Captain Knitpicky is Not a Writer

An Apology of Sorts

2007-09-17T00:30:00.001-04:00

Dear knitting blog,

I'm sorry I've been so distant. Things have been hard lately....school's started and I have all my research to do. On top of that, I'm carrying a full load of classes and I've started teaching. It's all very strange, and something I was perhaps unprepared for. Very through the looking glass, you know, what with all of the long hours spent trying to come up with a not totally lame group exercise to teach totally unenthused students about validity and reliability.

But I can hear what you're saying, blog. You're going, "Don't even! You were insanely busy last year and still found time to blog with me!" Well, I can't deny that....but the problem hasn't been the lack of blogging. No, the real problem is that I haven't even been knitting. A row here and there, sure, but not like usual. I didn't tell you before, but I started a new medication a while back. It's nothing serious! I'm ok! Well, the doctor told me to scale back on the caffeine, which you of all blogs should know is pretty hard for me. It makes my hands shaky and that makes it hard to knit.

Oh, blog, I can't lie anymore! Not to you, knitting blog! The real truth is that I haven't been knitting or blogging because...I've been seeing someone else. His name is Jarthen, and I may have mentioned him once or twice. It's getting pretty serious....we're even getting into podcasts together. I know this is painful, blog, but mostly this letter is to say I'm sorry. Sorry for letting you down and sorry for deceiving you.

But I can't help but hope that we can still make this work! Take me back, blog! I did some knitting this weekend...don't you want me to show you? Don't you want to know how excited I am that the next cycle of America's Next Top Model is starting this week (on my birthday, no less)? The Jarthen blog doesn't care about any of that, it would make fun of me!

I'm a fan of Big Love, as you know. And I know we may not be Mormons, blog, but I think we should live the principle. You and me and the Jarthen blog as one big happy online family. Let's make a go of it! And to show you I'm really serious, I'll post everyday this week, even if they're just wee little posts. I'm up to the bigamous-blog challenge, I know I am!

Meager Knitting Update

2007-09-18T02:07:00.001-04:00

Hi blog!

Look what I did today:

Rusted Root is practically off the needles! It's not totally finished yet because I still have to do the sleeves, but the body is done. Stick a fork in it. I even did the neckline trim.

Look, I know this post is going up at 2 AM, and I know that this is a pretty awful photo, but e for effort, ok? It's been a long day.

Of knitting and cats

2007-09-18T23:12:00.001-04:00

Knitting blog,

Once again, I have little for you on the actual new stuff front. I will tell you that I've started the sleeves of rusted root, but if I took a picture it would look exactly like the one I posted yesterday. So I won't be posting about anything current...but we're making up for lost time, so I guess it's ok. I hope you understand.

Anyway, I was thinking about what to show you today, and I decided I'd show you a couple of funny things I'd knitted but never blogged about. And then I pulled all the pictures off my digital camera was full and realized I had a bajillion pictures of the cats being ridiculous. And then I realized that one of the goofy knitted-things I was going to blog about anyway was a cat toy I made over a year ago, so it was kind of fated.

This is Frank the crab. He's a blue crab because Jon's a Marylander (which, by the way, is an awesome word), and you know how they love their crabs there. I put catnip in it because I was churning out cat toys at a fearsome rate around then. I made Frank out of some soft acrylic yarn that wasn't to squeaky. I mostly just made it up as I went along, but I remember making two pentagons for the shell. After I'd sewn them together and stuffed it, I think I picked up stitches along the outside and made the legs out of i-cords. The pinchers were done in the round (I think) and shaped with decreases. I used buttons for eyes, the same ones as here.

But, why is Frank so fuzzy there? Because Mittens is a total niphead, that's why. Seriously, that one is an unwed teenage drugged-out mother. She's actually got cat toys stashed away in various parts of the apartment that uses when she's fiending. Check this out:

See? She did that while I was taking pictures of Frank tonight. Couldn't help herself. And stoned out of her mind, too. I'm thinking about contacting those nice people from A&E's Intevention show to come and have a gander.

And then there's Fatty. He's too simple to be interested in drugs, he just doesn't understand them. Here are two things he does understand, though:

Blinking while making a nest out of my clothes...

...and guitars (as furniture, mind you, not as musical instruments).

Still no pictures.

2007-09-20T22:37:00.001-04:00

Oh blog, it's sad, I know. I'm sorry about that. But the reason for the lack of pictures is two-fold:

The projects that are on the needles are either in a state of not-so-different-looking-than-when-last-photographed (the Eton pullover), or are freshly off the needles and being processed into wearable garments (the Grandpa cardigan is getting buttons, and Rusted Root is blocking).
I have a lot of projects planned, but I am wracked with indecision. Early start on Christmas socks? Another sweater? Perhaps a vest? Something for me or somebody else? I just can't pick. This is not usual for me, and (being a psychologist and all) I know that traits are stable and enduring, so I'm thinking it should pass soon.

So, all told, it's kind of a nice place to be knitting-wise. I mean, a couple of projects are done, or almost done, and I've got a wide variety of things to make and yarns to choose from. Oh! And some exciting news is that I finally got my invite from Ravelry, so I'm on that now.

PS - My friend Dani is so much more awesome than ravelry, cause she fights the good fight.

I started a sock!

2007-09-21T23:57:00.001-04:00

Here it is:
Kindly ignore my weirdly fleshy mitt-hand, Jon the Goblin, and the random fish-eye lens effect happening and you'll see the lovely blue and green yarn there! And about half a toe! Times are good.

But now, blog, I am sleepy. It's been a long day, but I wanted to get in a wee post before bed.

-she of the fleshy mitts

I have seen the future, and in it I am a crazy cat lady

2007-01-31T23:37:00.001-05:00

So, with that in mind, I thought I'd get a head start on my Crazy Cat Lady-hood with this post. Because, guys? I'm kind of an over-achiever and I really enjoy getting head starts.

