I've been speculating on Facebook that a combination of "cosplay" (costume play), rebellion against arbitrary dress codes ("no head covering") and the emergence of more fairy-tale job titles ("security princess") is going to make the business world quite a bit less boring, in terms of people making fashion statements.
Not that the "business world" even today is a monolith. In high tech we dress down whereas those "motivated by money" tend to "dress for success".
My own outfit has drifted towards Urban Cowboy with Magnetic Mittens. I've got a P-coat and a Stetson (a little discolored from the weather), and these nifty mittens that fold back to give me fingers, more precise than gloves especially when it comes to smartphones.
I don't have to take my mittens on and off as I ride the bus, at risk of losing them. Out come the fingers and the smartphone. I get on with my work.
The hat stays home a lot. I have a Python logo sweater, gray or black, as an intermediate layer, given we're averaging around water's freezing point, with frequent thawing and melting. Snow rarely piles up here for very long.
I was heading towards the bus stop the other day, going to see the Andy Warhol exhibit before it leaves town, and letting ten quarters jingle in one of the magnetic mittens, my bus fare.
In a moment of absent-mindedness, I brought out the fingers, I think to wave at someone, and the ten quarters went flying, meaning I was on my hands and knees on the sidewalk picking them up.
When I got to the bus, I was short one quarter but then found a disk in the lining of the mitten I was mistaking for the tenth quarter. I told the bus driver a just needed a minute to get it out.
But of course the disk was actually the mitten magnet. I must have lost one of the original ten.
Fortunately, my associate had an extra quarter and I explained to the bus driver how I'd made a mistake. Kinda funny.
Now you might think I shouldn't be bothering a busy city bus driver with meaningless drivel about how what I thought was a quarter was actually a mitten magnet.
I will respond in my own defense that the bus was following another of the same number and was therefore approximately empty.
Just two of us and the driver sailed over the Hawthorne bridge (figuratively speaking) and into town.
The next thing that happened was the PDX Crow Choir (not paid, not human) did their 5 PM raucous caucusing. The sky and trees were host to great numbers of crows.
In Italian cities it's maybe pigeons and Portland certainly has those, and a few seagulls. But this time of year the crows own the south Park Blocks, where the Portland Art Museum is.
Again on Facebook, I was showing off my knowledge of arcane English and referring to this large gathering as a "murder" of crows, as that's the technical word for a collection of crows, much as we have a "flock" of sheep, a "herd" of cattle, and a "grunch" of giants.
At lunch today at Dick's Kitchen on Belmont (with pictures of Dicks, such a Tracey and Nixon) my eating partner agreed that "alchemist" sounds less cynical than "spin doctor" for a business card, not that I have either card.
Job titles are getting weirder, that's for sure, and not just in the Capital of Weird (sorry Austin). Both jobs involve PЯ (PR+ propaganda) which is also storytelling.
Not that the "business world" even today is a monolith. In high tech we dress down whereas those "motivated by money" tend to "dress for success".
My own outfit has drifted towards Urban Cowboy with Magnetic Mittens. I've got a P-coat and a Stetson (a little discolored from the weather), and these nifty mittens that fold back to give me fingers, more precise than gloves especially when it comes to smartphones.
I don't have to take my mittens on and off as I ride the bus, at risk of losing them. Out come the fingers and the smartphone. I get on with my work.
The hat stays home a lot. I have a Python logo sweater, gray or black, as an intermediate layer, given we're averaging around water's freezing point, with frequent thawing and melting. Snow rarely piles up here for very long.
I was heading towards the bus stop the other day, going to see the Andy Warhol exhibit before it leaves town, and letting ten quarters jingle in one of the magnetic mittens, my bus fare.
In a moment of absent-mindedness, I brought out the fingers, I think to wave at someone, and the ten quarters went flying, meaning I was on my hands and knees on the sidewalk picking them up.
When I got to the bus, I was short one quarter but then found a disk in the lining of the mitten I was mistaking for the tenth quarter. I told the bus driver a just needed a minute to get it out.
But of course the disk was actually the mitten magnet. I must have lost one of the original ten.
Fortunately, my associate had an extra quarter and I explained to the bus driver how I'd made a mistake. Kinda funny.
Now you might think I shouldn't be bothering a busy city bus driver with meaningless drivel about how what I thought was a quarter was actually a mitten magnet.
I will respond in my own defense that the bus was following another of the same number and was therefore approximately empty.
Just two of us and the driver sailed over the Hawthorne bridge (figuratively speaking) and into town.
The next thing that happened was the PDX Crow Choir (not paid, not human) did their 5 PM raucous caucusing. The sky and trees were host to great numbers of crows.
In Italian cities it's maybe pigeons and Portland certainly has those, and a few seagulls. But this time of year the crows own the south Park Blocks, where the Portland Art Museum is.
Again on Facebook, I was showing off my knowledge of arcane English and referring to this large gathering as a "murder" of crows, as that's the technical word for a collection of crows, much as we have a "flock" of sheep, a "herd" of cattle, and a "grunch" of giants.
At lunch today at Dick's Kitchen on Belmont (with pictures of Dicks, such a Tracey and Nixon) my eating partner agreed that "alchemist" sounds less cynical than "spin doctor" for a business card, not that I have either card.
Job titles are getting weirder, that's for sure, and not just in the Capital of Weird (sorry Austin). Both jobs involve PЯ (PR
