There Is No Cake At Versailles

I'm lucky enough to have my family very close--only a 20-minute drive from the city to the suburbs. My lovely mother recently made a comment that going from my apartment to their house was like going to the country for me. "No," she corrected herself, "it's like going from Versailles the the Petit Trianon."

And on some level, she's right!

The Orangerie at Versailles:

The fields around the Petit Trianon:
(Yes, I took those pictures myself. From the Paris trip just about a year ago with my mother.)

However, I don't think they did much knitting or clothes sewing or bread baking at Versailles, and I've been doing a lot of that. Enough of it that I think sometimes, "My god, what could I do if I applied this energy to something worthwhile, like finding a cure for cancer?"

But then I make an experimental bread recipe (found in the May "Vogue" magazine, thank you very much) and I think I couldn't possibly spend my time better. This is some seriously tasty bread.

And it cooks in a Le Creuset French casserole (at temperatures that some kilns reach, I think). It all fits.

All Is Well Again

I just have time for a quick update on the tree carnage. I was happy to see some birds come back Friday evening; by Saturday, the two quail and the robin were poking around in the churned-up dirt and looking delighted by all the ivy berries that had fallen down. So all is well--but sunnier--in the front yard again.

Tomorrow: Why my apartment is like Versailles, and maybe a craft update.

No Excuse

I've mentioned before that I really enjoy the wildlife around my apartment. I've watched a pair of quail bobble around under the trees outside my bedroom window. There's an enormous robin who thinks he owns the front yard, who tries to eat the ivy berries off the vines that cover the tree trunks. I watched the sparrows going in and out of the ivy Wednesday night, nesting. I've heard a mourning dove in the last week and saw a starling fight in the trees this morning on my way out the door to work.

I got home last night and was putting the key in the lock when I looked to the left towards the trees, where I like to think of the sparrows sleeping in the ivy and maybe the fat robin, too.

There was nothing to the left.

The trees by the house are gone, there is a huge expanse of bare ground where there used to be grape hyacinths and leaf mold and happy quail, and I don't care what gets planted instead--there is no reason to cut down perfectly healthy, ivy-covered, bird-harboring trees.

Bastards.

Amazing!

First Wilson Pickett, and now this--the delight just doesn't stop!



Those are Australian fairy penguins wearing sweaters ("jumpers," if you're in a former British colony). The penguins are rescued from oil spills and the sweaters help absorb the oil and keep them warm as they recover. And the best part: there are instructions that tell you how to knit your own penguin sweater. Think of the penguins!

UPDATE: Put your needles down; the project is ended. 15,000 penguin sweaters were collected. Also, more information on why you'd dress a penguin in a sweater in the first place:

The jumpers, when fitted, keep the penguins from ‘preening’ (picking at their feathers) to remove the oil, which is highly toxic to them. Later they are used to protect them after cleaning, a process that temporarily affects the natural oil keeping the birds warm and waterproof.

Baby Crane!

It's all I have today ("one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind") but it's so cute! I've never seen a young crane before.

Three New Things That Delight Me

1. Wilson Pickett. I know, I should know these things--but I had no idea! The Midnight Hour! 634-5789! Mustang Sally! Fabulous! Yes, I live under a rock. A very white rock.

2. Speaking of white rock (ha!), the second delightful thing is Bruce Springsteen. I'm not going to announce that I'm delighted by ALL his music, but his album "Nebraska" is excellent. Apparently, he recorded it solo at his kitchen table, plus he plays a fine harmonica. I'm a sucker for a harmonica and a strummy guitar.

3. And the third thing that delights me: The color brown. Further explanation: Because one simply cannot wear brown shoes with a black suit, or vice-versa, years ago I decided that, when given a choice between brown and black, I would simplify my life and opt for black. Fast forward 10 years or so to my current wardrobe, in which 80% of my shoes are colored. I realized I could choose brown, so I did, and Sunday I started sewing a brown jacket.

