The Skies, Now Undisturbed
The wise elders would explain that inside the aircraft, passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship - and would complain that the food in miniature plastic beakers before them was not quite as tasty as the sort they could prepare in their own kitchens.
The elders would add that the skies, now undisturbed except by the meandering progress of bees and sparrows, had once thundered to the sound of airborne leviathans, that entire swathes of Britain's cities had been disturbed by their progress
Alain de Botton wrote his piece in reaction to the last few days' "travel chaos" (i.e. man is not greater than nature). I am reminded of Ben Marcus' The Age of Wire & String, a strange little book which I struggled to understand. I think it is the ritualised language both de Botton and Marcus use.
Completely unrelated: Death Metal Lyric OR William Blake Quote? Go on ..
Meanwhile I am still torn on whether to use a particular yarn for a particular cardigan pattern. When I look at the yarn I think "texture! cables! I have 1700 yrds!" but the cardigan is rather plain and takes 1050 yrds. Woe.
Shall I Compare Thee to the Great Pele?
After the years of Andrew Motion being poet laureate, him whining about it and his "official" poems going "Better stand back / Here’s an age attack, / But the second in line / Is dealing with it fine", it is a relief to have Carol Ann Duffy in the seat. Somehow she seems to understand the job better and is able to find poetry in the small things that fill our everyday lives (which, I would argue, is what poetry is all about) and the news story flickering on our screens.
Recently she wrote a poem about David Beckham's injury which sees him out of the England World Cup squad.
Achilles (for David Beckham)
Myth's river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised,
they would not take Troy.Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs...
but when Odysseus came,with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar,
and it was sport, not war,Advertisement - article continues below »
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his charmed foot on the ball...
but then his heel, his heel, his heel...
The poem was originally published in The Daily Mirror, a tabloid, which employs Duffy as a regular columnist. Meanwhile, The Guardian, my newspaper of choice, looks at the poem approvingly but the comments section is where I found the biggest thrills. I particularly enjoyed FinneyontheWing, IantovonScranto and tw*tbeak but I strongly recommend the entire section. It is filled with limp poetry, bizarre imagery and iambic pentameter.
Mad, Bad & Orange To Know
Being ill has its benefits. Last time I was stuck in bed for more than two days in a row, I ploughed through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which I had previously failed to get into (the plot starts unfolding one-third through the novel). This time around I am knitting whilst listening to podcasts on John Milton (interesting) and Ezra Pound (dull and I even mouthed 'WRONG' at my ipod at one point).
I'm knitting with my bright orange 2-ply baby alpaca (yes, the colour is accurate in the photo). It is underspun, rather fragile and almost angora-like soft. And I'm knitting Percy, a pattern which I have previously attempted to knit. I'm now halfway through my second repeat of the dastardly Chart B and I might add in another repeat before doing the edging chart, just to make the shawl a bit bigger. It almost seems a shame to knit an intricate pattern in fuzzy yarn, but the process knitter in me actually Does Not Care. It'll be a mad, colourful and warm shawl - and I will have conquered Chart B. That is all that matters.
I am still ill, alas, but I think today I will actually get dressed!
And here's a little news story which may cheer you up:
Rumors of a city of 25,000 lesbians have led hordes of men to contact Swedish tourist authorities and swamp the nation's Internet providers. Chinese media especially have spread the tale of “Chako Paul City,” supposedly founded in 1820 in northern Sweden by a man-hating widow who banned males, reports Australia's Daily Telegraph. Inhabitants then turned to lesbianism “because they could not suppress their sexual needs,” goes one recent account in China’s Harbin News service. Swedish tourist authorities are baffled. “I've no idea where this came from, but it's not true," said a spokesman. “At 25,000 residents, the town would be one of the largest in northern Sweden, and I find it hard to believe that you could keep something like that a secret for more than 150 years.”
(I cannot remember how I came across it - if it's via you, please let me know so I can credit)
Two Steps Ahead
The Guardian is running a series of semi-humourous columns called This Column Will Change Your Life and I hit upon It's Not Easy Always Being Right the other night. I don't think I'm always right - I live in shades of grey - but I know that I often feel like I'm outsmarting people (mostly myself) which is a bastardised form of Always Being Right, of course.
Unfortunately this "outsmarting people" is not particularly useful. I am not outsmarting bankers in order to make hefty profits, for instance. My brain is far more useless than that: I'm always two steps ahead of whatever I am supposed to be doing. A typical example of a telephone conversation would be: "Yes, you have misspelled my name, but I would like to address the legal issues surrounding .. okay, it's K. A. .. can we just look at section 7 befo .. yes, K.A. R..." and when I type I miss out words because my brain is always three or four sentences ahead of whatever I'm typing.
