The vibrant African Maker Economy

I liked this article about the vibrant informal economy in Narobi. A lot of people have the idea that the economy is built from the top down- big business creates jobs, etc. But the truth is that that system doesn't work everywhere. I am thinking of some of the ghettos of our cities- high unemployment,big business doesn't want to put in grocery stores, despite sources saying that there are 30k people in the area.[that's a whole lot of potatoes!]. Big business isn't doing a thing to give jobs and services to many people in those areas. So a lot of informal businesses crop up- hair braiding, tattooing, car repair,the selling of everything from plates of food to bootleg videos.

People are building an economy from the bottom up. In America, and in Africa. We're not disposable cogs. We're vital pieces of this economy. Never forget that.

It's Happy Black Girl Day

And what I'm happy about is fresh basil. I could bathe in the scent. I love the leaves growing so large, some as large as my middle finger. They are the only things that have done well this year. The only tomatoes we have are cherry, and there's always banana peppers, but my rosemary died, my krim tomato died, and the green zebras aren't bearing. That's gardening for you.

Gardening is a rich heritage too. Every year, we get purple hull peas, and pear preserves from older women who have gardened their whole lives. Gardening gets you into the soil, out of your head. It gets you away from the American myth of total control over your destiny. If it rains too much, too bad. That's it for your rosemary. It gets you back to the rhythms of the earth. Our children should garden- I don't want a generation to grow up without the smell of fresh basil on their hands.

4 in the queue

This new feature in my blog is called 4 in the queue, in which you are privvy to my embarrassing media habits.



At #1 is Toy Story 2. I have seen every Toy Story movie but this one, as the first one was released in my childhood when I was able to freely enjoy cartoons, and the third one was released recently, but the 2nd one was released when I was a teenager, and felt too embarrassed to watch cartoons in the theater.


At #3 is Ponyo.

I saw this movie in a comfortable empty theater, in contrast to my experience with Toy Story 3, which had crying kids and grown ups who should know better on cell phones. The only other people in the theater were two old women, who I got the feeling were the ones who really wanted to see the movie, and a small child, who was too young[maybe about 2? 3?] to really grasp the idea of a movie, but ate her snacks and occasionally watched the screen. I want to see it again, therefore the queuing.

At #9 is Frontline: The Vaccine Wars. I heard it was interesting, and also, I don't like watching films on my computer as much as I like watching them on TV. It's harder to multitask using the computer.

At #10 is This Film is Not Yet Rated. I put this on my queue years ago, and it has finally surfaced to the top. I have hundreds of movies like this in my queue.

I'm still rolling this over

This post on etsy as a business incubator. I've meant to blog about this for a long time, but now I think I might take a stab at it. I wanted to say something about how I'm not seeing etsy as a little incubator for lots of little businesses, and then some businesses break out of their eggs into the bright sky of success. Instead, I see it as a growing part of the way that instead of passively watching tv in our free time, we actively seek out community- crafting, selling, and passing advice back and forth.

Maybe we won't get big. Maybe our ideal is to stay small, a hobby, to craft and sleep and eat and work all in balance. But every minute we spent crafting to a higher standard since we want to sell it or reading about how to run a business so we can keep crafting, the world improves just a little.

I also suck as a radical homemaker

OK, I'm not a homemaker, radical or otherwise I'm just a childless slacker. I attempt to get by with a minimum of expenses, but I just realized that I don't know how to cook purple hull peas. Or anything in fact. Right now I'm paring down- trying to give away, sell or reluctantly- trash everything I don't want. This will take forever, as I unearth layers of my life- old photo albums with pictures of teenage pals with flowers in their hair, a whole notebook full of professional materials, old comics I haven't read in years.

Of course, as I try to pare down, I find twenty new things I want. I went into a bookstore to buy a gift for a relative, and found four or five new things for my wishlist.

Paring down will probably take me months, and that brings me to my point. Simplicity is hard work. A lot of this stuff requires you to be full of energy, and knowledge, and a community of people who can give you zucchini from their garden when yours fails to grow anything.[the only real success I've had with my garden is basil.

I think we can all be a little kinder to each other when our experiments fail. When we take a road, and look at the road not taken, and wonder. Because what comes around goes around.

