You know you’re a knitter when…

Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under Blather, craft, knitting, me and my brain | 3 Comments

You know you’re a knitter when you see a New York Times headline that reads “Supplier Under Scrutiny for Aging Arms for Afghans” and the first thing you think is that it has something to do with yarn companies and knitters’ arms getting tired while knitting blankets… and then you realize.

Funny thing just heard in a coffee shop: “Egg and cheese on everything!” Yes! How about that? Okay, maybe not.

Sons and Daughters with Bodies of Water and Frightened Rabbit at The Middle East

Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under Blather, music, photography | 6 Comments

Monday nights can be rough for concerts. Boston is full of basically responsible types–studious degree seekers and go-getters, all that Puritan work ethic and whatnot. I missed Sons and Daughters the last time they played in Cambridge back in 2006, and I’d heard how good they are live, so I wasn’t about to miss them again, Monday night (or, perhaps more accurately, Tuesday morning) be damned. The last few times we’ve gone to shows at The Middle East, they’ve been jam-packed with college kids (and maybe high school kids, too). Besides feeling a bit… er… mature in those crowds, I thought the mood of the shows overall was a bit more anxious. It’s hard to explain… it’s something about hormones floating around in the bodies of kids who are too young to buy a drink (and who don’t need any more sugar in their diets). Anyway, we’ve seen some good shows, but last night felt different. It wasn’t as crowded (too bad, in a way, but it made it more comfortable), and the audience felt a bit more with it–a bit older with more experience at shows, not trying very hard, just laid back and having a good time. It made a big difference.

Two of the evening’s three bands, Frightened Rabbit and Sons and Daughters, are from Glasgow. Between them and The Pastels and all those other Scottish bands, they’re making me want to visit Glasgow! I’m a bit Scottish, anyhow… I was impressed to see (and, well, hear–accents, you know) some folks in the audience from Scotland. One couple were right up front when I arrived–since I take photos I get there early to stake my spot at the front, so this couple must have literally been first through the door. During the Sons and Daughters set, some of the Scots in the audience were joking around with the band between songs and it was great–so different from the kids yelling “Babysit me!!” at the St. Vincent show a few weeks back. People teased their drummer, “Play a drum solo!!,” and he gave them the British flip off (I don’t know what else to call it, somebody help me here). The guitarist translated: “That’s slang in Glasgow for ‘No thank you.’” Then, in a bit of a Scottish brogue (genuine, I think) a guy in the audience shouted, “Up your kilt, son!” Love it. But I am getting way ahead of myself.

Frightened Rabbit
Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit
Frightened Rabbit (channeling Animal?). Ez loves this one.

First up was Frightened Rabbit, a band describing themselves on MySpace as pop, indie, and folk. They were very unpretentious–seemingly in reality, and not as its own pretense. Their music had a good energy, nice melodies, two and sometimes three guitars, strong, sometimes heavy drumming, and urgent, sometimes plaintive vocals. Pretty good stuff. They name-checked two different bands during their set that I’ve been interested in recently, too–another Scottish band, The Twilight Sad, and Rhode Island’s own The Brother Kite, who they played with at some point.

Bodies of Water
Bodies of Water

Bodies of Water
Bodies of Water

Next up was Bodies of Water. They’re a bit less unpretentious, I’d say (their MySpace page describes their music as “Showtunes/Showtunes/ Showtunes”). Their song “Doves Circle the Sky” has an Abba-esque piano bit. They’re okay, but after the very earnest Frightened Rabbit set, they came off a bit half-assed somehow. Their girl-drummer was pretty cool, though.

Sons and Daughters blew me away. They are as good live as they possibly could be, I think. Adele’s voice is huge. She’s a total spit-fire… total firecracker… To say she belted out the tunes is an understatement. I hear all kinds of kick in their music–The Clash, Iggy Pop, some sort of heavy 60s garage-soul thing, maybe a bit of The Jam in some songs. Adele was doing a little bit of Tina Turner last night, too, with her gold sequined micro mini dress and shiny purple hot pants.