Now I had this epiphany earlier when I was working on Tamar's monkey socks, which are coming along quite nicely:

Look how much I got done at the psych conference! I finished the first one and then got all the way through the leg of the second one. See, I'm not usually the kind of girl that knits during events. I've never knitted in class, and typically reserve my public displays of knitting to airplanes and movie theaters. But, I was totally zonked for a lot of the conference, and ended up taking my knitting with me to the symposiums The repetitve nature of knitting helps me focus sometimes, and also kept me awake.

The conference, by the way, went well. I dressed like a fancy-schmancy adult, and my poster was well-received. I think I may have even networked a little bit, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm new to this kind of thing.

"But," you ask, "how does being a young, professionally dressed, psychology-conference-attending go-getter make you destined for a life of Crazy Cat Lady-hood?"

Good question, dear reader. I'm destined because this has been the highlight of my week so far:
Yes, the sight of my cat grooming Tamar's sock set me all a-tizzy today and I took a bajillion pictures of it. Jon looked at me like I was crazy. This cat, though, she's something else. Every morning I have to find all the skeins of yarn and single handknit socks she stole from my knitting basket in the wee hours of the night in a haze of catnip and good taste. In all honesty, she's kind of a klepto with some major drug dependency issues.

And because every Crazy Cat Lady has to have multiple cats, I give you Fatty:
Who is apparently embarking on a career as a bookend. Is it coincidence that he's chosen this esteemed occupation just as his namesake has applied to library science programs? You decide!

Another convert

2007-09-23T01:50:00.001-04:00

Knitting blog,

I have some really wonderful news to report! You've been enthusiastic about the successful knitting conversions ("oh so like a wandering saint among the barbarians," says Jon) I've performed in the past, so I thought you should be the first to know. I have finally, after years of trying, and many failures, convinced Jon of the healthful benefits of knitting. See?

Oh yes, blog, that Jon. Grab the smelling salts and I'll give you a moment to recover. Better? Good. Let me show you Exhibit A, taken around Thanksgiving last year:

Not so good, right? That was after a few hours of wrangling with the needles. Granted, there was some pretty strong egg nog happening, but you get the point. Now, witness Exhibit B, taken tonight just a few moments ago:

He's accomplished so much! In so little time! It's like little flag of victory. Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart, blog? It does mine.

I'll end the Week of Apologetic Posting there. I think it's a high note.

Socks for Brian

2007-10-01T00:27:00.001-04:00

Blog,

Sorry for the suspicious absence of late. I can assure you I wasn't sneaking off to Jarthen, I just got really really busy for real. The first assignment was due this week, so I've been doing a lot of grading. Grading blows.

Back to knitting! There's still shamefully little to report on, so I thought I'd give you a proper introduction to these:

I'm making a pair Charade socks for my dear friend Brian. I've started a socking queue, since everyone and their mama wants socks this year for Christmas. Being a fan of knitted socks myself, I understand they're appeal, but damn, people! No big chunky hats that take, like 20 minutes to make?! No rest for the weary, eh?

But I digress. As usual. I bought the yarn (approved by the man himself, of course) this summer and never got around to starting his socks. Then, he told us he was moving from Ann Arbor to Chicago in the fall, which was especially sad since he lived right down the street from us and made it feel like it was a real neighborhood, complete with....well, neighbors, and I declared that I would send him off with a freshly knitted pair of socks. Which obviously didn't happen.

It's happening now though! I'm about halfway through with the foot, and trying to sneak in rounds here and there between the comma splices and misused technical jargon of the student papers. The pattern's actually great for this because it's a two-round repeat that's impossible not to memorize. I think it may technically be lace, since it includes YOs and decreases, but it's quite a manly lace, don't you think?

I do. I hope Brian does too.

There's one thing other I should let you know, blog (and readers. Never fear, readers! Once the dust of my rocky relationship with blog has settled, I can spend more time directly addressing you. Be patient, please). As Jon has been zooming right along with his knitting, I have offered to let him use you to share his efforts with the interweb. You're a generous blog, and he's a nice boy, and I think you'll get along well.

PS - To the readers: if you are not on the Socking Queue referenced above, but you'd like to be, leave me a comment or email me or some such thing. And if you are a reader of the knitting variety and would like occasional blogging privileges (but, perhaps, not the pressure of your own knitting blog), drop me a line as well and it can be arranged. Jon is definitely not more special than you.

More Punkin' fun!

2007-10-31T14:51:00.001-04:00

Based upon the success of our previous pumpkin carving expedition, we elected to pursue further efforts in this domain, yielding the following results:

This one was carved by yours truly, and I was very pleased with the way he turned out. He seems like a wry old chap, and, if he was sentient, I wouldn't mind making his acquaintence.

The fine specimen on the right, of course, is a representation of the eminent psychologist Abraham Maslow (chap on the left), and was carved by the proprietor of this fine blog. Note the fine shading around the mustaches and eyes: he certainly looks the part.

You, dear reader, can look forward to another two pumpkins that as yet are uncarved: nothing's better than post-halloween pumpkin carvin'.

Happy Blogiversary to me!

2007-11-09T23:45:00.001-05:00

celebratory yarn cake

Dear blog,

We've been together a whole year! What a committed long-term relationship we have. You've been there through the bad times and through the good, and you've been patient with me during the long silences.

But more than that, I think we've been good for each other! I mean, you do kinda owe your entire existence to me, but I've gained a lot from hanging out with you, too. For instance, I probably wouldn't have gotten through all this Christmas knitting without your encouragement. And I certainly wouldn't have developed such a crippling addiction to socks without your support. You've even helped me make new friends!

I love you knitting blog, I really do. You're the cat's pajamas. Here's to 365 more days of wooly goodness.

Go Leila! It's Your Birthday!

2007-12-23T09:34:00.001-05:00

This is the best birthday card I could think of.

Hesh's Birthday Rap

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Happy birthday, baby sister! It's weird that you're 21, and like old enough to drink, but whatever. Anyway, you're the coolest person I know (which is why all of my friends like you better), so go do something awesome...but still legal. Stay above that influence, girl.

