An entire class asks: Where are we wearing?

A while back a mother contacted me about her son’s class project where each student was supposed to trace an item of clothing all the way back to the field. Her son Caiman chose his shorts, which were made in Jordan.

She wrote about his research on her blog, Pretty Good Day:

We determined a plausible birth story for his shorts, and it wasn’t pretty:

1. Cotton grown in India, likely harvested by child laborers exposed to deadly pesticides

2. Buttons and zippers from factories in China

3. Stitched in a factory in Jordan by guest workers who’d their passports confiscated upon arrival and been cheated out of promised pay, forced to work 15 hours a day and routinely beaten for slowing down

That’s a pretty cool class project. We could use more teachers and moms like Caimans.

A confession…

I say okey-dokey on a regular basis.

When Google’s AdSense goes bad

I was just checking the blog and noticed this random GoogleAd:

Boys Wearing Thongs
Bargain Prices. Smart Deals. Save on Boys Wearing Thongs!
Shopzilla.com

Can’t a fella get arrested for having something like that on his blog? I followed the link and luckily it didn’t take me to “boys” wearing thongs, but instead women wearing thongs.

If you’re not familiar with Google AdSense I should probably inform you of how it works so you don’t go thinking I’m a big perve and had something to do with the “boys thong ad”. Here’s how wikipedia says it works: “Google uses its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user’s geographical location, and other factors.”

Is my ARC showing?

An Advanced Reader’s Copy (ARC) is a pre-publication paperback edition of a book meant to be used for early promotion and soliciting endorsements.

My ARC is a little more “advanced” than most, I think. I found Michael Chabon’s ARC for Summerland in a used book store (btw - it’s illegal to sell them) and it was darn near spit-shined. My ARC is far from it. I still have notes to myself in it and have made hours and hours of changes since it was published.

Seeing my ARC is kinda like seeing me with my pants down; it’s a little embarrassing. My manuscript was converted into an ARC earlier than normal because Wiley wanted to take WAIW? to BookExpo America in LA the first week of June and I still had a rough draft in May. They gave away 200 copies (is my face turning red). One “advanced reader” had this to say:

“I was given an advanced copy of your book and I Love it. I am also obsessed with reading the labels on my clothing. Now I’m wondering about the little piece of paper in the pocket of my jeans that says, Inspected by # 34.”

Ah, shucks.

Anyhow, I’ve got several ARC’s left and will probably have another pre-publication contest in the near future to win one.

If you win it keep this in mind: Just as some people are growers, not showers, others are re-writers not first-drafters.

Happy Father’s Day….TO ME!!!!

I’m going to be a dad! Annie is due New Year’s Eve, which begs the question is it better to be born in the old year for tax purposes or in the New Year and maybe make the local news as the first baby of 2009?

Sweatshop-Free Obama Onesie

Yes, it really exists.

A few bits ‘o tid

* I updated the T-shirt survey results. Mexico is still firmly in the lead.

* I’ve been found out: “Kelsey Timmerman, the aforementioned “guy”, doesn’t come off as a particularly educated or well-informed guy, nor does he try to be.

* I’ve added a set of links to the right called “of Globalization and Garments.” If you stumble across anything that would work here let me know.

* I also added a set of links titled “Who I’m Reading.” These are people I read on a regular basis and I use my site as a jumping off point to them. I’m lazy like that. If you’ve never read Nick Kristof, I suggest you check in on him weekly.

* No one has won the “13 fellas” competition, even though I’ve practically give you all the answers. If nobody wins, we’ll have another contest soon.

* I’m announcing big news tomorrow.

13 fellas

I officially turned in my manuscript to Wiley yesterday. Woohoo! One of my editors, Tiffany, laid out the remaining path to publication.

First it’s off to production where someone will read over the manuscript looking for excessive vulgarity or endorsements of Hitler. Once it passes that it heads to a copyeditor who will edit punctuation, grammar, and style.

It was in her explanation of copyediting that Tiffany paid me the best compliment I’ve had as a writer, “We’ll send notes to the copyeditor telling them to preserve your style. We’ll tell him to keep all the fellas.”

There are two reasons why this was such a big compliment:

1) I’m honored to have a style that someone feels is worth preserving.

2) I’m really happy the fellas won’t be going anywhere because fella just might be my favorite word. In fact, at the most recent writer’s conference I attended, a fellow attendee wanted to talk craft. They went into great detail about their influences and their genius of melding styles – somehow managing to take all of the good stuff from the greatest writers of our time and none of the bad. They went on for about 10 minutes. When they felt they had sufficiently hashed out the depth of their style’s glory they asked me about mine. My response: “I like to use the word fella.” After their craptastic craft spiel, I couldn’t muster up anything else.

Out of my manuscripts 68,792 words I use 13 fellas. Allow me to introduce you:

1) more of a Warner Bros. fella
2) A fella sat on the maroon couch
3) A new fella has taken a seat
4) this poor fella lost his business
5) a short Kiwi fella
6) this fella vigorously scribbles
7) pretty jovial fellas one fella is in shorts
9) a fella named Brice
10) a muscular fella with grey stubble
11) two fellas that couldn’t be more different
12) a fella obsessively moving at random from rack to rack checking out women’s clothes
13) the fella who watched the demolition

I’m 4 of the 13 fellas. Any guesses as to which 4? An Advanced Reader Copy of the book to anyone that gets them first try.

Putting on the finishing touches

I’m wrapping up another edit of my manuscript and am hoping to solicit some help with the passage below. I’ve never been the happiest with “a little girl’s opportunity”, but I’m not sure what else to write. Any suggestions?

The context of this is that I’m at the dump where kids pick through trash. The kids would be lucky to be garment workers.

At the dump one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And in Cambodia, one man’s sweatshop is a little girl’s opportunity.

A curious grandma and a can of pepper spray don’t mix

“I’ve got a Grandma story,” Mom said. “Your Aunt bought her a can of pepper spray…”

Sparing you some of the details, Grandma is okay, but my Aunt now has a stained sink in her bathroom.