Viz looks for Interns

Viz has slashed its workforce and is now looking for interns. I have to wonder if the value of the internship has lessened. After these folks are done working for free, will they really be able to parlay this into anything paid? Even the success story is a freelancer- no security! If say, 10 people work as interns, and only one gets to be a freelance editor, would they have spent their time better if they had waited tables and gained money to pay off their giant student loan debt?

At least these internships aren't full time- unpaid full time internships are problematic since they make paid work all but impossible to do for the majority of people.

The Kin is Dead

I can see why the Kin is being discontinued. I love social networking, but 'a phone to manage your social life'? Really? What people want with a phone is versatility- we play games, go on twitter, take phone calls and text messages... what we don't want is something that seems like a gimmick when there are perfectly fine phones that do what the Kin was promising better

Is this model sustainable?

The race to the bottom for the cheapest wages, massive unemployment, and a lack of concern for the environment? We spend a lot of cash throwing it at big rich companies and people and hoping that they'll throw some of that largess back down at us. Maybe instead of trickle down, we can trickle out- share goods and services more. This system here is breaking down for many people.

Even in China, where the high educational investment[there's no mention of debt, but in the US, huge educational debts are a growing problem] and low wage model combine, there are worries about social unrest as the people thrown out by that system fight back.

Small Business and Being a Good Neighbor

A lot of folks try to run on championing small businesses, but I want to know what sort of small businesses we are touting as the backbone of America? Are we touting the sort who exploit undocumented workers? The sort who will ask the worker to 'hold' their check while late fees pile up on their bills? The sort who pay so little their workers need to apply for public benefits? I'm all for small business, but with the priviledge of running a business comes responsibility.

I don't think a small business can thrive without paying attention to the larger community they serve. People say we should give huge tax breaks, and loosen regulations, but if the community then has decaying infrastructure, schools without any books, and poisonous waste everywhere, I don't really think that's a gain at all.

Rural Farms, Urban farms

Are big city markets draining small local markets? I don't know. In Memphis, we have about five farmer's markets in the area, and sometimes I find that it's cheaper to go to the farmer's market than it is to the supermarket.

Lately, I've been attempting to garden- my veggie death toll is about 3[2 rosemary plants and an oregano] and my black krim tomato is on its last legs. Gardening is hard work! It's all well and good for my city bound self[the post picture is from a day I spent in the country. I was really bored] to talk about getting back to the land, and fresh veggies and suchlike, but people's priorities aren't shaped by pure bloody mindedness- there are reasons, and when we learn about them, we can help push farmer's markets more in the country.

I Wish I Was a Cheapskate

I wish I was a cheapskate! One of the issues keeping me from being a cheapskate is that I have a great difficulty resisting sales. Give me a coupon for 40% off, slash the price of remainder books to 3.99 or 50 cents...and I'll buy and buy. Another issue is that I have a lot of consumption heavy hobbies. Manga, video games, reading... For manga, I try to use coupons and the used market to reduce the price, and video games I rely on casual gaming[such as big fish games' 6.99 games] and the used market to reduce the price, but I do spend a lot of money on entertainment. Netflix eases the bite of movie watching by replacing $10 movies with $18 subscription, but that's still a lot of consumption.

And of course, there's the elephant in the room- jewelry making! I try to reduce by recycling components from older designs, but this week, I had a custom order, so I sprinted to Michaels[coupons in hand], and bought a few extra supplies to fill it. Of course, there's always something that catches your eye, so I got at least 3 unnecessary items.

I think there are a few traits a cheapskate needs to have: patience, lack of novelty seeking, and delayed gratification. Delayed gratification goes without saying, and patience is part of that- patience to cook up a meal when all you want is some filling and tasty takeout. Lack of novelty seeking would really help for people who consume to gain experiences. My theory is that some people consume for utility[the cheapskates], some for status, and others for experiences- and the latter is where I fall.

Oh American Apparel!

Warning: All links have American Appeal style photos on them.

Gawker has a humorous list of their grooming standards. Also notice that the female example photos are mostly from the porno aesthetic and the male ones are not porno style.

Oh yea, and your advancement in he company is determined by how you look! I wonder if that's even legal.

