Interesting reader mail

[cupcake_goth]

This is one of the emails that turned up in the Gothic Charm School inbox this morning:

It was recently brought to my attention by way of a post on one of my forums that
you will be holding a tea party in a cemetery to celebrate your book release.

I just wanted to say that I think this is highly disrespectful and tacky. And before
you judge me to be some uptight soccer mom who came across your site, let me tell
you that I am in your target audience. I am into both romantic goth style and spent
a good number of years this way and also and into lolita street fashion. Your book
is something that I would have picked up in a store to keep on my bookshelf/coffee
table and encouraged my friends to buy as well. However I don't think I will be
doing anything of the sort. I am saddened to see that you show such little respect
for the people of the cemetery.

Hmmm. I need to double-check some of my sources, but from what I remember, the big public/non-churchyard cemeteries were, to some extent, intended as large public parks. Or at least, they were certainly treated that way for a very long time. I am planning on answering her, but like I said, I need to check my sources and do some more research.

Behind the cut-tag, my to-do list. Not terribly exciting, I realize, but good heavens, I need one.


- Laundry.
- Shorten one of the hoop skirts so it's the right length for under the stripy skirt mineke made me.
- Figure out what I'm wearing for the course of the NYC trip.
- Write an actual answering questions -type GCS post.
- Make sure all the ingredients are ready for tonight's dinner. (Cobb salad, which means oh right, I need to cook bacon.)
- DYE HAIR.
- Aspirin mask.
- EMAIL AGENT.
- Send Bluejay more fic links. (muah-ha-ha-ha!)
- Send thank you mail to Miss K. at Aromaleigh for mentioning the GCS book on her blog. DO NOT browse the Aromaleigh site, as I do not have spending money for makeup at the moment.
- Upper arm exercises. (Now if they'd just start showing some results soon, that would be lovely.)


::siiiiiiiiigh:: Don'wanna. Would rather nap, and watch movies with the Stroppy One.

Comments

Re: I think I smell a WASP.

[aka-paloma.livejournal.com]

Indeed. If there's anything in all this that is "tacky" and "disrespectful" it's her narrow-minded and blinkered view of how the many cultures around the world perceive and honour their dead. That, coupled with her ignorance about this particular cemetery's history and function in the community, might have made her attitude laughable if it wasn't so annoying.

I mean, what does she think is going to go on at the tea party? I've only been lurking about on cupcake_goth's LJ for about a year now and I don't know her in RL, so I don't claim to be an expert on her mindset, but I can't imagine a function she's going to take part in will devolve into, oh... I don't know. An obnoxious mess where the trees get the TP treatment with black crepe paper and the graves end up covered in graffiti stating "Bela Lugosi was here"...? Or, something like this:

IDK, but yes the idea of having a party there just to be "oooh~ counter culture and creeeepy" is so lame on top of being disrespectful. I thought that the whole goth kids draping themselves over gavestones thing was over.

That quote came from here (http://community.livejournal.com/egl/13773031.html?thread=287500007#t287500007).

What parts of "Lady of the Manners" and "Gothic Charm School" do these people not understand? Yeesh.

(SORRY. THIS WHOLE THING HAS MADE ME A BIT RANTY.)
(ALSO, EDITED FOR TYPOS. *SIGH*)
(ARGH!! SORRY FOR SPAMMING YOUR INBOX WITH NOTIFICATIONS OF MY INEPTITUDE TODAY!)