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.'"

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Carrying over the Beatles post from last Friday, here's a flowchart of the lyrics to "Hey Jude" (click for big):
2. And because I can't get enough of iconic bands from the 60's, last night we watched Gimme Shelter. No, I don't want to dress like Mick Jagger now, but the movie has the best version of "Love in Vain." Enjoy.

I Have A Cold

Turns out that a month with travel and lots of stress not only makes you unfocused and uninspired (and wanting to spend money), it also makes you really susceptible to the common cold. I am looking forward to the afternoon off and some Chinese food for dinner. And that's all I got today.

#$%&! Snow

Yeah. It snowed. There's snow on the ground and it's cold. I happened across a blog about people who stay year-round at McMurdo station in Antarctica; the latest post is welcoming back the seasonal people, of which my uncle is one. Here's the blog: frozensouth.com. I suppose we can read it and think that it's not that cold here yet. Yet.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Ending Badly, Like All Twilght-Related Things In My Experience

I finished the "Bella" mittens, as inspired by the film Twilight, but they're kind of a flop: Because I knit the first mitten while traveling, its cables weren't even, which meant they didn't match the second mitten. The first mitten's top I had to extend to accommodate my fingers, but because of the cable length on the second one, that top worked OK--giving me mittens that are fraternal twins, not identical. But I'm not happy with my work on them, and overall, they're a little snug.

Obviously, this is all my own fault, but it's easy to blame Twilight itself. And the sort of "Was that it?" feeling I had when I finished these mittens is very, very similar to the feeling I had when I finished the book/movie. So I'm blaming Twilight.

Get With It, Birds

Last week the bird feeder I'd been using for 2.5 years here fell down somehow, which broke the glass and put it out of commission. So last weekend I comparison shopped and got a new, deluxe feeder, one that holds about a metric ton of seed and has a roof and drainage and even two baskets for suet cakes.

I thought the birds would be all over their upgraded feeder (and the suet), but no. In 8 days, no bird has landed on it. The sparrows' consternation the first two days was almost funny--while I assumed they'd get over it. Now it's just strange. I have taken to shaking all of that seed out of the feeder to the ground, where the birds will finally eat it.

I don't think I've lost any bird visitors--and the quail are really happy about all that seed on the ground--but what should I do? Just wait it out? Enter into a contest of wills with the sparrows? It says something about my mental state lately that I think that's a fine plan.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've had an unfocused, uninspired week, which is why the blog has suffered: I'm not interested in my latest projects and I'm only reading self-help books, so I don't even have anything good to quote here.

2. But there's always Salinger...in my opinion, Franny and Zooey IS a self-help book, just better written. Here's Zooey at the end talking about detachment, the theme of the week:
You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. "Cessation from all hankerings."

3. And finally, I wish this t-shirt used a better font, because I really love the sentiment:
"I knit so I don't kill people." Amen.

Author Trivia

Did you know that Jean-Paul Sartre was a Nobel Prize winner, and he refused it? And that the Swedish Academy said, essentially, "Well, you're still a Nobel Prize winner, even if you don't accept the award." Fun times in 1964. (Today's post courtesy of The Writer's Almanac. You can read more about why Sartre refused the award here.)

[Whenever I think of Sartre, I always think of "The Jean Paul Sartre Cookbook," a satire that someone posted in the early days of the internet and my friends and I found in high school. Oh, we thought that was the cleverest thing. Satire! Sartre! Beginning French class! Good times.]

A Cartoon

Because I it's the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth this year. And I like ravens.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Some Sewing Again

As I finished this dress, it seemed like a long time since I had sewn something else. My short-term memory is really shot lately (I couldn't remember what I did Saturday night when someone asked me yesterday) so the last sewing project before the quilt was a blur, but it turns out I was right: This is the first dress since the beginning of September.


Here's a more detailed shot of the pattern, which I made in December, as well. This time I remembered to lengthen the sleeves and added a belt. The gingham makes it feel very French New-Wave to me...that, or The Womenfolk's album cover from 1964*

*I didn't even know this group existed until two weeks ago, when I was going through my dad's old (mint) vinyl looking for some new music.

Let's Talk About Shoes

Instead of talking about our feelings today, let's talk about brown shoes that aren't too high-heeled. After watching Help! Thursday night, I did some major googling to find a pair of boots like they were wearing in that clip I posted Friday. While all the ankle boots for women this season seem stuck in 1986, I found some: They're Florsheim, for men.


Sometimes I am happy to not have tiny ladylike feet, because a men's size 7 is a women's size 9. My only hesitation? A size 7 isn't available from a site that offers free shipping and returns, so I'd be gambling a little that they'd work.

What do we think about these mod boots? They'd look great with jeans, but not so much with skirts or dresses. But they're a decent price (unlike these $350 boots of magic from Sweden) and I had a pair of jodhpur boots in college that I loved. Also, I could pretend I was a Beatle.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Check out the Letters of Note blog, which posts scans and transcripts of, well, notable letters. The variety and historical background is really fascinating.

2. I watched Help! last night and now I want the sofa, the chair, and John's boots from this clip:


3. And here's something from McSweeney's that tickled me (click through to read the other two-thirds of it):

What to Expect: The Third Decade

Keep in mind that all adults reach their developmental milestones at their own pace. It is important not to compare your adult's rate of development to that of his peers. The following list is meant only as a guideline and not as a cause for alarm.

By thirty-years-old, your adult will probably be able to...

Feed and maintain a house pet
Hold down a job
Maintain eye contact while speaking
Refrain from discussing high school
Cook a meal (three-course)
Make small talk
Forgive his family
Acknowledge other viewpoints (social)
Detect and respond to ambiguity
Finish school