are gas giants and balls of carbon
or something
are the poets, in whatever metaphorical medium
who acknowledge
humanity's finely tuned sense of self destruction
umm hmm
acknowledge it
drink another beer
and leer into
the long dire night.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
how best to spend saturday (ten years in)
i have heard many suggestions about various amusements that folks have planned for themselves this weekend, for september eleventh.
i am one of us who's come to age in the long dark shadow of corporatist, imperialist, racist intrigue.
some plan old-fashioned book burnings. others plan to set fire to the PATRIOT act.
i myself will be working in my garden, planting some vegetables to nourish my family and hopefully the plants will do their bit to clear the air. these people who plan to burn dead trees (who never really did anything to anybody) probably ought to consider their carbon footprints.
i am one of us who's come to age in the long dark shadow of corporatist, imperialist, racist intrigue.
some plan old-fashioned book burnings. others plan to set fire to the PATRIOT act.
i myself will be working in my garden, planting some vegetables to nourish my family and hopefully the plants will do their bit to clear the air. these people who plan to burn dead trees (who never really did anything to anybody) probably ought to consider their carbon footprints.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
color stripes shawl recipe/improvisation
Okay, so here's what I did. I've been making triangle shawls for a few weeks now (a few months?!?) and I've caught on to the top-down, increase 4 stitches every other row, centered-spine triangle shawl construction method.
I have seen a few patterns around that I like, such as Daybreak, but none have been exactly what I wanted. So, I improvised. I love the look of the stripes alternating solids and a color changing yarn - it's a great way to stretch pricier color changing yarns and avoid pooling (I'm not a fan). On a triangle shawl, the diagonal, downward pointing lines are pretty flattering, regardless of where the shawl is work (back or front). I looked up the technique and noticed that twisting the yarns at changes is recommended; it creates a nicer edge.
I had these two skeins of yarn set aside for this particular type of project. Most of the shawls that I have made recently have been of fingering/sock weight yarn, but I wanted to create a sturdier shawl, something nice enough to wear in public but also warm and cozy (perhaps could double as a little chair blanket during a stolen lunchtime nap?). These yarns are slightly different in weight but it doesn't create a major problem - the stripes have different textures due to the differences in fiber content.
I did a garter tab cast-on in my solid color for 6 rows, picked up three in the garter bumps and two on the cast-on edge, and began to work in stockinette. I did a two-stitch garter border, increasing one on each edge end on every knit row. I did a yo/k1/yo for the center on every knit row, and placed stitch markers on either side of my k1 center stitch. I did 1 knit row and 1 purl row for each color, twisting them as I changed at the beginning of every other knit row. I worked in this way until I finished the last full row of Boku that I could manage with my remaining yarn (ended up w/ appx 3 yards of yarn left over).
I then finished in [Scalloped Edges border][1] in my gorgeous solid color. It is a ten-stitch repeat, so I did a row of stockinette before starting the edging to get the appropriate number of stitches - I'm thinking I ended up with 190 stitches? 180? and increased somehow to get the right stitch count because I maintained my center spine st and my garter edging throughout (which accounts for 5 stitches per row).
[1]: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/scalloped-edges
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
my bucket of brain bleach, or: thoughts on reading Atwood's The Year of the Flood
this is the afore-mentioned bucket of brain bleach which i was so heartily craving just earlier this week.
after much consternation at a corporate bookstore (corpbook? bookcorps?) yesterday, i gleaned a book by a classic favorite of mine, Margaret Atwood. i wasn't aware that she had a new book out; i also did not know that there would be more than one work set in the oryx & crake -verse. needless to say, bookcorps got some of my hard-earned e bucks and i have been reading since, except for when i'm driving, which i'm doing as little as possible in order to read this book.
but like taking huge gulps of very cold water, i must stop in the middle of my refreshment to share exactly how good it is, lest i choke.
she opens with a reference to one of her poems. she uses an image that i've always loved: the rising sun as egg. it's stuck in my head ever since i read it, in a book, i think, that Nick gave me. at this point i leaned back and smiled, under the care of a master, like the veil of consecration that the perfectly strung chord settles around in silence.
clever wordplay, of course, as usual, abounds. Atwood's puns and references are sharp; Atwood's neologisms and doublespeak blush the cheek of even Our Dear Orwell. this technical, wordchoice and word creation stuff is where i see most telling evidence of Atwood's poetic artistry.
many a story has suffered, however, perhaps in some part due to an author's poetic proficiency. poetic proficiency may well be the reason that 90% of the amazing things that have been written languish without denouement or any real story at all, off in a drawer or dusty unused notebook. naturally, such is not Atwood's case. if anything, her poetic sensibility is a rocket jetpack to the story, compelling it forward. motifs and repetitions frame out a rhythm, as well as create reference to the prior work, Oryx & Crake. the secretive private military/intelligence company, the CorpSecCorps, returns in TYOTF. please, take a moment, and if you've not, read that out loud. Atwood knows what she's doing, here, reader. the name of this particular company comes at punctuated intervals throughout the text, creating a rhythm of crunch thudding tactical boots. i'm going to have to re-read to determine it, but i'm thinking it's quite possible that Atwood creates some conditioning scenarios through her stories to elicit a Pavlovian-style response in her readers - mentions of the CorpSecCorps in this book about make my heart jump out of my chest. (What I am currently puzzling is whether Atwood means us to have the same reaction about our current setting's counterpart - Blackwater, turned Ze. Xe? Something like that.)
