The Secrets of Isis

Colorwork Possibilities.

2011-01-03T13:21:00.008-05:00

I am now about 1 ball into my Fair Isle Yoke Sweater. Since the sweater is worked in the round starting from the bottom edge, that means I have completed about an inch and a half of ribbing and a bit of plain knitting. I have something to say later about that ribbing, but today is dedicated to thinking about color patterns.

To order the yarn for the pattern, all I had to do was decide which colors I wanted, since each of the colorwork colors (for the yoke) requires 1 ball. And even though a couple of the colors looked a little different from how I had hoped (the "Rose" a little pinker and the "Seabright" a little more teal), they all go together pretty darn well.

So then the question was: which color goes where in Elizabeth Zimmerman's Fair Isle chart? The design has three tiers (A, B, and C) to account for decreasing stitches). I was having a hard time imagining the different options, so I pulled out the colored pencils and graph paper.

I mocked up two versions. This was the first I did:

Bear in mind that the blue lines of the graph paper add a somewhat confusing element. Also, on this scan (or monitor), the pink is pretty hard to see. Still: perhaps you can tell that there is a lot of blue in that design. And really? It is more blue than I wanted, since I envisioned the blue and pink as little flares of color in a largely grey sweater.

So I mocked up another option:
(Please ignore the crossed-out failed first attempt at Section B.)

I like this one better: the grey (which here looks a bit pinkish), white, and charcoal will dominate the sweater, giving it a "shades of the same color" feel, with little bursts of blue and pink.

Not that I am anywhere near starting this yoke. I still have a lot of body and two sleeves to make. But it is nice to know where I'm headed.

The Opinionated Knitter in 2011.

2011-01-01T15:10:00.007-05:00

Over on ravelry, an "Opinionated Knitter KAL" has begun, beginning, well, at the beginning. Elizabeth Zimmerman's The Opinionated Knitter compiles her self-published newsletters from 1958 to 1968, and the pattern from Newsletter #1 (mailed in September 1958) is the Fair Isle Yoke Pullover.

For those of you who are not knitters, Elizabeth Zimmerman is a genius. Unlike many designers of her era (or of the present, for that matter), she aimed to make knitters more capable by asking them to do a little math and think a bit. I read somewhere that while most designers assumed that women can't do math, EZ assumed that they could, which, of course, we can. And we are not talking about quadratic equations, for goodness sakes! (At least not yet.) The challenge and the pleasure of her patterns is that they do not give line-by-line directions, but rather assume that you, being a knitter after all, can figure out what she means. Throughout her many books about knitting and every single pattern is this wonderful sense of her voice--as though you and she are having a little chat about knitting. And what knitter among us does not fantasize about chatting with Elizabeth Zimmerman?

These newsletters were edited by her daughter Meg Swansen, a knitting genius in her own right, and the heir to Elizabeth Zimmerman's Schoolhouse Press business and knitting reputation. Along with facsimiles of the typed (and presumably mimeographed?) newsletters are Meg Swansen's comments and suggestions, making connections between these particular documents and patterns and EZ's wider corpus of patterns, discoveries, and innovations.

I was initially nervous about starting with a Fair Isle sweater. I have done a number of stranded projects, but never anything sweater-sized, and because I do not feel that my two-handed gauge has evened out, I am worried about how the stranded part will look. But hey: there is no time like the present to work things out--I mean, to take a little risk with the knitting.

I ordered some Shetland wool from Schoolhouse Press for the project: this is a smidge tricky, because there is no color card for these yarns, and one is never sure how accurate a reflection of the actual colors the online pictures will be. So my blue and my pink are both a bit different than I expected, but they will work and look good together.

I am not sure whether I will need to order some more of the charcoal. EZ's pattern is for a 36" chest, and I am making mine as a 38" chest. But we'll see.

For the Fair Isle Yoke Sweater, MS suggests adopting some of EZ's later discoveries, and I am planning to incorporate the short-row shaping for the back (in order to make the back of the neck opening taller than the front, and so more comfortable). I am also considering incorporating a bit of waist shaping, but I am not sure yet about that.

Either way, I have swatched and determined my needle size, casted on, and begun the bottom edging. May your 2011 be full of opinions!

Darn it!

2010-01-09T17:47:00.006-05:00

I got a mysterious package today. Well, not that mysterious, since it came from my parents, but still: once I removed the brown paper wrapping the box, I found a note in my father's handwriting, reading "O DARN!"

Now, historians of my family know that my parents have a tendency to stow Christmas gifts away during the year and then forget them at Christmastime. I confess--as I grow older, I am finding myself committing this same error, having mailed gifts to my inlaws prior to discovering a secret secret stash of other gifts.

So I assumed that the exclamation on the box's exterior meant that this problem had occurred yet again.

Instead, I found this:

The Patient Partner and I stared at it for a while, wondering if it was a silent maraca, or some kind of massage tool, and then I remembered that over Christmas my father had mentioned that he had, leftover from my grandmother's sewing box, a darning egg.

Having become a rather intense sock knitter in the last year--15 pairs completed in 2009!--I already recognize why darning is valuable. In fact, because I did not know that walking stocking-footed in the house wears socks out faster than anything, I have already worn through the heels on the first pair of socks I knitted.

(The Patient Partner and some of my older pairs of shoes will attest to the fact that I have a very heavy step, all that force occurring on the heel.)

Luckily I have got yarn left over from most of my pairs of socks, so I could even darn them in the yarn in which they were made. And now I even have the proper tool.

In hopes of learning how exactly this device is used, I looked up “darning egg” on the internet, and I learned from Wikipedia that in addition to darning eggs, there are darning mushrooms and darning gourds. But I was hoping for photographs to help me understand better, and I came across “FluffyKnitterDeb,” who posted this great tutorial.

Granted, that is for using the darning egg to finish toe-grafting—and I like what she is suggesting!—but I still wanted to know how to use it for true darning. “Frugal Families” came to the rescue!

It turns out you can still buy darning eggs, but I am glad to have one that has been in use for generations.

Now I have a goal. Stay tuned. . . .

Sting Scarf

2009-09-27T11:21:00.004-04:00

A friend asked for a scarf that would “make me look like Sting.” He wanted something reminiscent of fisherman’s sweaters, in wool with lots of texture. He said he wanted a neutral color, like gray or tan.

Later, I asked him if he was sure he didn't want a scarf that would make him look like Prince, and he got all freaked out that I was making him something in bright purple, or that might look like some of the some of the socks I have made for myself.

This pattern is based on the “Jacob’s Ladder” motif in Vogue Knitting: Stitchionary 2, Cables. The pattern is easy to memorize and the scarf works up fast in the bulky yarn.

Materials:
4 balls Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds, in Steel Grey Suffolk (120 yds, 100g)
US 11 needles (gauge is not crucial, because this is a scarf)
cable needle

Abbreviations:
6stLC: slip 3 sts onto cable needle and hold in front, k3, k3 from cable needle
6stRC: slip 3 sts onto cable needle and hold in back, k3, k3 from cable needle

Seed Stitch:
*k1, p1* repeat to end of row.

Cable pattern:
Row 1 (RS): k1, p1, kl, p2, k6, p2, k1, p12, k1, p2, k6, p2, k1, p1, k1
Row 2 (WS): k1, p1, k1, k2, p6, k2, p1, k12, p1, k2, p6, k2, k1, p1, k1
Row 3: k1, p1, kl, p2, 6stLC, p2, k14, p2, 6stRC, p2, k1, p1, k1
Row 4: k1, p1, kl, k2, p6, k2, p14, k2, p6, k2, k1, p1, k1
Row 5: k1, p1, kl, p2, k6, p2, k1, p12, k1, p2, k6, p2, k1, p1, k1
Row 6: k1, p1, kl, k2, p6, k2, p1, k12, p1, k2, p6, k2, k1, p1, k1
Row 7: k1, p1, kl, p2, k6, p2, k14, p2, k6, p2, k1, p1, k1
Row 8: k1, p1, kl, k2, p6, k2, p14, k2, p6, k2, k1, p1, k1

To knit:
CO 40 sts.
Rows 1-4: work in seed stitch
Switch to cable pattern, and repeat 8 rows of cable pattern until scarf is nearing desired length.
Work 4 rows of seed stitch.
Bind off.

Now wrap scarf around neck and PRESTO! You have made a fortress of your heart.

Green secrets.

2009-06-16T14:37:00.004-04:00

What readers or followers of this blog remain know that posting has been light. Indeed, rumors of its demise have not been countered. Indeed, I have been more of a reader than a writer of late, for which I apologize.

Still, since the blog still exists, I couldn't resist the chance to change its color in solidarity with the opposition in Iran, whose stories I have been following avidly in the last week. I do not tease myself with the belief that anything I would do here might make a smidge of a difference, but to the students and other protesters I say, I too would like to know where your votes are.

If anyone is reading this, I'm following
The Lede Blog (refresh for updates)
Andrew Sullivan's feed of live tweets (refresh for updates)
The Daily Dish generally
BBC news and
The Guardian
because cable news is infuriating in its lack of information and coverage.

No meet for you.

2009-04-30T06:57:00.005-04:00

So I was stoked about the Tiger Master meet this weekend, and I had even submitted my entry, but then this happened:

Kind of puts a crimp in your plans, non?

I should report, though, that apart from the usual soreness and abrasions from the airbag, I was not injured. Neither was the other driver. And it was not my fault. The car is totaled, but we got a higher appraisal than I feared. Thank you, car, for taking the literal brunt of this.

In short, I cannot complain.

But back to swimming. I tried to go to practice on Tuesday, but the combined stress of driving there (holy freakout, Batman!) and then being around a crowd, and then not being sure whether I could swim. . . . . Let's just say I got back in the car and drove home.

I did go to practice this morning (thank you, Patient Partner, for driving), and I managed to swim about 500 yards before the pain and soreness was more than I felt like trying to swim through. I had wonkiness in my lower back (an exacerbation, perhaps, of the soreness I had been feeling before the accident, which is related to my hamstring problem, I think) and in my left shoulder (which SCARED me, but which I am hoping is simply soreness and stiffness from the impact and the way I constricted my left pecs in a reflex protective move for a shoulder I would really like NOT to be hurt again).

And honestly, should I really be diving into a pool right now?

So I am withdrawing from the meet. It is a drag--I was looking forward to this. But given the alternatives, I am not complaining.

Tiger Master 2009.

2009-04-20T08:12:00.004-04:00

It is official: I am entering my first swim meet since January 2007. The entry is in the mail. I cannot bring it back.

Granted: I do not expect any "best times."

Granted: I am not even swimming many of what used to be my "best events."

Granted: I will be satisfied with simply finishing the races for which I have signed up and completing the required warm-ups and cool-downs.

Granted: I am trying to do this just for fun, but I am also nervous as hell.

Still: ain't it great?

Fair Use.

2009-03-06T16:32:00.005-05:00

Here's an addendum to the previous post.

Tim Jarrett wrote this comment: "A 'who's who' of illegal audio sampling, including a version of Negativland U2 track that replaces the U2 samples with synths and kazoos, is available for download on the Illegal Art page. "

And he's right: that page is terrific, and there is one of the tracks. But then I got to thinking about another track I recalled from the original 1991 EP, so I went digging through my trove of cassettes, until I found one where I had copied things from the WXYC library. (I still have wet dreams about that library. . . .) Anyway, both tracks are called "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and they are distinguished by their parenthetical markers: "(1991 a capella mix)" and "(Special Edit Radio Mix)." The track on the Illegal Art compilation is, as best as I can tell, the actual "(Special Edit Radio Mix)" as it appeared on the original EP. In other words, this track had the synths and kazoo originally. The things coming out of Casey Kasem's mouth rendered this track unplayable on the radio station, though I believe some DJs probably played it late at night. . . .

The other track, the "(1991 a capella mix)," also has Casey Kasem introducing U2 to a wider public: he keeps repeating "The letter U and the numeral 2." And then there is a guy with a dorky voice speaking and playing around with the lyrics to the song, and making them sound completely ridiculous. After a while, the whole thing gets very surreal, and transitions into more samples of Casey Kasem talking about what he can and cannot say on the radio.

That both of these tracks both discuss what can and cannot appear on the radio, and that we were not allowed to play them, and then that the whole EP was recalled were ironies not missed on us at the time.

Then, of course, the lawsuit became the basis of a lot of thinking and writing about sampling, fair use, intellectual property--and these issues are obviously still alive today.

Anyway, it turns out I was wrong when I said you could not hear these things anymore, because Negativland in 2001 released a new (legalized) album that includes both these tracks. Whereas the original EP was called "U2"--which was part of the problem as far as Island Records was concerned--the new one is called "These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit," referring to one of the derisive comments Casey Kasem made about the Irish band now known round the world. And that new album is in surprisingly wide distribution.

So now will you excuse me? I need to go order my copy of the new CD.

Look at this cool thing I found.

2009-03-06T11:12:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine, also an academic, and I like to joke about our shared tendency to have difficulty finding a thesis in our scholarship. Many stages of the work, therefore, rather than having a real argument, seem to rest on the claim: "Look at this cool thing I found." Or sometimes, two things.

If you have not already heard of Kutiman and his project Thru You, a remixing of YouTube videos to form a truly mashed-up global musical video extravaganza, go here. If that site is overwhelmed, go here. I know you might already know about this magic, because I do tend to be late to the party, but damn.

Watch them.

Me? I was mesmerized. I had to watch all of them at one sitting. I have long been a fan of remixes and mash-ups, and the way those things let you hear things in new ways. The guys at Negativland are geniuses, and back in the early 1990s they made a record combining samples from U2's The Joshua Tree and "off camera" samples of Casey Kasem into an amazing series of tracks that now you can't hear anymore because Island Records sued their asses and recalled their albums. (I have a couple tracks on a cassette, but I digress.) Then there are the likes of base58, The Evolution Control Committee, Girl Talk, and more--who know how to play with sound and similarities and listener expectations to make things that are fun, insightful, and, in many cases, worth listening to even once the novelty has worn off.

But Kutiman? Wow. He takes it, as my father would say, quoting Emeril, another notch. It's not just that he has taken crazy shit that people have posted on YouTube and combined it into excellent audio/video tracks--that also sound excellent. It's that these mash-ups somehow make you see YouTube itself in a new way.

Take Track 4, "Babylon Band," for instance. It starts out with this probably stoned dude whaling on the drums. In itself, probably the best response that video would hope for is a "Duuuuuuuuude" from someone who came across it, or maybe laughter from friends, or derision from people who think the world is going to hell. But in this track? Suddenly dude's drumline (and his hair) lead us into something more amazing than you would expect to find in your parents' basement. But even with the kid playing amazing riffs on his oud (or whatever that is) and then the darbuka that comes in with much advertisement (not false), this is not exoticized, because we also have a church organist, a horn quartet in a classroom, kids practicing the piano in their living rooms, and the guy stringing out the amazing vocals is in a lawn chair. Or the woman singing on track 5 is sitting on the floor of her living room with her baby in her lap and a playpen in the background. Some of the samples come from instructional videos and e-bay advertisements. People playing drum machines are also holding coffee cups. Musicians in pajamas with couches and dogs! So yeah, these remixes are remarkably global, but also surprisingly local, and that somehow is what makes them so amazing.

Good vibes.

2009-01-19T08:43:00.003-05:00

I have a dear friend who is dealing with some serious health stuff right now. On Tuesday, she is getting some surgery and tests done. Try to think good thoughts for her, will you?

Week Two.

2009-01-19T08:31:00.003-05:00

Short version: Swimming is still mostly feeling good, and help is on the way.

Longer version:
I still feel uninjured as I continue to try to build back into swimming regularly. I was thwarted early this week, however, by the, shall we say, inconsistent climate and temperature control in our aquatic center. At last Monday morning's 5:30 a.m. practice, the temperature inside the facility was not much warmer than outside, and sadly the water was cold too. I tried swimming anyway (I got my ass up, after all!), but after 1000 yards, I was not loosening up, and my shoulder and hamstring were feeling tight, so I called it in. When I went to the pool Tuesday evening, the water temperature had fallen by a degree, and given how things had gone Monday morning, I went home without swimming. But Wednesday's strength-training was rigorous, and Thursday evening I had a good swim. Saturday morning I had a great swim, clocking 2100 meters and even being able to do a set of 5 x 50 BA/BR descend at the end. It was at about 1500 meters that I started feeling really good--really loose and strong--and I took that as a good sign, because that is about when I used to start feeling good when I was swimming healthy.

I also managed to get in to see my physical therapist on Thursday (took some finagling to get past a receptionist hell-bent on requiring a referral, but I guess it pays to know people). He did quite a series of diagnostic tests, and even had another therapist do the same, and they agreed that the problem with my hamstring seems to be coming from tightness in the muscles of my hamstrings, hip flexors, and lower back. He has given me some stretching to do at home, and also some ab work, and when I get back from traveling this week, I'll have some regular appointments with him to work more intensively. I found that having gotten some expert opinion on this also made me feel more comfortable in the water: he said that he thought the problem may come most intensely from the way I hold my body when swimming, so I tried modifying position here and there, and I could see that that seemed right. I know, for instance, that kicking with a kickboard may make things worse, so now I do not do that.

This week's workouts will be disrupted by travel, and I even bailed on this morning's practice to save energy for the work I need to do while traveling. But I am hopeful.

First Week Back.

2009-01-09T08:22:00.003-05:00

Short version:
I am back in the pool, and back at the gym, and so far everything is holding together. The rest of this post is lots of detail re that for the purposes of documentation--feel free to skip it.

Longer version:
When I went back to swimming on Saturday (after injury, holidays, travel, more holidays), it felt great. Nothing like the rich aroma of chlorine in the morning! My coach was happy to have me back, too, which made me even more happy. We talked about how I should approach recovery this time, and he recommended more rather than fewer sessions in the pool, but with lowish yardage, gradually building up, and some kind of other physical activity on the non-swimming days. More specifically, he recommended swimming four days a week, seeing how it goes, and (I thought I heard) increasing the yardage by 50% per week. I figured I would add in my two days per week of strength training, and then a wild-card day--either a nice walk downtown or playing squash with the PP, or riding my bike, or whatever. That all sounded great to me--except for the 50% increase per week, which sounded a little over-dramatic.

I approached him about that on Tuesday night, saying that I was down with everything he suggested except the 50% increase per week. He said, "50%? That is insane. I didn't say that. I said 15%." Aha. Makes much more sense, as I was thinking that perhaps an increase of 10-20% per week would make sense. Which, of course, equals 15%. He looked at me with that look.

Anyway, here at the almost end of week one, things are feeling good. I am feeling physically tired, which is appropriate, I'd say, after stepping things up after a long period (it felt eternal, really--it had been about a month) of sitting around. My shoulder feels good--I am almost afraid to say that--like it needs strengthening but not like it is post-surgical. My leg is more or less cooperating, if I don't stress it too much. I am this week swimming about 1900 yards per practice, and that is most or all swim. Flutter kicking on its own stresses my knee, so I have to be careful not to do too much of that. Breaststroke kick is usually OK (does this seem backwards, or what? the stress point for the knee is when the joint is locked, which does not happen in BR kick--whatever), but on days when I have seen my chiropractor (like yesterday), my hips feel out of wack, and that makes the BR kick seem wrong, so I don't do it those days, since it was after a chiropractic visit that my knee freaked out before. And the strength-training days at the gym feel productive but not over-stressful. In all, great!

I am hopeful that with the year's respite from teaching, I'll be able to maintain a more regular pace, with fewer interruptions from the rest of life.

Squash.

2009-01-05T07:26:00.003-05:00

The Patient Partner took me to play squash yesterday. Yes, our small, traditional southern city has a squash club! Based on the architecture, the brightly-colored vinyl-upholstered furniture, and the sauna that connects the men's and women's locker rooms, we think it was built in the 1970s. When you come into the lobby, there is one of those Universal weight-lifting modules next to a wrap-around couch. There is a fridge stocked with beer and a brochure from when the place opened, featuring photos of enthusiastic squash players wearing surprisingly bold-colored outfits and sweatbands. You take a rickety-ass spiral staircase down to the courts, of which there are two. Up above the courts, there is a viewing area, including a couple of tables, chairs, and an ashtray.