And call me later if you want to play celebratory warcraft or something. You know I'm down.

Happy Birthday Jon!

2008-02-26T19:20:00.005-05:00

Today you're entering your mid-twenties, which makes you a lame old person as much in body as you always have been in spirit. Since you're still in Minneapolis and I'm not, I'm banking on Dani throwing you an awesome birthday like we did for her back in january. Who knows, maybe you'll even get a fort!

In any case, I wanted to celebrate your birthday by sharing your slick dance moves with the world:

People deserve to know! Besides, this way there's something they can play for you on the TV in case, you know....you get hit by a drunk driver or something. Just saying.

PS - Call your mom, Greg, and Van. They've all called your cell phone.

Socialism + Knitting = Awesome Hats (and other stuff, too)

2008-03-08T21:30:00.005-05:00

(click for bigger)

I've apparently developed a habit of associating hats and those long-ass socialism meeting that have been alluded to in the last couple of posts. Case in point: last year, I made this hat at the meeting, and this year, I made the chapeau above in preparation for the meeting.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "as a faithful and dedicated reader of your blog, I am fully aware that you already have quality hats! What could you really call this and this but awesome headgear? You don't need another one!" And you'd be right about that, reader, if the aforementioned commie get-together was held in Boston, like last year. But it wasn't...it was in Minneapolis. So, while I do have some pretty snazzy hats, I feared they were only Michigan-compatible - not really appropriate for the Icebox of America, you know?

Besides, I was buying yarn as a birthday present for Jon anyway (he's expressed interest in working in the round, maybe even making his own awesome hats), which served as a good excuse to buy some more yarn for myself.

Yarn - 2 skeins of Rowan Big Wool (100% wool, 87 yards), one in glamour and one in stormy. Since time was of the essence, I used really bulky yarn. To be honest, I've been looking for a good excuse to use big, puffy yarn since knitting with it so quick and satisfying.

Needles - I stole the clover size 11 bamboo straights Jon's been using for his scarf. You know, it's really weird to knit a hat on straight needles.

Pattern - Tychus from Knitty, modified for my gigantic gauge, a pom-pom, and earflaps.

The best part was that after the hat was done, I realized that a lot of yarn was leftover - enough to make these slipper-socks!

(click for bigger)

Aren't they awesome? They're great for me, since I have ridiculously cold feet.

Yarn - clearly, the same as above

Needles - set of 4 Brittany size 11 birch dpns

Pattern - a basic toe-up sock with 1 x 1 ribbing on the cuff and top of the foot. I casted on 10 sts using the figure 8 method, increased to 26 sts, and then worked the foot with ribbing on the top and a stockinette sole for 15 rounds using the other color. I worked a short row heel in the first color, then worked 4 rounds in the second color in 1 x 1 ribbing. The last round was worked using the first color before binding off.

The Flight from Hell (and other tales of misadventure in modern travel)

2008-06-29T22:59:00.006-04:00

History has not been kind to fascism with one major exception: their singular capacity to make mass transit function in a regular, timely fashion. A weekend or so ago the captain and I were actually feeling a certain amount of nostalgia for the iron-fisted rule of a punctual despot despite our avowed Trotskist proclivities as a result of a veritable comedy of travel related errors.

The adventure started innocently enough, but I guess that can be said about most disasterous travel experiences.

At least they got peanuts...

We made our way to the Detroit-Wayne International Airport without incident or delay via a well-traveled thoroughfare that was ominously free of traffic -- it was a friday evening after all, and the road should have been packed full of weary laborers returning to the pleasant respite that is Detroit's great suburban hinterland. This should have been our first indication that some powerful forces out of the ordinary way of things were acting upon our collective fate, but we were blissfully unaware and continued to the discount parking lot without heeding the ill-tidings of these unseasonably clear highways.

We arrived at the parking lot and were picked up by a surly, salt-of-the-earth sort of fellow who made several none-too-witty remarks about the Captain's (i.e. the respectable owner of this blog) ever-present pillow. Nevertheless, he was game enough to load our bags into the rear of his van, and we clamored in as well, making our fateful way towards the Northwest World Terminal, from which we were scheduled to depart.

Everything seemed to be going well: we were right on schedule to make it to the terminal with plenty of time to go through security, catch our flight, and perhaps even secure some sort of tasty snack. However, as we sat on the sticky, vinyl seats of the van, breathing in the faint aroma of fried fish my phone began to ring, sounding what would ultimately be the first toll of our journey's death knell.

It was my mother, and her voice came bearing bad news: our flight that day had been canceled. As we had just arrived at the airport, we elected to seek an audience with one of the friendly representatives of Northwest Airlines. After some valiant searching on the part of this brave gatekeeper of the skies, it was determined that our best option would be to reschedule our flight for one that left the subsequent day, and had a layover in scenic Memphis.

So, while the Captain kept a steady eye on our belongings, I rendezvoused with our surly chauffeur, who took me with great expedition back to our car in the bargain lot. After paying for a full day's parking, I picked the Captain up at the terminal, and we drove home having expended a few hours and several dollars, but with our faith in the righteousness of our mission unshaken.

Day 2

After a much needed rest (the two of us have both been operating considerably below the doctor recommended threshold of restedness lately), we again succeeded in driving to the airport in a timely fashion, finding a parking spot in the discount lot, and being ferried to the terminal by a (different) curmudgeon.

This time around we actually checked in, made it through security and boarded a flight. We had the additional pleasure of being checked in by a delightful middle-aged woman by the name of Peaches.

Our flight to Memphis was as one expects flights to Memphis to be -- nasty, brutish and populated by an inordinate number of whiny children -- but one expects such things, so we weren't sorely tried. The flight went smoothly, and featured the traditional selection of in-flight beverage choices.

