Perspective

In addition to the endless opportunities it offers to "see what happens," space is also fantastic for giving us a little perspective on our lives. Like this:


The dot on the left is Earth; the one on the right is the moon. The picture was taken at distance of six million miles by the spacecraft Juno, which is making the five-year journey to Jupiter. Suddenly those irksome work projects seem a little less important, amirite?


(via the Bad Astronomy blog; the original post also includes a link to Carl Sagan reading from Pale Blue Dot.)

Poem For Summer Storms

What's up with these crazy storms that roll in at night? Here's a poem about them.

Mother, Summer, I

by Philip Larkin

My mother, who hates thunder storms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,

And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can't confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear:
An autumn more appropriate.

Time To Submit Fair Projects

I can't call this a Tuesday Project Roundup because I don't have a new project to show (I don't know what's happened to my productivity lately), so let's call it a PSA instead: This weekend, it's time to enter your "Home Arts" projects in the state fair.

I think I'm just going to enter my Hamburglar coat, since that's the most impressive project in a year of baby gifts, home decor, and tunics.

Impressively striped!

We'll see how the fair ladies react to my sense of style this year.

MYFO Monday

(MYFO = Melt Your Face Off, which is what all of this CUTENESS is going to do. You've been warned.)

Behold Skyler, the happiest and smartest baby on the planet and nearly four months old:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Have you heard that astronomers were able to spot a star going supernova within hours of the explosion? It's also one of the closest to Earth in "a generation," at 21 million light years away.

The supernova is in the Pinwheel Galaxy, located in the Big Dipper, and it's gaining brightness by the minute (as massive stellar explosions tend to do); in about two weeks astronomers say it should be visible with a pair of binoculars.
Read more at the Berkley Science Center Lab or from the Bad Astronomer.

2. It's been hot here, but I can't bring myself to wish for the weather to break and fall to come. I need to go to the farmers market and the pool and pretend it will be summer forever.

My Cat Is Cuter Than Your Cat

There is incontrovertible photographic evidence:

(Why do I have a cat tower in my living room? I don't now; it just took me over an hour to get it up the stairs, because he jumped on it the second it came through the garage door and didn't get off.)

Wouldn't That Make A Cheesy Mess?

Over the weekend I read the most head-scratching headline I've ever encountered:

In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

"Smite" of course has the Biblical/archaic usage of "defeat or conquer," but according to the dictionary it also means "to strike with a firm blow." But does that meaning make this headline make any more sense? NO.

I mean...how does this get approved and go into national circulation in the Sunday ads? I'd love to have heard the copywriter explain this.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Color Of The Week

Does it surprise anyone that both projects I'm working on right now are orange?

The orange sweater has 1.375 sleeves now:

And look, I'm finally sewing again--this is the front piece of a dress in orange sateen:
Can you make out the pocket detailing in all the orange? So far I'm happy with how this is turning out, if just for the color alone. Such is the power of orange!

33,661,440 Minutes!

Happy birthday to my father, the best dad--and now, grandpa!--we could ask for. He is actually 64 today, so you know I had to celebrate with "When I'm 64."



And yes, we still need him. And still feed him.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. To finish up what turned into ranch week, here's part of an interview with a real-life cowboy. Recorded in 1937 as part of a WPA oral history project, the retired cowboy, L. M. Cox, was in his 70s. Fascinating stuff, and real Cowboy Way attitude:
"We never heard much complaint about hard times. People thought about a lot of things more than they did money then, 'cause it didn't take so much money to live."
and
"Everything else changes though, so guess we'll just have to get used to that like we do other things and if we can't get used to it, quit.”

2. I know I posted something from The Sifl and Olly Show last week, but I can't stop watching clips on YouTube. If you've heard any Bob Dylan--especially the mid-60s stuff with the far-out lyrics--you may find this as hilarious as I do:

Speaking Of Livestock

Somehow I ended up on fancy ranch real estate sites yesterday and look what I found:

It's the LaSal Wildlife Ranch--8,800 acres 50 miles east of Moab, surrounded by national forests, with 310 acres of water rights, herds of elk and deer, and views like this: There's even a lake somewhere in there:

Of course, its average elevation is 7,500 feet, it's mostly undeveloped, and it's currently not habitable in the winter, but if you can afford the ranch* I think you can afford to build a new ranchhouse and get this operation going. Who's in?