My question is, Who said, "I know: let's invent a racquet-sport involving a ball that does not bounce!"

Seriously: Have you played squash? It is challenging to hit the ball before it goes dead, and we mostly played with the blue beginner ball, which bounces about twice as much as the yellow-dotted black competition ball. But I had a good time trying to learn to make a legal serve, without hitting the light fixtures in the ceiling.

The PP has been playing squash with our neighbor for a few months now, and for Christmas he got his very own new racquet (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Since then, he has been going over to The Club every other day or so and practicing, so that he has a pretty regular serve and can return most hits (though I did school him a few times with my kill shots). And although you know I live for swimming, there is a real pleasure in whacking a ball around, not that I was imagining that the ball represented anyone or anything in particular. Don't you know me better than that?

I only hit the ball out of the court twice, but given that it was in the same spot both times, I fear that I have a tendency. And as the session wore on, I did get better at being able to place my serve and return the ball. Perhaps this will become a nice way to vary physical activity, so that I avoid overuse of the same muscles all the time.

But let's not discuss how things went when we played with the competition ball, shall we?

Stand up and say "Hey, just a second!": 2008 Rocks.

2009-01-02T17:21:00.012-05:00

Another year, another year-ending celebratory mix disc. As I did last year, I made my mix of things I discovered this year--though not all were released this year. In this sense, it is a chronicle of my musical year, moreso than the musical year that was.

America Is Waiting
For My 2008 Mix.

Brian Eno and David Byrne, “America Is Waiting,” My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981; Nonesuch, 2006).
How did I miss this re-release in 2006? So I start my compilation with an acknowledgement that I can be woefully behind the times. So it goes! This album still sounds as incredible as it did when I first heard it on the crappy cassette deck of my first car, and even then it was already almost 10 years old. Even if you have this album on some other format, it is worth buying the CD for the liner notes’ detailing of the working process that went into making some of the most innovative music of its era. NB: sampling, in those days, was a more intuitive and analogue process. Also note the excellent vintage photos of Eno and Byrne. Those were the days.

Kassin+2, “Ponto Final,” Futurismo (Luaka Bop, 2008).
This “Samba Supergroup,” as Rolling Stone describes them, is Moreno Veloso, Domenico Lancelotti, and Alexandre Kassin, and their sound is somewhat tropical, somewhat electronic, and altogether groovarific. This disc is part of a three-part “+2” series, each disc featuring one of the band members in the title role. Kassin has has produced records by singers like Marisa Monte and Bebel Gilberto and made an album from the bleeps of a Gameboy. About this song, Kassin says, “The song has a classical theme. The singer says, ‘I don’t want you. It’s over.’ At the same time he’s singing about how he wants to be smarter, and he wants to get in shape, and he wants to have a new life. It’s about wanting what you haven’t got.”

Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich + Fussible, “Norteña del Sur,” Tijuana Sound Machine (Nacional, 2008).
While we are thinking about genre, this album's MySpace page denotes this disc as "Psychedelic/Concrete/Electronica." I personally am not clear on where the boundaries of "Concrete" end and "Psychedelic" begin, but the sound here is cool, coming out of Tijuana's electronic scene. If you know Nortec Collective, then you might recognize Bostich and Fussible from their series of Tijuana Sessions albums. Bostich and Fussible are not exactly people or bands, but rather the noms de turntable of Pepe Mogt and Ramon Amezcua. What is there not to like about this album's blend of accordions, tubas, trumpets, norteño percussion, vocoders, drum machines and synthesizers? This song will make you wish you were driving around in the car on the album's cover, instead of whatever clunker you find yourself cranking the track in.

The Cat Empire, “Fishies,” So Many Nights (Velour, 2008).

The date on this disc is 2008, but Wikipedia tells me the album was released in the band's home country of Australia in September 2007. Whatever. Dig on the horns, the blasting piano, the funky Latin beat and the great lyrics. I dare you not to dance in your car. Or wherever you are. Tie me to the mast--I must believe!

Irakere, “Bacalao con Pan,” Sí, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba, Vol. 1 (Waxing Deep, 2006).

Did you know that the revolution would come with funky son? I did not, and yet it did. But honestly, was I asleep at the wheel in 2006? Oh well--more to enjoy this year. This disc comes out of a radio program and podcast called Waxing Deep. This song, it turns out, is about cod sandwiches. Cod sandwiches--how'd you get so funky?

Amy Ray, “Cold Shoulder,” Didn’t It Feel Kinder (Daemon, 2008).

If you ever wished, while listening to the Indigo Girls, that Amy Ray would let loose with that voice and attitude of hers, then come here. Dang, but this is a perky song about how girls can treat you bad and the world can treat you worse. But that is a good combo ultimately, because you feel better after you sing along.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Nobody’s Baby,” 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone, 2007).

This is one hot R&B album. Sharon Jones has a voice that will kick your ass, and Dap-Kings can bring the funk. She did some anonymous session work early on, and sang back-up for Lee Fields on a Desco release, and toured with the Soul Providers in the 1990s until Desco collapsed in 2000. A little reshuffling produced the Dap-Kings, and this is (I think) their third album. If you don't already have this album, you need the whole thing, really you do, but let this track suffice for the sake of my mix, for which America is waiting.

The Black Exotics, “Theme of Blackbyrds,” Carolina Funk: First in Funk, 1968-1977 (Jazzman, 2008).
This album may be my favorite find of 2008--a compilation of funk tracks recorded in North and South Carolina. This particular tune was laid down at United Music World Studios in West Columbia, SC in 1975. What remains of the Black Exotics is a single extremely rare 45, and both tracks are covers. The band actally came from Macon, Georgia, but a part of the West Columbia scene. But seriously folks, this entire disc is excellent.

Gnarls Barkley, “Charity Case,” The Odd Couple (Downtown/Atlantic, 2008).

I was conflicted about whether to include this song or the second track, which I like just as well, maybe better, but I decided I wanted the more upbeat sound here in the mix. But as for this track: opening with the sound of a film projector, bouncy beat, diverse percussion--can't beat it. Given that this album was up for 4 Grammys, I doubt I need to say much, but I will note that I love how Cee-Lo Green sounds like he has some serious sinus congestion--a condition with which I can always identify.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, “Flutter and Wow,” Momofuku (Lost Highway/UMG, 2008).
Did you see Elvis when he was touring recently with Bob Dylan? Well, Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan, but really Elvis alone with his guitar stole the show before Dylan even made it to the stage. This disc, of course, is no solo venture, but this song is a great example of the beauty of his pop songs--a beauty that stands out whether he is fancilly produced or rough and solo on stage.

DeVotchka, “The Clockwise Witness,” A Mad and Faithful Telling (Anti, 2008).

Saw these folks at the Orange Peel, on a night when I was completely exhausted from my day at work, but Lands, Alive--what a show. I am sorry to say that this disc does not seem to feature the theremin, which Nick Urata played beautifully in concert, but his vocals do sometimes take on that eerie, otherworldly quality. The band's sound is very much here: starting out with the vibes, then Nick Urata's great vocals, and bowed and plucked strings. I see from wikipedia that they started out as a backing band for a burlesque show, early on touring with fetish model Dita von Teese--and that does somewhat explain the appearance during the show's encore of a magnificent aerial artist performing on two fabric sashes from the top of the stage. I wish I could somehow get her onto this disc.

Elmo Hope, “Hot Sauce,” Trio and Quintet (Blue Note, 1953, 1957/2005).
When I taught Allen Ginsberg's Howl recently, I did not quite believe it when one of my more straight-laced students said, "Could you give us a definition of 'hipster'?" I did my best, but I wish I could have had this album along. This disc is brings together three separate previous releases and a few tracks originally only on Blue Note compilations--and it is good news for us all. The track in question is from Elmo Hope Trio, which means Hope on the piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on the drums.

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, “Stardust,” Two Men with the Blues (Blue Note, 2008).

I hope you don't mind my transitioning from the jumping "Hot Sauce" into Dan Nimmer's peaceful piano opening of "Stardust." I probably would not have thought to bring Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson together, but really, the result is pretty cool.

NoCrows, “Five 2 Six – El Trencaclosques,” Magpie (Crows, 2008).

I saw this band perform in Sligo, Ireland, and what a show. The foursome is Steve Wickham on the fiddle (you may know him from The Waterboys), Anna Houston alternating between cello and mandolin, Felip Carbonell on guitar, and Eddie Lee on the double bass. This track was written by Carbonell, a way of remembering the sounds of Spain (from where he hails) in Ireland. The second part of the title means "The Jigsaw Puzzle" in Catalan, and the first part refers to how the tune alternates between 5/8 and 6/8 time.

Siba, “Vale do Juca,” What’s Happening in Pernambuco: New Sounds of the Brazilian Northeast (Luaka Bop, 2008).

The sticker attached to this album's wrapping said, "If you only buy one disc this year of music from Northeaster Brazil, make it this one." It is a great compilation, with a great deal of range, as different traditions blend and stand out. Siba was a founding member of Mestre Ambrósio, who dug up the old traditions of the sertão to bring them into contemporary music. The valley of Juca, according to the footnote in the liner notes, "is an imaginary place symbolizing the space where our ancestors still live and breathe."

Once upon a path

Amost without footprints

Where leaves serenaded

so many sunrises.

Once upon a road

Many crooked turns

How many passages and doors

Were hiding there?

It was a row without beginning or end

And my grandparents planted

the flowers in this garden.

Vampire Weekend, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” Vampire Weekend (XL, 2008).

By contrast, Vampire Weekend are American Indy pop, out of New York, and though Christian Lander might call them "the whitest band," they do cool things with the Afrobeat sound to ask, "Is the bed made?" Apparently Peter Gabriel has expressed interest in covering the song, but the jury is out over what he'll do with the lyric, "It feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too." Urban legend? Maybe. But it's a good story anyway.

Tinariwen, “Chatma,” Amassakoul (World Village, 2004).

This song comes from Tinariwen's second album, whose title means "Traveller." The members of this group are Tuareg people, the nomadic pastoralist inhabitants of the Saharan interior, and they play in the Tichumaren style--whose name comes from the French word chomeur, or "the unemployed"--meaning that the music centers around the sounds of the electric guitar. Historically, the style of music come into being at a time when long drought had forced many Tuareg people to seek other ways of life in urban centers, where their lack of education often left them unemployed. The call and response on this track is hypnotic, and it is tempting to read it in dialogue with African-American worksongs of the southeastern USA.

Galactic, f. Mr. Lif, “. . .And I’m Out,” From the Corner to the Block (Anti, 2007).

This disc came out the middle of 2007, but what can I say? I make up for lateness with enthusiasm. Galactic--originally Galactic Prophyllactic--come from New Orleans, and their sound is a dose of jazz and a lot of funk. This album has an array of alternative hip-hop MCs providing vocals. On this track we have Mr. Lif of solo and Perceptionists fame.

Juaneco y su Combo, “Linda Nena,” The Roots of Chicha (Barbès, 2007).

As its subtitle tells us, this album compiles "Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru," recorded between 1968 and 1978. Originally "chicha" is a corn drink made in the Andes for millennia, and though it is made from fermented maize, it exists in mildly alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions. But musically, cumbia is "a lower version of cumbia," "more popular with the lower social class." Translated? Cheap keyboards, low-end guitar effects, and surf music with the guitar replaced by accordion. The album's liner notes call Juaneco, formed in Pucallpa in 1966, "the most mythical of all Amazonia bands," as they claimed Shipibo Indian lineage, dressed in traditional costumes, and wrote songs about the clash of tradition and urbanization. In 1976, most of the band died in a plane crash, though their leader Juan Wong Paredes lived to 2004. Now the band still tours under the direction of his grandson, Mao Wong.

Ben Folds, “Free Coffee,” Way to Normal (Epic, 2008).

When I was in graduate school, my roommate was often confused by my eclectic mixes, and she would often ask, "What is the segue here?" Well, here it is thematic. Both the last song and this song deal with the ways that modern life can shock the hell out of us. Both are a little psychedelic though each of its historical moment and region of origin. Ben Folds is the king of break-up songs, hails from North Carolina, and usually plays the piano. Here you almost lose that keyboard under the other layers of synthetic hooha--but that's perfect given the singer's confusion, which is a lot like that described in "Once in a Lifetime," but overlaid with stardom:

Called in sick one day

Stepped out my front door

Squinted up at the sky

And strapped on my backpack

Got into a van

And when I returned I had

Ex-wives and children

Boxes of photographs

And they gave me some food

And they didn't charge me

And they gave me some coffee

But they didn't charge me

And when I was broke I needed more

But now that I'm rich they give me coffee

Kíla, “Ríl Rossa (5:30 a.m.),” Handel’s Fantasy (Kíla, 1992).

I discoveredDublin-based Kíla this summer in a pub near Trinity College, where I was staying. The pub in question had become my favorite rather quickly, as the food was good (and served at the dinner hour--not always true) and not too expensive (also a big deal for Dublin), the pints were well-pulled, and the atmosphere was small and cozy, though I never had a problem finding a place to sit. One night I was in there for my Guinness and stew, and the barman was playing Kíla. The table of Canadians next to me asked him to change it out for "some real Irish music." "But this is the best band in Ireland!" he replied, before agreeing to follow their request. I managed to track him down for some disc recommendations. Their sound is not as purely Celtic as this track would lead you to believe--indeed they fuseIrish and Eastern European sounds--and they have recently released an album recorded with Japanese singer Oki. This is only a small flute frenzy evoking the several albums of theirs that I came home with.

R.E.M., “I’m Gonna DJ,” Accelerate (Warner Brothers, 2008).

Did you see R.E.M. play on The Colbert Report? Had I not, I might not have gone out and bought this disc, but it has spent a lot of time riding around in my car stereo, and the more I have listened, the more it has grown on me. Besides, politically it was a great soundtrack for the last months of the Bush regime. A number of tracks on here have already made it onto my mixes in 2008, even though most of those have been themed, and centered around politics. Who knew that "Houston" would be so apt again this year? And all that? But this last track sums up some of my own ambitions--and what a way to end the mix.

That was 2008, y'all. Ready for 2009?

Resolve.

2009-01-01T08:32:00.003-05:00

Happy 2009. I am so finished with 2008, except that I need to go back and assess my resolutions for that year. As usual, it was a mixed bag, emphasis on bag.

1. Begin getting back into shape. I guess I did this, and then I experienced more set-backs, and I got a little frustrated from time to time, and I took some time off here and there, but I did keep better perspective, I think. This year I also began strength training as a part of my exercise regime. I have continued swimming and doing my rehab exercises. I wish I could say I had achieved more exercise volume, but I guess that was not the goal.

2. Keep working at nipping the solitaire addiction. I am so over solitaire. In its place, for much of the fall, I had a serious addiction to political blogs, but I am over those now too, at least for the time being. I wish I could claim that the same were true for PathWords and WordTwist on Facebook, but I suppose we all have our weaknesses. One thing I learned was that the solitaire addiction was less about not being able not to play solitaire, and more about being afraid to do more substantive things with my time. Lame, I know, but there it is.

3. Stretch. Check.

4. Learn to knit complicated cables. Not really check, mostly because my knitting interests went elsewhere. Instead, I learned to do stranded colorwork, and that is extremely cool.

5. Learn to turn the heel of a sock. Check. Since January 2008, I have completed six pairs of socks.

6. Remember how far I have come. Wow. I was really smart back in January 2008. But seriously, I am getting better at this. It is still a battle not to look back at the "before" pictures (literal and figurative), but mostly I am succeeding.

And now, for 2009:

1. Continue bringing the body back to strength. I think this year this means prioritizing exercise, continuing to pursue methods of balancing my body (chiropractic, yoga, and perhaps, as Scott wisely suggested, Alexander Technique), continuing my stretching regime, and cross-training.

2. Be aware of the need for work/life, mental/physical, professional/social, knitting/everything-else balances. This will be especially important this year, because I have a year-long fellowship to pursue my research. (Whoop!) I know that under such circumstances, I tend to become overly hermit-like, living so much in my head that I lose touch with other people, and then start to feel sad.

3. Take on knitting challenges. This year--in addition to learning how to knit with two hands, felt, turn a heel, work kitchener stitch--I learned how to pick up dropped stitches, rip back without a life line, and give up on a project that was not working. I am proud of these accomplishments, and in addition to adding skills to my kit, they have made me less hesitant to try new things. As I look back over the year's finished objects (3 baby hats, 7 adult hats, 2 Fair Isle ear wraps, 2 pairs of mittens, 3 lace shawls, 1 ribbon scarf, 1 felted bowl, 6 pairs of socks, 6 dish cloths, 1 sweater vest, and 1 beer cozy), I also think about the sweater vest that did not turn out at all, and that really is not salvagable, and that I will just need to rip out and make something else from the yarn. So it goes. I tried, and it did not work. Keep trying.

4. Finish the book. This, after all, is the point of the fellowship, and it is, I believe attainable.

5. In pursuance of #4, say "NO" to garbage professional requests that I do not really care about anyway. 'Nuff said.

6. Continue remembering how far I have come. That was a wise one--let's see if it can keep working.

Happy New Year, everyone!

That time of year.

2008-12-13T07:05:00.002-05:00

Yes, friends, it is that time of year when we all have too many things on our plate. How to deal? How about with this fun quiz?

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Sorceror Control is the name of your game. You are a studied tactician and scientist and you seek a kingdom where things make sense, damn the morals, even if you have to create it. You are cold, calm and calculating.
Cthulu Spawn
Werewolf
Demon
Vampire
Incubus/Succubus
Ghost
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Please believe me that I am falling apart.

2008-12-08T08:19:00.003-05:00

I was looking back through posts from last winter, and I see that I was bothered then by many of the same things that are bothering me now—a bigger body than I’d like, a body that won’t cooperate with my desire and need to exercise, a body trying hard to recover from injury, a body that has asked me to slow the hell down so that it might try to heal. I see that my New Year's Resolutions from this past January even set more limited goals, exercise-wise, since I didn't want to go crazy with the expectations.

Last year I expected this, since I had just had surgery. I really thought that by this year I might not be feeling this way. I know that those kinds of thoughts do me in, those kinds of expectations, but they sneak their way in there before I realize it, and then I have to extricate them.

I am not complaining about my shoulder. In fact, I am trying hard not to complain. It is just that the left side of my body seems to be part of an organized revolution of some kind. Things started with that shoulder, of course. Then randomly one day, I had a blind spot in the center of my left field of vision—kind of like I had looked at a bright light, but it has never gone away. Then this summer while I was in London, my left hamstring got really tight, and no amount of stretching would help. (Mind you, this cannot be a sports injury, because all I was doing at that time was sitting in the British Library for hours on end, and walking to and from the British Library. Well, and Bollywood dancing, but I digress.) That hamstring pain came and went during the fall, but got worse in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, to the point where it even hurt to kick while I swam.

My coach, knowing how the pain started, suggested that I try a chiropractic adjustment. I went to see the chiropractor last week, and he asked, “Has your left shoulder always been lower than your right?” I said no, and told him the whole Shoulder Surgery Massacree, with four-part harmony, and he said, “Bless your heart,” southern U.S. code for “Your life sucks but I’d hate to say so.” He also suggested that until I see how these adjustments affect my spine, that I not do any strength training, though swimming would be fine.

Anyway, he has done some splendid crackly adjustments on my back, neck, and hips, trying to get things straightened out. But then on Wednesday of last week I went to the pool after seeing him, and as I was kicking—but not even particularly hard—I felt some kind of irksome but not particularly traumatic snap in my—you guessed it—left knee, which then got more and more painful. So after a ridiculously short swim, I got out, took a shower and went home, befuddled, and did a lot of icing.

I mean, exactly what kind of exercise can I do? Nothing that overtaxes my shoulder. Nothing that makes my hamstring or knee hurt. Nothing that might affect my spine.

That leaves . . . knitting.

Which I have been doing a lot of.

But it ain’t swimming. Or walking. Or rowing. Or cycling. Or lifting weights.

Have you tired yet of my now seemingly endless tales of exercise woes?

On Friday the PP noted that his mother and sister are getting themselves a Wii fit for Christmas, and he suggested we consider getting one. I told him maybe, but first let me put in a plea to Magpie, who is giving one away.