The micro-mini


Adele, doing some serious belting. Yes, her mouth is open wider than the microphone.

Their guitarist, Scott, is sort of perfect somehow. Thin and good-looking (Ez and I are trying to figure out who he looks like–a little bit of Hugh Grant, but without the arrogant element? …and there’s a little bit of The Clash in there, too), he struck such a great rock look with his bangs and his polka-dot shirt and his belt. Oh yeah, and he played the hell out of his guitar and his voice works really well off of Adele’s.


Scott, the guitarist for Sons and Daughters


Scott, looking maybe a little like Ian McCulloch with that hair.

Their drummer was a good guy, too. After refusing to do a drum solo during the regular set, he came out first for the encore and played a little bit for us. After everyone cheered he said, “And that was shit.” Unfortunately, Ailidh, their bassist, was feeling a bit under the weather, and I think that’s why we only got one song for an encore.


David, not playing a drum solo.


Ailidh, not feeling well, but soldiering on.

It was seriously one of the best shows I’ve been to in a long time, even though the Sons and Daughters set felt a little bit short. How much did I enjoy myself? So much that I put my camera to bed before the end of their main set. They closed the main set with a hard version of one of my favorites, “Johnny Cash.”


Adele, Sons and Daughters

Ez, who had spent much of the evening printing, managed to get to the show in time to see the vast majority of the Sons & Daughters set. He surprised me afterwards–I didn’t even know he’d arrived. As we stood for a second talking, one of the club guys tossed a setlist in front of me, so I can tell you that they played the following:

Encore:

I meant to buy a Frightened Rabbit CD, but just ended up with the new Sons and Daughters CD. Though they’re on their third album now, Sons and Daughters were still manning the merch table themselves, and Scott sold me the CD himself. They seem to take the lyrics to their single “Gilt Complex” to heart. I’m gonna guess they haven’t forgotten their friends back home.

I have heaps more photos from the show here, here, and here. Help me decide which are the best ones!

The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland

Posted on March 24, 2008
Filed Under Blather, films, me and my brain | 2 Comments

Those of you who read Ezra’s blog will have seen this coming.

Recently, Ezra and I watched The Wizard of Oz. I hadn’t seen it in a long time, and I’m not sure if I’d ever seen it without commercials. It’s always interesting to go back to things you consumed as a kid, especially iconic things that, whether you knew it not, played a part in shaping your life.

I noticed a few things watching the film now, and put into words some things I’d always thought but never really discussed with anyone. First off, the “black and white” segments aren’t black and white at all, they’re sepia. To me, the sepia tone achieves a number of things. It underscores the earthiness of the Kansas setting, the down-home-ness of it. It gives it a faded look rather than a sophisticated one. It’s sort of soft rust versus the polished look that black and white might render. When the tornado approaches, the sepia dust spins and billows around… The twister itself throws up a violent cloud not entirely unlike the poof of red the Wicked Witch sends up when she makes her dramatic exit from the scene at the tip of the Yellow Brick Road.

And how great is Margaret Hamilton? She sure did scare the bejesus out of many generations of kiddies (and probably some adults). The music that accompanies her riding around on the bike (when she is Miss Gulch in Kansas) is the best. I find myself using it quite a bit.

More of a revelation, maybe, is Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow. I don’t know about you, but though the Lion had a good song or two, the Scarecrow was always my favorite. He was Dorothy’s favorite as well, it seems, as she tells him right before leaving Oz that she thinks she’ll miss him most of all. I always identified Bolger’s stumbling lanky walk and dance moves with the Scarecrow character, but actually he was dancing like that for years before The Wizard of Oz, on Broadway and then in the film The Great Ziegfeld, his second film ever and first for MGM.