Now imagine how I read. I read very fast and can wolf down a book in a couple of hours. About ten years ago I decided that I needed to start poetry because you cannot wolf down poetry. You have to work at making meaning. You have to be patient with a quiet mind or the poem will not open up. I spent years working with poetry before I felt ready to go back to reading prose. And I still wolf down prose instead of savouring every little punctuation mark. I cannot remember characters' names nor minor details, but I can tell you if I enjoyed the read or not in very fancy terms.
I am not a New Agey person but I do wish I could live more in the present and focus on what is Right Now. Instead I'm always two steps ahead and outsmarting myself while I'm at it.
A few links that have grabbed me over the last few days:
+ Madeleine Albright: Read My Pins. When costume jewellery went political.
+ The $3,000 Scarf - or why crafting isn't necessarily a cheap hobby.
+ Cross-dressing in the 20th Century - a series of photos. Thanks, Alex.
+ The Ultimate Bauhaus Dog House - or how to produce a quintessential Ms Bookish link.
+ Take A Weird Break - some very odd headlines from a British women's magazine. "Spirit Mum Sends Me Elastic Bands" sums it all up.
+ Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (youtube). I love her forthcoming single - it's exquisitely poptastic in a super-cheesy Eurovision-goes-gay-bar-circa-1986 way. I could see Sweden offering this in a perfect Eurovision world. Other Half hates the song. Pffft.
Wednesday Linkage
An assortment of various links for your pleasure.
- Dicey knitting - for the ones among us who like to throw dice when we need to make a decision. "Start with the Ivory Cube -- it will tell if you you knit, purl, slip, increase, decrease, or cable/twist. This is where you Impose Chaos". Thanks, L.
- Golden silk from golden orb spiders: "A unique piece of golden yellow silk brocade cloth, woven from spiderwebs, is on display at the Museum of Natural History in New York. To harvest enough silk to make the cloth, more than a million female golden orb spiders were collected in Madagascar, "milked" for silk, and released back into the wild." The links are not for the faint-hearted, but they are incredibly interesting. I say this as a arachnophobe.
- This has been mentioned a lot on various literary blogs, but it bears repeating: An Open Letter to the Federal Trade Comission. There is a difference between being a lit blogger receiving freebies which may/may not be reviewed and a corporate shrill. The FTC has apparently not noticed the difference.
- Most of my adult life I have been looking for the perfect Bauhaus teapot. I now know why it'll never be mine.
- Glasgow Guerilla Gardening. What it says on the tin. Sometimes they include knitting.
- The house of my nightmares. And probably also of the assigned estate agent..
- The 56 Geeks. Which one are you? And yes, you will be one because you are reading a blog. Brownie points for guessing which one I am. (thanks, Emme)
- The continuing saga of Amazon, their Kindle and the concept of "Fail".
- Hilary Mantel won this year's Man Booker. I can't even pretend to be mildly interested. Sorry.
- One of Dave's online buddies have started a parenting blog. Normally the words "parenting blog" strikes fear into my heart, but when it's called When Should They See Die Hard and the first post made my day: "The first stage is what I'll call "The Minion Stage". Essentially having a little tiny henchman who does as their told and will make Manhattans for you."
Enjoy.
Saturday Link Dump
I haven't done one of these in ages. Also: insomnia has struck.
- This is my new favourite cartoon. Strong words lurk within, beware.
- Robert Barclay Allardice - The Celebrated Pedestrian: "His most famous feat was the walking of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in 1000 hours for 1000 guineas in 1809."
- Fancy Fast Food: "Yeah, it's still bad for you, but see how good it can look!" This one is particularly disturbing.
- How To Speak With A British Accent (youtube) is a series of educational videos teaching non-Brits how to perfect their British accent. Well, except that the videos are unintentionally hilarious. I've linked the "Unique Words" video but there are several other gems.
- My mum's local paper had a "best summer photo" competition. This is my absolute favourite entry. Nothing says "Danish summer" like a wheelie bin.
- Via John, the Armenians may be taking Eurovision a tad too seriously..
- The Beauty of Accidents. When a potentially ruined photograph turns out to be strangely beautiful and even better than what you had in mind. Something to keep in mind in these Photoshop days..
- Finally, it took a long time while for Casa Bookish inhabitants to notice but now we're all about Plants vs. Zombies. Pole-vaulting zombies! Dolphin zombies! Pea-shoots! It's maddeningly addictive.