Will it change my life? I don’t know. I love games, and maybe having some little active games that we can play in the cold weather that still get the blood pumping would be fun. (Probably can’t knit while playing, though, without risking bodily harm to myself or the PP.) But hey—at this point I am willing to try anything!

In which I am a dumbass.

2008-11-24T14:29:00.003-05:00

So I was working out with my trainer today, and she mentioned that there at the gym they are doing this Reindeer Olympics thing, where you put together a team to compete in an array of events, including push-ups, crunches, leg-presses, some running distances, etc. One of the events is 500 meters of rowing on the ergometer, and we got talking about that, and thinking about times, and talking about her time in the event (she was a rower in high school), and before you knew it I was wanting to see how fast I could do the 500 meters.

One minute and fifty point two seconds later, I had beaten her time from last week but I thought I might die. No really, I mean it. I walked a few laps, I got some water, but I could not stop breathing hard and tasting blood from my lungs. She reassured me that she had felt this bad when she did it, too, but she also felt horrible for letting me be, well, such a dumb-ass. Then I spent a little quality time in the ladies room feeling like I might throw up. Anyone with half a brain would not have thought, as I did, about what I could do back when I was in shape, but would rather have remembered how out of cardio shape I am. But no, I was READY! And foolish.

The good news is that erging feels like something I could do for a full-body workout that does not bother my shoulder and also does not strain my hamstring, which has been hurting lately.*

The bad news is that I still feel like coughing every time I inhale suddenly.

But the really good news? The first minute and a half or so of that rowing was the most fun I have had in about two years. Damn, but it felt good to race.

------
* Before you ask, "What did you do to your hamstring?" the answer is: nothing. It started hurting when I was in England this summer, and at that time all I was doing was walking and sitting.

Book Report: Warrior Girls.

2008-11-21T07:43:00.006-05:00

Last weekend, the PP gave me my favorite birthday gift so far (even more than the yarn, in terms of enjoyment so far!), Michael Sokolove's Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports. Even though it is That Time of the Semester and I have been knitting up a storm, I have almost finished this book: I have about 50 pages to go, which means I am entering the Protective Phase of reading, where instead of racing along in a book I am enjoying, I slow down, so it does not end too soon.

But the fact that I have not finished it will not keep me from writing about it for you today. What? You never wrote a book report about a book you had not finished? I thought so.

Anyway, you might have come across this guy's writing in other places, such as the big NYTimes magazine article last May. I also heard him interviewed on a nationally syndicated public radio show called "51%," which focuses on women's issues.

His book focuses primarily on soccer to discuss (1) the fact that girls suffer more sports injuries--especially but not exclusively ACL tears--than boys and (2) what might be done to prevent these injuries, short of pulling girls out of sports.

I really appreciate that he makes a big point of noting how beneficial sports and physical activity are for girls. He emphasizes this point throughout the book, noting in numerous ways how essential Title IX has been. I suppose he does this in part to fend off critique from people who might accuse him of denigrating women in sport in suggesting that women's bodies work differently from men's. But mostly he says it because he believes it. He talks frequently of how important sport--swimming--has been for his own daughter, and he seems to make similar observations of other women and girls through his research. He writes at one point:

Girls, through sports, gain the joy of physicality and spirited play that has long been the staple of a boy's childhood. They get to compete in a wide range of sports through high school and college, no longer just field hockey and softball and a handful of others, and they play the games well--better, in fact, than the boys if the measure of quality is team play. Girls indulge in far less posturing than boys, less look-at-me chest beating, less taunting of opponents. Athletics help shape girls into women who are both competitive and collaborative, a formidable combination that most management experts now recognize as the best model of leadership. They take ownership of their own bodies. They go after what they want. Their strength gives them power.

He also writes about how women tend to describe their athletic performance differently. He tells the story of the "Battle of the Sexes" between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. He tells how King beat Riggs in straight sets, and then considers her response:

Depending on how you looked at it, either King affirmed some point about women's abilities in athletics or she avoided leaving a negative impact, which seemed to be her view. "I thought it would set us back fifty years if I didn't win that match," King said. "It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self-esteem."

Her reaction was telling. Female athletes, even mature, confident champions like King, rarely gloat in victory. They're just relieved they haven't let anyone down.

Much of the book is dedicated to case studies of high-performing athletic girls, pretty much all of them soccer players. He discusses how they pursue their sport during secondary school, looking not just at the characters of these young athletes but also at the sports culture surrounding them--a culture that through its urging to focus on one sport to the exclusion of other activities and its opening of more opportunities for competition than a body can really endure actually breaks their bodies down rather than making them stronger.

[I hereby apologize for the length of that last sentence, but it is my blog and I am leaving it there.]

Sokolove notes that many of these girls suffer one ACL tear after another, yet keep playing. Most ACL "repairs" are really replacements: the destroyed ligament is replaced with tissue from other tendons in the athlete's own body or from cadaverous ACL tissue. The injuries do not make these girls consider quitting their sport until there is no more tissue to use for replacements, until they have usually busted out both knees and usually more than once.

Sokolove devotes a good bit of attention to work that is being done to figure out why girls tear their ACLs at eight times the rate boys do, and why the activity that causes the tear is often so much less intense. Is it a question of how girls' bodies develop at puberty? Girls' wider Q-angles, the measurement of the line from knee to hip? The way they run? The way they land when they jump? The laxity in all their joints that is a side-effect of the need of female bodies to be able to adjust to carrying a baby to term? That athletic girls tend to work "through the pain" more often and longer in order to avoid being called cry-babies? Or some combination of all or many of these things?

The book is a great read, particularly if you are interested in sport culture, injuries, and what it means to grow up as a girl. (Who, me?)

There are a few things, though, that I wish he treated in greater detail. For instance, thinking back to that first paragraph I quoted above, about what girls gain from sports: if sports are so good for girls, and give them a way to negotiate a wider culture that seems constantly to argue that as a woman you never fully have ownership of your own body--or at least of the demands placed upon it--then what happens to injured girls (and women) when they suddenly lose the ability to claim their bodies through sport?

And this: One chapter opens with these two sentences that had me saying (but not quite in the spirit of Molly Bloom) YES YES YES: "A young woman who suffers a serious athletic injury respond in an intensely personal way and has a limited capacity for reflection or self-protection. She is in pain--physical as well as emotional, because she has lost the thing she loves--and her response is to rehab as quickly as possible and get back on the field."

And then that's it, and he is on to the rehabbing. But wait: what about the very important points that preceded the second dash. Is that all there is to say? No insight into ways that a young woman might learn or be taught to manage this pain and sense of loss? In a book devoted to considering how to protect our daughters from this epidemic, might some attention be devoted to helping them manage the illness once they have contracted it?

And finally, I wish there were room in here for thinking about other sports and other injuries. I know that soccer offers the most dramatic example, because so many girls play it these days and because the injury percentage is so extreme. But what about injuries in other sports? Sokolove frequently mentions his own daughter, a swimmer, and how she managed pretty well in her sport with the exception of "one major injury" that cost her a full season. I can well understand why he would not want to write his daughter's own story--or why she might not want him to--but as an injured swimmer I am starving for that story. And given that there must be other injured girls and women out there who have hurt themselves doing something that is not soccer, I am certain that I am not alone.

I suppose what I am really saying here is not that these are problems with Sokolove's book, which focuses on the dramatic examples in order to make people pay attention, but rather that I hope that Sokolove's book opens an avenue for further discussion of these issues.

But you already knew this.

2008-11-21T07:26:00.003-05:00

From here via here:

Blogging against type?

2008-11-20T12:09:00.005-05:00

No, I am not finally coming out with a diatribe against font and print. Rather, thanks to this link, I visited a site which claims to (with surprising speed!) be able to analyze the type of a person who keeps a particular blog. Here were my results:

The analysis indicates that the author of http://furyblog.blogspot.com/ is of the type:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves. The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

The fact that this description really does not match me at all leaves me with a few alternatives:

1. The Typealyzer is absolute shite.

2. The me that writes this blog is not the dominant me. This is possible, since the blog is more about hobbies than work, more about free-time than driven time, more about mental meandering than getting things done, more about hanging out than dishing it out in meetings (where some of my colleagues have called me "fascistic"--unfairly, I would argue)--that kind of thing. I do tend to think that even in this blog I come across as more anti-social than this profile would suggest. . . .

Sorry to get all navel-gazing on you, but it is shocking to be so misunderstood.

The world is changing.

2008-11-16T21:46:00.001-05:00

(via)

The McCain campaign stole this song from Heart. We're stealing it back.

2008-11-05T11:33:00.004-05:00

HOT DAMN.

For once, the election interfered with my sleep in a GOOD way.

I admit it: I had a hard time staying awake through all the returns. So when I woke up and my friends told me that AP was calling Florida for Obama, and Virginia, and and and THE ELECTION? Well, I thought I might be dreaming. I rubbed my eyes a lot. John McCain's concession speech made me wonder if he had been body-unsnatched, as he sounded like the guy who I thought would be an OK president when he won the nomination, back before he chose Sarah Palin, and "suspended" his campaign and on and on.

When I was setting my alarm for the morning, I turned on the radio just in time to hear Barack Obama's acceptance speech--and cried. Can you believe this?

What a day this is. Everything looks different this morning.

Time for a new mix, and this one is about victory. Hot damn. But with a caveat: Track #18 hopes that voters in California, Arkansas, Florida, and Arizona won't always be haters.

I feel like taking all my clothes off, dancing to the Rite of Spring, and I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing. . . .

OH YEAH.
1. [the White House] by George Clinton
2. "Dancing in the Street" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
3. "Finally" by Ce Ce Peniston
4. "I Feel Better Than James Brown" by Was (Not Was)
5. "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" by the Pet Shop Boys
6. "New Feeling" by Talking Heads
7. "Funky Party Time" by the J.D.'s
8. "I'm So Happy (Tra-La-La-La-La-La)" by Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords
9. "Of Thee I Sing" by ??
10. "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" by R.E.M.
11. "IF you don't get it the first time, back up and try it again, Party" by Fred Wesley and the JBs
12. "Good Day, Sunshine" by the Beatles
13. "Good Times" by Chic
14. "Paragraph Persident" by Blackalicious, f. De La Soul
15. "Oh Yeah" by Yello
16. "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" by ZZ Topp
17. "If you want to sing out, sing out" by Cat Stevens
18. "Go West" by the Village People
19. "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles

Come on, come on down, Sweet Virginia.

2008-11-04T16:16:00.004-05:00

Oh hell. I thought that once this day arrived, everything would be fine. But now I am here to tell you that the time I had counted down to has arrived, I have voted, and I am still nervous as hell, despite estaminet's brilliant Lolbama.

And do you feel scared? I do, but I won't stop and falter.

I have been reading stories about voting, and my gosh what a sucker for them I am. I love to read about the lines, the voters, the witticisms, the new voters, the old voters, the amazing feeling so many of us have had to be voting this year.

The poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go.

But still: it is about three hours before polls start closing here in the east, and then another four hours before the west coast closes.

We are hoping, yes and we're praying. . . .

Is there seriously enough whiskey in this world to calm my nerves?

I feel so extraordinary
Something's got a hold on me
I get this feeling I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty

So I am doing what I do when I cannot do anything else.

One step closer to knowing. . . .

No, I mean besides playing Word Twist on facebook. I have made a mix:

YOU FASCISTS ARE BOUND TO LOSE.
1. a clip from Parliament
2. "This Time" by INXS
3. "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Jones
4. "House of Hope" by Toni Childs
5. "Getting Better" by the Beatles
6. "Something's Coming" by the original cast of West Side Story
7. "Don't Worry About the Government" by Talking Heads
8. "True Faith" by New Order
9. "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Billy Bragg
10. "Hope" by Fat Freddy's Drop
11. "Message to Society" by Wally Coco
12. "Freedom" by Jurassic Five
13. a clip from Laurie Anderson
14. "High Time for a Detour" by k. d. lang and the Reclines
15. "Freedom for My People" by U2
16. "People Get Ready" by Eva Cassidy
17. "Super Good" by Dynamite Singletary
18. "Think" by Aretha Franklin
19. "Sweet Virginia" by the Rolling Stones
20. "One Step Closer" by U2
21. "All You Fascists" by Billy Bragg and Wilco

NOTE: This is not a victory mix. This is a hope mix.

I voted.

2008-11-04T15:04:00.010-05:00

It took me one hour and forty minutes to get through the line, but I voted. Sure, I live in a state where my vote likely won't make a difference, but I voted. In my precinct, there was a vast disenfranchisement campaign against people whose last names begin with L-Z, but I voted.

I figure the good turn-out--nay, the best turn-out I have ever seen in these parts by the longest of shots--is good news, because as I walked through my precinct to the polls, I saw this:

Notice that that last house is so excited about Obama that they have 2 signs!

As I was taking these pictures, a guy walking down the street started yelling at me: "Hey lady! Are you out taking pictures today?"

Me: "Yes!"

GWDTS: "Take a picture of me!"

Me: "Really I am taking pictures of Obama signs. Did you vote?"

GWDTS: "Yes!" [I think he may have been lying.]

Me: "I think he has a real shot at winning."

GWDTS: "Well, we sure need a change!" [I revise my opinion about whether he voted.]

We could not get a sign, but we did commission our nextdoor neighbors' kids to make us one:

There is one house in our neighborhood that has had a BARR/ROOT sign in their yard for a long time, but recently they added another:

Is this a house divided? A conflicted voter? Is someone settling?

Standing in line at the polls was kind of a party. Everybody was surprised to see lines this long, or at all, since that never happens here. Besides, something like 12% of the registered voters in SC had already voted. There were two lines, depending on whether your last name started with A-K or L-Z, and the latter was far longer--too bad for me, because I am not registered as "Isis." By coincidence, I arrived at the polls about 2 minutes after the PP, so we waited in line together. We saw at least a dozen of our neighbors. When I got to the line, a neighbor who is a part of the A-K elite was just realizing that he could leave our long line for the shorter line, and he finished voting about an hour before us, including the time he spent standing around and chatting afterwards with the likes of us. He claimed that the A-K people are smarter and actually control the world, or at least the election commission. I pointed out that some other friends of ours, who had voted earlier that morning, and are also a part of the A-K bloc, had found their line disproportionately long. So now we figure that the A-K people just tend to get up earlier.

There were signs everywhere about how you cannot wear political attire or carry political banners into the polling places, or attempt to influence people's votes there. The PP wondered whether, since trying to influence my vote would be futile, there might be an exception. I asked him to please note that the sign did not distinguish between futile or promising attempts.

There was no one on the ballot for Soil and Water Commissioner--yes, no one--so we had thought yesterday about writing in the PP so he could take the job. But then he realized that it might be a bigger job than he would want, so we decided to write in a neighbor who is also a water guy. I decided today that the PP would just be too good not to try to elect him. I guess we were inside the polling place (still waiting in the L-Z sign-in line) by the time he asked me who I was voting for and I told him him. He said no, I was supposed to vote for our neighbor, but I told him to back off since it was illegal for him to try to influence my vote inside the polling place.

I suppose given how long the wait was that it was no surprise how many cranky children there were inside the polling place. I came to suspect that the one screaming child was actually giving voice to all of our fatigue, frustration, and sore backs. But as this screaming child was wheeled out the door in its pram, the PP asked, "Why does that child hate freedom?"

There was a bit of a scare at one point because the polling place ran out of "I voted" stickers. We had already been waiting about an hour and twenty minutes by this point, so we really wanted our damn stickers, because why would you vote except to get a sticker? But luckily they found some more, so by the time I actually had voted, I got my little sticker.

I cannot even explain to you how much I love voting. There have certainly been other years in which I really really really wanted my guy to win, but man oh man THIS year I really want it. Like, a LOT. But it is not just that: I am a big sucker for democracy. I believe in giving a voice to everyone, whether they do the work to be informed or not. I love seeing people come out to vote. And this year, I loved seeing older and disabled voters still getting themselves to the polls to vote in this historic election. I got a chill when I cast my vote. And I am still proudly wearing my sticker.

Let me buy the next round (or why I am voting for Obama).

2008-11-02T09:29:00.006-05:00

If you read Thomas Friedman in the NYT this morning, you know that, in keeping with the editorial principles of the paper, he is not offering an endorsement. Rather he lays out three things to look for in a candidate:

1. We need a president who can speak English and deconstruct and navigate complex issues so Americans can make informed choices.

2. We need a president who can energize, inspire and hold the country together during what will be a very stressful recovery.

3. We need a president who can rally the world to our side.

I agree with him, though I expect that the opinions page editors are probably savvy enough to read between the lines of his "non-endorsement."

But then he says something else: "Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with (unless it’s to get stone cold drunk so you don’t have to think about this mess we’re in). Vote for the person you’d most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage."

I started out agreeing with this too, but as I read it aloud to the PP, I changed my mind about the first sentence. The more I thought about it, the more I really, really, really wanted to sit down over pints with Barack Obama. After all, he is an incredibly smart man, and what is more fun than talking about complicated issues with intelligent people? Who really know their stuff? And are very articulate? Furthermore, I expect he'd have one of those wry senses of humor that recognizes what a remarkable mess we find ourselves in, but still retains a glimmer of optimism that there is a way out. And I imagine that talking college hoops with him would be a blast, even if he is not a Heels fan.

Which is to say that we love to imagine the entire electorate as uninformed, uneducated, and afraid of smart people. (Certainly this is not entirely wrong, or the Karl Roves and Sarah Palins of the world would not be so successful.) But if Thomas Jefferson is right that democracy needs an informed electorate, then can't those of us who are trying our darnedest have our little pub-crawling fantasies? In mine, Barack Obama blends into Ciaran Carson, the Belfast poet who I had drinks with this summer (I know--cool, isn't it?) and who, late in the evening, sang two traditional Irish ballads, silencing the pub. And also, Obama is no more able than I am to refuse the increasingly rhetorical arguments of my drinking mates, who have been known to claim, after several rounds of Midleton, that if we do not have one more 15-year-old Bushmills, then we will be undoing the hard work of the Protestant Reformation. And when people get going reciting poetry, Obama listens attentively, and applauds his compatriots, and then when it is his turn he lets loose with some Philip Larkin or Ai or Robert Hass or Lucille Clifton or Sherman Alexie. From time to time he checks the scores on the TVs in the bar, but not at the expense of the banter around him.

In other words, yes, I want the smartest people possible leading our country--regardless of whether I think they would be interesting to know personally. In this case, though, I am not sure these categories are mutually exclusive. And is it so much to ask that there be smart people around to talk to, hang out with, end sentences with prepositions about? I would hate to distract Obama from the issues of state by keeping him out late at the pubs, but from time to time, I would sure love to buy him a pint.

SAFF.

2008-10-27T11:45:00.011-04:00

Last weekend was the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, outside Asheville, NC. A friend and I braved the cold and damp (and raining--and guess which goddess forgot her raincoat. . .) to go.

You have never seen color and texture sensory overload like that of a giant livestock arena filled with yarn. And fleece for spinning. And spinning wheels. And books and needles. And knitted garments. And more and more and more yarn. Man.

We took a Fair Isle knitting class. I had never done that kind of color work before, where you work two (or more) different colors in one row of knitting. Which means that you have to figure out how to manage two different lines of yarn without tangling them together into a giant woolen mess. The principal technique for this is holding one color in one hand and one in the other. This meant that I learned to knit with my left hand, which felt very strange at first, but I did get comfortable. (And Mom: you are so right that left-handed knitting is faster, or would be for someone good at it.)

I have never taken a knitting class before, and it really was striking how much you can learn--and how quickly--from another person instead of a book. My friend learned, for instance, that she had been twisting her knit stitches all these years. Now that she knows how to knit without twisting, she can work much more quickly and her work tends to look more like the pattern--and her fabric is more stretchy.

Our class took place in pen #1, which we came to call the Fair Isle pen:

This is what we made:

Right now it is just a knitted tube, but once I finish it, it will be a headband. That requies sewing, though, which is not my favorite phase of any project.