American Apparel acts like it isn't trashy, and is somehow worried about getting trashy black girls[wut?] but I see you, American Apparel, with your website that had me looking at a lady's naked bum just so I can see a pair of socks!

And I agree with the commenters who bet they would be shocked if they saw some actually nappy natural hair as opposed to 'curly'. *admits that I don't have 'curly' hair- I have nappy hair, which I keep natural*

Blogging Consumption

Inspired by the book Obsessive Consumption, a sweet little volume full of adorably rendered pictures of products, which delighted me both with its banality and the fact that she has fun hipster taste, I think sometimes I'll blog my consumption too. My mind is taking a detour, so stay with me. With the book Obsessive Consumption, I had a hard time deciding whether to file it as a comic or as a prose book. It has very few words, and almost all pictures, so that's one check for the comic side, but on the other hand, my comics are all narrative... I stuck it in the comics, and of course, with any decision you make, your mind automatically starts justifying it, and now I think the chronological nature of the drawings creates a sort of narrative.

Back on the topic, the item I wanted to blog today is a black ruled moleskine notebook. I bought it because I had a 40% off coupon at Borders. I had intended to buy Pandora Hearts 2, but after overindulging at the library[you would have overindulged too! Thousands of books! $3 at the most! I filled up a box.], I decided to go practical.

The boygirlparty notebook that I have been using for months is filling up. I needed a new notebook, so I got a black moleskine- the black cover seems professional, and so it is well suited to pretending to take notes. I had a hard choice between ruled and squared, but even though I adore squared- a good compromise between the freedom of blank and the control of ruled, I thought ruled looked more like I really was intended to write notes, and not in fact doodle.

So I'm happy to have a new notebook. I wish it a long life!

The Worth of Work

The culture of cheap is discussed in volume. I think part of the issue is that a lot of the 'cheap' stuff is folks getting their 10,000 hours of practice in publicly. So their amateur work is priced much lower than professional work. My work has increased in price through the years as well. Of course, there's always going to be a huge supply of amateurs, and the problem with craft pricing is simple supply and demand.

There's a huge supply of crafters at all levels, and not that much demand for craft work- much of this stuff is for a niche audience- mass market work has mass market prices, and only a small percentage of people really care about whether we spent 20 hours handbeading that belt.

Let me tell an anecdote- I was at a gallery crawl and a man that was on it too saw a great belt- it was handmade with skulls woven into the leather and just an amazing piece of work- but it was $75. The guy really wanted the belt, but he thought '$75 for a belt?' I noted the great design, but really, that belt wasn't worth $75 to him.

And that's the point. It doesn't matter whether you deserve however much- it's how much the item is worth to the customer. We focus a lot on how much our time and services are worth, but when companies are paying people with college degrees $10 an hour, there's only going to be so much stretch in people's perception of worth.

It's Time For Squee and Expensive Handbag Squee Harshing

Arcade Fire!!! is offering their new album preordered for 7.99. Bravely, they are releasing the digital with an option to have just plain MP3s. I prefer plain MP3s- the use of them is a big reason I use emusic, I wonder if they are worried about piracy, especially among young people who aren't used to actually paying for entertainment.

I think they are hoping enough people pay for extras like the vinyl to make up for folks who don't think humping your behind to make an album deserves the less than $10 it costs to actually pay for it. At least Arcade Fire is big enough to have licensing deals for commercials to make up the revenue as well

[Here's a perspective on this for the manga market] I admit to being part of the manga after market, as I like used books to catch up to older out of print series, but I realize that I'm not entitled to free manga. Manga is actually extremely labor intensive- story boarding, writing, drawing, translation, the creation of the design of the book. It's amazing that manga is so cheap, when American comics are selling $4 for 30 pages, I'm seeing 8.99 for 200.


--

I look with suspicion on $1000 bags, especially from large companies. If I'm getting the same cheap labor and cheap materials, but with a flashier name, why shouldn't I just go to a thrift store and get a perfectly fine bag for way cheaper? Heck, if I'm desperate for new, I could just go to etsy and pick up a bag.

Is Louis Vuitton handmade? Well, designer companies are certainly using sweatshops, even in Italy. People blame the Chinese workers, but many are sold a bill of goods- you'll pay off your debt quick! You'll be back and successful before long! The subcontractors all the way down model helps big companies have plausible denialbilty for ripping off labor.