It's a revolution a day over here, I tell you.

"In Soviet Russia, Dress Wears You!"

So I got some shots of the dress I made out of that enormous Japanese crane print. I like how it turned out, and it went over well at a party, but it is not a subtle dress.

Here it is semi-modeled. I thought the jeans and red shoes were good at drawing attention away from all those cranes, if only to make people ask, "Why is she wearing jeans with a dress, and shoes that don't match?"

Fun with fashion!

Suddenly, I Want Some Sushi

So in between whining about being sick, coughing fits, and sounding like Marlene Dietrich, I did get some projects finished this week.

I finally have art on the living room walls:
(Not only does my father make furniture; he cuts mats, too.)

It's a Hasui woodblock print:

And I sewed a dress. No pictures of that because it's not ironed yet, but here's the fabric:


Do you think if, wearing my dress, I stood in front of my framed art and clicked my heels three times, I would end up in Kyoto? Maybe I'll try it.

Tired of This

I haven't been feeling well for most of the week. To give you an idea of how bad I feel: I haven't had coffee since Saturday. I just haven't wanted it. I don't want to be sick anymore.

No, I don't want to.

More Literature

For a blog about literature, I think it's funny how I--and I suppose my reader(s)--have a much better time when the posts are about craft projects. I didn't get my usual weekend of sewing in, since Saturday was the Wedding of the Century and Sunday was my mother's birthday. My knitting project has been pretty dull, too: just miles (well, eight inches) of plain stockinette, before I can begin the sleeves. I am hoping to finish a project this week, so there will be pictures soon.

But until then...we have literature.

The Roethke fragment from yesterday ("the stone's eternal pulseless longing") made me think of: "Longing, we way, because desire is full of endless distances," from this by Robert Hass.


Meditation at Lagunitas

    All the new thinking is about loss.
    In this it resembles all the old thinking.
    The idea, for example, that each particular erases
    the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
    faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
    of that black birch is, by his presence,
    some tragic falling off from a first world
    of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
    because there is in this world no one thing
    to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
    a word is elegy to what it signifies.
    We talked about it late last night and in the voice
    of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
    almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
    talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
    pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
    I made love to and I remembered how, holding
    her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
    I felt a violent wonder at her presence
    like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
    with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
    muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
    called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
    Longing, we say, because desire is full
    of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
    But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
    the thing her father said that hurt her, what
    she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
    as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
    Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
    saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

And besides, what other blog do you read will tell you that "numinous" means "filled with a sense of divinity"? Literature is nothing if not educational.

Reading, Not Speaking

I was under the weather Monday (I've lost most of my voice and, if it didn't hurt, would have a great time singing "Falling in Love Again" like Marlene Dietrich) and spent a day at home. I thought I would knit all day, but I ended up reading most of (my dad's copy of) Desert Solitaire again. And then I wondered why I even try to write things myself. (Then I tied it in to my love of Roehtke poems, and then I drank some Sprite.)

I go on. The coulds have disappeared, the sun is still beyond the rim...I walk through light reflected and re-reflected from the walls and floor of the canyon, a radiant golden light that glows on rock and stream, sand and leaf in varied hues of amber, honey, whiskey--the light that never was is here, now, in the storm-sculptured gorge of the Escalante.

...Each time I look up I one of the secretive little side canyons I half expect to see not only the cottonwood tree, rising over its tiny spring--the leafy god, the deser's liquid eye--but also a rainbow-colored corona of blazing light, pure spirit, pure being, pure disembodied intelligence, about to speak my name.

The last paragraph there made me think of bits and pieces from Roethke:
"I know the back-stream's joy, and the stone's eternal pulseless longing;" or what I quoted last week:
"I live in air; the long light is my home; I dare caress the stones"
and I suddenly realized I like Roethke so much because so much of his work reminds me of the desert.

