the Court Fashions…
• Dedicated Follower of Fashion: Interview with Actor/Activist: Adrian Grenier & TV Producer: Peter Glatzer creators of SHIFT, and eco fashion media platform.
• Dramatis Personae: What’s so Dazzling about Shoe Dazzle?
• fête á fête: Atelier Cologne – new French luxe fragrance house.
• Grechen Blogs: do you read blogs about blogging? do you find the helpful? are the relevant to the fashion blogging community?
• haute.halifax: A review of several collections inspired by women of the G8 by local Nova Scotian designers
• (IT Hunter): ‘Alice Springs’ pseudonym used by June Newton, Helmut Newton’s wife, to sign her photos first international retrospective
• Miss Jones & Me: Boyfriend Booty
• Ode to Awe: After months of being unable to locate them online, Japan’s Transvestite brand is found
• Oranges & Apples: Is it worth buying more expensive nail polish?
• Pixie in Pumps: My take on jewelry storage, creative but not cluttered or tacky.
• Profresh Style: Daily Makeup Routine!
• Retro Chick: The meaning of Vintage
• Return to Sender: I Like Being Fat
• Speak Femme:While rummaging around in my grandmother’s sewing room, I found the most amazing guide to sewing and style, courtesy of Vogue.
• Sugar & Spice: To Friendship
• The Coveted: Pull up a chair, we’re flipping through Elle’s Music Issue
• The Curvy Fashionista: What do you do when your shoes do not fit? Opt for a custom pair with Jen+Kim Shoes!

“If I did go out and buy a $300 coat, it would have to go with all the $10 pants I own.”

In February, Jezebel shot out a quick little note about a post on the New York Public Libraries blog.  The focus of both was a 1941 survey of the college girl’s wardrobe and the problems of high and fast consumption in fashion.  The wonderful old days were wonderful, with your standard sweater sets and three basic styles of shoes—and how about the Uniform Project and the Great American Apparel Diet and all those personal internet challenges to reduce consumption and impulse purchases, to slim and simplify our wardrobes.

In our modern day of stores that can move from concept to finished item in six weeks, fashion ‘weeks’ that feel like they run seamlessly into one another as they hop across continental bounds and piping hot trends delivered to your local rag shop every week, we are as “spoiled [sic] for choice” as Stein says.  It can sure appear anecdotally that our closets are swelling like the inflamed fatty liver of a confirmed alcoholic—especially in comparison to the 11-3.5 blouses and 13-3 street length dresses of the surveyed 1941 co-eds.

One thing that really should be noted is the highly conservative nature of wardrobe building in the 1940’s.  In Grace Margaret Morton’s 1943 book The Arts of Costume and Personal Appearance she writes, “Conservation is in keeping with the times.  Restricted consumer production has resulted in a silhouette which can be cut to advantage from limited yardage . . . As never before, this is a period which demands convertible, multiple-duty apparel, interchangeable three- and four- piece ensembles.”  Comparing today’s clothing habits to a time when patterns maximised yardage because of war rations can create a false dichotomy.

1943. Farm Security Administration -
Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Of course, having a wider range of clothing options available (or more accurately, acceptable), from pants and shorts to tank tops and sundresses, might have a part in explaining why the average young woman doesn’t spend “75% of her waking hours in the sweater skirt ensemble.”  Changes in how, where and what we can wear at work are a factor also.  Count the number of people you know who have a small, separate “work wardrobe” of suits and office wear supplemented by a double handful of casual pieces for home and a couple things for evening.  We are wearing more things for more reasons more often.

And the brands, stores and manufactures know that and love us for it.  Instead of a handful of cotton shirtwaist dresses and sweater and skirt sets for summer (as suggested by Morton), or the calculated business wardrobe of the 1980s and 90s, we wear more.  There certainly seem to be more eclectic and specific options now than there once were, but they float in a sea of mass market options.

A couple of weeks ago Jezebel again looked at our closets, this time focusing on the earth-wrecking waste of fast fashion, with its affordable options that essentially strangle the environment and starve workers.  Several options are presented, ranging from a $78 turtleneck to a $338 jacket, that attempt to answer the question “What are the choices for decently-made, competitively-priced, really cute stuff?”

But, don’t think that the inability of the average person to pay nearly eighty dollars for a turtleneck goes unnoticed.  “Fundamentally, it’s less and less the case that making ethical, sensible consumer choices is a freedom that hews to class lines. A $35 t-shirt that’s better quality than the $10 Wal-Mart version is still close enough in price that it’s attainable for most shoppers.”

And herein lies a problem.  I feel like a pretty high percentage of people will not, or cannot, pay ten dollars for a t-shirt, let alone $35.  It’s all well and good to save to buy an environmentally and morally responsible clothing choice whose quality may give it a longer life span.  But if someone is already in a position to consider a forty dollar skirt at Target a piece worth saving for, they’re not going to wait another $188 dollars for “a full black knitted skirt that has a sort of Alaïa feel, with its nipped ribbed waist.”

Since I have an aversion to purely anecdotal evidence, as it can easily slip into hyperbole and theory, I ran a very informal survey.  I ended up with just nine replies, folks in the mid-20s to mid-30s range, who are either unemployed, self-employed and/or solidly in the lower-middle to middle class income range; all but one currently live on the west coast.  A third are hand knitters and expressed awareness of the worth of both quality fiber content and of paying more for handmade. However, it’s a pitifully small sample, and I’d love to run this wider, because the results from just this group are telling.