of course, mentioning either the fictional or real companies in print/text is not something that many of the characters in TYOTF would do. any instance of a fictional work discussing text, writing, meaning, and words is worth closer consideration. this is another part of the work that will bear revisiting but the characters in TYOTF have peculiar relationships with the written word - and above all, so far, it would seem that words/writing are to be taken as a body of evidence. text is proof of something - whether in the environment (in TYOTF, graffiti covers public/lower class spaces, while it is conspicuously absent in the corporate compounds) or proof of one's transgressions. characters reiterate the idea that one's enemies can/will/do use one's written communications as proof of wrongdoing, and of course the powers that be have set people against each other/themselves in order to dominate more successfully. in broader terms, communication is problematic, at best. at worst, it invites torture or includes the possibility of betraying friends or family. when Atwood, the writer, asks the reader what it means when the reader can use the work of the writer against the writer, what does this mean? In part, it is an acknowledgement that the written word is both more persistent and just as fragile/mutable as the flesh. Atwood's story also intimates that there is a certain type of authority that will burn both, according to its purposes.
concepts of an authoritarian power structure repeat from prior works, as in The Handmaid's Tale. However, the religious authority in TYOTF is, for now, a sort of refuge; certainly it is not the source of power. the authority approach to religions is explained fairly succintly - there are a couple of consumption-oriented, feel-good materialist sects for those elites who wish to have them, most people are secular and then the poverty stricken fringe includes those who work with the establishment (though in the shadows), those who are ignored by it and those who have resources the establishment covets - these last are the only ones labeled terrorist.
(i found that last point to be so sharp that i do not wish to comment further upon it. it stands alone.)
this is not a book that can be examined well in a blog posting, or perhaps not on a blog at all. several of these ideas require examination and there are others i'd like to explore, particularly that of the question of the unreliable narrator/media.
after much consternation at a corporate bookstore (corpbook? bookcorps?) yesterday, i gleaned a book by a classic favorite of mine, Margaret Atwood. i wasn't aware that she had a new book out; i also did not know that there would be more than one work set in the oryx & crake -verse. needless to say, bookcorps got some of my hard-earned e bucks and i have been reading since, except for when i'm driving, which i'm doing as little as possible in order to read this book.
but like taking huge gulps of very cold water, i must stop in the middle of my refreshment to share exactly how good it is, lest i choke.
she opens with a reference to one of her poems. she uses an image that i've always loved: the rising sun as egg. it's stuck in my head ever since i read it, in a book, i think, that Nick gave me. at this point i leaned back and smiled, under the care of a master, like the veil of consecration that the perfectly strung chord settles around in silence.
clever wordplay, of course, as usual, abounds. Atwood's puns and references are sharp; Atwood's neologisms and doublespeak blush the cheek of even Our Dear Orwell. this technical, wordchoice and word creation stuff is where i see most telling evidence of Atwood's poetic artistry.
many a story has suffered, however, perhaps in some part due to an author's poetic proficiency. poetic proficiency may well be the reason that 90% of the amazing things that have been written languish without denouement or any real story at all, off in a drawer or dusty unused notebook. naturally, such is not Atwood's case. if anything, her poetic sensibility is a rocket jetpack to the story, compelling it forward. motifs and repetitions frame out a rhythm, as well as create reference to the prior work, Oryx & Crake. the secretive private military/intelligence company, the CorpSecCorps, returns in TYOTF. please, take a moment, and if you've not, read that out loud. Atwood knows what she's doing, here, reader. the name of this particular company comes at punctuated intervals throughout the text, creating a rhythm of crunch thudding tactical boots. i'm going to have to re-read to determine it, but i'm thinking it's quite possible that Atwood creates some conditioning scenarios through her stories to elicit a Pavlovian-style response in her readers - mentions of the CorpSecCorps in this book about make my heart jump out of my chest. (What I am currently puzzling is whether Atwood means us to have the same reaction about our current setting's counterpart - Blackwater, turned Ze. Xe? Something like that.)
of course, mentioning either the fictional or real companies in print/text is not something that many of the characters in TYOTF would do. any instance of a fictional work discussing text, writing, meaning, and words is worth closer consideration. this is another part of the work that will bear revisiting but the characters in TYOTF have peculiar relationships with the written word - and above all, so far, it would seem that words/writing are to be taken as a body of evidence. text is proof of something - whether in the environment (in TYOTF, graffiti covers public/lower class spaces, while it is conspicuously absent in the corporate compounds) or proof of one's transgressions. characters reiterate the idea that one's enemies can/will/do use one's written communications as proof of wrongdoing, and of course the powers that be have set people against each other/themselves in order to dominate more successfully. in broader terms, communication is problematic, at best. at worst, it invites torture or includes the possibility of betraying friends or family. when Atwood, the writer, asks the reader what it means when the reader can use the work of the writer against the writer, what does this mean? In part, it is an acknowledgement that the written word is both more persistent and just as fragile/mutable as the flesh. Atwood's story also intimates that there is a certain type of authority that will burn both, according to its purposes.
concepts of an authoritarian power structure repeat from prior works, as in The Handmaid's Tale. However, the religious authority in TYOTF is, for now, a sort of refuge; certainly it is not the source of power. the authority approach to religions is explained fairly succintly - there are a couple of consumption-oriented, feel-good materialist sects for those elites who wish to have them, most people are secular and then the poverty stricken fringe includes those who work with the establishment (though in the shadows), those who are ignored by it and those who have resources the establishment covets - these last are the only ones labeled terrorist.
(i found that last point to be so sharp that i do not wish to comment further upon it. it stands alone.)
this is not a book that can be examined well in a blog posting, or perhaps not on a blog at all. several of these ideas require examination and there are others i'd like to explore, particularly that of the question of the unreliable narrator/media.
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