Quite A Weekend For Authors

If you had a birthday over the last day or so and you want to be a children's book author, you have good company: Yesterday was the birthday of Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Madeleine L'Engle, and C.S. Lewis. And today is the birthday of L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) and Mark Twain.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Since it' now officially the "holiday season," I will tell you about my new favorite festive drink: Make an Old Fashioned, but use a clementine instead of an orange. Tasty!

2. Speaking of whiskey (and really, when are we not?), the two cases of scotch under a hut used in Shackleton's 1909 expedition are now a little less buried in ice, so the maker of the scotch wants to drill them out. Drill, baby, drill!

3. And finally, someone has probably already forwarded this to you, but it is too awesome not to post. The Muppets present Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful to have a job, and central heating, and things to read, and a clean cat.

I won't post tomorrow but I'll have some things for Friday, including a Muppet video and some talk about whiskey.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Finally, Some Progress

This week I stopped repeating the same part of the beige cardigan, finished the back, and got the sleeves sewed up, too.
Now I just have the front trim and collar to do--I don't think I'll have enough yarn left for a belt, but I'm OK with that.

And I'm planning an elaborate cabled sweater (Thing #22) to start before the year is out. I think I'll use an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, who is famous for being an awesome knitter, yes, but for also coining the knitter's equivalent of "Keep Calm and Carry On": Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.

Knit on.

WWCSD?

The more I watch Cosmos, the more I like Carl Sagan. Here's the opening voiceover from Episode 8:

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars. There was a time when the stars seemed an impenetrable mystery, but today we have begun to understand them. In our personal lives, also, we journey from ignorance to knowledge. Our individual growth reflects the advancement of the species. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The documentary Grey Gardens showcases some of my deep-seated fears (being old and poor, becoming dependent on someone else, turning into a crazy cat lady), so I had some reservations about watching the HBO film about the same characters, but it was very good. I recommend it, if only to better understand how crazy cat ladies get that way.

2. An interview with Cormac McCarthy in the Wall Street Journal reveals that he drinks what I drink, when I want gin (which is often): Bombay Gibson, up. And that he writes the way I do, when I don't have a deadline:
"I get up and have a cup of coffee and wander around and read a little bit, sit down and type a few words and look out the window."

3. And finally, here's a map of Holme's London, with notes about what adventure happened in each mapped point. It's very thorough.

Today, We Need More Cats

You've probably heard of Cash4Gold, but have you heard of Cats4Gold?
It's (a) real (site)! www.catsforgold.com

I'd do it.

It's So Nice To Have A Cat Around The House

They can help you with small home improvement tasks, such as putting in a new shelf and re-organizing your broom closet.
Yeah, this shelf is solid, mama.

And they can inspect your cooking utensils, so make sure they're all OK.
Uh, this one has a smell.

(He's not usually allowed up on this counter, but the rearranging created so much excitement that he had to check it out.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: No Progress, But No Mistakes, Either

After I put up a picture of the in-progress cardigan/vest two weeks ago, I noticed I'd gotten off on the pattern on the left front about six inches from the top (it looks like a bumpy line on the right side in that photo). I debated just leaving it, but the point of hobbies--besides being relaxing, of course--is that I'm in control, dammit, so I ripped back and started that part of the front over.

Except the second time I tried to do it, I got it too long and had to rip back again; and the third time, I made the same mistake and had to rip back one more time. The fourth time was the charm, though. So two weeks later, I'm essentially at the same point. But it's mistake free!

In other news, I'm making a dress out of this fabric. It's a pattern I've made about 6 times, so I'm not too worried about messing this one up.

"...my heart is closing like a fist..."

A Monday sort of poem: Part of "Mayakovsky," from Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, as quoted in Season 2 of Mad Men, which I am re-watching:

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.


(The title is from part 2 of the poem but I'm quoting part 4; I found the whole thing online here. Frank O'Hara was a musician, too.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If you've wondered what comes after "host of archangels" and "coven of witches," check the Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns.

2. I was reading an old J. Peterman catalog last night, from 1994 (what, of course I kept some of them) and here's part of the description for a silk taffeta ball skirt: "Is there just too much elegance, too much barely containable romance in your life? Of course not. Read on."
Oh, 1994 was a simpler time, when I believed ball skirts would lead to balls and J. Peterman could sell something called the "Afghan Rebel Hat."

3. What I would like to do, too:

Something To Ponder

"One of the hardest things to look at in this life is the lives we didn’t lead, the path not taken, potential left unfulfilled. In stories, those who look back — Lot’s wife, Orpheus and Eurydice — are lost. Looking to the side instead, to gauge how our companions are faring, is a way of glancing at a safer reflection of what we cannot directly bear, like Perseus seeing the Gorgon safely mirrored in his shield."

(From a NY Times opinion piece. I had dinner with an old friend last night and we were going through the list of mutual acquaintances.)