If there were any evil omens in the skies of Tennessee that day, we were blissfully unaware of them, as we disembarked from our plane in the humid warmth of Memphis. Now it is generally the case that an airport of any size and in possession of modern appointments will have a wide range of shopping and dining options available to the airborne traveler. For unknown reasons Memphis does not adhere to this beneficial tendency, and one is limited in his edible options to several bbq restaurants and Lenny's Subshop. Now, in general bbq food is all well and good, but in an airport, where one lacks ready access to clean bathrooms and/or grass to clean oneself with following its consumption, this delicacy is just impractical. This means that one really has to content oneself with the rather suspect-seeming fare available at Lenny's. Despite its apparent lack of charm, Lenny's does end up delivering highly edible sandwiches, chips and cookies.

Following our repast, we boarded our jet headed to Baltimore-Washington International airport right on time. Everything seemed to be going great today! We taxied onto the runway, and we didn't even have to wait forever! Before I knew it, I was dozing off thousands of feet above the surface of the earth while we whisked away toward BWI.

It was about an hour into the journey when things first started to go wrong. The pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced that -- due to bad weather -- we would be in a holding pattern for the next hour at least just over West Virginia. Well, we said to ourselves, an extra hour isn't too bad, we'll still get there at least! Though, in the back of our minds, I think that we knew even then that it things were not fated to end well.

We carried on bravely all the same, and I managed to fall back into an uneasy slumber -- my mind troubled perhaps by a strange inkling of the doom that stalked us at every turn. I was rudely awakened a short interval later by another announcement from our captain. We would, he said, be landing in Pittsburgh, our prospects unknown, because of the forbidding weather that persisted in shrouding the eastern seaboard from all approaching planes.

We were of course quite concerned about the future of our trip when we landed, closer to our point of origination than destination. This being the case, I approached the flight attendant at the front of the plane as soon as was convenient to assess our options. As I walked down the narrow aisle of the plane, before I even opened my mouth in salutation, she greeted me with a brusque "Yes, sir, we're all hungry, but I'm afraid that we can't feed you now."

Like the Donner Party, she would have known it if I were hungry

This opening left me completely unmanned, and I didn't really end up getting much information out of the remainder of the interchange. I returned to my seat next to the Captain, who upon hearing the result of my first attempt, exhorted me to make a second. This second essay yielded much the same result, which greatly increased our mutual frustration. We endured the uncertainty and tediousness of waiting on a runway in a completely random airport until we were finally told that we could leave the plane ostensibly to secure food as "all the restaurants in Pittsburgh's airport close early on Saturday of all days."

Unbeknownst to the flight attendant that realeased us from our hitherto airborne gaol, the Captain and I had hatched a daring plan of escape from any further flight-induced frustration. In clandestine discussion we had resolved that if we were permitted to leave that plane's cabin, it would take more than the prospect of eventually reaching BWI to get us back in one again. Instead, we planned to secure a rental car and drive back home, across state lines, as we felt that we had expended enough time in airports already.

After carefully skirting security and all other potential obstructions, we arrived at the area of the Pittsburgh airport where one rents automobiles from various vendors. There was another scary moment when the first three rental places we approached told us that they were on a reservation basis only at that point, but we still managed to succeed in getting a car at the fourth place that we looked. The gentleman who handled our rental was a consummate salesman, managing to convince not only to purchase the rental, but insurance to boot! We felt so extravagant.

The drive itself is perhaps best omitted from this post, as it has already gotten prohibitively long. However I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that whilst trying to find the Pennsylvania Turnpike we happened upon a "Croatian Community Center," that advertised a weekly fish fry among other things. Needless to say, the relative benefits of roadtrippin' have become increasingly salient to us of late. Hopefully our suffering will be a warning to other unsuspecting travelers about the dangers of leaving the house, and dismissing the merits of brutal dictators too hastily.

Dear dudes who complied Time's 100 Best Movies List,

2009-06-24T22:02:00.008-04:00

Man, do I have a bone to pick with you. I understand that narrowing down all of cinema to an essential list of the top 100 films is tricky business. In all honesty, I think I'd have some difficulty making a top 100 list just out of movies I personally own. 100 slots is really not that many, when it comes down to it, and it's likely a thankless task the two of you were saddled with.

Still, though, you botched it. And not just botched it, but botched it in some really irritating ways. Just to set the record straight and to give you a sense of where I'm coming from, I'll now lay out my top five movies of all time ever ever (no easy feat):

1) Wages of Fear
2) Rashomon
3) The Duellists
4) Lawrence of Arabia
5) The Seventh Seal

Let's discuss that list for a second. Three out of the five are in black and white. Only two are in English. Not a single one was made during my lifetime. That is a list that could only come from some practically housebound film geek who didn't get out enough as an adolescent loner (which is a shamefully accurate description of me). And not just any loner film geek, but a film geek of the rather art-snobby pretentious variety. A hipster-style film geek who has never seen American Pie. In short, one of your own. Yet, you still managed to piss me off.

Reason 1
Would you like to know how many of those five films up there you included on your list-to-end-all-lists? Huh?

One.

You gave Lawrence some props, and I thank you for that. And, hey, The Duellists is a personal favorite of mine but I understand that there are bigger, better movies out there, so I can let that one slide. Wages of Fear is a woeful oversight on your parts, but hell, it's kind of been a woeful oversight on everyone and their mother's parts since it was made. I honestly don't understand why it's never been more widely viewed than it is, but it isn't, and though I don't approve I can't say its omission surprised me.

But Rashomon? What the hell is wrong with you? It's goddamn Rashomon! It's a landmark in so many, many ways! The direct shots of the sun through the trees! The multiple perspectives and retelling and non-traditional narrative structure that was so awesomely, shockingly new at the time that it's been done and re-done now into cliche! Mifune while he was still young and untamed and really, freakishly hot! I mean, come on.

