On Frocks & Books
A few things to tide things over..
- With a few modifications, this is how I'd like to live. I would not sort my books by colour (in fact, it is a pet-peeve of mine), I would tone down the pattern-upon-pattern thing, and I would go for a different IKEA sofa*, but overall this is my sort of home. It has that Scandinavian-midcentury/vintage-thriftiness/art-junkie aesthetic I like.
- As I keep saying, I am not getting back into dress-making. Nope. Not a chance. Having said that, I am drooling over this sewing project. There is no way that I'd look anything like the girl in the photos, but that is one fetching dress. I never know what to wear during summer but I like the idea of wearing pretty cotton frocks. But I'm not going to make one for myself.
- Not getting back into dress-making does not mean I cannot look at gorgeous fabric, though. Spoonflower supplies a design/print-on-demand fabric service. Look! Steampunk-inspired fabric! Fabric inspired by early American feminist writer! UK-based company, Clothkits, sells beautiful Liberty fabric designed by Grayson Perry. Sigh.
- Meanwhile Danish ladies' magazines keep publishing lovely free knitting patterns (mostly donated by yarn companies). My recent finds include this awesome cardigan, and a very cool top. I might even have yarn for the top.. Hmmm.
* yes, I have opinions on IKEA sofas. I'm a bit scared by this.
And on a completely different topic, take a look at this MeFi post about the quality of paper used in contemporary publishing.
"Eight years ago we started to notice the shift in buying patterns from free-sheet Permanent Paper to groundwood paper for hardcover books. Groundwood is the type of paper used in newspapers and mass market paperbacks, and its production is such that it is much lower-quality and degrades more quickly than traditional book publishing paper." What makes a book permanent?
The discussion quickly descends into a "well, why print books at all now the digital revolution is here" argument. I have nothing against digital publishing nor against digital archiving (in fact, I support digital archiving as it allows for storage on an unprecedented scale whilst not taking up much room), but I do take issue with people saying books are going to vanish within the next thirty years because they are too low-tech to be anything but obsolete. Despite globalisation, that is a very First-World argument.
The Book's low-tech nature is exactly why it is going to survive - and why books needs to be of better quality. Needing the Book is not about cherishing the object itself, but understanding its role in the dissemination of knowledge. Oh, but the internet! Oh, but Kindle! Oh, but what about people who have no access to the internet, or have limited/censored access? What about people living in areas where electricity is a scarce commodity reserved for the elite? Picking up a book "only" requires you to be able to read. Using a Kindle or the internet requires compatible technology, electricity, the ability to navigate and process information online, stable access, knowledge of how to download content/patch your software .. and then how to use your reading device.
(I miss working with print culture - can you tell?)
Warm and Fuzzy In Several Ways
For some odd reason I keep going back to the idea of a knitted dress. I found a machine-knitted dress in Monsoon (British clothes shop) which I absolutely loved (apart from the fibre make-up) and then I saw some jaw-dropping Briars and lengthened Dusty tunics. I just sit here in my cold flat and imagine how wonderfully soft, comfortable and warm they would be to wear. Then I remember how traumatised I get when knitting more than one sleeve or a slightly lengthy body. Maybe I would not go nuts knitting a dress or tunic, but the jury is definitely out on that one.
Plus, you know, I had the following exchange today: "Can I talk to the lady in charge of this?" - "That's me. " - "No, I want to talk to the slim one." Ouch. Maybe a soft, clingy knitted dress is a very bad idea, full stop.
Anyway. Finished object: my Kaiti shawl knitted in Rowan Kidsilk Haze (shade: Liqueur). I used just a smidgen over two balls (and you could totally get away with just two balls) on 4.5mm and although I really wanted to knit Sharon Miller's Birch, I used the top-down version, Kiri, to maximise the shawl-to-yarn ratio. This is a supersoft and very, very warm shawl.
(I'm not-so-slowly getting addicted to Kidsilk Haze - I'd love to knit a cosy jumper in KSH and have fallen in love with yet another Kim Hargreaves design: Veer from Rowan 32. The simple lines plus the quirky little details just stole my heart. )
Photo taken at the Kelvingrove Museum which is my favourite Glasgow museum, hands down. No matter how often I visit, I see something new and interesting. They even have a small, but exquisite collection of Early Modern Period art (one of my favourite ages). Afterwards we headed towards the Hunterian Art Gallery where, be still my heart, we saw a special exhibition on Albrecht Dürer in Italy and printmaking (including an incunabulum, phroawr). Seriously, seriously good stuff. I love my neighbourhood.
Reading the Past
The economic recession has claimed many victims. The first phase saw people losing jobs, companies going bankrupt and banks folding. Experts say that this first wave is over. Signs of economic growth are visible in the financial sectors. We are now living through the second phase: spending cuts have to be made. This is all very textbook Keynesian economic theory and I recommend reading up on John Maynard Keynes (quite apart from being a significant economist, Keynes was also part of the Bloomsbury group alongside Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and Lyndham Lewis) if most of the current financial news leaves you confused.
