Friday Unrelated Information

1. Introverts, unite! The Atlantic had an article up about "4 Ways Technology Can Enable Your Inner Introvert." I heartily agree with this sentiment:

The problem isn’t with the introvert — it’s with the demands you make on the introvert. An introvert can’t force an extrovert to sit quietly in a room and read a book, but extroverts (and the stigmas they’ve inadvertently created) can impose social demands with ease.

2. I was watching Season 3 of True Blood but got tired of it. (Not enough Bill saying "Soooookie"?). If I want to watch more vampire TV series, should I pick Being Human or The Vampire Diaries? Or should I just stick with Dr. Who?

Basement Floors Are Where It's At

Just ask Toby!


(If you couldn't tell, I've been stuck with post ideas this week. A friend suggested I blog about waht made me smile most this week and we all know that's Toby.) (This was a close second, though.)

This Week's Theme

(To be perfectly honest, that's been this month's theme. And this year's theme. And pretty much my theme since I was about 16.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Hipster Baby Booties

After knitting veggie hats and owl sweaters, I think my co-workers now expect me to make something for the moms-to-be rather than just contribute to the group gift (at least, that's what I tell myself. Maybe they dread my creations? if so, they mask it well).

Anyway, this co-worker is having a little boy and is very hip, so I went with a pair of moccasin-booties, using this free pattern:


Cute, small, lots of impact in proportion to the knitting time required: I think hipster booties are the new veggie hats!

Sunday Night Conversations, III

My best friend was out of town last week on a buying trip for his store, so we caught up last night on our Sunday phone call. He told me about some holiday stuff he had ordered (including Christmas ornaments that look like dinosaurs) and I asked him his opinion of a Christmas tree.

Me: "I have lots of space and basement storage and I kind of want to get a Christmas tree this year. But I don't really believe in Christmas any more, so does that make me a hypocrite?"

Him: "No, it makes you a homeowner. Get a tree! It's Santa Claus and the ho ho ho and a dinosaur for Toby!"

And that is my new favorite sentiment about the holidays.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If you don't mind learning a couple of spoilers, "All of Harry Potter Re-Enacted by Cats in 1 Minute" will make you smile.



2. Speaking of SMILING, look who is modeling his shirt!!

Another Birthday

I know this makes thing pretty author-heavy this week, but I couldn't miss mentioning Hemingway's birthday today!

(That is the manliest turtleneck I have ever seen. Well done, Papa.)

Today's birthday quote comes from an archived LIFE interview from 1952 when he was awarded the Pulitzer for The Old Man and the Sea:

"The right way to do it--style--is not just an idle concept," he says. "It is simply the way to get done what is supposed to be done. The fact that the right way also looks beautiful when it's done is just incidental."

Happy Birthday, Cormac McCarthy

Happy birthday to one of the two novelists who make me despair of ever writing anything as good: Cormac! I haven't been reading him lately because I've been trying to keep an even emotional keel, but here's something from All the Pretty Horses I posted back in 2007:

They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.


*The first writer who makes me want to give up is Virginia Woolf, of course.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Baby Aloha!

A few weeks ago, I scored a bunch of fabric from a sewing friend. In the haul, there was one yard of flamingo print. Now that there's a baby to sew for, I knew exactly what to do with that yard of fabric. I give you the Tiny Flamingo Aloha Shirt:

I only dropped it off last night so I don't have a picture of the nephew modeling it yet. But if he rocks it the way he rocks this cowboy outfit, it's going to be mind-blowingly, face-meltingly cute.

Pet Lion!

If we push the moral issues of keeping wild animals captive/as pets aside, these pictures are just fantastic. Who didn't want a pet lion as a kid, I ask you?





I wish I had some backstory on these, but I don't; they're from the LIFE archive and first spotted here.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm fascinated by the site Daily Routines, which uses interviews and quotes to tell us "how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." My buddy C.S. Lewis sounds like he had a good routine down (write for four hours, walk for two hours, have tea).

2. I liked this quote from Richard Russo about writing: "Pages need our attention; books take care of themselves."

3. And since there's been a mild Dr. Who theme this week, here's a geeky Venn diagram:

Allons-y!

Happy Bastille Day! I admit that I only mentioned the holiday so I could use "allons-y" as a title, but since I've got a post going, I'll throw in this clip from Funny Face about being a tourist in Paris. Enjoy the worst accents ever, Fred Astaire, and Paris in 1957.

He Makes Hobbies Sound Like A Bad Thing

I came across this C.S. Lewis quote a couple of weeks ago. I think it's pretty popular, but I've never read anything from him other than Narnia, so it's new to me.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

I guess it's a good thing I've given my heart to Toby, because Clive here is making it sound like it would turn into a shriveled little lump of tar otherwise. (Although to be honest, the thought of an unbreakable tarry heart kind of appeals to me. Does that mean it's already happened?)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Goes Well With Friendship Bracelets

If you couldn't tell, I've been into tunics lately (blame my inner hippy). After the last two dresses, I thought, "I should make one to wear as a shirt, too!" So I did.