The same goes for The Seventh Seal. It's the ultimate Bergman, the Bergman to end all Bergmans. For folks not so into slow-moving subtitled films it has been and always will be synonymous with bizarre art house movies. The characterization of Death is so inescapable and prevalent that people who have never seen the movie and have no intention of ever seeing the movie can recognize it instantly when it's being referenced. And on top of that, it really is one of Bergman's most watchable films. I'm totally not kidding -- it's got sex and Death and death and plagues and Max von Sydow's bony-ass face and a rather wicked sense of humor all wrapped up in one fairly straightforward tale. How could you make any film list and not have it float to the top? Just...wow.

Reason 2
Here's where I try to give you some benefit of the doubt and end up failing. You ready? Ok, here we go. So you didn't include Rashomon, but you did include to others by Kurasawa: Ikiru and Yojimbo. Now, being a huge Kurasawa fan (and I mean, like, rabid - I have twelve of his films, no exaggeration), I was all like, yeah! Ikiru! Yojimbo! Woot!

And then, I was like...Seven Samurai much? Because, let's face it, as awesome as Ikiru and Yojimbo are, Seven Samurai is the Kurasawa film to end all Kurasawa films. And if there were slots enough for two Kurasawas, we go right back to square one with Rashomon.

Here's the problem I have with your Kurasawa choices in particular, above and beyond the fact that in his wide and varied ouvre (see? playing your game here with the fancy, pretentious film-geek lingo, fellas) these two films are really second-stringers. They are fabulous films -- I am not undercutting them in any way, and in fact I was all sorts of excited to see Ikiru in particular get some love because I think it's horribly overlooked more often than not -- but they are not the ones he is most famous for. And he's not famous for them because they weren't massive game changers and sprawling opuses (opii? who knows.) like a couple of other films of his I have previously mentioned.

We run into a similar issue with Bergman. There are two Bergmans on the list: Persona (which I am 100% on board with) and Smiles of a Summer Night. Dudes. Smiles of a Summer Night, really? Honest and true, you're going with that over our ever-present chess-playing buddy Death and co.? That's just so wrong. Smiles of a Summer Night is like Bergman's version of a Lifetime movie. I've seen it, I know all about his little foray into comedy and sexcapades. And you know what? He should've stuck to the dour, depressing descents into madness like he was good at. I...just, well, I just don't even think it's that good a movie, frankly. And with that catalogue to choose from, I mean, jesus. If you really have a beef with The Seventh Seal, at least give that other spot to the Through a Glass Darkly/Winter Light/The Silence trilogy (hey, you collapsed Godfather I and II and the LOTR, you can do that here) or Cries and Whispers or Wild Strawberries. Those are Bergman movies. Real Bergman movies.

There are other examples of this weirdness, too. For Kurbrick, you nailed it with Dr. Strangelove, but then passed over 2001: A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket for Barry Lyndon. Again, it's not like I don't like Barry Lyndon, but it's just not up there with the other two. Or even up there with A Clockwork Orange, which while more recognizable and famous, is probably not as good or important a film as the others. You went with Chungking Express over other Wong Kar-Wai's, and while it's a lovely and charming little thing, it begs the question of whether you've actually seen In the Mood for Love. And the nail in the coffin: Purple Rose of Cairo over Annie Hall. how do you sleep at night? Apparently not with Annie Hall, and so I guess it sucks to be you.

You see a pattern developing here? I do. This is like a weird, paternalistic way of peppering the list with 'forgotten gems.' Movies that the rest of us really should have seen that just never get their due. Or something. Because anyone who goes with Smiles of a Summer Night over anything else Bergman did is just throwing it around to prove they can. It's like when hipsters say they only like the bands no one else has ever heard of. It's just showing off for the hell of it. And I find it rather condescending, frankly, because I can't believe you're actually serious about some of those choices, considering.

Reason 3
Like I said before, 100 spots is really not that many. How then, dare I ask, did the 1986 The Fly make it in there? No room for anything by the Marx brothers (the goddamn Marx brothers!) or anything by Sergei Eisenstein or apparently by any black people at all (not a single Spike Lee movie? Really?), but, sure, Jeff Godblum with a fly's head get's a pass.

That's just not right. So not right. I can't be alone in thinking this.

Now, I can see that you got a little playful, there, with your listings. I appreciate the sentiment behind Drunken Master II, although it wouldn't have been the kung fu movie I'd have chosen (hell, give it to the original Drunken Master if you've got to give it to Jackie Chan, otherwise there's always Enter the Dragon), and I think it's impressive that you've got I believe not one, but two Bollywoods in there. I honestly do. I can even kinda sorta see where you were going with The Fly -- something along the lines of hey! let's include some guilty pleasure-ish horror flick!

To which I respond: flies over zombies? Because I think anything by George A. Romero can do the double duty of genuinely influential and important historical film/awesomely gory guilty pleasure, plus the added benefit of the Living Dead. Ok, maybe you've got a shared zombie phobia or something. Whatever. How about Rosemary's Baby, then? There's just so much genuinely right and deliciously wrong with that one. How is The Fly going to top that?

But when it comes down to it, I don't even know if I can support you on this, either. Because if my back was against the wall, there's no way I could look at myself in the mirror if I took anything I just mentioned over Dr. Zhivago. Which you left off your list. In favor of The fucking Fly.

Conclusion
Your list fails. Not just because you left off any number of my all-time favorites, but because it's full of purposely irreverent inclusions that seem to serve no purpose but to make it look like you're trying to tell us that a) you've seen way more movies than anyone else and the obvious choices are just too obvious for you and b) you're really not a movie snob - honest! You like all kinds! To which I say, that's just obnoxious. Give the greats the credit they're due, man.

-- a fellow film fan

PS -- all ranting aside, I do agree with you on leaving Gone With the Wind off the list. That is just the most overrated piece of schlock ever.

My new haircut: El Cockatiel

2008-12-12T18:27:00.004-05:00

Yep, I cut it all off again. I've been cutting my own hair for years (because when your hair is thick and curly and you can't afford to/are too lazy to find anyplace better than Supercuts, you learn to cut your own or die trying), and it's basically one of those things I do when I'm bored or frustrated.