I'm Buying Her A Toaster

My friend Amber is getting married tomorrow, and while we are mercifully out of the era when I would weep because her husband is "taking her away," I thought I would reminisce a little here.

So Amber, consider this my toast, because I may be too tipsy to make a real one tomorrow.

First, I am so glad you are marrying a man who understands how important it is to always have bacon in the house. You deserve nothing less.

Second, let me thank you for nearly twenty years of friendship, in which you didn't make fun of my hair, even when it was bad; helped me realize I wanted to be a writer; made a sock monkey with me; shopped with me; got me freelance jobs; wrote me letters and letters when I was away at music camp; introduced me to the band Cake; got me a real writing job; got me a FABULOUS real writing job; and so much more. You're smart, a smart ass, fiercely loyal and loving, and never, never sentimental.

So if I cry tomorrow, laugh at me. I would expect nothing less.

Best wishes for a lifetime of bacon and happiness!

"The Grandeur Of A Crazy One Alone"

There's a saying in my family: "Crazy as a rat in a can." I think someone's worried that I really do read things to the houseplants, judging from yesterday's comment about "the rat getting closer to the can". And while I believe houseplants thrive from lots of attention, which may or may not include some verbalization, that is not the point here.

The point is that, much to my own surprise, I enjoy living alone. And I have some Roethke to quote about it! (From "Her Becoming," in Words to the Wind, 1958.)

Ask all the mice who caper in the straw -
I am benign in my own company.
A shape without a shade, or almost none,
I hum in pure vibration, like a saw.
The grandeur of a crazy one alone! -
By swoops of bird, by leaps of fish I live.
My shadow steadies in a shifting stream;
I live in air; the long light is my home;
I dare caress the stones, the field my friend;
A light wind rises: I become the wind.

This has probably only confirmed my craziness to the anonymous relative (Alan!), but "I am benign in my own company" captures pretty exactly how I feel.

What Not To Think Of While Eating Salmon:

Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "The Fish."

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.  Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Just a regular Tuesday night at Chez Let's Doubt Our Food Choices and Then Read Poems to the Houseplants.

Just Don't Call It "Little House On The Prairie"

Once, at a party, I remember telling a gentleman I had met about my hobbies. He responded with, "You make your own clothes? That's just so...Little House on the Prairie." I found someone else to talk to.

Because would Laura, as much as I love her (all seven books are on my shelf right now), ever make something like this?
(Okay, the blurry shot ruins the dramatic effect a little. Sorry. My batteries died during the shoot.)

Anyway, it's a Nehru-ish tunic made with Japanese indigo dyed cotton:


And we have some pickstitch detailing--done by hand:
(Done by that enormous and blurry hand, in fact.)

And, Party Dude, I know for a fact Laura Ingalls would not be drinking sherry by a bunch of grape hyacinths while she did her hand finishing.

So call my hobbies what you will (resourceful, frivoulous, sublimation). Just don't call them Little House on the Prairie. Especially when you mean the TV show.

Remember This?

The Friday Post of Unrelated Information made me remember Cute Kitten Picture Monday, aka I Forgot to Load My Own Pictures For a Clever Post About the Weekend Monday.

This kitten was hon-gry, which makes him even CUTER.

Random Friday Post

Remember when I used to do Friday Posts of Unrelated Information? I gave that up when I realized it was ALL unrelated information, ALL THE TIME. But today is Good Friday, of course, so I paid more attention to the fact that it's Friday, and I have some good unrelated links. So it's back.

Wednesday's list got me on a Bob Dylan kick, and I had to think of the opening of "Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues":
When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you

Now, what does this mean? I never can tell (I think you might have to be stoned) but I like it. And did you know you can look up lyrics to all his songs on bobdylan.com? Hours of fun.

Here's a website called the Daily Bunny. Guess what you'll find there! Just guess!

And finally, I watched Easter Parade last night, which once again confirmed my desire to marry Fred Astaire. Also: Irving Berlin would be a good band name.