Music For Hobbies, Music As Hobby

I've been out of touch with the classical music world ever since I graduated college, and the only classical CD I've bought this year has been Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, but back in the day I loved to listen to chamber music on the Saint Paul Sunday Morning radio program.

As I was doing some sewing a few weeks ago, I thought, "Why not see when that program is broadcast so you can start listening again?" They've dropped "Morning"--it's just Saint Paul Sunday now--and even better, you can stream all the programs online. Which is how I discovered that vocal group Anonymous 4, the experts on early music, had branched out into American shape-note, folk, and gospel songs. In 2004. Yes, out of touch.

But the happy news is that I now have a bunch of free music to catch up on, and whatever Anonymous 4 sings is magical. (Here's that 2004 broadcast.) Every program gives you all kinds of good stuff to listen to, with enough background discussion with the host to jog your memory (if you, say, got a degree in all this) or teach you something new.

Also: Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans out there!

Tuesday Project Roundup: It's Flannel Season

This was a fun, free weekend project: I'd made this skirt before, using a pattern by a designer/blogger that I follow that was published in last year's Stitch magazine. I had the right yardage of this plaid on the project shelf, abandoned from another project, so when I saw the designer's plaid version, I had to make one, too. (She matched up her plaids better than I did, but I bet her fabric wasn't woven crooked.)
Cat and cat food are not included with this skirt.

Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan

Today Carl Sagan would have been 75 years old. You can read about him on Wikipedia (did you know that "a Sagan has been defined as a humorous unit of measurement equal to at least four billion"?), watch all of the Cosmos series on Hulu, or watch the "re-mix" below, which was up on kottke.org last month. Despite the Auto-Tune, it's meant in a spirit of love, not mockery, and I bet Sagan would have liked it.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Funny! And alarmingly true to life! The Emotional Hokey-Pokey.

2. I can't tell if this iPod speaker is a real product or a joke ("It looks frightening and it IS frightening"?), but I always click links that say, "Wall of sound."

3. The Where the Wild Things Are movie is at Brewvies now, starting tonight. I might have to put that on the agenda tomorrow if I can get all the final gardening done.

Science Or Science Fiction?

On BLDGBLOG, I read a long and fascinating interview yesterday with one of the engineers on the Yucca Mountain project. The interview is matter-of-fact, not political, but it's really interesting. I learned that Yucca Mountain is being built to a standard of a MILLION YEARS, which brings up all sorts of issues: How do you even label something for that kind of future? As the interviewee says,

We have looked very closely at what WIPP is doing—the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. They did a study with futurists and other people—sociologists and language specialists. They decided to come up with markers in seven languages, basically like a Rosetta Stone, with the idea that there will always be someone in the world who studies ancient languages, even 10,000 years from now, someone who will be able to resurrect what the meanings of these stelae are. They will basically say, “This is not a place of honor, don’t dig here, this is not good material,” etc.

[...] Of course, there’s also a little bit of fun involved here: what is the dominant species going to be in 10,000 years? And can you really mark something for a million years? What we have looked at, basically, is marking things for at least 10,000 years—and hopefully it will last even longer. And if this information is important to whatever societies are around at that time, if they have any intelligence at all, they will renew these monuments.

I love it when science seems more like science fiction, like the Large Hadron Collider going back in time to prevent itself from ever being made. Doesn't the modern-day Rosetta Stone sound a good construct for a sci-fi story?

(I was also struck by this engineer's optimism--because I have my doubts about whether anything will be around in 10,000 years.)

Secret Parent Wisdom

So remember the new bird feeder from last week that the birds weren't going near? It was a topic of discussion on Sunday's visit to my parents. My dad asked me if the feeder had any glass, and I said yes, two sides of the feeder's rectangle were glass. Then he speculated that maybe the birds were getting a reflection when they approached the feeder, which was scaring them off.

Monday morning I filled the feeder up completely, thus blocking all the glass with seed. And now, on Wednesday, there have been at least three different brave birds eating from it, and a lot more doing a fly-by to check it out!

Seriously, first my mom saved the day with her cat knowledge, and now Dad is an amateur bird scientist. Does National Geographic have a special secret issue for parents? Or is it the fact that they have 30 years more experience than me?

Tuesday Project Roundup: How About Some Pictures On This Blog?

I have a picture of the beige cardigan, which has grown two fronts and just needs a back and trim.


And I have a picture of Toby enjoying his heater last night.

(And I have good news about the Twilight mittens: I finally blocked them and I was able to get them more of the same size, so they might not be a total loss. No picture of those, though.)

Feeling Better

When I'm sick, the first thing I do is stop drinking coffee. It just doesn't sound good, and that's kind of like a jug of wine not sounding good to Jack Kerouac (i.e., unlikely). But I got some rest and some Sudafed and October, The Worst Month In Recent Memory, is finally over, so this morning the coffee was back on.

As Dorothy Draper says, "A lot of worse things can be said of a woman than 'she gives you a good cup of coffee.'"