I had been thinking about a sort of fauxhawky-crestish thing like this (but, you know curly) on and off since I first saw season 3 of the L Word:

this, by the way is the only likable thing the character Jenny has ever done on that show. Also? It took me forever to find a picture of it on the interwebs

I just decided to go with it one day a few weeks ago after I had been laid up with a migraine and was officially done teaching. I was afraid that if I had cut my hair dramatically different twice in one semester it would scream FLAKE to my students. And it would have if I had stopped halfway through:

it's like Simply Red, but brunette...and with Jon's foot

Right? Anyway, this is the finished product:

by the way, that's my office in the background. Exciting, huh?

I have to say, I really love it. It's very much the result of knowing the peculiarities of my hair like the back of my hand, though. I cut the back and sides just short enough that they wouldn't curl, and kept the crown about and inch longer than that so the natural texture of my hair would do it's thing. I sleep on my side in such a way that cause my hair to stick up like that already, so I really just have to slick down the sides and back and stick some styling wax in the hawk part to keep it as is and I'm done.

By the way, this is the origin for my personal nickname for the 'do.

Elvis's pompadour

the crest from a cockatiel

my new hairdo

No spring chicken, me (but that's alright)

2009-09-20T09:41:00.006-04:00

I turned the big 2-5 yesterday, which puts me solidly in my mid-twenties. Last year, when Dani hit this milestone, I taunted her mercilessly and informed her over and over again that she was old. There were many jokes about broken hips made. And so, this year she returned the favor.

This is only underscored by the fact that I have been introduced around the psych department as "one of our advanced doctoral students." When did that happen? I don't think I was advanced last year. There's a similar thing happening in my grad union, for which I am one of two Solidarity and Political Action co-chairs. And one of three of the officers who actually remembers the last contract negotiation. So it's always like, "well, you, X and Y were there. Let's ask the old-timers."

This whole old-timer thing isn't bad, understand, I'm having no crisis about the fleeting nature of youth or anything. It just...sort of...snuck up on me. Damn you, time, and your unstoppable forward progression!

OK, now that that's out of my system...birthday news! Since Friday, I have done exactly three things: play The Beatles: Rock Band, watch Planet of the Apes and its numerous sequels of varying quality, and get this tattoo.

old-timey quote for an old-timey gal

It's from (not so shockingly, considering) Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville (no whales are involved), which I highly recommend if you've never read it. It's brilliant. And I like it, especially the end (which is where the quote is from) and the dead-letter office passage, because it brings up a lot of interesting questions about the insignificance of life and the paradoxcial myopic importance it holds for us anyway. Why does polite society matter? Because we think it does. So, does it really matter at all? Perhaps not, suggests Bartleby, but it is sort of the only thing holding us together. Maybe that makes it matter enough. As a psychologist, I find it to be a work of fiction that addresses the underlying motives for social constructions and why we tend to get so profoundly disturbed when someone doesn't buy in to said social constructions. I have to admit, one reason why it resonates with me so much is that there's as much Bartleby in me as there is the lawyer. It's a tension I face every time I go to (what I consider) another useless meeting and one of the underpinnings of my now-legendary avoidance of my phone. In any case, it seemed a fitting if highly nerdish tattoo to get.

A final note: I will update this blog! It will happen! I have posts planned, see?

a discussion on Rock Band in general and how I'm terribly addicted to it
Fat Girl Face Off '09
the Decemberists in concert
the planning of Jarthen: Book 2
how writing an autobiographically-based character unnerves me
many, many socks (a week of socks! huzzah!)

Things I learned from Moby Dick

2009-12-05T10:39:00.003-05:00

This morning I finished Moby Dick, and I have to say I'm a bit proud of this. I see it as an accomplishment. It's not something I ever thought I would read, or really ever had any interest in until recently, having assumed erroneously that I probably wouldn't like it much. And though I personally feel that Melville's later writing (especially Billy Budd) is actually better than his great sprawling opus on whaling and obsession (in part precisely because it is so sprawling - I seem to like Melville the same way I like Tolstoy, that is with a reasonable word limit) Moby Dick's still a damn god book. And surprisingly accessible.

Anyway, Moby Dick might have a claim to be one of the forerunners of edutainment, what with all the digressions on whales and whaling life. So, in that spirit, here's what Melville taught me along with a few observations of my own:

Quakers are badasses. Seriously, Ahab's a fucking Quaker! I mean, I know there's more to Quakerism than sitting around quietly in rooms and being conscientious objectors, but this sort of gave me a new-found respect for them. Ahab certainly has his faults, but a lack of badass-ness is not one of them. If anything, he's too badass, know what I mean?

I can't really imagine how big a whale is. Like, I kept picturing them as a manageable size and then having to stop and be all 'wait, no, it's so much bigger than the boat!' or 'holy shit, you can drown in a whale's head!' I bet Freud would have had a field day with this book, and likely whalers in general, as they all clearly have a deathwish.

Melville thought whales were fish. Despite the fact that he discusses that they need to surface to breathe and have nipples, he was totally convinced they were decidedly not mammals. He's got a whole chapter to this effect.

Harpooners were the rock stars of whaling ships.

Ishmael and I are two peas in a pod. There's a sort of running joke between me and Jon, and before that me and my father, that I'm substantially more difficult to match with fictional characters than most people. I think this is because I'm a fundamentally boring person who doesn't do much and those aren't the sort of people one often writes about unless one wants to write a fundamentally boring book (case in point: I bear a number of similarities to Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's snarky, hermetic, fat older brother, but Doyle didn't make Mycroft his protagonist precisely because the man was rarely out of his bathrobe and had no interest in actually proving his theories via legwork, and the legwork's the interesting stuff). But, all that said, me and Ishmael are of like minds.

Starbuck is one of the most tragic characters in fiction.