Ray Bolger in The Great Ziegfeld

As Ezra mentioned in his blog, I’d love to see a double feature of those two films. They’re both full of song and dance numbers, they both deal with fantasy and reality, and they both feature vaudeville and Broadway stars like Ray Bolger and Frank Morgan. Ziegfeld’s real-life wife, Billie Burke–played by Myrna Loy in The Great Ziegfeld, plays Glinda, the Good Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz. Both films are also iconic for certain eras in entertainment. The Great Ziegfeld pays tribute to the massive production numbers of the Ziegfeld Follies. (According to Wikipedia, “The MGM blockbuster’s show-stopper was “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody”, which, by itself, cost more to produce than one of Ziegfeld’s whole shows.”) The Wizard of Oz is a hugely colorful film from an era when the vast majority of films were still black and white. And both films are, at least at times, decidedly over-the-top.

One thing that struck me watching The Wizard of Oz this time are all the parallels between Oz (I’m referring strictly to the film here, as I haven’t read the book) and Alice in Wonderland (I refer both to the book and to Disney’s Alice in Wonderland). Alice’s life is comfortable, though perhaps a bit boring. She has an animal companion, her cat Dinah, just as Dorothy has her Toto. (Alas for Alice, Dinah does not accompany her to Wonderland… at least, not exactly.) When Dorothy watches things going by outside her window as she is sucked up in the twister, it’s like when Alice watches things go past her as she’s falling down the rabbit hole. Maybe it’s just because of the Disney film, but Dorothy’s outfit looks pretty appropriate for Alice, except maybe for the shoes.

Some interpretations of Alice’s look:




And Dorothy:


(Okay, so the colors are inverted.)

Dorothy’s not sure which way to go on the Yellow Brick Road, just as a Alice isn’t sure which path to take in the woods. When Dorothy meets the Munchkins, they think she’s a witch. When Alice encounters a pigeon, it accuses her of being a serpent. Looking around at the start of the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy says something like, “What a curious place”–much like Alice’s “Curiouser and curiouser!” And then there are double meanings or very literal meanings–a horse of a different color in Oz, for example, and “a long sad tale” versus “a long tail” in Alice (among many others). Both Dorothy and Alice are trying to get somewhere, and neither knows quite what to expect. Both are rather disappointed with what they find when they finally get there (the wizard is a bit of a sham and can’t help Dorothy get home, the tea party is full of nonsense–as is the Queen). Then, of course, there are veiled or not so veiled drug references… the caterpillar smoking, Alice eating cakes that change her, the field of poppies in the Wizard of Oz that puts Dorothy to sleep and then the snow that awakens her. In Disney’s Alice, at least, the flowers can talk. Flowers in Oz pop up and turn out to be Munchkins. In Disney’s Alice, the woods are scary and seem alive. In Oz, the trees can talk and throw things.

The Queen in Alice is a little like the Wicked Witch of the West. The playing cards are her guards, and like the witch’s guards, they do her bidding but they don’t like it or her–they’re afraid of her. Consider this sentence from Alice in Wonderland and then think about the Wicked Witch directing the guards: “Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other […]”

And, of course, in both cases it was all a dream that incorporated bits from real life.

AND… both stories have been examined as political satires.

And then there’s the relationship between Oz in the film and Dr. Seuss. I could go on!

Sometimes, I feel that…

Posted on March 19, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, me and my brain, the pusses | 2 Comments


Josef K-Endless Soul

Posted on March 18, 2008
Filed Under Song of the Day, music | Leave a Comment

And it’s only 9:00AM

Posted on March 17, 2008
Filed Under Blather, christmas, me and my brain, the pusses, this old house | 5 Comments

This morning I drove down to the post office to mail a package and to pick up my postcards.  When I arrived home I found the cats in the kitchen batting around the tiniest little mouse you’ve ever seen.  Eek.  I am not the best for dealing with these things, but I couldn’t just let them bat it around all day.  It’s under a box top, under a pile of phone books.  Suki has given up but Edie is still going crazy.  I know I shouldn’t leave it for Ezra to deal with, but…

The postcards… I’m just starting to look at them.  The very first one I pulled out is colorful and in nice condition with a bell, holly (I love holly), and lots of gold.  It’s in pretty nice condition, too.  The kicker, though, is that it’s addressed to Spring Creek, PA, and it’s written in some other language that I can’t identify.  This is gonna be fun.

