Organic-Ally

Over the last two years I went through a period of buying new clothes to replace some "holey" ones. Each time I find a hard board label that comes with a punched hole and string, I say to myself: these are too good to go in the bin , even the recycling bin. (I am not sure if mixed materials like cardboard and metal can be recycled.) As I started to write this, I googled and learned that these are called "string" or "swing tags". They are basically custom "travel tags" which you can buy at stationers. In fact, there are crafters who personalise travel tags and sell them on market platforms (five for £3.50!). This is what I did for Christmas 2023. I started with these tags, all of sturdy cardboard, with punched holes. I removed the strings, but kept them, and you can replace them later. I then found my stash of Christmas cards from last year (ie those sent to us and saved from the bin). On the spot, decided to cut them into 1/2 inch strips. They co...

 I don't remember now what exactly caused me to think of this person. Maybe it was that I was working on a lecture on "sociology of work", accompanied by thoughts of the Marxist concept of "alienation", of meaninglessness, normlessness, etc. I had worked two stints in two different garment factories. By coincidence, they were located in the same general location off Jalan Bukit Merah in Singapore. The first time was straight after my 'O' levels and I needed to get out of school, to earn some money. My friends were vying to get into junior colleges (Sixth Form equivalent) based on their "mock" or preliminary results. I just wanted to try working. I found myself, aged sixteen, a "finishing worker" in a small garment factory. My job consisted of cutting off lengths of thread that the sewists (not sure about calling them "sewers") had left in finished garments just so to increase their piece-rate. Sometimes I ironed out some cre...

Credit: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-pen-is-still-mightier-than-the-keyboard-tksdpt77q (as requested by  @letterappsoc) Sorting 1,000 handwritten letters has proved an epiphany: it’s an art form we should cherish Edward Lucas Monday January 01 2024, 12.01am, The Times S pilling out of old cardboard files, the blasts from the past are strewn across my floor. Affectionate, gossipy, grateful, anguished, tantalising, they are scribbled in ballpoint pen on work stationery, typed on flimsy blue aerogrammes or penned in ink on tinted notepaper. They tell of faraway places and distant events — and of a now near-moribund epistolary culture. From the mid-1970s, at school, university and in a dozen foreign postings, I was an inveterate letter writer to far-flung friends and family. This was the result. Brought to light during a clear-out last week, the old letters, and copies of my own missives, triggered memories like a Proustian madeleine. The handwriting of long-dead relativ...