Stubb is one of the most ambiguous characters in fiction (although I read him as a canny, clever sort in line with the Fool in King Lear) and one of the only ones I've ever read that's able to get away with referring to himself in the third person without it being obnoxious.

I knew Melville was prone to homoeroticism (it's one of the reasons I like him, frankly), but it's hit critical mass here. Well, technically, I think Billy Budd's got it beat in terms of density, but it was a major driving force of the plot there and here it's just sort of incidental. In any case, there was a moment where the whalers were carrying around a giant whale penis on the ship -- past masts and other sundry already phallic things -- which was just hilarious. This was is in addition to the rom-com tone of the first section where Ishmael and Queequeeg become 'close' and the much famed "Squeeze of the Hand" chapter.

Week of Socks!: Baudelaire socks for me

2009-10-25T11:00:00.001-04:00

(click for bigger)

Ah, we've reached our week-long excursion into the glorious land of socks. And now you're up to speed on what's been going on knitting-wise with me. Although, I guess I should say that these were finished a couple of weeks ago, which means that they weren't really completed in the summer. But I guess that's neither here not there.

Yarn - Dale of Norway Baby Ull (100% wool, 180 yards) in firetruck red. I bought 2 skeins of this and one skein of pale gray to make a second pair of red herring socks, but I just never could bring myself to attempt the color knitting again. It's a nice, soft, squashy yarn.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - Baudelaire from Knitty, which I've done before for sockapolooza. But this time, I shifted the pattern so it's spread across the outer edge of the foot/side of the leg. And, as promised in the spiral socks post, I mirrored them for extra-cool symmetricalness. Besides this obvious deviation from the original pattern, I made the following modifications:
I worked it toe-up and did a short-row heel.
I add calf shaping on the inside leg about 4" into the leg.
I wanted the lace section to neatly divide the sock in half, so I slightly altered the pattern to be 13 sts wide.

Week of Socks!: Vinnland socks

2009-10-24T11:00:00.001-04:00

(click for bigger)

This is about the point at which I started running out of creativity. As explained below, both the pattern and the yarn are repeats and/or cop-outs in one way or another. I blame that on the fact that I was making them in August while I was working on drafts of like 6-7 articles (seriously, I was swamped) and visiting the family back in Texas. Didn't have a lot of brain power available, you know?

Yarn - 2 skeins of Lang Jawoll Cotton (49% new wool, 35% cotton, and 16% nylon) I had leftover from these socks. This yarn is still pretty awesome. Good thing I overbought (I might actually have enough for another pair lying around.)

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - The Vinnland pattern from the Anti-Craft. I really like this pattern, but if you're astute you may have noticed that in the grand sock queue, it's been slated to socks for Van, not me. Well, hopefully I'll finally make him some awesome Vinnland socks of his own one day (I really am planning to, I swear), so I'll consider these a dry run. Hell, maybe if I have enough I'll make him a matching pair out of the same yarn. The pattern called for it to be done toe-up with a short-row heel, so the only modification I made was using the magic 8 CO instead of doing a short-row toe and adding some calf shaping (see the photo above).

Week of Socks!: Spiral socks for me

2009-10-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

(click for bigger. Also, note that though you can't actually see it in full, the leg of the socks is about mid-calf, so about 10" long. Yeah, should have taken better pictures, my apologies.)

I've made socks like this before - once for my mom, and once for my sister. And I've made awesome spirally hats (a set of them from the same awesome yarn, one for me, and one for Dani). But, until now, I've never made myself spirally socks. This terrible oversight has now been rectified and my life can go on.

Yarn - Yarn Botanika Radiance (merino/tencel blend, 400 yards) in jewel. This yarn is odd. It's lovely, with a really fluid drape and a nice shine to it, but it's not terribly soft. Not scratchy, just a bit stiff. I think it might be due to an overabundance of dye or something, it might soften with a couple of washes. But a very pretty dye job nonetheless.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - A pretty simple travelling yarnover stitch loosely drawn from the spiral boot socks pattern. I followed the pattern for my sister's socks, but not my moms, and this one I did mostly by sight but used the pattern's trick of using the yarnovers to incorporate calf shaping. Basically, that means that every inch or so I didn't decrease once when I added a yarnover (which if you look really, really closely, you can spot).

I worked them toe-up, casting on 28 sts and increasing to 60. A short-row heel was worked with all sts wrapped but the center 10. The cuff was about an 1.5 inches of 1x1 rib. The actual spiral pattern was worked starting with 8 sts between YOs, and eventually went up to 12 sts between YOs. And, last but not least, I mirrored the direction the spirals travel in because I love symmetry (stay tuned for more symmetry!).

Week of Socks!: Smockings

2009-10-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

(click for bigger)

Like the socks I posted yesterday, this is a pattern I've been toying with for awhile and finally got around to actually fleshing out and knitting up. I think these came out pretty well, too.

Yarn - Claudia Hand Painted (100% wool, 175 yards) fingering weight in Ingrid's Blues. I've actually had this yarn for years, Jon bought it as a Valentine's day present for me awhile back, so it's all special and stuff.

Needles - Magic looped on size 1 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - I wanted to do something that had a little texture and visual interest, but I was afraid that the vibrancy of the colorway would overwhelm something very intricate. I'd been toying with the idea of incorporating smocking into socks for awhile, and it seemed like a good fit. I worked it toe-up (CO 24 sts, increased to 60) with a short-row heel (wrapped all but the center 10 sts).

All the smocking goodness was done on a 20 st-wide panel on the top of the foot/front of the leg. When I was working it, the panel was just done as a rib (p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2, k1, p2 with the 5 remaining sts on either side done in stockinette). The sole/back of the leg were worked in plain stockinette, with one set of calf increases (inc 2 at center back every other row 5 times) about 6" up the leg. The cuff was done in about an inch or so of p2, k1 rib.