Just a little update…

Posted on March 15, 2008
Filed Under Blather | Leave a Comment

The postcards did not arrive today.  Ah well, wishful thinking.  I’ll probably get them on Monday.  But Ez and I are still having a fun and productive Saturday.  We did some grocery shopping and I puttered around and cleaned a little.  It snowed a tiny bit this morning, which makes me say yay!  I need just one or two more little bursts of flakes before the season’s over.  Now we’re heading out on a little Saturday expedition.  Onward!

Happy happy

Posted on March 13, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, christmas, me and my brain | 4 Comments

I just got a huge lot of Christmas postcards on ebay! I’ve decided that I’ll share any doubles or cards that I otherwise don’t want with Kim, but I think I’m still looking at increasing my collection by probably 60% or more with this one batch of cards. I’m so excited to receive them! They’re going in the mail today, so hopefully I’ll get them by Saturday.

Based on the photos, the lot includes numerous bells and a good deal of gold and silver. That’s right up my alley!

Here are a couple of pictures from the auction page.


Amazon is confused.

Posted on March 10, 2008
Filed Under Blather, me and my brain | Leave a Comment

I just received this enthusiastic email from Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Invites You to Get the Lawn You Always Dreamed Of

I don’t dream about my lawn.

I think Ezra will appreciate this fact.

A recent dream

Posted on March 7, 2008
Filed Under Blather, me and my brain | 1 Comment

I often have dreams where I’m trying to get somewhere and having difficulty.  Sometimes there are stairwells to nowhere.  This dream had something along those lines.  I was in a large public library with very open architecture.  There was a big open stairway that went up to the left and then turned left again and narrowed into a bank of stacks.  It appeared that if I went up this stairway, I would end up back at the entrance to (or exit from) the library.  There was an elevated walkway by the entrance/exit (hard to explain) and on the walkway were two handbags/sacks that I wanted to get to for some reason.  So, when I went up the narrow stairway, I was disappointed to find that it just sort of stopped in this little cove of books (even though I could see the entrance/exit through a narrow gap in the corner of the wall).  While I was in this little spot an older woman gave me a book.  She smiled and I saw that it was inscribed to me (don’t recall what it said).  I looked at it, but then she was gone and I was back to trying to get to the bags.  I went back out to the main stairwell and for some reason took a total side tangent and bought a funny little pair of white rain boots with little straps to pull them up.  I took the time to draw a blue and green flower on the side of each of them and to put them on.  They were sort of like little 1960s watering cans that I wore on my feet!  Then when I looked again to see how to get to the bags, I saw to my dismay that someone had taken them and was walking out the door.

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Song of the Day

Devo-It’s Not Right 

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The Knitting Turnip

On My Needles

Rhapsody in Tweed cabled pullover for Ezra! using Tahki Donegal Tweed in Forest, from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. I've just picked this one up again, so it's moving up in the queue!

Sweater with Cable Patterns pullover using Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in Mauve, from Rebecca Magazine Number 28

Heather Pullover using Classic Elite Wings in Larkspur, from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale... This needs the knit doctor. I'm going to have to frog back a little bit and redo the shoulder area. Long story.

Hush Pullover using Jo Sharp DK wool in Wine, from Rowan’s Calmer Collection

Recently Finished Projects

In the Groove boatneck pullover using Manos del Uruguay in Black and Cheek (pale pink), from Fall 2006 issue of knitscene. SWEATER IS DONE!

Stash Stealer Scarf for me, using delicious yarn that darling Amy let me raid from her stash. I made up the pattern--a couple of wide ribs rimmed in moss stitch. It's soft and fuzzy and DONE!

Moss Stitch Jacket with Collar for Hope using Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo in Ivy, from Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. JACKET IS DONE!

Next in line

Brompton cardigan using Noro Cash Iroha in Jewel Green (my name for shade #100)

Eyelet Yoke Pullover using Debbie Bliss Merino Aran

Under consideration

Loads!

More scoop on my knitting endeavors can be found at my home on Ravelry (clicky here).

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