This holiday season, the colors are Red and Black

Left to right: Pat Tyler, JuanitaMartin, Gil Mansergh, Jennie Butler, Debbie Koehler, Linda McCabe, Deborah Taylor-French, Ana Manwaring. Photo by Rob Koslowsky.

Today's blog entry is a fashion tip. It is not something I discovered by reading any magazine or newspaper column. Nope. It comes from my own personal experience of finding myself wearing the same exact outfit as three other people at a recent holiday gathering.

My writers club meets monthly and at our December meeting we had not only a guest speaker but a holiday celebration.

So I wanted to look festive for the occasion. I looked in my closet and pulled out one of my favorite blouses. It is fuschia colored and it looks appropriate in winter. I grabbed a pair of black slacks and then, as an afterthought I paired it with a black blazer.

My color scheme was black, fuschia and black. I thought it looked smart, albeit an uncomplicated look, but it worked for me.

I had no idea that it would be the most popular color scheme of the day.

Juanita Martin first brought that to my attention when she came up to me and said we dressed alike. I looked at her classic red sweater and at first I did not see the commonality. That's because I was stuck on fuschia not being really red. (I had to consciously consider that fuschia was closer to red than say yellow or green.)

Once I got past that temporary mental road block, I saw she was also wearing a black blazer, red shirt, and black slacks. Then I looked at Gil Mansergh and he was wearing the same color combination as well.

Then there were others wearing red and black so we had a group photo taken.

This is the second meeting in a row that Gil and I have dressed alike. In November we both wore camel colored blazers. I hardly ever wear that blazer, and yet that day I did. We looked like twins.

If Gil shows up in January wearing a teal dress to match me than I will really know that something fishy is going on with our wardrobes. (The mental picture of him in a dress is making my eyes cross.)

Seriously, we had a wonderful meeting and we were fortunate enough to have the lovely and talented Jordan Rosenfeld come and speak with us again. This time she had a brand spanking new book to sell and sign. We were in fact her second stop on her book launch.


She talked about her book and the various ingredients you need to create a good dramatic scene. While all of those things are important and I shall read her book once the crazy holiday season is over, I enjoyed her discussing how the book came to be.

Jordan has an MFA in Fiction and Literature and has yet to get any of her novels published. Yet, she has written many articles which have been published about the craft of writing in Writers Digest.

She joked about that, but it is what helped get her the book contract. Jordan was a known commodity to the editors because she had worked with them successfully in the past with articles.

Jordan came up the concept for the book after having worked as a freelance editor for several years and noting similar problems in many different manuscripts. She noticed that many writers found it difficult to create the integral building block of drama, otherwise known as "the scene." She looked through the large catalog of book titles that Writers Digest offered and she did not see one that addressed this topic.

She pitched them the idea. They liked it and then she put forth a proposal which they accepted.

Then all she had to do was write the book.

The old advice of "know your market" is something that Jordan's success story exemplified. She did not just send random queries out for an idea she thought up over breakfast. She identified a niche, she did her research, articulated her idea well, and had established her expertise and credibility with the publisher.

That is how you become successful. You need to know the industry, find your creative niche, and be professional every step of the way.

Left to Right: Juanita Martin, Linda McCabe, Jordan Rosenfeld, Karen Batchelor, Ana Manwaring, Kate Farrell
photo by Rob Koslowsky

Happy holidays everyone!

Linda

Wednesday afternoon in Paris, Part I - The Cluny

If you are new to this blog, I have been concentrating most of my recent entries on reconstructing my trip to France. Previous posts on that topic can be found here.

After my husband and I left Salle de Manger on Rue Mouffetard we walked to the Musée national du Moyen Age also known as the Cluny.

The building itself once housed the abbots of Cluny, and in its basement are vestiges of the Roman baths. The flamboyant gothic arches inside the building can be seen here:


However, I was not as concerned with architecture as I was with the holdings in the museum. First up were the accoutrements of war.

Behold, a shield and dagger.


Then helmets and a buckler.


The plain but utilitarian chain mail which was the armor used for centuries.


One of the nastiest artifacts of medieval warfare is a low tech landmine known as the chausse trape. There are four spikes and there will always be one sticking upwards. It will hurt if you or your horse step on it.

Just looking at it makes me go "owwwww."


In that same room was a beautiful tapestry on the wall from the 15th century featuring Wild Man of the Woods imagery. It is entitled Hommes et femmes sauvages dans un jardin.



The Cluny houses the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in low light, but for me, I preferred the lesser known WMOTW to the popular licorne series.

I also enjoyed the various carved ivories.

Here is an intricately carved horn.


Book covers, most likely for a Bible.



A casket for valuables.


And check out this babe. She is hot.

She even has a satyr hanging around her skirts. She is a lot better looking than this image of Saint Paul that is from either the 6th or 7th century.

I do not know who they used as their contemporary model, but the prominent nose and belly does not create a particularly flattering portrait.

The Cluny also had a collection of ancient jewelry that is dazzling.

I love these Visigothic eagles. I would love to wear reproductions of these.

Here are some smaller pieces of jewelry.



This necklace reminds me of wealthy rap singers.

It looks really heavy and gaudy. Not something that suits my style.


However, I like these buckles.


Just when we think that our ways of life are new, visiting a museum can help ground us in the knowledge that no there are some cultural fashions that are far older than say the 1960s. Here we can see that tremendously large belt buckles has been around for a long time.



I imagine it would be heavy. It might also work to counteract the effects of the belt in holding up the pants. Similar to tool belts on plumbers.

Here is a beautiful belt ornament. Imagine how long it would have taken to make, and how much it cost.


Then there were impressive religious artifacts. I am in awe just looking at them.




We did not get very many good pictures from the Roman baths, and so I will conclude this long post with an image of Jupiter (AKA Zeus) that was found in the basement of the Cluny.



Next time I shall show you images from the Crypte Archaeologique underneath the courtyard of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Linda