*Um, yeah, it's $8.5 million. Plus about $10k a year in taxes. (Oh yes, I downloaded the PDF.)

Let's Look At Some Alpacas

They're just so cute.



These are the new arrivals at Blue Moon Ranch. You can see them in person at the end of next month at Open Barn Days, or buy some yarn made of their fluffiness at the Great Basin Fiber Arts Festival at the end of this month.

Tuesday Fabric Report: What to Make Next?

I've been having too many adventures lately to have anything to show today, and I've been feeling uninspired to boot. I've grudgingly accepted that fall clothes are out and here to stay so I should probably think about making some, but I don't really have a vision for what to make or what fabric to get...except for this:

It's fabric from the Liberty of London fall "Liberty Rocks" line; it's designed by Storm Thorgerson, the artist behind a lot of Pink Floyd album covers; and it has rock-and-roll/sci-fi birds all over it. Birds. Rock and roll. Liberty.

I have a weakness for stuff like this--see the psychadelic star print hippy dress and the dress with horses that look like they were airbrushed on the side of a van--but fitting them into my regular rotation of pencil skirts and 60s shifts makes me feel a little bipolar, fashion-wise.

So I'm still on the fence for fall fabrics. Stay tuned!

More Adventures

So I went to a demolition derby Saturday, after a break of four years. (I had to balance out the early music concert somehow.) It did not disappoint. There was beer:

There were cars:

There were people who rushed out to tip a car back over that had rolled:

And there was this--perhaps the single most sociologically fascinating thing I've seen in an event that gives you PLENTY of things to be sociologically fascinated by. It was the brown car. That says "Butt Bomber" and "San Francisco here I come" on on side...

...and "Hershey Highway" on the other.

What prompted these messages? Small-town homophobia? A puerile (and still homophobic) commentary on the car's original paint color? Or is the driver really gay and making a statement? We may never know. But I'm hoping for an out and proud driver, because he kicked ass.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The concert last night didn't take a lot of aplomb at all--only listening to the fantastic Anonymous 4. The first half was early music from 1188, which dredged up all sorts of stuff from my music history days and made me very happy. (If I can geek out a little: how cool is it that people are researching and singing music from over 800 years ago? It's kind of like time travel to hear it.)

2. Speaking of geeking out, I'm still reading sci-fi, and I discovered that YouTube has most of The Sifl and Olly Show (one of the most brilliant TV shows ever aired) available. So this is perfect:


Hey!

New Things

Tonight I am going to a chamber music concert. By myself. This is the first time I've been brave enough to go solo to an event and I'm proud of myself before the fact.

My BFF M.F.K. Fisher wrote about dining alone, and I like to think I'm channeling the same spirit here--just with a concert instead of dinner:
I came to believe that since nobody else dared to feed me as I wished to be fed, I must do it myself, with as much aplomb as I could muster.

If you need me, I'll be attending a concert with aplomb.

Happy Birthday, Mark Doty

It's Mark Doty's birthday today, but looking back through the archives I haven't really quoted from him--maybe because a lot of his work is long and/or or particularly heartbreaking. But here's the first half of a happy poem about clothes and fabric.

Couture

1.

Peony silks,
in wax-light:
that petal-sheen,

gold or apricot or rose
candled into-
what to call it,

lumina, aurora, aureole?
About gowns,
the Old Masters,

were they ever wrong?
This penitent Magdalen's
wrapped in a yellow

so voluptuous
she seems to wear
all she's renounced;

this boy angel
isn't touching the ground,
but his billow

of yardage refers
not to heaven
but to pleasure's

textures, the tactile
sheers and voiles
and tulles

which weren't made
to adorn the soul.
Eternity's plainly nude;

the naked here and now
longs for a little
dressing up. And though

they seem to prefer
the invisible, every saint
in the gallery

flaunts an improbable
tumble of drapery,
a nearly audible liquidity

(bright brass embroidery,
satin's violin-sheen)
raveled around the body's

plain prose; exquisite
(dis?)guises; poetry,
music, clothes.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Tablecloth Dress

Is it me, or does this dress really remind you of summer picnic tablecloths? I may just be reacting to the fabric, which is a madras from IKEA that I'm pretty sure was intended for summer picnic tablecloths--but it was soft and cheap and helped me test out the pattern.