Limiting the definition of “clothing” to everyday clothes and outerwear, I also allowed for clothes that were worn at least three to four times a year (which encompasses stage clothes and some formal wear). Nearly half of the group responded to the first question—“What is the most you’ve paid for a piece of everyday clothing?”—with two answers.  One number was for an uncommon purchase like a corset for stage wear (that was worn regularly off-stage as well), a perfect winter coat, or “allegedly ‘ass-tastic’” jeans; pieces that ranged from sixteen to two times the second price given.   Combining both sets of data gives a range of $30 to $150—not counting the $500 corset which, as a kind of shapewear, gets into the high and tricky ranges of support and undergarment cost more so than everyday clothing.

Asked if this price was more than they regularly pay for a piece of everyday clothing, the answer was, for seven of the nine, a resounding ‘hell yes’.  The other two did not consider their highs of $50 to be significantly more than an average purchase.  Even so, the mean price the sample group would pay was only $21, the most common amount being $10.  An exception of up to $45 when buying yarn to make something oneself was noted.

Already we can see that Sauers’ had one over on me in that folks will totally pay $10 for clothing.  My personal issues (and heavy thrift and sales rack shopping) have blurred my perspective.  Even so, a $35 t-shirt is comfortably above this sample’s average range for a piece of everyday clothing.  But what about their top limit?  Already by this point in the survey it was clear that for jeans and pieces that fit, a person’s ‘average price’ could be edged up closer to their top limit.  So, what was the most they would pay for a piece of everyday clothing?

“I swear on the life of my non-existent children, if I could find a pair of jeans that were flattering and as comfortable as all the skinny people claim jeans are, I would pay at least $100.”  And $100 is the highest price given, by two people who both cite jeans-fitting issues as the reason for so high a price.  With $54 as the average and $30 as the most common limit, we’re still well below the price of that $78 turtleneck.

Knowing that extraordinary circumstance, luck, and the desire to have at least a “few good pieces” in one’s wardrobe can expand the limits of what you’re willing to shell out, the last question I asked was what the theoretical top limit would be for a “SUPER AWESOME AMAZING PERFECT” piece of everyday clothing.  Ranging between $50 and $300 dollars, with an average of $142, every person who gave a limit over $100 stipulated they would pay that much only for something elaborate, custom or handmade.

I wish that I had thought to inquire about thrift store shopping habits directly in this survey, though I had a voluble enough sample that I was able to gather an idea that a good percentage buy used, when they can.  In her article, Sauers  mentions that “Thrift stores are green (and cheap), but hunting through their racks can be time-consuming and offer inconsistent results.”   It could be that people who prefer to pay only around $20 for a piece of clothing are willing to spend the time searching second hand.

Most people I surveyed are ‘crafty’, which can’t be a representative percentage of the population and may affect their purchasing habits.  One way that they seem to be like most of the population is that nearly all mentioned issues finding clothing that fits both their bodies and taste.  Says one,  “I could pay $6 [for] something nearly right, with decent fabric, which I can turn into something wearable… or I can pay $25 for a pair of cheaply made pants that don’t quite fit and say “BOOTY” across the ass in pink crystals and glitter paint.”  These people, with daydreams of $110 silk cardigans, don’t necessarily want the fast fashion offerings of Forever 21s.  And even when they do shop at mall and fast fashion stores, they do it out of necessity, more than convenience.  And they’re not abandoning the between-great-wars sense of wardrobe building either:

Lately I buy most of my clothing at Torrid because I am too easily annoyed digging through a department store for the one piece of plus size clothing that isn’t falling off my average-sized shoulders or down to my knees. I tend to wear my clothes until they are literally falling apart because of this and I do make repairs if I can.

Awareness of the clothing industry’s failings isn’t new.  Clinging to a false nostalgia of a simple wardrobe, filled with a few good pieces, isn’t going to help.  Disregarding the error of steering by nostalgia, the circumstances between then and now are too different, too foreign.  Choosing more ethical and quality options isn’t going to be a saving grace either, not when the divide between its cost and the average budget are still so far apart.

According to Evelyn Tompson of the U.S. Department of Labor, “ready-made clothes are made chiefly for women under twenty years.  Ninety percent between the ages of fifteen and nineteen can find ready-made dresses to fit them easily enough, while only fifty percent between the ages of twenty and forty-four, and thirty-three percent of those over forty-five can wear ready-made dresses without alteration.”  And a National Retail Dry goods Association report of 1938 states that in department stores over the country forty per cent of the dresses sold required alterations of $2.00 to $3.00 above the retail price; in better dresses, where customers are more particular, 87.5 per cent of the dresses were altered at prices ranging from $1.00 to $7.50.

The Arts of Costume and Personal Appearance, Grace Margaret Morton, 1943.

I have been doing research and asking real people for real data because I take this blog too seriously.  And, like the monograph I’ll never finish, I want what I write to be well-hyperlinked and supported.  So I have a thing, and you’ll get it tomorrow, but I wanted it up today.  To placate my guilt I wanted to share this from one of the books I was researching in.

Some things, they never change.