Spending cuts hurt. Before Christmas, many of my physicist friends were shocked when spending cuts to the tune of £115m were made in the science research sector. When I graduated from university in Denmark some seven or eight years ago, I saw what huge spending cuts will do to scientific research. It was not pretty. My then-department went from being autonomous with at least six new PhD students every year to being yoked together with five other subjects and get one PhD student every other year. The departmental restructuring made for some interesting cross-pollination, but also for disastrous academic results.
And so I learn that Kings College London may have to shut down its Palaeography department in order to meet budget targets. No restructuring, no "let us marry you to Library Science (however awkward) or maybe History or how about Archaeology?" and no shuffling the cards. I am not just saddened. I am shocked. KCL is the only place in the UK to have a Palaeography department and, I believe, even the only place in Europe.
Palaeography, the study of ancient handwriting, may sound like a very obscure subject - and really it is an obscure subject - but it is also incredibly important to scholars. Printing being a very recent invention, most available written material was done by hand and scholars need to be able to decipher handwriting. You get different writing systems (think Cuneiform), different alphabets (think how different the Phoenician alphabet looks to the Latin alphabet) and then different ways of interpreting the alphabets through writing. Pre-printing, many European kingdoms would have their own way of combining and forming letters - Johanna Drucker is particularly good on this, if you want to read more - and some handwriting is only intelligible to specialists who have studied handwriting traditions of a particular area (South Germany, for instance). So much material is now being made available by library specialists, but now I wonder who will be around to read, understand and disseminate this material.
(If I had know that Palaeography existed as a discipline when I started university, I would have ended up in a very different place to now. As is, most of my knowledge is filtered through print culture, so I apologise for any glaring mistakes)
Linkage
Link dump day!
+ Europe, Explained: a nice map which summarises it all for confused non-Europeans.
+ Puppets need puppets too.
+ Vegetarian-friendly roadkill carpet
+ The prettiest yarn shop in Denmark? I like my yarn shops over-stuffed, but if you like minimalism..
+ Sweden has its own Etsy-like site.
+ This is a real film: Tiptoes stars Matthew McConaughey as a "normal-sized dwarf", Gary Oldman as his, er, dwarf-sized dwarf brother and Kate Beckinsale as the love interest. Peter Dinkdale features as a a crazy French radical dwarf. I kid you not.
+ 13 Alien Languages You Can Actually Read.
+ This is what happens when knitting gets serious. Like, REALLY serious. Sock Summit 2009. Check out the graphics.
+ Maia Hirasawa: The Worrying Kind. A stunning, stunning cover where I don't think you need to know the original to appreciate it.
+ Jar Jar Binks salad
+ British Library's treasures. You could spend an entire afternoon just faffing about (well, I could).
+ Field Notes. I covet. I covet badly.
Behaving as the Wind Behaves
Let the Right One In was a much better film than book. Everything which was overegging the book-pudding had been removed in the film: neverending subplots, irrelevant and distracting characters, and immense wordiness. The film was sparse, beautifully shot, and intense. While not the masterpiece it has been made out to be, the film was excellent. Also, it is always a joy to see a horror film where the real horror is found in everyday life rather than a supernatural monster. Recommended.
(Also: a joy to watch a Swedish film. Swedish is such a beautiful, poetic language and I adored the film's cheeky use of traditional Swedish symbols such as the Tre Kronor towel)
(Also, also: who plays Oskar's father? I swear he looks familiar but the actor's not listed in any credits I can find?)
Before the obligatory knitting update, a quick print culture geek link. Earliest known dust jacket found at Oxford. I might come back to that and explain why it's very cool.
Knitting, then. I am about 4 inches away from finishing the back of my Geno. I have a sort-of deadline for my cardigan early next month and it looks unlikely that I will make it. A 4-ply lace cardigan on 3mm needles in less than three weeks? I'm knitting like a woman possessed, but I am already behind schedule. Due to the small-ish needle size, my fingers tense up if I knit for more than three hours in a row. Also, yesterday my right shoulder began playing up (to the extent that my back started giving me problems) and while I am not sure if it is knitting-related, it does slow down the progress of Geno. Irritating.
Of course it does not mean I haven't begun pondering the next summer knit and I'm leaning heavily towards Flicker from Rowan Studio 15. Although not in beige.
Title: on the topic of horror.. well.
Gifted
This is the week of receiving gifts, it seems.
When Kirsten Marie visited, she offered to make me some bling out of materials we bought at The Bead Company. I don't wear much jewellery, but I do appreciate handmade things. And so a few weeks later these earrings arrived by post and I think they are very, very pretty. I'm not a Slytherin but I am a sucker for all things green and/or silvery. Thank you, Kirsten Marie!
And then Other Half gave me an abecedarium (of sorts) because he knows I love typography and lettering above most other things in life. And he got me a pop-up abecedarium! It's amazing. You can see how Marion Bataille's ABC3D works in this little YouTube video:
Into the Woods
Yes, I know I said stuff about knitting with grey wool. The phrases "never again", "not in the winter months" and "I need colour!!!!!" may have passed my lips.