There were an array of animals, too--alpacas, llamas, various breeds of sheep and goats. I did not get any alpaca photos, because their barn was a little dark for no-flash photography, but here are some llamas:

If you remember what alpacas look like, you might recognize a resemblance, but notice that these beasts are a bit larger and have very different ears.

There were a number of Jacob sheep (less blurry in real life--but notice the four horns):

as well as angora goats (source of mohair):

and more sheep:

Who could resist all that baaing?

I did come home with a bit of booty:

That is sport-weight wool on the left, spun and dyed by folks who raise Corriedales. It will be used in my next Fair Isle project. And on the right, hand-spun undyed Jacob wool. Ah, the possibilities!

Altogether quite the experience. I can hardly wait for next year.

All you Fascists.

2008-10-03T08:29:00.001-04:00

As Andrew Sullivan said, "A pretty amazing speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. To see a white union man take on racism this way is very moving. Something truly profound could happen in this election, if we want it to."

Why modernism makes better citizens.

2008-10-02T11:30:00.006-04:00

"Properly, we shd. read for power. Man reading shd. be man intensely alive. The book shd. be a ball of light in one's hand."

--Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur

"When you are at school and learn grammar grammar is very exciting. I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagraming sentences. I suppose other things may be more exciting to others when they are at school but to me undoubtedly when I was at school the really completely exciting thing was diagraming sentences and that has been to me ever since the one thing that has been complete exciting and completely completing. I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.
In that way one is completely possessing something and incidentally one's self."

--Gertrude Stein, "Poetry and Grammar"

“I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.”

--Sarah Palin (via)

UPDATE: Here is the actual source of the image above.

Twisted Sister.

2008-09-30T09:31:00.001-04:00

Because today (is it only Tuesday?) may be one of those days where you need to laugh as much as I do, I am passing along a tidbit from The Onion, sent to me by a dear friend who always comes through in such times as these.

When popular icons failed.

2008-09-29T17:56:00.003-04:00

Ever have one of those days where, no matter how hard you try, it is just a little hard to concentrate? Where there is some nagging feeling back there in the background somewhere, and it just kind of interferes with everything? Where you think maybe you have suddenly developed hypertension? And you look around and wonder just how dramatically things could change--and how fast?

Yeah, me too.

So late this afternoon, when I could watch the Dow pretending it had an "n" affixed to the end of its name, I did what any person does when they are trying to hold onto their sanity.

I made a mix.

I sort of doubt I would get copies made in time for it to resonate for you the way it does for me (though I am happy to try if you like), so here it is:

"When popular icons failed (9/29/2008)"
1. Sting, "Jeremiah Blues, Pt. 2"
2. The Boomtown Rats, "Banana Republic"
3. R.E.M., "Houston"
4. Propellerheads f. Shirley Bassey, "History Repeating"
5. Blackalicious, "Sky Is Falling"
6. Billy Bragg & Wilco, "All You Fascists"
7. J.U.F., "Panic So Charming (What the Fuck Style)"
8. U2, "Bullet the Blue Sky"
9. They Might Be Giants, "Lie Still, Little Bottle"
10. Paul Simon, "Gumboots"
11. The Story, "When Two and Two Are Five"
12. Barenaked Ladies, "Who Needs Sleep?"
13. Midnight Oil, "When the Generals Talk"
14. Mr. Lif, "Home of the Brave"
15. Laurie Anderson, "Walking and Falling"
16. Ani DiFranco, "'Tis of Thee"
17. Judy Collins, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime"
18. Nick Lowe, "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass"
19. The Rolling Stones, "19th Nervous Breakdown"
20. Paul Simon, "American Tune"
21. Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"

(I apologize for the duplication of Paul Simon and Billy Bragg, but hey: it is my mix.)

Domestic crisis update: Situation contained.

2008-09-26T07:36:00.002-04:00

Yesterday magpie concluded: "At least your mouse is out of the house. But your cats are slackers."

Too true!

Or so I thought.

When I went to feed Sazha this morning, in the little room where she likes to nap and has recently been getting fed (I know, but when we made her eat downstairs, she hardly ate anything before Jacques Monod came to try to take her food, and as a result she was wasting away), I found a dead mouse.

I do not know if this is the same mouse from Wednesday (please--let it be true!), but given that JM never comes in that room, I have to conclude that the obliteration of this enemy combatant was Sazha's work.

Nice work, Sazha!

And here is why you should never get rid of your old vinyl. I covered the bugger with a plastic container, slid my copy of Zenyatta Mondatta underneath, and took the corpse to the disposal unit.

Case closed?

Domestic Crisis Update: Situation averted.

2008-09-25T08:09:00.003-04:00

You will be relieved to know that although the rodent situation in my house had been nearing catastrophe, I am not suspending this blog, nor will I keep from teaching class today or (gods-willing) grading the papers I have on my desk.

I am sorry to report, however, that the support from Congress, I mean the cats, was not quite what I would have hoped for. Sure, Sazha did a great job of herding the mouse into my study, where it could disrupt my workday. Then Jacques Monod did manage to corner it behind the file cabinet for several hours. But when I tried to use a broom to flush the mouse out into her awaiting gray claw-adorned paws, she ran away and no amount of explanation on my part could convince her that I was not aiming the broom at her. Then, when she trapped the mouse between the screen door and wooden door to the front of the house, she just smelled it.

Frankly, I had expected better.

I mean, two weeks ago, when the PP and I took the cats in for their annual shots etc., Jacques Monod was a holy terror. It finally took three people--the PP plus two vets--to contain her so she could get those shots, and also they had wrapped her in a sheet and the PP was wearing one of those giant leather mittens that cats cannot bite through. When I told the PP about the rodent situation here at the house, he said, "Well, if JM can get involved, she'll get that mouse, and she'll murder it and eat its brains."

I am serious. That is what he said, and really: he is not a violent guy.

But what did she do? She smelled it.

So I had to get her out of the way, and then I managed to prop open the screen door and close the wooden door, thereby allowing the mouse to escape through this improvised airlock into the big world.

I know this is a temporary solution, and that it will likely be no time before the mouse comes back in the house, but there it is: my own private bailout.

It's working.

2008-09-24T17:07:00.003-04:00

Remember what I said about "the Palin stammer"? I now have no doubt that this is the new Republican strategy.

This afternoon, taking a little break from work, I wandered over to Towleroad.com and read this. I did not believe it. So I went to Andrew Sullivan's blog and read this and this. And then Talking Points Memo. And then even the Washington Post. But they all were saying the same thing--that McCain had declared on TV that he would suspend his campaign because of the economic crisis and that he believed that Friday's debate should be called off.

I walked around the house for a while, trying to ascertain for certain if I was not dreaming this.

I determined that I am, and that there was still a mouse behind my file cabinet.

I remembered that I had some laundry in the washing machine so I went towards the back of the house.

I got distracted by some salsa that I remembered I had made from late-season tomatoes.

I picked up my new knitting project and turned on CNN. I sat there for probably 30 minutes watching Wolf Blitzer, well, blitz and also listening to the reactions of various politicians and pundits. I waited for Obama to make his statement, thinking, "Please, Obama, do not be a dumbass."

I knitted.

I remembered about that wash I needed to put in the dryer.

I watched some more CNN and even some commercials, knitting.

Obama came on and was not a dumbass.

I thought about the wash again, but did not want to miss out on the Q&A.

Finally that bit was over, so I put the wash in the dryer, turned off the TV, and came back to my desk--about one hour later.

In short, the McCain campaign had sent me into an hour-long whole-body stammer, and this, friends, is their strategy--to be like a death ray, rendering oponents motionless, speechless, astonished.

Domestic crisis.

2008-09-24T09:51:00.008-04:00

So: early this morning, about 4:30 or so, my dear cat Sazha jumped up in bed. How sweet, I thought, reaching over to pet her. She jumped around, attacked my hand, bounced a few more times and then jumped onto the floor, where she darted around like an insane kitty, zig-zagging, jumping, mewing, zig-zagging some more.

I turned on the light, but I could not figure out what was up.

So about an hour ago, I was working at my desk, when she came downstairs, mewing some more, but in a slightly different tone than she usually uses when she is just looking for attention. I looked over to see that she was tracking a gray mouse.

I immediately flipped out, of course, like any good American, and after a little more chasing she seemed to corner the mouse behind a bookshelf. I say seemed, because after a few minutes the mouse emerged from the other end of the bookcase, with the cat, like Wile E. Coyote, still staring diligently at the spot where she saw the mouse go in.

Meanwhile, I called my parents to update them on the situation that they did not know was occurring. In talking to them, I figured out that probably this latest rodent activity was related to the early-morning craziness on Sazha's part. "Was she bouncing on the bed?" my mother asked, and I said, "Yes, why?" and just as I said that I figured out why.

Here is some background that might help you deduce what I deduced. Back when I lived in Michigan, and Sazha was but a wee furry thing, she used to go out on the roof of the house we lived in. My apartment was essentially an attic apartment, and it had a window that opened up onto a flattish roof that we used (dangerously) as a sort of balcony. Sazha would go out there, and then explore the rest of the roof, and with the exception of one rather precipitous fall, she stayed up there. It was perfect; she could be outside, but without real danger from cars, etc.

So one night I had just gone to bed in my futon, which (since I was a poor graduate student) had no frame and so just lay on the floor. I was lying on my stomach and just dozing off when I vaguely heard Sazha come in and it felt like there was a bug on my back. I leapt up and flopped the covers over, and I was surprised to see what seemed to be a wet leaf lying on my bedroom floor. Perhaps by now you have already deduced that that was no leaf, it was a space station--I mean, a wounded baby bat. That my dear cat had laid on my back. In my bed. With the kind (and mocking) aid of my roommate, the bat was trapped and released outdoors (where it no doubt suffered a lingering death) and the window was shut and I worked for a while on bringing down my heart rate.

Back to this morning: I think that today may have become my second bedtime rodent encounter.

Meanwhile, the mouse seems now to be hiding behind my file cabinet, and Jacques Monod is on the scene.

Stay tuned. . . .

UPDATE: Correction: it turns out the mouse is brown.

Pay no attention to the dust bunnies also lurking behind my file cabinet

Politics.

2008-09-23T18:33:00.001-04:00

All you need to know about the buyout plan. (via)

"No relief for gas pains."

2008-09-23T09:24:00.005-04:00

That was a recent headline in our local newspaper, for an article about local gas prices and shortages, courtesy of hurricane Ike. Now the Patient Partner walks around the house devising other political headlines that can sound like commentary on one's, uhm, bodily functioning. I will spare you the details.

I do not know how things are where you live, but every other gas station around here is out of gas, or has only diesel. I have been trying to hold off filling up until the prices come down some (they are still up around $4 per gallon at most stations), but now I am thinking that if the shortages are going to persist, that may not be possible.

But this is not really a post about the southeastern U.S. gas shortages. It is about running out of gas in the pool. Scott warned me last week to be careful not to overdo it, and my body seems to have been thinking the same thing. I am still so tired from last week's swimming, that it is pretty much impossible for me to overdo things this week. But I'm listening, so I have dialed things back a bit.

This morning's practice contained yet more skill work, which I am loving. First, we worked on freestyle hand placement--placing your hand and forearm as a sort of paddle, or (if you are a more efficient swimmer than I am) even an anchor, such that you can truly pull your body to your hand, rather than vice versa. (I am, I'm sorry to say, all about the vice versa.)

Then it was on to breaststroke kick, where I am still trying to undo years of practice kicking the wrong way--or at least, the old-school way. The right way means keeping as straight a line as possible from your core through your hip and down your thigh. The old style--what I learned to do as a kid--had you bend more at the hip, so that (sadly) your thigh would become a sort of block to real hydrodynamic efficiency. And this old kick style is even more problematic if you, like I, have big honking legs. Also, I am trying to learn to keep my kick narrower: coach says that the power gained by the big wide kick is effectively undone by the loss in streamlinability (your new word for the day).

But he also says that he can see real improvement in my swim mechanics already this season, and that I am moving more like a swimmer. That is nice to hear.

Warm-up: 1000 with long fins (300 s)
First skill set: 400 swim/kick: 4 x 100, first 50 = technique free, second 50 = choice kick (200s)
Second skill set: 400 swim/kick: 8 x 50, first 25 = technique breast, second 25 = choice kick (200s)
Main set: 800 kick/swim: 4 rounds of 4 x 50, 1st three = kick, last one = swim; odds = build, evens = fast (200s)
Cool-down: 200 with long fins
TOTAL: 2800 yards (900 swim)

Dolphin + Freestyle modification.

2008-09-18T08:22:00.004-04:00

Today was butterfly day, and since I cannot really swim fly yet (did I mention that I swam 2 separate 25s of it last Saturday? With long fins, but STILL.), I did a combination of dolphin kick and one-arm drill. My coach suggested really working to make each dolphin powerful--starting from the chest of course--instead of doing lots of little dolphins, which has been how I have typically done butterfly kick.

My coach will not even use the word "kick" for fly, because, he said, the stroke does not really have a true kick so much as a dolphin movement involving the whole body.

Working on the power of each dolphin made a huge difference, as I could really work on the power of the movement. Furthermore, I could use the 1-arm drilling to make sure that the rhythm of my kicking was pretty much the same as the kick rhythm when I actually swim. I mentioned earlier that my core strength is pretty low right now, so this was also a great drill for me in terms of rebuilding strength.

Also, my coach pointed out that in my freestyle, I tend to pull with force all the way through the pull phase, which leaves my arm and my shoulder tense at the beginning of the recovery phase, thereby putting unnecessary stress on the shoulder. Instead, he suggested that after my pull passes my waist, which is effectively the end of the power phase of the stroke, I release my elbow so that when the recovery begins, my shoulder is in a better position. I have not really got the hang of this yet--it is always difficult to integrate changes into a stroke--but I think I can really feel how this will be better for the shoulders.

I did not feel comfortable doing my 900 swim today, because I was feeling too much stress on my left shoulder.

Do I get extra points for doing 2600 yards of kick? I hope so, because I can hardly stand up.

THE WORKOUT
1100 warm-up: 600 with long fins, 500 with no fins (200 swim)
800 skill set focused on dolphining: 8x100, 50 dolphin + 50 something else (kick)
1200 main set: 6 rounds of 100 IM + 100 FR, where second and fourth 25 of each is swim; for each 100 by round: 25 fast/75 easy // 50 fast/50 easy // 75 fast/25 easy; after four rounds I cut out the swimming and did all kick (400 swim)
200 cool-down: with long fins, alternating 25 kick/25 swim (100 swim)
TOTAL: 3300 yards (700 swim)

Omnivores' 100.

2008-09-15T17:07:00.003-04:00

At a wine dinner here this weekend, during the third course, I was eating a very tasty bagna cauda, and I suddenly remembered: Estaminet tagged me to do the VGT Omnivore's 100!

Which works like this:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

Here are my findings: (74 of 100)
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros (I don't really like eggs.)
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (Mmmm, yes! And had it again this summer!)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (with estaminet!)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (one of my great errrors)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (not in the bowl)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (though typically I have my cigars with single malt)
37. Clotted cream tea (more summer nostalgia)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (oy)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal (see above, re: learning from one’s mistakes)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (AND!)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (see above re I don't like eggs)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (I have HAD IT with the motherf-- no wait.)

So how's about you? Try it--you'll like it!

Tea tea tea, all I want is tea.

2008-09-15T16:51:00.002-04:00

Being in England and Ireland this summer, I got in the habit of drinking tea rather than coffee, because while the cheap coffee there is dreck, cheap tea is just fine.

Before long, I realized that in drinking tea, I did not get jittery and anxious the way I do when I have coffee. And tea did not bother my stomach at all. And I could even drink it late in the afternoon without it hindering my sleep.

I still like coffee, but mostly, even now that I am back, I keep drinking tea, because it seems to make me feel, well, better.

Today I read this. Granted, the research is funded by the Tea Council (do you think they are hiring?), but still.

Check out this kick set.

2008-09-15T12:35:00.003-04:00

I am now one day into my second consecutive week of swimming.

I felt a little discomfort in my shoulder this morning, so I backed off my planned set: initially I tried to swim but with short fins instead of no fins, but that was only good for so far, so then I stopped the swim. Last week I was able to swim 900 yards per practice without discomfort, but I expect this is residual fatigue by this week.

But I did do a most righteous kick set that I highly recommend. It's a total of 1200 yards (or meters, if you do it in such a pool) and it goes like this. 25 fast kick, 50 easy kick, 50 fast kick, 50 easy kick, 75 fast kick, 50 easy kick, and so on, up to 200 fast kick, 50 easy kick. It is one of those sets where about half-way through you think maybe your legs are going to burn off, but then they go numb, and you can really crank.

WORKOUT (9/15)
800 Warm-up (including 200 swim with long fins)
600 IM Swim set (8 x 75 IM order, with short fins, substituting free for fly and also after a while substituting back for breast)
1200 kick (no fins), as described above)
200 easy
TOTAL: 2800 (including 800 y of swim)

September 1, 1939.

2008-09-12T09:44:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I was slated to teach a poem and an essay by W. H. Auden. At the last moment, I decided that since it was the anniversary that it was, I might rather have my class discuss "September 1, 1939" than the poem that I had put on the syllabus.

I was thinking about how this poem, which Auden wrote about the invasion of the Poland and the beginning of World War II, had been widely read, recited, reprinted, circulated, and ruminated over in the days after September 11, 2001, and how readers then found that its thinking about what that day in 1939 meant applied also to their own thinking about what this new attack was, and how we would try to understand it.

My students, mind you, and like many people, have a difficult time imagining what the start of the war might have felt like, since they (and we) know so much now about other things going on Germany besides simple (?) imperial ambitions. But now that we are some seven years out from 9/11, I think we, too, have that strange ability to look back at an earlier moment, which was in a way the beginning of something, and reflect on our thoughts at the time.

Auden came to distrust the poem, and he kept it out of collections of his work because he feared that maybe his own response was too self-satisfied. In one republishing of the poem, he changed the line "We must love one another or die" to "We must love one another and die." Despite his disappointment in the poem, it seems to me to be a poem that demands we think harder about what we are doing, about the world we are making. Now, in this political season, that is a message we cannot hear frequently enough. (Though I wonder: is everyone really listening? No, I don't really wonder. It's more that I do not want to accept the answer.)

So, with apologies to Wystan, I reprint his poem here:

"September 1, 1939"

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Training.

2008-09-12T09:27:00.004-04:00

I have started working with a personal trainer.

I resisted this approach for a long time, for a number of reasons. First, I figured that I know something about fitness and I should not have to pay someone to tell me to do sit-ups. Second, I come from strong, penny-pinching yankee stock, and I hate spending money on anything (except yarn). Third, I figured I was already working with a swim coach, and so really, how much athletic staff did I need in my life?

But then I saw how after her races in Beijing, Dara Torres had, like, six people massaging her and stretching her and OMG is that what I have been missing?

No, seriously: this summer I realized that the left side of my upper body is still rather atrophied after all my shoulder hoo-ha, and if I did not get serious about bringing it back RIGHT, I would probably never be able to swim well and consistently.

Also, I came to terms with the fact that I am a slack-ass about strength training.

So this morning I had my first session with K., and I am optimistic. She seemed smart, knowledgeable, articulate. She gave me good exercises to do on the first day. She did not overdo it. She treated me like an athlete.

But painful confession time: not only has my shoulder suffered from the last 1.75 years of erratic training, but I. HAVE. NO. CORE. STRENGTH. Yow. Crunches that would have been no big deal several years ago HURT ME. And I know from back when I was in shape how important core strength is to swimming.

Verdict: if I do not get serious about core strength-training, my poor shoulder will no doubt pay the price.

So here we go.

South Carolina IS SO so gay.

2008-09-11T15:34:00.004-04:00

Readers who were along for the ride back in July might be interested to know that South Carolina Governor (and man not really of my people) Mark Sanford is to be honored with the "so gay" award at South Carolina Pride this month. (via)

Congratulations, Governor Sanford!

The Palin stammer.

2008-09-11T09:09:00.003-04:00

Something I started noticing shortly after the announcement that Sarah Palin would be John McCain's running mate, was that this news was capable to reducing some of the most articulate people I know to blathering strings of absolute incomprehensibility.