I didn't use the dress pattern this time; I actually had an out-of-print Simplicity pattern I bought when I first got into sewing again six years ago. The fabric is from the spring Lisette line at JoAnn stores.

Now I just need an outdoor concert to wear this to. I resisted the Sam Bush band last week--I can't let the inner hippy get away with too much.

Who Wants To Play Me?

Because it's the start of a busy week (and because I'm now able to stream all the new Dr. Who to my TV), I present The Dr. Who Drinking Game (via). I think this should be on tonight's agenda.

Whenever someone dies: DRINK
Whenever the Time War is mentioned: DRINK
Whenever someone mentions the TARDIS is bigger on the inside: DRINK
Whenever there’s a shot of the Doctors footwear: DRINK
Whenever the Sonic Screwdriver is used: DRINK
Every time the Doctor wears glasses: DRINK
Whenever someone is running: YOU MUST BE DRINKING THROUGHOUT
Whenever someone is crying: YOU MUST BE DRINKING THROUGHOUT
Whenever Bad Wolf is mentioned: DRINK THRICE
Every time the Doctor uses the psychic paper: DRINK
Every time the Doctor uses the alias John Smith: DRINK
When the Doctor kisses someone: DRINK THRICE
Whenever you see a flashback: DRINK
Whenever you hear the words ‘I’m sorry’, ‘oh yes’, ‘brilliant’, ‘medusa cascade’, ‘vortex’, ‘allons-y’, ‘time and space’: DRINK
Whenever someone makes a sinister prediction: DRINK THRICE
Whenever an alien planet or race is mentioned: DRINK
Every time the Doctor uses his stethoscope: DRINK THRICE
Every time a poor American accent is heard: DRINK
Whenever Captain Jack is flirting: DRINK
Whenever someone disobeys an order from the Doctor: DRINK
Every time the Shadow Proclamation is mentioned: DRINK
Whenever the Doctor is wearing his trench coat: DRINK
Every time the TARDIS takes off: DRINK
Every time the Doctor mentions a little shop: DRINK
Every time someone asks the Doctor for a surname or questions what he is a Doctor in: DRINK
When there is a regeneration: ALL DRINKS MUST BE DOWNED

It goes without saying that he should be on the agenda, too:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. These pictures have been all over the internet, but they're just too good not to post. A macaque found a photographer's camera, saw her reflection in the lens, and somehow managed to take a picture of herself (story and more pics here). Macaque attack!
2. There is a storm raging on Saturn that wraps all the way around its northern hemisphere. That's a big storm. (More scientific details here.)

Happy Birthday, Gustav Mahler

Mahler was born in 1860 today. I haven't listened to a lot of his music in the last year or so--it's just too much sometimes, and I'm trying to preserve my calm emotionless life, thank you very much--but, thinking of what to share today, I listened to the final song of his Rückert-Lieder and realized that sometimes it's ok to let oneself be destroyed. It's catharsis, right?



No, really, it's a pretty song. Take nine minutes and listen to it. :)

Poem Project: Halfway Done

Since it's July, it's time to move on to the next poem in the memorization part of my 3+1 Things project.* I was able to recite "Meditation at Lagunitas" to the snakes and the hawks last week, so now it's on to Section XVI from Dark Harbor.

Maybe this is the nature of poems, but my choices this year have seemed really appropriate to what's been going on in my life in any given two months. We'll see if this holds true with Mark Strand:

It is true, as someone has said, that in
a world without heaven all is farewell.
Whether you wave your hand or not,

It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.

Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,

Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being

Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans' wings,

The density of the palms' shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end

Is enacted again and again. And we feel it
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon's ripening,
In the wine as it waits in the glass.


*Since July means I'm halfway through the year, here's a quick report on the other 2 (+1) Things:

1. I'm doing pretty good on the exercise goal.
2. I still need to learn how to use my serger or do other fancy techniques.
+1. I've been avoiding the issue of dating. Obviously. Although I could quote poems to someone non-stop!

Tuesday Project Roundup: So This Happened...

What happens when the yarn for your next project hasn't arrived yet and you've been seeing pictures of fashion types wearing friendship bracelets? This happens:
(What is it with me and crafts that involve string?)

Like most crafty people, I have a bunch of embroidery floss on hand so this was a free project. I made the one above with 12 different colors, another plus (I still want to be Rainbow Brite as an adult, apparently).

Yet another plus? Making these makes me feel like I'm about nine years old again.

That's why I bought more floss for the next one:
(Linked image credits and a good tutorial can be found here. But if you grew up in the 80s, you'll probably remember how to make these.)

Yay America!

Yay Jimi!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. While June was a roller coaster in many ways (meteorologically, emotionally), I'm sad to see it go. Are there really just eight more weeks of summer left?

2. The Economist reflects on the end of the space age.

3. I have a catch phrase of "first-world problem" that I use to try to stop from complaining about, well, first-world problems. This graphic illustrates some of them very well:

(Click the image twice to enlarge. Via my friend Jason's Pinterest.)