Muslin pieces had been placed at each seat at the tables, each with a needle threaded with red thread; the event began with people's sewing a red thread on their neighbor's clothing. (The organizer filled me in, and sewed me a thread, when I arrived dueing the lunch break.) But as we were writing our thoughts down I noticed that many folks were using their needles and thread - unsurprising, given that most were from the world of fashion - and decided to follow suit. I felt quite Magrittean using a thread to play the part of a needle.What I jotted down was inspired by the observations of the last contributor to the final discussion, "Challenges and opportunities," whose panel I had kicked off, though the last words - barely legible but they mean to say "like living in bodies with others human and more than human" - are mine, efforts to capture a rather arcane philosophical discussion about the opacity of the body and questions about whether clothing obscures or admits that unknowing, along with my friend O's opening observation that fashion, often thought of as narcissistic, is really an effort to overcome our loneliness.