Example: a couple weeks ago, during the Republican convention, I was sitting in my office, waiting for a colleague to come by so we could go to lunch. As I waited, I was trolling around on various blogs, and I came across "Sarah Palin's Blog" (not real, of course). When my colleague arrived, I said, "Have you seen this?" and his response was something to the effect of, "I don't--it's just--what about--how did--have you--is she--" He went on for about 20 seconds, but I think the gist of it was, "I don't know where to start."

Over the next couple of days, as I talked politics with other smart, liberal people, I kept noticing the same thing happening: one after the other, they were rendered effectively speechless.

Yesterday, another colleague sent me a link to this tape of Matt Damon, and although he holds it together better than most people I have seen, he still feels the effects of the firepower of her fully armed and operational stammer-station:

I am starting to think this was part of the idea, on the Republicans' part.

Suggestion.

2008-09-01T07:13:00.003-04:00

It seems that the press will have a hard time, this election cycle, comparing the Democratic and Republican conventions, since the Republican campaign will be at least somewhat disrupted by Gustav. Some will say that the two conventions should not be compared, while others will be itching to do so.

My suggestion: the conventions should be judged as Olympic diving was this Olympics. There should be a difficulty score for each convention. Judges then award an execution score, on a ten-point scale. The highest and the lowest of the judges' scores are tossed out and the remaining five scores are totaled. These scores are then multiplied by 3, divided by 5, and multiplied again by the degree of difficulty of the dive.

EXAMPLE:
Let's say you're going to do a dive--I mean "speech"--on the 45th anniversary of some big thing, and then you do up your platform to sort of resemble the site where that other thing happened. Also, you decide to perform in front of 80,000+ people in a giant stadium, eliciting mutterings of "Paris Hilton" and "Leni Riefenstahl" from critics. If you tank, say, kicking up a lot of splash on your entry, you still get some points for trying something complicated. But if you ace it, then your score is out of the park.

Other factors affecting difficulty might be:
* choosing a running mate that sends the political world into a tailspin of amazement and last-minute research;

* having to contend with a major hurricane that reminds voters of how very competent your party has been in the last 8 years on so many matters;

* losing some of your convention speakers, because they decide they might need to run the government this time (I would contend, however, that this actually LOWERS your difficulty rating);

* etc.

This sort of scoring system should allow political analysts to stop feeling bad about assessing the successes and failures of the two conventions.

Meanwhile, Gustav, please go easy.

And in weather news. . . .

2008-08-27T07:03:00.006-04:00

So when we got up this morning, after the tea and coffee were made, the PP said, "I want to know what happened with the tornadoes." So I went outside and got the paper, brought it in, and as I was pulling it out of its plastic baggy he said, "So does it say, 'Tornadoes slam Upstate'?"
I kind of looked at him, because what it said was TORNADOES SLAM UPSTATE.*
Note this part in particular:

Trained weather spotters reported the first tornado on the ground in Clemson at 2:54 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The tornado "came across the stadium and the intramural field and took out a couple of light poles and then blew over trees in front of the ESSO Club moving into town," said Marvin Carmichael, Clemson’s director of Financial Aid. Tornado sirens at Clemson University were activated and the CU Safe Alert text-messaging system warned people to seek shelter, said Clemson spokeswoman Robin Denny.

I would not want to disagree with Robin Denny, who makes it all sound so smooth, but I need to add a couple of amendments.

You see, this CU Safe Alert system has had some issues. For a while, they had it set so that the sirens went every time there was lightning "in the area." Last spring break, when I was at the beach, I got a series of 10 text messages telling me to seek shelter from Clemson lightning.

And let me describe the siren: it is a regulation siren that goes for a while, leaving you to wonder what the disaster is. (This is a siren that was put in place after the VA Tech shootings.) Then a scary recorded voice identifies the disaster and uniformly advises everyone to "seek shelter immediately." That voice, however, is not at the same volume as the siren, which means that in (say) a classroom, you can hear the siren, but not the explanation.

I note this because, in fact, I was teaching at 2:54 p.m., when the storm and sirens came. We were (surprise) discussing a poem when the sirens went, and I realized to my dismay that I had no idea what to do. My first thought:

+ Is this yet another lightning warning, so we should do nothing?

Then when a student checked for a text message and learned of the tornado warning, I thought:

+ Does the university have a plan for serious weather that I did not know about?

+ Should we use the stairs to go downstairs (my classroom was on the fourth of four floors)--stairs that are outdoors and exposed to those same elements from which we were supposed to be seeking shelter?

+ Should we line up in the hallways with our heads between our knees, or should we seek shelter under our desks, like if there was nuclear fallout on the way?

+ Will something horrible befall my students if I make the wrong choice?

Looking around to see what other classes on the hall were doing and seeing that they were continuing, I decided to go ahead with class, but I could see the anxiety on my students' faces and frankly the discussion sucked.

Afterwards, I learned that most of my colleagues who were not in class at the time were huddled in the office of the person with the best view of the tornado as it ripped across the stadium and the intramural fields, checking out the view. At some point, it apparently occurred to them that perhaps the 8th floor of an 8-story building--and by a window--might not be the place to be, so everyone took the double-helix stairs down to the basement.

And after that, I learned about the damage on campus and in the neighborhoods around campus.

But me and my students, we were still talking about Yeats.

Back in my office, I saw the "all clear" signal, which had come through at about 3:10. So I went ahead and convened my 3:30 class. During that class my students were seriously spooked, since they (unlike my first class) knew that there had been a tornado, and were on the lookout for more. "That tree is horizontal," one of them said at one point, looking out the window. "There is debris flying in a circle." It was also raining and windy as all get out, and I figured the likelihood of another tornado was small, so we kept going.

But after that class, I went back to my office to find another "all clear" signal given at 4:10. There had been no additional siren, no additional text messages warning of danger. So were we not really all clear at 3:10? Had the system malfunctioned?

This morning in my inbox was a message received at 7:49 p.m. but date-stamped at 3:50 p.m., reading, "Tornado Warning: Seek shelter and tune to local media for information." That would explain the 4:10 "all clear"--but why had this message not come through at the time?

Frustrating. And a little scary. I suppose they are working the kinks out, but I hope someone is paying attention.

-----
* You are going to have to trust me on that one, because the online headline does not match the print headline.

Linguistic query.

2008-08-23T06:50:00.002-04:00

So yesterday, as I was sitting through a seemingly interminable meeting at work, someone said: "Well, we would deal with that, but the entire Blahbidiblah Committee is pregnant."

This comment through everyone off for a while, because although a couple of people in our department have recently had babies, it is not obvious that others are pregnant. I just thought that maybe I had missed the exciting summer developments, being out of the country. But it turns out others were as confused as I, and the whole discussion jumped its tracks as we all tried to remember who exactly is on the Blahbidiblah Committee and then ascertain whether (through medical miracle or not) they are pregnant.

It turns out that what the commenter meant was that "the whole" (i.e. a couple members of) the Blahbidiblah Committee are on maternity leave, having recently had babies.

Which, at long last, leads me to my question: Do we have a good concise adjective to describe someone who recently gave birth? I briefly considered "postgnant," but the "stgn" consonant cluster is uncomfortable in English.

Suggestions?

Greetings from somewhere over the Atlantic.

2008-08-12T04:32:00.002-04:00

I forget who it was who described jet-lag this way: as if your soul is lagging behind you, unable to keep up with your jetliner, hoping someday to meet up again with your body. By that math, my soul is probably somewhere over Greenland, at best.

So it is 4 a.m. EDT, and I am feeling like it is time to get up and have breakfast. Even the melatonin I took before bed is not counter-acting this.

And have I mentioned it is a little warmer here in South Carolina than it was in Sligo, where I spent the last two weeks?

Nevertheless, it is great to be home--to have slept (if not long enough) in my own bed, to have spent a quiet evening in with the PP and our darling (if adorned with teeth and claws) cats, to have feasted on tomatoes and basil from our garden, to have watched some Olympics on a big flat-screen TV I had forgotten we had bought, to have begun the process of unpacking.

Where streams of whiskey are flowing.

2008-07-26T14:48:00.002-04:00

Notes on the rapture.

2008-07-24T03:09:00.003-04:00

One thing I cannot get used to here is that the driver's seat is on the right of a car. I am down with traffic coming on the left side of a road (the "LOOK RIGHT" markings painted on the pavement at crosswalks help), and perhaps if I were spending any time in cars myself, I'd get used to the seat positions, too. But as it is, I look into the window of an oncoming car, and the person in the lefthand seat is turned around getting something from the backseat, and I almost scream, "Look out! Look out! Look out!" before I remember the real deal.

This is especially frustrating in moments like the other morning, when, crossing in a crosswalk and with a walk signal, I was nearly run down by a taxi trying to catch the yellow light. (He had missed by a long shot.) I tried to glare at him, but what seemed to be the driver's seat was empty, and I thought, "Well no wonder: the rapture has come at last, and half the cars are now without drivers."

I take that back.

2008-07-22T03:08:00.004-04:00

About ten days ago, I was suggesting that the new-fangled modern exhibitions cannot match the sites themselves. To some extent, I still believe that, but yesterday I saw an exhibition that complicated my earlier thoughts.

This is the Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. You can visit an online version of the show here, and it is worth doing, whether you can get to the actual show or not.

The exhibition features an array of W. B. Yeats's printed books, manuscripts, typescripts, and photographs. When you enter, there is a small room made of screens, where an audio track plays recordings of his poems, read by the likes of Seamus Heaney and Sinead O'Connor while slides of the text and accompanying images grace the screens. There are four films about Yeats's life and work, featuring images of Ireland, his notebooks, and commentary from notable scholars. There are well-presented cases of copies of his books, manuscripts of his poems and letters, pages from his occult notebooks, photographs of his family. There is a giant-sized replica of The Tower, perhaps his most important book, that you can walk inside of. In there you find a sort of family tree for the poems, tracing them from manuscript to periodical publication to other books where they were published and finally to The Tower--and of course all these stages are represented by reproductions of the artifacts in question.

It really is a marvel, an example of how multi-modal presentation can be put to excellent use.

And although it has been up for a couple of years, it got an ebullient mention in this weekend's NYTimes.

So I revise what I said before. Done well, these exhibitions do not take away from "the things themselves," but give you a new excitement about what you are seeing.

Does it get better than this?

2008-07-19T13:39:00.005-04:00

Right now, I am sitting on a bench, looking out at the college park here at Trinity College in Dublin. If I had not consulted my map, I would have called it the cricket pitch, because it is right next to the rugby pitch, and most days there are cricket games in process here. Just now, one has wrapped up, and the players are changing into drier clothes and making their way to the pub that is the top floor of the next-door pavilion--they call the pub "the Pav"--and where there is an array of outdoor tables for taking your pint.

It turns out Joyce was right, and the cricket bats really do say, "pock, pock." I am always struck by those moments, where I find that something I am seeing or experiencing for the first time really does look or sound just like it does in some work of art. (I felt this way when I first got to Hong Kong, and I found that the mountains there do look like the Chinese ink paintings--and so different from the mountains I had seen in North America.)

Earlier this morning, I had my head immersed in typescripts, trying to figure out at what stage various textual changes were made. It is like detective work, in a way, with some of the glamor and all of the drudgery. But also the moments of "AHA!" which I live for.

But not right now. Right now I am enjoying the sun on my face. And I am enjoying enjoying the sun on my face, because in South Carolina in July, there would be few things I would enjoy less. But here? The last days have been cloudy and rainy, but today there is suddenly blue, up there, in the sky. The wind is blowing, the air is cool, and despite wearing a couple of layers, I am happy for the warmth from the sky. Out in the park there is a young couple running barefoot in the grass, laughing hysterically at something, and also a woman in a bright white skirt walking with her toddler, and a little ways away, people lying on the grass, perhaps feeling the same way I do about the sun.

So what could be better?

Now that I think of it? If I were over at the Pav, with a pint in my hand. So on that note, . . . .

South Carolina is not really all that gay.

2008-07-12T14:09:00.005-04:00

You know that Geico commercial where the caveman is riding on the moving walkway in the airport, and he passes a poster that says, "So easy, even a caveman could do it," and he kind of does a double-take, and then turns around and, seeming to do a sort of moonwalk, stands there gaping at the poster?

Well, that was me on the escalator in the Leicester Square tube station today. The poster I saw read, "South Carolina is so gay!"

At first I wondered if I read it right, which, it turns out, I did. It was part of a larger advertising campaign to draw gay tourists to American destinations. There were four or five posters in all, including adverts for Boston, Atlanta, New Orleans, and . . . South Carolina.

I kept wondering, How do they figure? Gay in the sense of extremely homophobic? In the sense that non-discrimation on the basis of sexual orientation only became prohibited by the university's policy in the last couple of years? In the sense that the so-called preservation of marriage amendment passed with flying (but sadly so unflamboyant) colors? In the sense that a guy who punched a gay man outside a bar--because he was gay--and killed him got off with a short sentence? Yes, that gay.

Luckily the series of posters repeated, and it was a long escalator, so I got to look at it again, and I saw mention of gay beaches. Really? Where????

It was all incredibly bewildering.

I was torn. Was this:
a) a sign that things are turning around in my adopted home?
b) a joke?
c) a mistake?
d) none of the above?

So I got home from my day's outing to find an e-mail from a friend, wondering whether I had seen these "South Carolina is so gay" posters while I was at Pride last weekend. And then, when I spoke to the PP this afternoon, he said, "I have huge news," and then went on to tell me that this story was all over the newspaper.

He was right.

And I was not the only one who thought it was a joke, but unlike me, State Sen. David Thomas (Greenville, R) did not think it was very funny, because "From my own perspective, it's bad for the state to make such statements about the state, to assert that South Carolina has gay beaches." Well, in a way I agree with him, because arriving at an SC beach and expecting it to be even gay-friendly would be at the very least disappointing. He called the ads "simply improper." I'd call them "simply inaccurate."
Now, it turns out, the person who approved funding for the campaign has resigned--surely not under duress!

But really, when I think of the ad again, I would not say South Carolina is so not gay. No: many parts of South Carolina are very gay--like little (largely hidden) outposts in a great sea of traditional family values.

Sigh. I suppose by now I should be getting used to being embarrassed by my state, but I just cannot come to like it.

Is this a sign of advancing age?

2008-07-12T04:41:00.007-04:00

I was initially going to post this as an update to my post about the British Library, but then it sort of ballooned into its own issue.

UPDATE: Contrary to what I said, the old Round Reading is no longer a museum to itself. I went to pay hommage to it the other day, only to find the door to the Reading Room closed and guarded, with a sign about how it is closed while they install an exhibition. Closed? Now, or at least recently and in just a week or two, it houses blockbuster exhibitions, such as the upcoming Hadrian show, which I will barely miss. However strange it was to go into that room just to see it, without a reader's ticket in my hand, I want it back in its old form! I have been told it will be, after this series of shows about emperors--so where are they storing all the desks?

Anyway, there are activities for children in the Great Court around what had been the Reading Room. Why go see the mummies when you can play with plastic tubing?

I am seeing, though, that this is a larger tendency in museums, seeming to reply to the question: How can we get people interested in our boring old stuff? The answer, typically, is to construct multi-modal shows telling the history of something or another, but without using actual artifacts. Instead, there might be reconstructions of the way rooms worked, complete with "authentic" recreated smells and sounds. Or they might involve flashy films with music of the time rendered techno.

For instance, at Hampton Court Palace, there is the "Young Henry" exhibition, which uses a repeated series of three simple wooden thrones to represent the interactions, roles, and power plays of Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Katherine of Aragon. There are a few authentic paintings on the walls, but the real attention falls on the three thrones, each representing one of the three players, that appear in each room of the exhibition. Their positions and their carvings (which give in a sentence or so the person's situation at that moment) shifts, and they are always set on a carpet with a brief motto for the period in question. Somewhere in every room is an audio track, filling in more detail. As the Palace advertises it, "Historic paintings from the Royal Collection, together with audio-visual and hands-on displays, will help you explore and discover a very different King Henry VIII."

Harrumph. Do you really explore and discover when all you're doing is reading brief synopses of historical moments? Are we all so simple that the only way we can follow palace intrigue is through the shifting of chairs, like chess pieces?

And does anyone going through the show really look at the paintings? And it is a shame, too, because some of them are extremely precious and/or give clear views of the situation--from the perspective of the historical moment itself!

But to look at a painting requires more focus than the play of moving chairs.

Which takes me back to the initial question that I imagine curators asking, How can we get people interested in our boring old stuff?

The answer, sadly, seems to be: don't make them pay attention to our stuff, despite its great historical, artistic, etc. value. Instead, give them new stuff to be distracted by, so that paying the price of admission does not require them to look at the old stuff.

Distracted from distraction by distraction, or so someone said.

All the hot girls.

2008-07-08T12:17:00.004-04:00

There was one point today during Jay Kumar's Big Bollywood Dance Class when he yelled out to the crowd, "All the hot girls, make some noise!" and really, no one responded. He said, "Come on, you have to cheer now, because you're all hot girls, even the fellas!" and then tried again, and he did get a bit more response. But really: we were all having a great time, but did any of us actually self-identify as hot girls?

Perhaps I should back up and tell you that, as this was happening in the piazza of the British Library, his dance class was composed almost entirely of scholars and older Indian ladies. The former were on their lunch break, all deciding in unison that today was a workday like no other. The latter were there in hopes that there would be some time for some more traditional Indian dances, which there was (though for one woman, who kept going up to him as he was teaching Bollywood dance steps and asking was now the time, it could not come soon enough). We scholars were dressed in our sweaters and days-old trousers, while the Indian ladies were wearing beautiful saris with raincoats, and we were all wearing glasses.

Hot girls!

The event started with a performance by Jay Kumar's troup DanceAsia. Here is a video I found of them, though they did not have sticks at the library:

Then he got everyone out into the middle of the piazza to teach us some fairly simple (but extremely fun) steps so that we could dance to several different songs. There was a decent lot of phootographers there, too--amateur and professional--as well as a reporter from the BBC World Service, who he convinced to come up onto his platform and shake her ass, which she did with great aplomb.

If you have never seen Bollywood movies, with their enormous extravagant dance numbers, you may not know quite what I am talking about. But seriously folks, these are musicals to a new extreme--beautiful colorful costumes, elaborate scenarios, and music that makes you want to jump out of your seat. There are few situations in these films that cannot benefit from a dance number. Looking forward to a wedding? Dance. Unable to marry the man you love? Dance. Faced with a wedding you dread? Dance. Afraid of losing a cricket match and therefore all your land? Dance then too. Entire plot lines are introduced for the purpose of requiring dance numbers. And the dancing is fabulous! In fact, treated this past weekend to a vast display of fabulousness, I am still not sure that this is not MORE fabulous. Really.

(Now granted: a library piazza full of scholars in drab jumpers and older ladies in raincoats dancing in mid-summer drizzle did not look fabulous, but we FELT fabulous!)

In a way, what he was having us do was not unlike aerobic dancing or disco, except that some of the moves had a particularly Bollywood flavor. In fact, the whole experience made me wonder whether anyone has thought of structuring an aerobics class around Bollywood music and dancing. I am sure they have, but I tell you (or do I need to? You know how I love Bollywood music and films): if I could find one, I would go every day.

In which you wish you were me.

2008-07-05T12:18:00.025-04:00

I am just back from the Pride London Parade. Estimates from the organizers and the police said half a million people. The theme was Fairytales, Myths and Legends--can you think of anything that would better lend itself to fabulousness?

(with this theme you can even be fabulous on your mobile.)

The parade got off from Baker Street about half an hour late. The man beside me, temporarily holding his partner's pride flag while he got seated on top of the railing, speculated that there had not been enough mirrors on site for everyone to check their hair. We were standing on Regent Street, just around the corner from Oxford Circus proper, where I had been able to get close right up to the barricade. The parade took about another half an hour to get to us.

Meanwhile there were men walking up and down the parade route selling flags (small rainbow flags as well as larger flags of the Union Jack, but with pink instead of blue) and whistles (on rainbow cords).

After a while, the route marshalls forced people sitting on the curbs to get back behind the barricades lining the streets and then after a bit more the they closed off the crossings, sowe knew it was getting close. After more waiting, we started to hear the bands but could still see nothing, and my neighbor suggested that someone at the front might have broken a heel.

