Honestly? I have never been interested in cross-stitching and my very few attempts at stitching ended badly. These cross-stitch versions of Banksy’s street art might just tempt me into picking up a needle and the thread, though.
The site is in Swedish, but all you need to know is that “ladda hem” means download and “gratis” means free. Yes, they offer free downloads of Banksy cross-stitch patterns. You can also grab skulls, feminist symbols and ’80s Michael Jackson patterns.
I recently discussed Alasdair Gray’s fiction with someone who had contemplated doing a parody of Lanark for NaNoWriMo. I countered that Gray does such a fine job of parodying and plagiarising himself that it would be a moot exercise. 1982, Janine and Something Leather can be read as the latter parodying the former. Within Lanark itself you get the A-Z Of Plagiarisms which in itself is a parody. Would it be possible to write (fan)fiction about a body of work which is already plagiarising and fictionalising itself?
So, to my mind, the solution would be to write an article called “The Resistance of Parody - Alasdair Gray, Bakhtin and the impossibility of Fanfiction” and what a very amusing writing exercise that would be. Not quite a novel, of course, but I might get cracking on that during November.
PS. There’s a reason why this blog entry will be filled under “humour”
The third and final US presidential debate has been and gone whilst I was soundly asleep. I have looked at various reactions - ranging from Republican blogges to left-wing UK newspapers - but this remains the funniest take I’ve read:
::30 minutes into the debate, tension has increased as each candidate has perfectly parried each others attacks::
McCain: You are wonderful.
Obama: Thank you; I’ve worked hard to become so.
McCain: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Obama: Then why are you smiling?
McCain: Because I know something you don’t know.
Obama: And what is that?
McCain: I… am not left-handed.
[McCain moves his pen to his right hand and gains an advantage]
Obama: You are amazing.
McCain: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Obama: Oh, there’s something I ought to tell you.
McCain: Tell me.
Obama: I’m not left-handed either.
[Obama moves his pen to his right hand and regains his advantage]
And if you are less geeky than me (which is very, very likely - yes, I’m embracing my inner geek nowadays), they are referencing this film.
Nothing says GEEK quite as much as a grown woman shouting “Byron! Byron, you idiots!” at University Challenge. Whilst knitting a jumper.
I like many things, but there are not many things that I love. I definitely love incunabula (books printed between 1455 and 1500) and early modern period printed books. Yesterday I went to Edinburgh to look at some very old printed books from Scotland. I was not disappointed.
I have long been interested in and worked on the shift from (handwritten) manuscripts to the (printed) books. The shift is not as abrupt and clear as many people assume; post-Gutenberg handwritten manuscripts were still produced and printers arguably sought to make their product look as much like handwritten manuscripts as possible. Although The Scottish National Library do not hold any incunabula (as far as I know), I was pleased to see some early 16th century books which still displayed evidence of this urge to mimic handwritten manuscripts: typefaces designed to resemble handwriting, woodcuts trying to look like hand-drawn illustrations and rubrication (emphasising parts of the text using red ink). Gorgeous, fascinating stuff.
And Edinburgh was her usual, gloomy, beautiful, fantastical self.
I like visiting the city but I couldn’t live there, I think.
I managed to spend yesterday afternoon in very pleasant company. Whilst the rainstorm nearly flooded Glasgow, we had hot chocolate, listened to jazz, curled up in chairs and knitted whilst discussing the US presidential election. I appreciated the afternoon all the more because it made me reflect on far I have come this past year. It takes time to establish a network in a new town, let alone a new country. 2008 has been a long, strange and very tough year - but I am now able to spend a rainy afternoon in excellent company. Thank you all who have been helping me get to this stage. You know who you are.
And speaking of knitting.. I am currently working on a red version of the February Lady Sweater. I keep having to rip back rows for some peculiar reason, so it is fairly slow going. Fortunately I think I have managed to crack a particular design problem, so hopefully I will have it done quite soon. The winter’s rapidly approaching and I’m going to need all the woolly bits that I can muster. Or perhaps I should just turn on our central heating?
Finally, a few links seeing as it is Saturday and I’m in a lazy, lazy mood.
+ I am not envious. I’m slightly overhelmed: welcome to an informed tech geek’s library.
+ Today is the ‘official’ Dogs Rule Day (although, as TangledFrog sez: “Every Day is Dogs Rule Day”).
+ Related: Could I possibly interest you in photos of people wearing clothes knitted from their dogs’ fur? It’s slightly freaky but I couldn’t tell you why.
+ So, you want the best 150 online flash games sorted by type and each given a mini-review? You got it.
It’s almost time for crap TV, so have yourself a great weekend.
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio? I feel so insular (and Anglophone/-phile) but I had to go look him up.
Lengthy discussion on why the US hasn’t received a Nobel Prize in Literature for some time (parts of the discussion isn’t terribly well-informed but some people do make great points). The Literary Saloon weighs in with a very, very authoritative voice and they should also be your one-stop read for reactions to Le Clezio’s win.
Some days there are too many things I want to write about: the Othering of Barack Obama by the GOP and whether it is an entirely successful discursive strategy, the idea of knitting as a subversive feminist activity, the question of identity and the Self in blogging (I touched upon it yesterday but I have mulled over it some more) and some random stuff about 19th C engineering achievements in Glasgow and how they are being recontextualised in the 21st century.
But, you know, it is sunny outside and I have done a few hours’ worth of paperwork, so I think it’s time for a walk.
Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”
Yesterday someone I knew roughly fifteen years ago wrote to me via Facebook. She asked me if I were dying because she had noticed my status updates on Facebook (and quite possibly this blog) and was, I quote, sooo worried about me!!!!!!!!!
One thing which absolutely fascinates me about blogging and, by extension, social networking on the web, is the idea that you “know” the blogger or the person you follow on a social website. Where does that idea of “knowledge” comes from?
I don’t know about you, but I moderate my online persona and I have done so ever since I first started blogging almost eight years ago. I used to be almost obsessively private about my identity, but when one of my blog readers began stalking me obsessively in my then-hometown, I realised that anybody would be able to find out who I was no matter how hard I tried to mask my identity. It was just a matter of how net-savvy you were. These days I link my real name to this blog and use a somewhat transparent web ‘handle’. I continue to be very aware what I share online.
Do you know me if you read this blog? Of course not, although you will have a good idea of what to expect if we were to have a conversation offline. Can you deduce anything significant from my Facebook-updates? Quite apart from my having a semi-severe PathWords obsession, no.
I’m slightly amazed that anybody would consider asking me about dying via a casual Facebook message or think I would disclose terminal illness via one-sentence updates on a silly social networking site. I think this proves the divide between illusory ‘knowledge’ generated by virtual interaction and actual knowledge of the person writing all of this.
Lovely: Wisely - Through Any Window
A gorgeous, gorgeous song. I can't believe I never watched the video before now.
Patrick Wolf does Eurovision! (the 2007 offering from Ukraine, worryingly enough)
Franz Ferdinand - Love & Destroy - inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita (which you should absolutely read).
Gorgeous version by Kira Skov and Marie Fisker.
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