Knitters’ Picnic – Worldwide Knitting in Public
This year's Worldwide Knitting in Public event in Glasgow is going to take place on Saturday the 13th of June in the Kelvingrove Rockery, Kelvingrove Park at 1pm.
We'll be having a picnic, so bring blankets, water, sunscreen(!), knitting/crocheting projects and something to nibble on. In case of rain, the tentative backup plan is to meet in the main hall of Kelvingrove museum. Non-knitters are encouraged to show up and be assimilated.
(The other week I remembered Glasgow knitters idly chatting about a picnic months and months ago. I revived the topic on Ravelry and, yes, I've somehow ended up "hosting" this event. Let that be a lesson to you all)
Alpaca Punch
There she is, that Ishbel.
The shawl blocked out beautifully and post-blocking I only had it in the house for about an hour before sending it across the Atlantic to a friend who needs a big hug.
So, yes, I was very pleased with the finished object - it looks lovely, works out larger than you think and has an interesting Faroese-like shape - but I did not enjoy knitting it. Overall, I must have knitted this shawl twice over with all my tinkering and re-knitting - and, honestly, I would rather have spent that knitting time on something else because the project just wasn't interesting enough to warrant that amount of effort.
But Ishbel does make for a warm, knitted hug which is the really important bit.
Now I'm working on a different shawl and it is really interesting to note the differences between the two projects (and the two patterns).
I have been admiring Laminaria ever since I got bitten by the lace bug. It is an insanely beautiful shawl made out of complicated Estonian stitches I had never seen anywhere before. Instead of "knit", "yarn over" or "purl", the pattern tells you to knit "2-into-9" and "3-into-3". Furthermore, the pattern notes tells you it is a modular shawl, so you can shift the blocking blocks around. The designer has even posted a huge yardage chart, so you can track how much yarn you need for the sections (which is important if you decide to mix things up).
Thing is, I'm finding Laminaria an absolute joy to knit. So far it has even been a really straightforward knit: charts are crystal clear, the stitch definitions easy to understand and it works up very quickly. I cast on Monday night and I'm through the first three charts without with nary a hitch. Even the fabled Transition chart which has its own thread of heartbreak on Ravelry .. I got through it first time with no mistakes. What gives?
If Laminaria continues to be this much fun, I foresee a lot of 'em in my future.
However, one thing does have me worried. The yarn. I'm using a 1-ply kidmohair/merino which I bought in Denmark. Stunning shade of red. Plenty of yardage (I think). And in the middle of knitting the second chart, the yarn literally fell apart in my hands. I am not a tight knitter and I'm knitting the shawl at a loose gauge - and the ply just came apart as I was knitting. It has me worried about how it'll hold up to blocking, I tell you, and I'm also terrified about putting too much stress on it as I'm knitting (which those 3-into-9 stitches will invariably do).
Finally: Alpaca Punch? Alpaca Punch? Well, Other Half and I were talking about the perfect name for a Glaswegian yarn shop and there you have it. Wool, violence and a bad pun all rolled into one. That's very Glaswegian. I'm going to use the name for a pattern I'm going to write up (I've had a request, what can I say?) and hopefully that pun will stick to me like a big sticky stick.
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.
Relationship Status: Good (Once More)
If you subscribe to my Twitter feed you will already have been privy to a major relationship crisis. Last night I was not talking to and was close to breaking up with knitting. It was bad. Seriously.
Looking back it was inevitable: it was late, I had been snappy most of the day and then I stopped paying attention. I stopped paying attention to stitch count, I didn't read the pattern and when I realised something was wrong, I began using foul language. I ripped back, ripped back much too far, tried picking up stitches, saw stitches drop, ripped back further and ..
.. then I had a Boyfriend Intervention. "Listen, I think you should head off to bed because this is not working and I don't think you can make it work tonight, okay? You're getting upset and you really shouldn't get upset over knitting."
Knitting and I are now back talking to each other. Actually, we are more than talking to each other. We're back being soppy and gooey. I have knitted the rows I ripped back and I'm also paying attention to the pattern once more. It's not that complicated, really. I just missed the bit where I'm supposed to do yarn-overs a row earlier than I thought I would. No biggie. I love knitting lace. Doing extra yarn-overs is a pleasure.
Sleep definitely helped as did a healthy dose of relationship therapy (i.e. several episodes of knitting podcasts) and tea. Life's too short to bear grudges - escpecially against something as incredibly lovely and rewarding as knitting.