The photographers were waiting too.

Near the front was one of several percussion bands, setting the tone for the marchers.

Needless to say, not everyone marched to the same beat.

(There is no way these pictures do justice to the music and the whistles. Everyone along the parade route blew their whistles along with the music, and also anytime they hoped to get someone in the parade to look for a picture or a smile.)

There were representatives of the London Fire Brigade, the Metropolitan Police, and several branches of the armed services. Apparently this was the first year that they were allowed to march in uniform, and everyone applauded.

(Those of you who live in the land of Don't Ask, Don't Tell--can you imagine such a thing??? Wouldn't that be cause for celebration in itself?)

There were many other organizations represented--advocacy groups, health organizations, churches, a gay soccer team, a gay rugby team, lesbian rollerskaters, older members of the LGBT community. Then there were representatives of various labor unions, companies, the National Health Care system, even the archivists!

There were washboard abs and tricorn hats:

There were advocates for equal rights for transgender and transsexual people--a group not always accepted even in the LGBT community.

There were, uh, hairdos--

. . . and headdresses. . .

And shoes!

(the nipple accoutrements aside, could you walk 2.5 miles in those shoes. Ah, but if you could--how worth it would be!)

And even environmentalists got into the action:

Have you ever seen a green like that?

There was a giant flag, so big that the front of it had to go quite a ways past us before the whole thing was around the corner.

Oh, and don't forget the floats! They were either decorated buses or lorries with elaborate sets, and each one had its own soundtrack.

Someone knew I was coming!

There were men on stilts:

There were men on stilts--with wings!

There were great signs:

Fundamentally, it was a great party--and really just a lead up to the even bigger party now at Trafalgar Square.

Happy Pride, Everyone!

Independence Day.

2008-07-04T02:39:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the PP, who is not traveling with me at this point, said this in an e-mail:

Speaking of tomorrow, we have a holiday over here called Independence Day. I assume you do not celebrate it over in the UK. Or if you celebrate you might want to do it quietly. Seriously, is there any notice of the date at all there?

Well, no, today really is no day of note here, and perhaps that is no surprise. I do not think, for instance, that in the US we have a day to celebrate the hasty removal of folks from the roof of a certain embassy, or the sinking of the Maine, and I can tell those of you living above the Mason-Dixon line that there are no official southern holidays celebrating union victory.

But since I do not hate freedom, I have been thinking a bit about Independence Day this morning. I am trying, for instance, to stop wondering: If we had lost that war, would we still be on the Pound, so that everything would not be so damned expensive for those of us earning in dollars?

It is frankly hard to think of the United States as an oppressed nation, given the way we have presented ourselves on the world scene for the last eight years, and really for another fifty or so before that.

But the letter writers to my local paper would remind me that even saying that is a freedom that I am now taking for granted. They are right.

Here in Britain, many people have been thinking hard about systems of government and, for instance, the prisons they employ in order to maintain justice, not just because of this show, which has been hot beyond hot, and which includes a pretty awful and frank plotline about what really happens in the joint. It is a bit of a reminder of what it means to free, on a personal level.

Having spent some time in recent years thinking hard about British colonialism and its effect on colonized places, it is strange to think of "the colonials" in what would become the USA revolting against their horrible oppressors, who were of course of their own culture. When I compare the situation of the folks of English descent in the colonies, I realize their situation was so different from those in Asia and Africa who were governed far more brutally by their English colonizers. But still: I believe that taxation without representation is a horrid thing, as is quartering troops among us, or making military power independent of and superior to civil power. And most of us in the US still believe in the importance of a fair trial by jury.

In fact, on this day more than any other day, it is worth going back and thinking about (or at least rereading) what it was that made those signers throw off allegiance to the Crown, because in doing so, we can remember the ideals that make us know how important it is to resist those who would distort this nation and what it believes in.

And tomorrow I will check out a real independence day.

Happy Fourth, Everyone!

From the new BL.

2008-07-03T12:38:00.011-04:00

If you are feeling ornery, you might try to point out to me that the British Library at St. Pancras is not that new, but to me it is, and it is my blog, dammit.

About 12 years, I spent a good bit of time working in the old British Library, located under the great dome of the British Museum. It was, after all, once called the British Museum Library, and as an institution it did not separate until 1972. Physically, the two institutions separated in 1997, when the new facility at St. Pancras opened to cheers and boos. This library is the legal deposit library for the United Kingdom , which means that a copy of every single book published in the UK and Ireland (and foreign books distributed in Britain) must be sent here. Talk about shelf space!

To get to the old British Library, you had to pass through the main doors and entryway of the British Museum. That meant climbing the impressive stone steps and making your way through hordes of visiting schoolchildren on your way to show your pass, squeeze your bag into the cloakroom, and search out a good desk, perhaps even with an outlet for your laptop.

Working under that dome was amazing: there you would be, having your serious thoughts and reading serious books in the same room where so many others had before you--Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, and on and on. Looking back on the I spent there, when I was researching for my dissertation, I do not believe I did that much work that I could not have done elsewhere, but to do it there was an experience I would not trade.

Particularly now that it is an experience never to be replicated.

Now they have converted that old space into a sort of replica of the original. The domed library is still there, with books lining it (and the same fake books disguising the doors). The architectural space around the dome, which used to serve as extremely cramped bookstacks (though it was not originally intended to do so--but the library, like so many, ran out of storage space), is now opened up to the light, and it holds a cafe. In the library itself, there are still the rays of numbered desks emanating from the central hub, and there are some books there (mostly samples of writings by important figures who used the library over the years), but it is no longer a true working space. It has become a museum of a museum.

UPDATE: It is worse than I thought.

At the time I was working there (1996 or 1997), the BL was in the process of moving itself to St. Pancras, which meant that the time between calling up a book and having it delivered was even longer than usual--and "usual" was already pretty long. An inevitable part of the BL experience, then, was waiting, and finding ways to use waiting time productively.

The new BL is, relatively speaking anyway, all about efficiency. Catalogues are now online. Materials can be reserved in advance, again online. There are outlets at every desk. There are ample lockers for securing your stuff. Book call time has dropped significantly. There is air conditioning. There is a restaurant in the building. There are limits on the number of little slips you can have at any time, so that you only submit the permitted number at one time. Everything feels spacious and light.

This time I am really using things that I can only use here--the Macmillan Publishing Company's archives, which I am consulting for another volume of my edition.

Some things have not changed. You still have to have a reader's pass to use the reading rooms, and getting such a pass requires "real reason" to use the collection and letters of reference. Getting access to manuscripts takes more letters and proof. There are still the earnest graduate students, and I can so clearly remember what it was like to see something rare or unique for the first time, something you can only see in this one place. I think I see that look on the faces of students around me, as they turn the leaves of an old manuscript.

And in the lobby areas and exhibitions spaces, there are still hordes of school-children, but now instead of being on their way to see Egyptian antiquities, they are looking at a screen that lets them "turn the pages" (virtually) of, say, the Lindesfarne Gospels, seeing larger than life and radiant with screen-light the beautiful images. (New meaning of "illuminated manuscript") Or they are listening on headphones to music from the 1968 on Record: A Year of Revolution audio exhibition.

Now there are also loads of undergraduates, apparently allowed to work here now, though in many cases their "work" looks an awful lot like the "work" students at my home institution do in that library. . . .

In some ways, the BL has become a giant media center, as have so many libraries, with its traditional collections still here for insects like myself who burrow into the past. The King's Library is on show in a giant glass-encased column at the center of the building, so that the spines can be seen, if not touched. Most of the books are in hidden stacks underground. In the summer, there is music on the piazza.

But it is still amazing to work here, to know that just about anything can be found out here. As I look at the pencilled names on the labels on packets of page proofs, and see there one after another eminent Yeatsian, I feel both intimidated and thrilled.

And honsetly? I can hardly wait for the Big Bollywood Dance Class next Tuesday! Yeats was a big fan of India, and I know that if he were alive today, he would join me in my love of Asha Bhosle!

Daily leavening.

2008-06-27T08:07:00.003-04:00

I don't know how many of you out there are Stephen Colbert fans. I am. The trick is, of course, that I never stay up that late, so the PP and I catch the show a day late.

Last night (which really means Wednesday night), the show featured more entrants in the "Make John McCain Exciting" contest, where you give his "green screen" speech a make-over. There have been films of him speaking in front of a wild west sceen, or a rock concert, and last night someone had even imposed him onto Elvis's body and into a Star Trek scene.

This one blows them all away, and I suspect that whatever your politics, this is funny:

"Meet" Report.

2008-06-25T07:51:00.003-04:00

This meet is happening this weekend. I was hoping this would be my first post-surgery competition. After some of the set-backs experienced recently, though, I decided that competition would be a mistake. I would have had to go out and "just swim"--not race. I decided that would be too difficult. It might be discouraging, and frankly I did not trust myself to let someone else win, even if it would have been what I needed to do to preserve the shoulder. So: no meet for me.

But this morning at practice, the coach had a "pre-meet" practice lined up, with some starts from the blocks and sprinting. Initially, I planned not to do it, just to do my own thing, but as I was warming up, I changed my mind.

Yesterday Elizabeth wrote about deciding to go out on her own for a wheel, even though she thought she should not. Even though everyone around her said she should not, and she knew that the risks involved would be tremendous:

I thought, “It looks like a good day to go training.”
I thought, “It would probably be better to spending the day resting.
Besides, training by myself is really risky." I paused, "AND Linda would kick my butt.”
I thought, “But, I’ve thought out the route and while it might be risky, it is also, I think, possible.”
Possible.
I thought, “When are you, Elizabeth going to decide to do SOMETHING?”
I thought, "Does it have to be this? This is riskier than the trip to Port Angeles and look what happened there!"
Possible.

Even though her post today is about the repercussions from that decision, it was one of the most inspiring posts I have read, because it was about how living life is about taking risks--even sometimes taking risks you know to have impossible odds--because otherwise you might not really be living. In some ways it might have been easier for her to decide not to go for that training ride, because it was not worth the risk, but she made the (really) harder choice and did the dangerous thing, the dangerous thing that for her is necessary to living life.

In no way can I say that my situation is like hers, but her post did come at a time when I needed a little kick in the pants. Too often recently I have tended to hole up at home rather than "getting out there," even though I know that "getting out there" makes me happier. It just seems too scary, so I stay in.

I am taking a long time to come around to saying that as I was warming up this morning, I thought, "If Elizabeth can go out for a training ride by herself (and without oxygen), then I can at least try to do this pre-meet practice."

I was a little nervous about whether diving might be risky, whether sprinting might be risky, whether I might be too tempted to pull too hard, but I decided to assume the risk and give it a shot, knowing I would be responsible for the results of my actions.

It felt great.

There is just something different about racing (even just sort-of racing) from swimming carefully, and I have not raced in a long time.

We did a series of break-out swims off the blocks (only 15 meters, which means the dive plus about three pull cycles), then a set of 2 x 25 sprint + 50 easy. I was ready to stop at any time if I felt any pain, but I managed to do the full set. And I beat the PP on most of the sprints. Heh.

For the first time in a long time, I feel mighty.

WARM-UP: 1000m with long fins (total of 700 kick + 300 swim)
KICK: 700m kick with no fins (7 x 100, odds w/snorkel, evens on back)
STARTS: 60m swim (4 x 15m sprint from dive)
SPRINTS: 400m [4 x (2x25 sprint swim + 50 easy kick)] (200m swim)
RECOVERY: 200m easy (140m swim)
KICK: 400m (2 x 200 fast kick with long fins)
COOL: 100m easy swim
2860 LCM (800 LCM swim)

And often barefoot.

2008-06-24T17:16:00.003-04:00

From indexed.com (via):

Which one are you?

You don't really care for cowbell, do you?

2008-06-07T11:11:00.003-04:00

Come on, people: can I not get any takers on my cowbell questions? No one is willing to help me with my mix?

Curses.

I got thinking about it again this morning during a spinning class, where the instructor really had a better than usual array of musical choices for my morning torment. To me, it is the music that really makes a spinning class. Too many instructors choose the a boringly typical array of musical choices. I remember back when I got certified to be a spinning instructor (certification has since lapsed), the teacher made a point of saying "Pick good music." She recommended variety, things with different levels of beats that participants could connect to, not just pop music but surprising choices.

I thought to myself, This is the job for me, because I could not only get paid for getting a workout but also apply my DJ'ing skills. Who could ask for more?

But the instructor today gave me an hour of listening pleasure. Granted, there were a few tracks in there I did not recognize, but mostly it was stuff I knew but did not expect to hear--some Ramones, the theme song to Mortal Kombat (test your might!), a medley of songs with "Jump" in the lyrics, some Shania Twayne, but then, she even included the song that I thought would be the best spinning song of all time.

Can you guess what it was?

"Sing Sing Sing" by Benny Goodman. (Luckily for us she had a shorter 6-minute version, so we did not have to spring for the full 12 minutes and 15 seconds. I have done that on my own, and it is no picnic.)

But back to the cowbell. I was trucking along, maintaining a decent cadence, enjoying the hell out of it, and when suddenly WHAMMO! I realized that Gene Krupa is a mad user of the cowbell!

Who would have guessed?

Well, really if you have ever heard the man whale on a drum set, you should have guessed. I should have guessed, because back in about 1987 I saw a film of the Benny Goodman Orchestra performing the song, and the image of him playing has not left my mind since. Let me tell you: no drummer in rock 'n' roll has anything on Gene Krupa.

The down side is that it might be tough to fit a song lasting 12:15 on my cowbell mix.

Now seriously, if you have any opinions about cowbell mixes, won't you please answer my questions?

It's not the heat, it's the . . .

2008-06-05T14:53:00.004-04:00

well, maybe it is the heat.

I knew I was in trouble when I was driving home from physical therapy at 9:40 a.m. and it was already 90 degrees F.

Luckily, I came up with the brilliant idea to buy one of these. (I am miserly about air conditioning.)

The assembly instructions and I did not get along perfectly, but the thing is put together and working.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

(The downside is that it turns out there is a lot of dust and cathair on my desk, and the nice fan is stirring it all up.)

In shoulder news, I was able to do some of my strengthening exercises today in physical therapy, though not a lot of them. Still, this is progress from Monday, when my PT just stretched me and sent me home.

Daily leavening.

2008-06-03T07:29:00.002-04:00

He went on to win, by the way.

You cannot be careful enough.

2008-06-02T13:05:00.003-04:00

My regular reader knows that in my work to come back from my surgery back in November, I have been extremely careful. Despite my desire to recover faster, I have been taking things at a snail’s pace, adding swimming at a rate of 10% a week, and backing off at even the smallest sign of discomfort. I have done my exercises regularly. I have kept my coaches in the know. I have taken careful notes.

It has been about 10 days since I went back into physical therapy. I believe that the stretching and new exercises my PT has had me doing have been helping. On Saturday morning, I was able to swim 900 meters in practice without any pinching or soreness or anything. Great!

But then: bad luck. I was swimming backstroke, because that is the stroke that is feeling the best right now. (I know: the irony, since it is, in terms of competition, my weakest stroke and the one where I have had to work the hardest as an adult to gain better skills—still very much a work in progress.) In the next lane, another swimming was also swimming backstroke, and somehow, under the lane line, our pulls matched up so that our left (yes, left—the bad one) elbows interlocked as we passed. Since the joint is weak and a bit unstable, the contact pulled my shoulder up and a bit out of joint. OUCH!

I stopped immediately, and I did a heavy icing and ibuprofen regimen over the weekend. Oh, and wine.

Today I saw my PT again, and he says the shoulder capsule is stretched, kind of like a sprained ankle. So I need to lay off it for a while, and off the exercises, until it can settle down.

What dumb luck: all that caution and then a freak accident. A friend told me that day I should buy a lottery ticket, but I was afraid I would get one of those tickets where I end up owing a million dollars to the state of South Carolina.

Reflections: He laid that golden cowbell on the ground at Johnny's feet.

2008-06-02T07:43:00.004-04:00

A while ago--uhm, yes, well, technically quite a while ago--I made mention of a long-time goal of mine: The Ultimate Cowbell Mix. At that time, I suggested that I had little to add to the world of cowbell mixes, because everything I could think of was on this list.

I take that back.

Now that I have truly set my mind to it, I have found many things not on that list, and also now I am not afraid to replicate some things that are there, too, because you know what? The world needs a decent cowbell CD.

You might be surprised by what a diverse array of cowbell music is out there, with more being produced every day! I have tried to limit myself to pretty mainstream stuff, because I figure most listeners are most interested in the cowbell music they most recognize.

There are hitches, however. I find myself listening to some tracks over and over--like "Whiskey You're the Devil" or "My Sharona"--trying to figure out: is that a cowbell? or a woodblock? or a drum rim? And although you might think "Devil's Haircut" has cowbell, it is really something more like a radiator that he is beating on. And what about "Tequila"? The sound in there may be a little too high-pitched to be cowbell, but it is not triangle--so what is it? (Personally I think that list could use some peer review: there are a number of things on it that do not really have the cowbell.)

And be warned: having ventured into the world of cowbell, you may leave with more questions than answers. For example:

* Do synthesized cowbells count?

* Why did Phil Collins not explore the world of cowbell?

* Is there something about the genre of country music that cannot tolerate the cowbell?

* Must guitar-virtuoso rock exclude cowbell? For instance, you might think Heart could get down with some cowbell, but NO, just snare and high hat.

* And what about all those tracks that you could swear have the cowbell--but then when you listen to them again with your eagle ears you find that no, that is just plain old drums or something. Like Outkast's "The Way You Move" or "I Need a Man" by the Eurythmics or "Private Eyes" by Hall and Oates. Damn, that's disappointing.

But Dear Readers, I have a few judgment calls for you. If you have opinions about cowbell mixes, would you be so kind as to leave your answers to the following questions in the comments?

1. Should my mix
a. only include the over-the-top blatant cowbell songs, like "Hey Ladies"? (FYI, I have an entire CD's worth that fits this category)
b. alternate between the blatant cowbell songs and more subtle ones, like "Owner of a Lonely Heart" where the cowbell is clearly present but not at the very forefront, or is perhaps muted?

2. When it comes to songs featuring synthesized cowbell sounds (e.g., "U Got the Look"), should I
a. include them?
b. exclude them?

3. When it comes to somewhat more out-there cowbellcentric songs, like Les Claypool's Whamola," should I
a. include one or two of them, just to show the vastness of the cowbell repertoire?
b. show no prejudice against them at all?
c. exclude them in favor of better-known cowbellery?

Anyone who votes will, if they provide me later with a mailing address, receive their very own copy of the mix.

Helping the economy.

2008-05-22T08:25:00.001-04:00

Here is an economic stimulus program I can get behind!

Spinning.

2008-05-21T17:25:00.003-04:00

Scott said, and he made me feel very flattered, "Your legs must be like two outboard motors by now." I am here to tell you this kind of thing has upsides and downsides.

MAJOR UPSIDE: Today I did my first spinning workout in over a year. (The last time was back when I was first having shoulder problems, circa March 2007.) Let me tell you: all that kicking has paid off! It was much easier to do the Stand Up Sit Down Fight Fight Fight thing that you do in a spinning class, thanks to my legs of steel. I know I will be stiff tomorrow, because this is the first cycling I have done since spring break, but STILL. I was pleased by how hard I could work and still walk after. (And I do know that it is possible to overdo it in a spinning class. I had a blast at my first ever spinning class--about 12 years ago--but I could barely stand afterwards, and I am not exaggerating. It took me about 2 weeks to be able to walk without screaming.)

MAJOR DOWNSIDE: Most of my pants fit more tightly than they did back in my sedentary phase over the winter--through the thighs, I mean. I attribute this to the tenaciousness of my leg flab, and its desire to keep my leg muscles hidden. Luckily I am a big fan of wide-legged linen pants, and those never stop fitting!

Swimming meditation.

2008-05-20T16:15:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since I wrote about swimming. I realized this this morning at practice, which was not going the best. But surprisingly enough, this not-great practice let me make some important strides in approaching things in a more mindful way.