Imagine My Surprise

(I'm afraid you will have to imagine it, literally, because I have no picture.) But I was locking the door this morning, late for work, coffeeless, wondering if I could figure out a way to do my editing outside today, when I looked at my front yard and saw six quail.

They were running to the beds I hadn't weeded yet (maybe that's a good excuse not to weed?) and I thought they were running from me, until I looked up and saw a hawk.

I live across the street from a busy hospital that gets a lot of traffic, both vehicular and helicopter-ular. But there was Nature! In my front yard! I can't wait until a family of raccoons moves in.















This is not the quail I saw this morning, but it does illustrate the little feather thing on top of their heads.

Bob Dylan Lyrics or Japanese Translations?

Yep, I love the McSweeney's lists.

L Y R I C S F R O M
B O B D Y L A N T U N E S
O R P O O R L Y T R A N S L A T E D
E N G L I S H O N
J A P A N E S E F O O D P A C K A G I N G .



BY KIM McCANN

- - - -

1. It's burned to a crisp with all our heart!
2. I see you've got your brand-new leopard skin pillbox hat!
3. Anytime, anywhere, just like your friend.
4. We're going all the way until the wheels fall off and burn.
5. You might like to drink wiskey! Might like to drink milk! You might like to eat caviar!
6. The sentimental taste is cozy for the heroines in the town.
7. My mind was relaxed by attaching importance to the tradition.
8. You've got all the love, honeybaby, I can stand!
9. Teeth like pearls, shining like the moon above.
10. Relieve the relief and listen to the angel's whisper.
11. There is a house in New Orleans they call the rising sun.
12. If dishes are nice, the square ceiling becomes round.

KEY:

1. Batard bread
2. from "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat"
3. No-Brand Orange Punch
4. from "Brownsville Girl"
5. from "Gotta Serve Somebody"
6. Koedastick chocolate candy
7. Izumiya Confectionary Company
8. from "Buckets of Rain"
9. from "Brownsville Girl"
10. Angel Relief chocolate and bisquit cookies
11. from "House of the Rising Sun"
12. a fondue pot box

5 Reasons I Love Orson Welles

1. Citizen Kane (I had never seen it before last night! Imagine where this post is going!)
2. He allegedly dated Billie Holiday
3. The War of the Worlds
4. He was the voice of the Shadow (I had no idea!)
5. Don’t laugh at me, but he was mighty handsome
(Think young Brando. Not old Brando. You can never think of the old version of hot genius actors.) (Peter O’Toole is an exception to that rule.)

And a bonus reason:
6. He wanted to make Heart Of Darkness as his first movie

I knew a little about William Randolph Hearst, thanks to my old roommate’s tutelage and love of San Simeon (he visited it as a boy, and credits it for wanting to be a sculptor). And of course I had read The Fountainhead, whose Gail Wyand character is also based on Hearst. But Citizen Kane and the Citizen Kane documentary last night made me feel like I did when I was maybe eight and had just figured out the allegory in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. (I remember telling my mom that, and her saying—so seriously, which is one of the many reasons she is such an excellent mother—“I think people already know.”)

In other words, I'm sure people already know much more than I know about the connections between Citizen Kane, The Fouintainhead, and William Hearst. But I want to find out more about Hearst, and about when exactly Rand was writing The Fountainhead (it was published in 1943) and if she saw Citizen Kane first (premiered in 1941) and yeah. Learning! Books! Cinema! And did I mention I was knitting on a new grey alpaca sweater during all of this?

A Good Weekend

Not only did I sleep a lot, I got two sewing projects crossed off the list.

First, I trimmed some pillowcases for my bed:
Mmm, sleeping....


And then I sewed a top to wear, part 1 of The Great DIY Spring Wardrobe Makeover of 2007:
Should I be concerned my blouse matches my wall?



I bought both fabrics in Hawaii. I saw them and I said, "Well, hello, big orange Asian-inspired fabrics!"
They said hello back. And the rest is now craft history.