But I've changed my mind.
The pattern is Norwegian Woods by Sivia Harding. Earlier this year I knitted a few repeats of it in the gawjuss Old Maiden Aunt silk/merino yarn I have stashed away. I was flippant, made a few too many mistakes and ripped it all out. Now I'm knitting the shawl in Snældan's 1-ply wool (Faroese wool mixed with a touch of Falkland Islands wool - and spun on the Faroe Islands!). I'll blog more about the shawl as it progresses.
As you can see from the photo, it is snowing in Glasgow today. South-east England has had a couple of inches of snow and they are panicking. Silly people (sayeth this Scandinavian gal) For once I don't mind the snow so much and it made for a great photo opportunity this morning. Right now I'm still seeing ginormous snowflakes hurling towards the ground.
A couple of links (because my links folder is bursting at its seams).
+ I really want this t-shirt.
+ Is there anything Barack Obama cannot do? Well, I'm not too hot on his poetry. Dare I say it? I write better poetry than him? I do.
+ Great photos of London from above (thanks, Molly)
+ A bit more heavy-going than I usually get here: We Who Are Left Behind: Poetry as Testimony in Derrida and Celan.
+ Amazing Flickr photo-stream: Lars Daniel. He makes me miss Copenhagen even more.
+ Type as Image. It does wot it sez on teh tin.
Have a lovely day - with or without snow.
Visual Words
In my handwritten note I alluded briefly to the idea of handwriting possessing "presence" and printing having only "absence". In its infancy printing was known as "artificial writing" - the implication being that handwriting = natural, printing = artifice, obviously. I once messed about with ideas concerning printing and how English as a literary language emerged post-Gutenberg (and Gutenberg's cronies now often relegated to footnotes): poets like George Herbert would write poems which use the relative fixity of the printed page etc etc etc. Some people hold forth that the digital age provides an even greater absence between the Scribe and the Word - a form of hyper-absence which forms an even wider gap between word and meaning. I suspect my own hesitation towards e-books must spring from a peculiar awareness of this aporia. I think.
Blah, blah, blah.
And so I came across Des Imagistes: An online version of Ezra Pound's anthology of Imagist poetry dating back to 1914. Contributors include well-known modernists like James Joyce and William Carlos Williams as well as the less-remembered (but equally important) Richard Aldington and F.S. Flint.
The website was created as part of a course at the MIT and the project team explain their choice of design:
This website uses a font stack of "Futura, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif." Futura was designed between 1924 and 1926 by Paul Renner, and while Renner was not associated with the Bauhaus school of design, Futura is frequently used in connection with Bauhaus-related topics. The Bauhaus school was founded two years after Des Imagistes' publication, and its aesthetics harmonize well with the nature of imagistic poetry
Of course I thought of Typesetting The Waste Land which also explore the intersections of poetry, modernism, typography and the internet. I spotted a typo quite quickly and I am certainly not sure that the designer needed to highlight specific passages ("The Burial of the Dead") or render certain elements in different colours ("A Game of Chess"), but as the design pulls away from both the classic Faber and Faber layout (I'd scan a few lines but as per usual my copy's completely ruined) and the standard anthology versions (wherein its typesetting follows all the other texts and you get footnotes at the bottom of the page), it does strikes me as potentially interesting. I just wish the designer had chosen a less .. interpretative .. layout.
In case this sort of thing tickles your fancy - i.e. modernist poetry and print culture - let me recommend Jerome J. McGann's Black Riders: The Visible Language of Modernism (and I wouldn't object to getting it for Christmas, sigh).
Buttons and Books
These are my Buttony Mitts. I test-knitted them for Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt. Basically, she asked me one day if I wanted free handpainted yarn and I replied with my best teenage "dooooh" face.
The yarn is gorgeous. It is a soft alpaca-merino-bamboo blend and is handpainted in shades of forest green, khaki and pine. It knits to aran-weight but Lilith had decided to use a 4mm needle to create a warm, durable fabric. It worked a treat. The pattern itself was well-written and taught me how to make paired increases. If not for other commitments I could have finished the mitts in the course of two evenings (I love instant gratification projects).
Lilith is planning to make Buttony Mitt kits available on her site, so keep an eye out for those.
Other commitments? Among other things I went to Edinburgh on Friday night for a panel on the future of the book at The Scottish Book Trust. I was pleasantly surprised to see a relatively large turnout (fifty people or so! on a Friday night! in November!) and was even more pleasantly surprised by the panellists who all had interesting points to make. I was particularly impressed by Donald Smith (of the Scottish Storytelling Centre) who knew his book history and made good points about the book (codex) as a material object. The panel ran out of time, so the Q&A session was cut short, but I managed to raise a point about the socio-economic implications of digitalising books which was well-received. I suppose "you had to be there", but I really enjoyed myself.
As an aside, I was cornered by an American who wanted to know what I had bought my cardigan. Score!
PS. I trust the permalinks are working for people now. If not, let me know.