During this not-so-great practice, I remembered that I had meant to write about a couple of recent practices in which I have clocked 3000 long-course meters, of which 1000 of those meters have been swim. (Hooah!) Those have been pretty amazing practices, both because my body has been permitting that much swimming and because 3000 LCM was a new record for one practice since I have returned from Surgery Numero Duo. Let me tell you: I have legs of steel! (Too bad they are encased in sheaths of extra flab....)

Back in the middle of March, I returned to swimming after getting clearance from my surgeon. I started with 450 meters of swimming in a practice, up to three times a week. My shoulder did not initially like swimming 3 times in one week, so for a while I swam twice a week. Then lately I have been able to swim 3 times a week more frequently, and all in all the recovery has been very steady, allowing me to add 10% of swimming distance almost every week, such that this week I am supposed to be able to swim 1100 meters.

Here is a sample of one of those 3000 LCM practices, just for the record (from 6 May):
1200m warm-up: 4 x 300 (=200 k + 100 s), with long fins [400m swim]
1200m IM set: 4 x 300 IM (= 100 FL k / 50 BA s / 100 BR k / 50 FR s) [400m swim]
400m kick/swim set: 4 x 100 (= 50 build k / 25 "madman" k / 25 s [100m swim]
TOTAL: 3000 LCM [900m swim]
I did a similar practice on 14 May, but with 1000 meters of swim.

But for whatever reason, at this past Saturday's practice my shoulder was unhappy, and I cut my swimming portion short. Thus far, things have gone extremely easily, so perhaps this is just a small check. At many points I have had some soreness along my triceps muscle that I believe results from some tightness of muscles elsewhere that I am stretching and stretching to try to loosen--which is working gradually.

Furthermore, my body is still adjusting to the long-course pool. Thanks to the lack of turns, and therefore opportunities to push off the wall, swimming one length in a 50-meter pool requires something like 10-15% more effort than swimming two lengths in a 25-meter pool. As someone who relies heavily on those big jumps off the wall, I take a while to get used to the long pool. (It is a bit of a shame that this adjustment had to come so early in my recovery, but so it goes.)

Today at practice, though, my shoulder felt a bit worse, or else I was being extremely sensitive and noticed it sooner. Given that the soreness is in the front of the shoulder, what I have come to call the "danger zone," I take it very seriously, and play things conservatively, since I would rather let the thing heal, however long it takes. I am concerned, though, that despite my doing regular rotator-cuff exercises, there may be some lingering weakness and instability in the joint, and that I have finally reached the amount of swimming where I can notice it.

So I backed off. Today I swam only 550 meters in a 2400-meter practice.

And while I am trying to remain optimistic, having this happen a second time in a few days does make me a little nervous.

What also made me nervous this morning was sharing a lane with The Human Propeller. I am not joking: this guy, who is rather tall and long-limbed, gets some serious crazy arms-everywhere action going on his freestyle. And on his backstroke, his stroke is wide wide wide.

I do not really mind sharing lane space with people when they are swimming in their normal allotment of the lane, but with this guy I was like, "DUDE. Feel free to take your half of the lane wherever you want it."

So I could feel myself venturing toward having A Bad Practice. Instead of letting that happen, though, I thought I would try a meditative technique. Of late I have been reading a book by John Kabat-Zinn, who writes extensively about mindfulness--living in the present--and how living mindfully can help counterbalance stress, deal with chronic pain, etc. etc. In his book, he talks about different kinds of meditation--walking meditation, eating meditation, sitting meditation, etc.

This morning I thought to myself, why not swimming meditation? Or more technically, kicking meditation? I was doing a set of 150s, which were supposed to go 50 kick + 50 drill or swim + 50 fast kick, but I had modified them to become all kick, alternating FL/BR/FR, and I was doing all of this with a swim snorkel, which made breathing much easier. So during the fly-kick 50, I started focusing on my breathing, and trying to think just about breathing, and then after that got easy, just about the motion of kicking. On the breast-kick 50, I coordinated my breathing with the kick motion, and focused on that. (On the flutter-kick 50, I was trying to kick fast, and that required a little less meditation.)

But the important thing here is that IT WORKED. I got myself back into the present moment of my swimming and out of my fears. Of course, this sort of thing requires rethinking what swim practice is about, which I was prepared to do. The notion of mindfulness as a practice is not something you do to perfect, but rather something that is more a way of life or a part of one's regular doings. In learning about this, I have wondered, What would happen if I thought of swim practice as that kind of practice rather than as rehearsals for meets?

Today I learned that it is easier to have good technique. I realized that during my last 150, I felt stronger and more efficient than during the first one, even though I was tired (and especially so because I had forgotten to eat anything before practice--duh). In particular, I felt that my fly kick was more powerful, as I was getting propulsion from both my down-kick and my up-kick. My breast-stroke kick felt more powerful too. My flutter kick engaged my hips more.

I will continue to practice this, as it were.

LOL-MSs.

2008-05-14T12:10:00.005-04:00

I am about to blow town to see this, but if you are looking for entertainment, try this:

I was as fond of LOLcats as the next cat, but these things speak to my inner medievalist. [via]

Terry Gilliam would be proud. And everywhere textual scholars are doing backflips.

Attention sports fans:

2008-05-07T16:25:00.004-04:00

Seems to me that neither do you need to be an AC Milan fan, nor need to understand Italian, nor even need to be a soccer fan, to appreciate this guy's glee:

Milan 2-1 Inter commentaire Italien
by t_m
(Props Daily Dish)
I say that without much knowledge you can still guess how sweet it might feel for AC Milan to beat Inter Milan. Perhaps you too have some familiarity with some kind of local rivalry or another?

I wish I had about on-fifth of this guy's ability to express his feelings.

And I cannot stop watching the video!

The dead people.

2008-05-06T08:10:00.003-04:00

I cannot stop thinking about the dead people and whether or not they watch you shower. (Explanatory note to tjarrett: check out the items in the sidebars on that list, the "new releases" and the "bestsellers.")

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend, and since I had sent her that link too, she started out our conversation with, "So I understand you're an occultist." She wanted to know if the crystals at our massage therapist's place glow when I walk in the room. Luckily, I had an appointment that afternoon, and since I had never even noticed that she even had crystals, I checked them out. They were glowing!

But back to the dead people, who I cannot stop thinking about. My friend pointed out that it is not that big a deal, because God watches everything, right? But I reasoned, why would God give you a nose and a finger if he did not want you to pick said nose. My concern is that I am not sure that the dead people are as forgiving as God. Nothing against dead people, of course, but there are plenty of living people who I would prefer not to shower in front of--most of them, really.

So now I cannot stop imagining that all the dead people are somehow jammed in my bathroom in the morning, peering over the shower rod or around the curtain. (I hope they have not noticed how mildewed my shower curtain has gotten of late: I expect they are not that forgiving about poor housecleaning either.) Because they are dead people, they probably are not as worried about physical comforts, so given that we have pretty high ceilings, I bet that a lot of dead people can fit in the space of my bathroom. Can dead people see through the shower curtain?

Or do dead people have bodies at all, so is there really not even a question of volume? Do the dead people have to take turns with the shower-watching, or can they all fit in there? Do they sell tickets, make schedules? And why are they so interested in my showering? Shouldn't they be watching you shower? If you and I shower at the same time but in different time zones, can the dead people somehow manage a glimpse of both? And are they only interested in showers? Do dead people watch you sleep? Do they watch you take a crap, now that they don't have noses and so are less offended? Or if they can watch you does that mean that they can also smell you?

How many dead people are in my study right now, watching me type this? Are they making snide comments to each other about my inability to type "the" correctly on the first shot? Or are they saying, "Ooh, ooh, tell them about how we listen to them talking to themselves while they are driving! Tell them we wish they had more sex!" Or would they rather that we not know?

The dangers of self-googling*.

2008-05-05T09:51:00.003-04:00

I suppose we get what we need and deserve. This morning's googling of self revealed this. I must admit that have never had my work appear in a list titled "occultism" before. I get to hang out with “Magic and the Power of the Goddess,” the “Satanic Bible,” “Do Dead People Watch You Shower?” and “A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits.”

Cool!
---------------
* In the future, readers unfamiliar with the search engine might wonder if I am writing about auto-eroticism. Rest assured: I am not.

Report: New York Book Launch.

2008-05-04T15:11:00.005-04:00

Well, the book was successfully launched, and I am pleased to note that no one broke a bottle of champage over it or me. And no one forgot the launch code, though I did have a moment of panic walking along 21st Street when I realized I had forgotten my talk in my hotel room. The PP and I rushed back to the room, picked up my folder and notes, and reset the count-down. By the time we arrived at Gramercy Park, my co-editor had the launch pad all set up, and we checked that my PC-produced PowerPoint slides looked OK on her Mac, and we were set to go.

I am here to tell you that if you ever have the chance to visit the National Arts Club, you should do it. The glass-case-framed collection of ceramic and glass pug dog statues makes the trip worth it (they and an actual pug dog were the bequest of a member), but take time to check out some of the paintings. The word is that back in the day, member artists were expected to bequeath a painting in lieu of dues. You can learn more about the club's and its building's history here, but let me tell you: that illustration they have of one of the Tiffany stained-glass windows does it no justice. And right near the stairwell is a photograph of Yeats himself, taken when he visited the city in 1933. Apparently the organization can boast to be the only Yeats society in the world that meets in a building where Yeats actually spent any time. Now you know!

I believe the audience appreciated some of my little jokes about the tribulations and trials of textual editing, but I also realized how they did not really believe the details could be true--and also that I had already myself forgotten some of the worst bits, or at least the emotions involved. Perhaps this is necessary, as there is another volume now to be done.

I am happy to report that the launch in Atlanta (well, Decatur, really) at 7:30 p.m. on 17 May will not require a lecture from me. In fact, the folks hosting it have dubbed it a "Yeats Festival"! If you are in the greater Atlanta metro area, and you are inclined to attend, why not plan to recite or read or or sing or even chant a poem?

If. . .

2008-04-28T09:09:00.004-04:00

---you are in the greater New York metropolitan area;
---you are interested in the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, and especially his wacky astrological stuff;
---you found yourself captivated by recent posts about editing;

Then . . .
---you might consider attending this event on May 1st: it is a launch party for the book I have been editing for the last (it seems) two-and-a-half years. That's right; it's published!

(But I am sorry to say that our event goes up against several glassy events--this and this and this. Dang--I would have liked to attend them all.)

If you are simply too far away to attend, but too far away in the, say, Atlanta direction, then stay tuned for details about the Atlanta event on 17 May. I believe there will be a launch in Sligo during this too, but details for that have not been worked out.

Sorry to go on about all this: I am just quite excited.

Friday Random 2m42s: The cactus plants are tough on pants Edition.

2008-04-18T14:54:00.006-04:00

Tim Jarrett has thrown down the gauntlet.

OK, I'll play.

Here's the scoop. Joshua Allen says the perfect pop song is two minutes and forty-two seconds long. The gist of the argument is "get in and get out." In our busy world, we don't have much time for recreation, and any second that a song is too long is a second wasted. But, alack, a song can be too short, too. So, he concludes, as much by example as by mathematics, 2:42 is the magic number.

I have a few questions, I must confess. For instance, Devo's "Whip It" sadly it lacks a second. But friends, can you honestly tell me that it is lacking anything else? And Aretha's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" is, apparently, too long, as it lasts 2:43. But parentheses aside, what would you take away?

But I digress. The laws have been decreed, and I will go sit down.

Some people have already jumped on the mixtape bandwagon, starting, of course, with Allen himself. But there is more work to be done. So Tim asks, "Can you top his mix?"

In the spirit of the long-overdue Friday Random 10, and acknowledging that coming up with a decent-length mix of short songs requires quite a few of them, here is my mix(1):

1. "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash (2)
2. "Contrary Mary" by Lightnin' Hopkins
3. "Baby Please Don't Go" by Van Morrison
4. "Leah" by Roy Orbison
5. "Forever Blue" by Chris Isaak
6. "Deep in the Heart of Texas" by Gene Autry
7. "Do What You Wanna" by Ramsey Lewis
8. "Christ for President" by Billy Bragg & Wilco
9. "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding
10. "Homeward Bound" by Simon & Garfunkel (live version)
11. "Do What" by Squirrel Nut Zippers
12. "Hold That Tiger" by Louis Armstrong (3)
13. "St. Louis Blues" by Django Reinhardt
14. "Gling Gló" by Björk Guðmundsdótti and Trió Guðmundar Ingólfssonar
15. "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" by Nick Lowe (4)
16. "Tarantella Napoletana" by ????????
17. "Michelle" by The Beatles
18. "Saint Agnes and the Burning Train" by Sting
19. "That Teenage Feeling" by Neko Case
20. "Sheila Take a Bow" by The Smiths
21. "Delicius Demon" by The Sugarcubes (5)
22. "Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite" by The Spaniels

Note (1): Because figuring out how much extra space recordings have at the end of a song is also, as Allen would say, a goddamn waste of time, I am relying on my MediaSource jukebox's read of the song length. This means that technically my mix is at least as efficient as Allen's.

Note (2): I'm referring to the version of "Folsom Prison Blues" from the concert album recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin. Even with the prisoners cheering after he says "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," it comes in 10 seconds shorter than the studio version. What does this tell us about the value of time in prison?

Note (3): Could someone who teaches where I do really leave off "Hold That Tiger"?

Note (4): I am sorry I do not know who is performing the recording of "Tarantella Napoletana," but how could I resist it after the Nick Lowe song?

Note (5): Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for including a Björk song and a Sugarcubes song!

I'm burning my CD copy now. If you want one, lemme know.

Anniversaries.

2008-04-13T17:45:00.005-04:00

As the semester is winding to a close (only two weeks of classes on the wall, two weeks of classes, take one down pass it--oh never mind), I am thinking a lot about my emergency surgery last spring. The sunlight is the same. The azaleas are the same. The dogwoods are the same. The feeling of almost being through the semester is the same. The feeling of trying to go back to the pool after time away is the same (well, similar). The sense of summer activities starting up around town is the same.

I consulted last year's calendar, and in so doing, found physical evidence of the pre-surgery me and the post-surgery me. The pre-surgery me made lots of plans, and wrote them all down in the book to keep track of them and make sure nothing fell by the wayside. The post-surgery me came at those plans with a heavy pencil and crossed things out--lunches for retiring colleagues, meetings, parties, concerts. In their place are physical therapy appointments, appointments with the infectious disease doctor, meetings with the Home Health nurse who would teach me how to use my PICC line and take blood samples from time to time. According to my calendar, I got my arthrogram done on Thursday, April 19, during the second-to-last week of classes. The weekend of pain was 20-21 April. My emergency surgery was 27 April, the last day of classes. Then summer vacation began, in a very narcotically foggy way. In the week of May 7, I recorded nine separate medical appointments, often two or three different ones on the same day.

Since my life is so structured by the academic calendar, I feel these dates less by the regular calendar and more by the academic calendar. Perhaps in some ways this is like marking holidays according to the phases of the moon, where there are other markers than a simple datebook to tell you where you are. I remember that my arthrogram hapened the week after I was in Ann Arbor for a conference. While I was there, I talked to several old friends about my shoulder, my not being able to swim, my not knowing what was up. I talked about not wanting to go the surgical route, because of all the complications I could imagine, including causing other problems in the shoulder. That week of school I had a bunch of meetings, trying to wrap up the business of the semester. I was scheduled for the MRI for Monday, but there was some scheduling snafu, and it was rescheduled for Thursday. (Memo to self: It is not productive to wonder whether if I had had the arthrogram done on Monday I would still have gotten an infection....)

I had the MRI/arthrogram done on a Thursday morning. I still remember watching the nurses prepare the needles and contrast solution according to "sanitary procedure." I still remember lying on the table under the camera with the enormous spinal needle in shoulder joint, while the radiologist kept jamming it around in there and then consulting a monitor to see whether now it was positioned properly. I remember feeling painfully vulnerable and violated. I remember walking out of the hospital in tears and shaken into a beautifully warm and breezy day. The whole scene is as clear as if it happened earlier this morning. This coming Thursday, 17 April, is the same day on the academic calendar, so it is my anniversary of the arthrogram.

The feeling of warm and breezy is the same. The smells of plants and pollen and flowering trees and rain-dampened dirt are the same. The sun rises in the same place and at 10:00 this Friday it will all feel very much the way it did on the day I left my orthopedist's office, frustrated that there was no definitive information from that MRI/arthrogram and very sore because (I thought) had had manipulated my arm and shoulder too much, given how sore I was after that long encounter with the gigantic needle. And then as the sun rises higher in the sky, it will look the way it did when I realized the pain was getting worse, and at high noon it will look very much like it did when my orthopedist's nurse, who I had called because I was worried about this pain, suggested that I take an Advil, as if I might not have tried that, say, before I called.

At night now, it still cools off, but we know there is something about even a night chill that feels like summer is on its way with its nights that offer no relief from the heat. And on this Friday night, I will remember finally getting some pain pills and taking them and feeling relief from the unbearable pain whose source I did not understand but now know was caused by a bacterial colony having a big party in my shoulder. I will remember that relief, and then I will remember the violent and uncontrollable nausea that the pills also brought during the non-time of the middle of the night, so that I was vomiting my guts up while trying desperately not to move my shoulder, where the pain had become indescribable and (since I could keep nothing down including pills), uncontainable.

Then perhaps this Saturday will be gorgeously warm, as it was when finally the PP loaded my pajama-clad and hopelessly pathetic self into the car, along with my mini trash can for puking, and took me to see that same orthopedist, who (thanks be) gave me a shot of antibiotics along with different pain drugs, this time combined with anti-nausea meds.

Friday, 25 April is the day I will honor the anniversary of my surgery, scheduled in a big hurry for the same day after an appointment with a different orthopedist--who became my shoulder surgeon--discovered evidence of infection in the joint. When I was lying in my hospital bed, all I could see was a silent view of waving trees and sky, and I thanked those trees and sky for their company. As I write this, the trees are leafing out as fast as they can, so they will look as lush and wonderful as they did last spring.

So these anniversaries are almost upon me. I will be too embarrassed to mention them to most people, because what I do not need now is to be told that I am being overdramatic. Since I have resumed the making of plans in advance, I will have other things to do on these days besides remember. I have a class and two thesis defenses scheduled on Thursday, and that evening I plan to go to a concert, a performance by the child of dear friends. (His spring concert last year was crossed out.) On Friday I visit my massage therapist. Next Friday in my calendar reads "Last day of classes," written in the same scrawling hand that noted the same fact in last year's calendar. I am back to making plans, though I do so now in pencil.

But in and among those plans, I need to decide how to mark these anniversaries.

If only classes ended a few weeks sooner. . .

2008-04-07T08:09:00.000-04:00

Magpie sent me this. Wow.

Palmetto Alpaca Classic.

2008-04-07T06:53:00.011-04:00

On Saturday, I bribed the Patient Partner to go to the Palmetto Alpaca Classic with me. How, you ask? Simple: lunch at Super Taco, so he could have a green chili burrito. His fav, but now that we don't live in Clemson, we don't get over there very often.

But I digress. I had mentioned the alpaca show? I had not yet been to a show at the T. Ed Garrison Livestock Arena, or, as we locals call it, the T. Ed. "Hey," the PP said, pointing to a guy in a cowboy hat driving an old-school Buick as we pulled into the parking lot, "Isn't that T. Ed over there?" I do not think that it was, but as I was bribing him, I did not say so.

On our way there, we tried to come up with what we would tell the alpaca farmers about why we were there. It turns out that we run an alpaca packing outdoor adventure company in the NC mountains, and we were there to find alpaca-specific harnesses, since the ones we had, designed for llamas, were too big for the alpacas and kept slipping, unless we added extra pillows for padding, and that got hot for the poor alpacas in the summertime. Then we thought maybe we were a French company, Alpine Alpacas, come to South Carolina, we would say in our outrageous accent, for the superior stock of alpacas.

Anyway, we got there right around lunchtime, so there was time to walk around the barn before the obstacle competition. If you are a knitter and have ever wondered why suri fleece is softer than huacaya, all you have to do is see them: the huacaya are fluffy and poofy, while the suri's hair lies closer and lanker and very shiny--like baby down or something.