The pattern sewed up well but I thought I would like it more when it was finished. There's nothing wrong with it and there are no fit issues, but I tried it on and just thought, "I expected more from you, shirtdress." So I'm blaming the fabric.

Summer Is For Adventures

I took Friday off and went up to Bear Lake for the day with two friends and two incredibly well-behaved children. Why Bear Lake?

Bear Lake has a Raspberry Days Festival! And coconut drinks! (Sadly non-alcoholic.)


Bear Lake has deep-fried "scones" with raspberry butter!

Bear Lake has fruit stands!


And Bear Lake has raspberries, which was the point of the trip. I bought a case and made jam on Saturday, fulfilling my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder.


Bear Lake also has, you know, a lake.


And yes, I waded in it. (Obligatory blogger foot shot.)

What a fun trip!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've just discovered the blog Dinner: A Love Story through their column in Bon Appetit. While I don't have kids to feed, I always like good writing about food, and DALS has it in spades. Their "What Your Drink Says About You" post is brilliant, especially the part about a Negroni:

What [a Negroni] says about you: Yes, my pants are red. You are not imagining that. I bought them last summer, when I was on my yearly trip to Rome with the family my wife doesn’t know about. Salute!

2. If all goes according to plan, I'll be making raspberry jam this weekend and canning the hell out of some berries.

A Poem For Thursday

This is me lately, minus the bread baking. Although maybe my problem is more insomnia than grief.

What is it?
Liam Ó Muirthile

I go from room to room
around the house
looking for something,
and, to be honest, I won’t know
what it is
till I find it.

It’s not the bread tin,
nor the coarse brown flour,
nor the fine white flour,
though I take them out
and measure them on the scales
and bake a single loaf.

It’s not any book I was devouring,
if memory serves me correctly,
that I put down absent mindedly,
although I stand at the shelves
and scan the book stacks
and fall to my knees.

It’s not any missing key.
I wasn’t going out.
I didn’t leave anything on, although
I’m shuffling from room to room
scouring the whole house for something
and it’s nothing
and I’m scouring quiet sorrow.

The Summer Of Sci Fi

After a long spell of just re-reading what was on my shelves, I've rediscovered the library and the lure of new books. Since it's summer and I need to get my geek on somehow, most of the books have been sci-fi:

• Contact, by my imaginary better half Carl Sagan
• Dune: House Atreides, by Brian Herbert (who should be disinherited) and some other dude
• House of Suns and Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds (lots of science and lots of plot but not really the best written books in the world)
• Altered Carbon, Philip K. Morgan (Raymond Chandler with cyborgs!)

I've even sneaked in some things that aren't space opera: The Name of the Rose and Happy All The Time (Laurie Colwin, whose writing about food I prefer to her novels).

I know you'd expect someone who blogs about "literature" to read, but getting back into the habit felt worthy of a mention. ("The books I've read, let me list them.")

Tuesday Project Roundup: Part Of The 12 Steps

As I mentioned yesterday, I have to get my head around the approaching end of summer. A good way to do that? Start knitting a sweater.
That's the bottom of a sleeve of what will become this pattern:
The yarn is extra chunky, which makes the knitting go fast and also makes me realize that it will have to be quite a bit colder for me to ever wear it. Small steps, right?

Cue The Enya

I haven't posted about any neo-Pagan holidays in a while, but today is Lughnasa, the harvest festival marking the end of the summer growing season and the beginning of the fall harvest.

This holiday resonates with my Enya-listening self, because I think the weather here does change around the first week of August--we get some rain and when it clears, the light is different and you can tell it's the beginning of the end of summer.

Or maybe I just need all the help I can get letting go of the warm weather. Like a Druidic 12-step program, Lughnasa gives me six weeks to come to terms with the fall equinox.

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.)