The smocking itself was done as a finishing technique after the whole thing was all knitted up. I used this as a rough starting point, and it basically entailed threading the leftover yarn up six stitches and wrapping the seventh stitch together with the knit stitch to the immediate right of it. I really like the way it turned out, the closeup above gives you a sense of how it looks unstretched and the top photo is how it looks when you wear it.

Week of Socks!: Split Cable socks

2009-10-21T11:00:00.000-04:00

(click for bigger)

I really really like this pair. I think this might be the highlight of Week of Socks! for me. It's just one of those nice little projects where I love everything about the end product, and I think they'll get a lot of wear this winter.

Yarn - This is from Zeitgeist yarns, and it's lovely. It's super soft (though slightly thicker than I usually use) and the shifting shades of blue are subtle and complicated at once. Really good stuff, I definitely recommend checking out her yarns. And her blog is awesome, too.

Needles - Like I said, it's on the slightly thick side, so I magic looped it on size 2 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - This one I totally made up from scratch. I've been batting around this idea for a good, long while and kept tinkering with it until I had the perfect yarn for it. I worked them toe-up (CO 28 sts, increases are done in 1x1 rib pattern on the top up to 56 sts that eventually feeds into the cable panels, you can see it if you look closely at the photos) with a gusset and a sort-of dutch heel (with the cable pattern worked along the edges and the center part of the heel just knit in regular stockinette with no slipped stitches).

Calf shaping was added by increasing 2 sts at the center back every other row three times when the leg was 6" long and once more when it was 8" long. The cuff is just an inch or so of 1x1 ribbing.

The cables twists on the sides of the foot/heelare simple mirrored braids, and they join when the leg starts into a more complicated 6-stranded cable panel along the outsides of the leg. Eventually, I'll chart it out more thoroughly and post it so I can make more of these bad boys.

Week of Socks!: More Jaywalkers for me

2009-10-20T11:00:00.000-04:00

This is the second pair of jaywalkers I've made for myself (here's the first pair). I finished these sometime in May, I believe, and rather like the way they turned out.

Yarn - Spunky Eclectic¹ skinny superwash sock yarn in Dinah. This yarn was a total impulse purchase and when it arrived in the mail I wasn't really sure what to do with it. I wasn't sure I really liked the colors after all and it looked all wrong when I rolled it into a ball. But I actually really like the way it knit up. Sometimes yarn surprises you that way - there are some skeins I've bought that are just ridiculously beautiful int heir natural skein-ish state and then look kind of wonky in actual knitted garment form, and this one was quite pleasantly the reverse.

Needles - It was indeed quite skinny sock yarn, and I believe I magic looped it on 47" size 0 Addi Turbos.

Pattern - The ubiquitous Jaywalker pattern. I mean, it's ubiquitous for a reason, right? It's easy and it looks great with crazy hand-dyed yarn like this. I made these mods (and they are about the same as always):
Went toe-up this time instead of top down.
I worked a short-row heal instead of doing the whole gusset song and dance. This helped nicely to keep the yarn from pooling, actually.

_________________________
¹I totally joined the Spunky Eclectic sock yarn club, so I guess that whole out-of-yarn-thing is now officially being rectified.

FO: Baudelaire socks and Saartje's booties

2007-07-31T21:22:00.001-04:00

Whoa! Sorry about the absence. I'll get to that in a minute though. First, take a look:

Yep, I've fulfilled my obligations as a part of Sockapalooza 4, and then some. I was working on the socks and periodically checking my pal's blog, and then BAM! Out of nowhere, she had a baby. So, instead of doing important grad student type things, I made the baby booties. I finished them about a week and a half ago and mailed them a week ago. Here's the info for the socks and the booties:

Yarn - 1 skein Yarn Botanika Radiance (merino/tencel blend, 400 yards) in bluebells. My sockpal didn't give me any direction in terms of yarn or pattern, so I scoped out her blog to get a sense of the kinds of colors she likes. She seemed to gravitate towards sky blues and pale greens, so I went with this colorway. you can't tell because I took these pictures with my photobooth camera (my real one's back now! yay!), but it knit up in a mottled, not-pooling not-striping way that was just fantastic.
Needles - 32" size 2 addi turbos. This was the recommended needle size for the pattern, so I used it, but were I to knit with this yarn again, I'd probably go down a needle size. they turned out the right size for Sockpal's measurements, but I'm afraid they're not the most durable socks.
Pattern - Baudelaire from Knitty. I picked this because Sockpal said she was "adventurous" when it came to patterns and this one features lace and cables! Lace + cables + fancy shmancy merino/tencel yarn = adventurous, right? I hope so. As for the pattern, I followed it as written for the large size, plus an extra repeat on the leg.

Yarn - I had some aqua and gray Dale Baby Ull laying around, so I used that. I have no idea about the actual yardage, by roughly 6.5g of the aqua and 4.5g of the gray made this pair.
Needles - size 1 clover bamboo dpns
Pattern - Saartje's booties They came out absurdly tiny and cute. Now I kinda of want to knit a lot of them and scatter tham around my apartment so I can pretend helpful elves (who go about barefoot) secretly live in the cupboard.

Ok, so now that that's done. About the lack of blogging: I'm sorry. Besides my inherent sloth, the major culprits are 1) Harry Potter and 2)lack of knitting progress. I figure I get a free pass with Harry because, come on....last book! And the lack of knitting progress has gone a bit like this: I work on something, then look at it and realize it's waaaayyyyy too big/oops I changed needles and messed up my gauge in a totally noticeable way/is a hideous color for my skin...::facepalm:: Literally, all of those things have happened. I'll cover them one by one, but see? My knitting mojo got all wonky and unblogworthy. I think I have it fixed now, though, so no worries.

In other, more competent, non sockpal-related news, I fixed a sock!

See that? I brought it back from the dead, people! I'm pretty thrilled. They're my first pair.

And on the reality TV front, Bear Grylls is my new hero. Seriously, I have seen this man drink his own urine and sleep in a tent he made out of a dead reindeer. Bad ass mofo, that one.