HeyMichelle Speaks

Words in bold are hers:

HeyMichelle
Etsy Admin
HeyMichelle says:
Hmmm, this is a question I've been pondering over all day. I think it's a definition that we will have to hone to be right for the Etsy market. There are many precedents set by other companies though as to how to handle mature content - ebay, google, and flickr come to mind.

My impression- I feel that there should be a way for the average person to browse Etsy freely with their child on their lap, and for the average conservative or middle of the road person to easily avoid content they don't want to see. Yes, there are always extremes on either side, but I'm thinking about the middle, say, 80-90% of people or so.

For example, if Etsy is featured on a show like Good Morning America (as we were recently), will there be a good number of new visitors who might not leave and not come back if the content is displayed prominently?

The Dos and Don'ts uses the term "general audiences" as well:

Etsy aims to maintain a marketplace appropriate for general audiences, therefore the use of mature content must comply with the following policies. Mature content is defined as: visual depiction of male or female genitalia, sexual activity or content, profane language or graphic violence. Mature content listings will remain in all Etsy searches by default; users can restrict results by using the exclusionary search term "NOT mature" ("opt-out" search status).

* Item listings containing mature content must be tagged with "mature" and include the word "mature" in the item title.
* Mature content and/or profane language or images are not allowed in your username, Public Profile, item titles, tags, avatar, banner, Shop Announcement and/or shop section titles.
* The first thumbnail image in your item listing should be kept appropriate for general audiences; additional images in the listing may show the item in its entirety. Mature content and/or profane language or images are only allowed in the second, third, fourth and fifth photos of an item listing and the description text of a listing.
* Pornography is prohibited on Etsy.

Is etsy shifting audiences with its popularity? Although this does not *personally* affect me[despite the depictions of plant genitalia in my jewelry, they are all work safe], I'm still thinking about what to think on this issue.

Mature Treasuries on Etsy

There's apparently a huge furor about mature items in Treasury East, apparently the listings will be filtered out or something and there are petitions on the internet about this.

BTW: admin announcement post.

My brain is fogging up, and so I haven't really taken a position. I'm not sure etsy really makes it clear to people that it's an adult site. On the other hand, treasuries are 'beneath the fold' so to speak, and aren't in people's personal log in areas...

ETA:Etsybitch takes a side. A pet peeve I have is people saying I'm not a prude, but... We're all prudes to someone, and saying I'm not a prude isn't going to convince anyway. I'm a prude, and proud of it. I find things are more exciting when there's something that can shock you.

The upshot of this thread is...

run your shop as a business. Even if you're doing it just for fun, with the recession on, it's important not to lose money on each sale. The web of small business is such that with our sales we buy other things and move money around. If you lose money on each sale, you can't move any money, can you?

And BTW: it seems that school trips are fraught with peril. That said, we all have different beliefs, and yes, all beliefs come with a risk of not being business friendly. I curse a lot, and of course, most people wouldn't want to expose their kids to my blue streak, and many people want to tell their children about their own beliefs and not have some beliefs seemingly endorsed by the school, and others ignored.

It's Happy Black Girl Day

but I'm exhausted. So I link you to this black love tumblr., and a headband I wish I had from etsy. Oh yea, and the award winning game Portal is now avaliable for free! I have a cool new toy, and you will see the amazing results soon. *wiggles eyebrow mysteriously*

One more "soup nazi" comparison & I'll scream. Yes, we're small & limited on what we can do. No, I don't think this makes us "nazis" :(less than a minute ago via webMuddy's Bake Shop
muddysbakeshop

Don't call hard working local bakers cupcake nazis. Of course, there's the issue that unless they are making cupcakes with swaztikas on them, or burning crosses or something, I don't want to hear about who is a 'nazi'. Their shop has gotten very popular because of how delicious the cupcakes are, but it really is a small shop. It's smaller than your average Starbucks,and they have to bake all of their items themselves so of course they aren't going to be able to keep up with demand. I'm not sure if they'll be able to expand or not. Real estate in Memphis is cheap, but there's a terrible recession on. I don't go up to Sanderlin as often I want as it is.