It turns out that no alpaca food is as delicious as that in your neighbor's pen:

It felt like a cool damp day to us, in our sweaters and raincoats and boots, but the alpacas were cooking in their full fleece (most of the alpacas will get shorn in the next few weeks, once the temperatures stabilize a bit). They loved the fans.

The obstacle competition was a like in a dog show, but really the alpacas weren't that into it. The contests happen by age class, with the littlest kids going first, then middle kids, and then an open division where adults try their hand. We think the best competitor may have been in the littlest kids' group--a little girl whose alpaca just seemed to trust her, do whatever she wanted (walk zigzagging between cones, step up on a wooden step--they mostly hated that--walk through a gate, step onto a tarp, run, get into a trailer). Granted, as the human competitors got older, they were expected to convince the alpacas to do more complicated things, like walk backwards, or raise a foot (presumably for toenail clipping). But seriously: this girl had mad skills.

Later there was an alpaca costume competition. We joked about whether the judge would give a big speech, justifying the awards. You know, like "The toucan costume got extra points because it so succeeded in transforming one animal into another" or "While the hippy costume was very festive and colorful, we do not believe that alpacas should be forced to wear pink berets," but then he actually did! It turns out the requirements for that contest have less to do with creativity or beauty or hilarity, and more to do with how many parts of the alpaca are adorned. The Native American costume did well because in addition to a blanket over its body and a feathered headdress on its neck, it had bells on its legs. I bet the girl who dressed up as Dorothy to go with her lion alpaca was pissed that she only came in fifth!

What basketball game?

2008-04-06T10:52:00.002-04:00

If you find yourself in need of something light (yet dark) to take your mind off other things, check out Joe Queenan's humorous take on "questions for discussion" at the back of the book.

World into world.

2008-04-04T05:31:00.004-04:00

There is something surreal happening over at David Byrne's blog. Well, OK, it is technically not surreal in and of itself, but for me, reading it is.

This is one of those rare moments when one central piece of my cultural world is commenting on other central pieces. The writer, of course is Byrne, whose pop lyrics and music and even his rummaging around in the musical traditions of other places came to me at a crucial time in my discovery of the world. I know, that sounds melodramatic. But when I tried to write "in my discovery of music," that just did not encompass what I meant. I guess this is because "at that age," such simple things as music--as song lyrics or hooks or tunes--can bring a world with them. And did.

And one thing he is writing about is the concept of the standard, which he is exploring through songs from classic Disney movies and showtunes written by Cole Porter and George Gershwin. He explicitly talks about the Stay Awake compilation from 1988, the title of which I have been trying to think of since I re-encountered Tom Waits' version of "Heigh Ho" on Orphans. And although he does not specifically mention it, I cannot read his discussion without thinking of Red Hot + Blue, where, of course, Byrne contributed his own brilliant version of "Don't Fence Me In."

So, OK, strange enough.

But now he is planning to perform with Paul Simon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Which led him to contemplate what it is about Paul Simon's music that makes it so compelling. And Paul Simon was another one of maybe four or five performers whose music dominated my teenage psyche. In the course of that discussion he talks about You're the One, a more recent album, of course, but one that immediate struck me because its lyrics seem to get what it means to grow up, to grow older. But here is what David Byrne said:

Like many others, I grew up listening to and learning the Simon & Garfunkel repertoire. However, it was one of his more recent records — You’re the One — that really knocked me out, even more than Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, which one might expect me to identify with, since I was also collaborating with musicians from Africa and Brazil around the same time. The record didn’t sell that well, but to my ears, he had finally internalized all he’d learned from his earlier collaborations. He had made something that didn’t sound like any of his sources or inspirations, yet couldn’t have been made without them. We crossed paths somewhere and I told him how much I liked that record and maybe that helped break the ice.

Some months ago, we started meeting occasionally and we’d fall into talking about how we write and what the process is and where we get stuck and when it’s easy. I would sit, rapt, as I felt like I was hearing the words of a master songwriter, a kind of magician who was going to reveal to me, over lunch, some of his best tricks. Here was a more contemporary Gershwin or Cole Porter who was going to tell me a little of how it was done. Listen up.

Well, it didn’t happen exactly like that. Specific harmonic devices don’t always work for everyone in the same way, for example. At times, Paul and I might actually use very similar ways of writing words, but in the end, what we gravitate to — the lyrics we choose to be best and most suitable — is unique to each of us. So his tricks are essentially useless to me. I could, however, extrapolate, and find common ground in the decision-making process along the way. Our discussions yielded more about what might drive an artist to continue creating than they did songwriting advice. What does one do when confronted with a problem? And how can an artist remain passionate and interested in writing little songs?

Clinton releases NCAA picks.

2008-03-29T10:35:00.003-04:00

CHARLOTTE, NC (AP)--Sporting a Jordan Brand t-shirt reading “There are no Cinderellas,” Hillary Clinton today released her NCAA tournament bracket in a press conference held on the Davidson College campus in Charlotte, NC. Her bracket reveals some predictions that even her strongest supporters had not expected.

“Senator Obama claims to be a big basketball fan,” she said, referring to the release of Obama’s NCAA picks just as the tournament began. “But even he,” she said amidst cheers from her supporters, “could not see that Davidson would beat Wisconsin!”

Some commentators have suggested that Sen. Clinton’s prediction that West Virginia would beat Duke in the second round might cost her supporters in North Carolina, whose Democratic primary is May 6. “An endorsement of Duke is not an endorsement of the great state of North Carolina,” she said. New Jersey’s primary was held on February 5.

Sen. Clinton’s bracket beats out Barack Obama’s in the early rounds, too, where she predicted the first-round upsets in Tampa. “I champion the underdog,” she said. “I know how hard it is to make a living in these economic times.”

Asked about her mistaken prediction that St. Joseph’s would upset higher ranked Oklahoma, Sen. Clinton said, “I was given false information about the point guard by the [St. Joe’s] administration.”

Sen. Obama has received some criticism for his picks, with sports talk radio hosts claiming that his choice of Pitt to beat Stanford to go to the Final Four was politically motivated. Asked whether her own decision to take Pitt all the way to the championship game was similarly driven by politics, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I understand the drive and determination of the people of Pennsylvania.”

In her speech, Sen. Clinton also argued for a new moniker for regional semi-finals. “The Elite Eight is not a viable name in these political times,” she said. “Republicans love to joke about the liberal elite,” she said. “When I am president, that round will be renamed The Superdeleg Eight.”

Errors from the touch of God.

2008-03-28T10:57:00.009-04:00

If you do not read the comments section here at "The Secrets of Isis," then you have missed one of the most exciting discussions ever, on the topic of error.

In short, Mateen noticed that I had left a verb out of a sentence. I inserted the verb, making the correction visible to all. Then Scott asked how I decide whether to flag an error or not. I tried to determine some kind of principled position from a somewhat unthought-through decision.

Meanwhile, Mateen noticed that he, too, had made an error, this time of spelling. He wished it had been deliberate, but could not so claim it. Scott, based on Mateen's error, had devised his own reading of Mateen's message, only to have Mateen's correction make him realize that he too had been making a long-standing error of spelling, and the whole brilliant image he had constructed based on this small misspelling came crashing down in a torrent of disillusion. Then Mateen, a poet as well as an important Spartan, mentioned a poem by Aaron Fogel, about which more shortly.

Do you see how exciting this is?

Of course, we are hardly the first to have something to say on the topic of Error. To wit, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Redcrosse Knight encounters Errour herself, in her very den:

This is the wandring wood, this Errours den,
A monster vile, whom God and man does hate:
Therefore I read beware. Fly fly (quoth then
The fearefull Dwarfe:) this is no place for liuing men.

But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the vgly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.

And as she lay vpon the durtie ground,
Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred,
Yet was in knots and many boughtes vpwound,
Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred
A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,
Sucking vpon her poisonous dugs, each one
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored:
Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.

(By the by, do you notice how reptilian Errour is? How snake like? Could this--"Snakes in The Faerie Queene"--have been a predecessor to--oh never mind.)

The point is, Error occupies an unfavored place in so many minds. In Latin, the word suggests a wandering or a straying, a deviation from the truth--and Spenser seems to share this feeling. Errors are mistakes, misunderstandings, and no one wants to be the last man to die for a mistake. A person who makes an error is at fault. Computer errors lead to the blue screen of death.

Errors count against players in baseball. Grammatical errors lead to points off on a paper. Newspapers do what they can to correct errors quickly. Errors in judgment, mistakes, accidents--they all can have their cost.

But what messages from elsewhere do we shut down in our urge to correct? The book I have just published (woo-hoo!) is a scholarly edition of a crazy book--one riddled with errors. As editors, we were faced with the questions: Can we make the reading of this book easier without losing the wackiness of the real thing? At what point do our corrections change the text irremediably? If the decision were mine to make alone--if our edition were not part of a series with established principles--I would have said, let's keep it as it is. It is, after all, a book where errors of spelling, numbering, italicization, attribution, etc. are part of the experience. Why lose that? But, the world being the world, I compromised: we made many small emendations (all noted in my extensive table at the back, of course!) and left some errors extant.

Frank Steinman would tell me I am a horrible meddler. He is the speaker of Aaron Fogel's poem "The Printer's Error." Experienced printer that he is, Steinman lays out several kinds of error, ranging from errors of chance, to moments of rebellion on the part of type-setters, to

. . . errors
from the touch of God,
divine and often
obscure corrections
of whole books by
nearly unnoticed changes
of single letters
sometimes meaningful but
about which the less said
by preemptive commentary
the better.

In all cases, Steinman warns editors, especially us academic types, to BACK OFF, because all errors "are in practice the / same and indistinguishable." He concludes:

Therefore I,
Frank Steinman,
typographer
for thirty-seven years,
and cooperative Master
of the Holliston Guild
eight years,
being of sound mind and body
though near death
urge the abolition
of all editorial work
whatsoever
and manumission
from all textual editing
to leave what was
as it was, and
as it became,
except insofar as editing
is itself an error, and

therefore also divine.

Amen, Frank.

And go Heels.

Madness.

2008-03-23T17:25:00.005-04:00

It is not every year that the college basketball season aligns so perfectly with my spring break, but wow: when it does, it does. So while last weekend was all about the ACC tournament, this weekend has been the national tournaments. And I have brackets in play for both the men's and women's tournaments, along with another pool, which I will describe in a minute.

My women's bracket is doing OK, and so far none of my mis-picks (Hartford? Florida State? Georgia? Nebraska? Iowa State?) were supposed to win their next game, so there is great hope.

My men's bracket is a mess. I had Georgetown going to the Final Four, Clemson to the Elite Eight, and U Conn to the Sweet Sixteen, among other things. I am most sad about Clemson, of course, but I suppose they used up all they had beating Duke in the ACC tourney, and that was a worthy sacrifice. (Go West Virginia.) I see that Barack Obama and I are in similar boats, at least in terms of our Final Fours, since he has Pitt going that far. I am sure there was nothing political about that choice, just as my faith that Clemson would beat Kansas was reasonable.... Neither of us imagined the magic that West Virginia would do.

Most exciting, though, is the pool I am in with friends where we had to draft teams and then see who gets the most wins (there are also lesser prizes for the person with the second most wins and the person with the winning team). In that pool, I was tied for least wins at the end of round 1, and as of right now, all my teams (UConn, Vandy, Miami, UNLV, Baylor, Oral Roberts [I know], Mt. St. Mary's) [edited to add: are out] except one. And given the team I have left, I do not even care that I have lost all my others. Want to guess who it is? Hint: I got the first pick in the draft.

As the child of a dear friend would say, Happy Zut Alors!

Vacation time.

2008-03-19T07:36:00.003-04:00

It has been years since I let go of my thought that I needed to comment on every political development of interest. And since I am on vacation, my attention has not been focused on politics, but rather on trying to identify the strange bulbous creatures that washed up on the beach after Saturday night's crazy storms. (I have not really succeeded, but they might be cannonball jellies.) Beach walks after storms are instructive. I usually tend to think of the fragility of ocean creatures in terms of broken shells, but seeing soft transparent body after soft transparent body broadens my definitions.

But after reading any number of commentaries about Obama's Philadelphia speech about race, I finally sat down this morning and read the whole thing.

Wow.

I do not have a lot to add about how he seized the moment with aplomb, or about his frank assessment of race in America. But I do have a couple of thoughts about the way this moment has unfolded.

First, he received a bit of criticism for not responding immediately. Instead, he took what was almost starting to look like too long, but time enough to prepare this immensely thoughtful and nuanced response. I suspect that in the long run, the "long time" that he took will be forgotten, and what will be remembered are his words.

Second, I am impressed, yes, by the way he acknowledged the role of Wright in his religious life, but more by the fact that he will hold up some words of the man but not all. Some people have suggested that he should have left Wright's church, and that maybe he only did not because it did not occur to him to rock the boat.

But why are we as a culture so quick to separate ourselves from things with which we do not agree? Why don't we spend more time listening to the ideas of people who come from different perspectives, or who hold different convictions, or who base their thinking on different fundamental beliefs? I am not saying that in so doing we much always change our beliefs based on what we hear. But I do feel like I learn more from reading the columns of thoughtful conservatives than of mouthing-off liberals, whether I finally agree with their conclusions or not. And on a more personal level, I have a number of friends with whom I could not disagree more on issues about which I have strong convictions, but I still tend to think such people intelligent, or moral, or true to themselves.

It is a relief, and frankly it gives me quite a charge, to hear a political leader acknowledge complexity in this way.

Now excuse me: I have some marine biology to study.

Confession.

2008-03-18T08:22:00.006-04:00

I know, I know. I should be writing to you about the beach--and I will--but for now I have to show you some things:

Isn't that pretty? I am going to make a springy sweater with that. It will be my first time knitting with a linen blend.

I am less certain about exactly what I will make with this delicious item from Interlacements:

But for now I don't even care: it is just so pretty to admire!

I went to Knit yesterday and blew about one year's pay. I feel slightly guilty, but fundamentally thrilled at all these colors, such as these from Great Adirondack:

And I could not resist a little Noro:

That is tagged for a hat for me, even though I know I will not get to wear it much or at all until next winter. But hey: mostly I cannot wait to knit with it.

Citations I.

2008-03-16T09:56:00.003-04:00

This is not quite knowing what the earth requires:
earthiness, earthliness, or things ethereal;
whether spiritus mundi notices bad faith
or if it cares; defraudings at the source,
the bare usury of the species. In the end
one is as broken as the vows and tatters,
petitions with blood on them, the charred prayers
spiralling godwards on intense thermals.

No decent modicum, agreed. I'd claim
the actual is once cruder and finer,
without fuss carrying its own weight. Still
I think of poetry as it was said
of Alanbrooke's war diary: a work done
to gain, or regain, possession of himself,
as a means of survival and, in that sense,
a mode of moral life.

--Geoffrey Hill, from A Treatise of Civil Power (2007)

1962.

2008-03-15T18:09:00.002-04:00

Any of you out there who teach know that there are times when your students knock your socks off, and until today, that has been my favorite thing about teaching at Clemson.

But today? Well.

Pretty amazing to watch those Tigers actually making free throws--and to knock Duke out of the tourney? Priceless.

Clemson is going to the ACC championship final for the first time since 1962. My mother claims that that game will be win-win for me, but she's wrong. Once a Heel, always a Heel.

But can we have another moment to think back on Oliver Purnell telling Mike K. that his team played a good game anyway? Heh.

Swim.

2008-03-14T08:54:00.004-04:00

On Wednesday, I saw my surgeon again, and I got the go-ahead to return to swimming, not just kicking. My physical therapist and I devised a schedule for coming back--starting back at about 500 yards of swimming, with a maximum of three practices per week, and then increasing 10% each week. If I have problems--such as pain--I back away from that increase until the pain goes away. If there are areas in my stroke where I have trouble with mobility, he will give me more exercises. I will continue doing my regular exercises daily for a month, and then gradually back off some of the exercises and I get more of my strengthening from swimming.

I am thrilled to be at this point. I can remember any number of times when I thought this day would not come.

But I also have mixed feelings, in that I have not decided yet how seriously I want to return to the swimming. Of course I am excited to have other options for exercise and fitness (which I have seriously lost over the last six months or so, not to mention the months before that), but I am still wrestling with how I want to pursue this. Starting in the fall of 2004 and culminating in the spring of 2006, I had achieved a very high level of swimming fitness: during that period I achieved several USMS national cuts, trained at a high level (swimming with masters and my team's kids' squad), competed in a lot of meets (including numerous USA Swimming meets where I raced with little kids--humbling), and medaled in the spring USMS SCY national championship. To return to my fitness level of spring 2006 would require a tremendous amount of work, and I would basically be starting from scratch. I do not yet know that I want to make that commitment.

But for now, I am just swimming. On Wednesday, after my appointment with my surgeon, I went to the pool and did a session of 2000 meters, of which 450 meters were swimming. Much of that swimming (300 meters) I did while wearing long fins, and I never swam more than a 50 at a time (for most of the swimming, I alternated 25 swim with 25 kick). I was both not surprised and a little surprise by how hard it was to swim, as I realized how weak my arms are (especially the left, but really both of them). On Thursday and also this morning, I was very stiff in my left arm, but PT exercises and stretching helps loosen that up.

And now for the next week or so, I am at the beach, doing the spring break thing. Note: for me, the "spring break thing" does not include big parties with lots of undergraduates gone wild. Instead, it will be a pretty quiet week, where my biggest decisions are which knitting project to work on, whether to go for a bike ride or watch the ACC tourney, whether to eat here in the condo or go to a restaurant, whether to sit around in my jammies or venture out for a newspaper, and how far to walk on the beach. I'll need to do some work in there too, but still. My condo looks out on the tennis courts, so this morning I am listening to the pock, pock, pock of someone's first game of the day.

I am going to see if by the end of this week, I can get myself back to a point where I can return to swim practice next week. I think that having feedback from my coach now, when I am trying to rebuild my stroke and trying to be very careful about pacing my recovery, could be a very important thing. But first I need to get to a mental place where I feel good about being at practice.

But for now, should I ride my bike on the beach or go pick up a New York Times?

p.s. Go Heels.

Ms. T.

2008-03-11T15:15:00.002-04:00

This has been a hard year of losing teachers, first a high-school English teacher who was my yearbook advisor, and now the woman who embodied the Talented and Gifted Program for fourth- and fifth-graders in my city. That program gave me faith--that I have even now--that even if the place I found myself was dreary, somewhere only a shortbus ride away was a place where people did not laugh at me for being smart.

I learned from Tim today that the woman who first embodied that faith for me died a month ago. I suppose that these days the children of Newport News have a different teacher for that program, and who they will come to associate with their own faith. For me, though, there could be no other.

It is funny: I have, in my twenty-two years of formal education, had a lot of teachers, many of them immensely inspiring (let's not talk about the others today). But you never do forget the first teacher who really expected you to stretch, and gave you some idea of how to start, and made the whole thing seem like the most fun a person could ever have. Ms. T., each time I walk into my own classroom, I do it with the hope of bringing you back to life and introducing you to another group of kids hungry for what you gave us all.

Who knew I looked so much like Felipe Gonzalez?

2008-02-27T14:10:00.003-05:00

Have you see the thing where they tell you what celebrities you look like?

I have to say, I don't really see the Faith Hill thing.

You?

Why I spend most of my disposable income on music.

2008-02-24T18:44:00.003-05:00

Twice recently, I have, through music, found myself facing a confrontation between a younger me and the present me.

The first happened at a recent performance here by the National Symphony Orchestra, who were just completing a residency in South Carolina, which included concerts here and in several other cities in the Upstate. Among other pieces on their program was Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Had you been there for my childhood, you would know that this was a piece I loved, listening to it over and over again, studying descriptions of the paintings on which it was based, learning to place many parts of the original piano score, incorporating parts of it into the "soundtrack" for a slideshow, about Lucien Stryk's poem "Crow," that I made as a school project in middle school. My favorites were always the big bossy parts and the minor-key spooky parts--the little gnome, the big peasant cart, the section about Baba Yaga. My family had an LP recording of the orchestral version and at some point I bought an LP of the piano version.

(Apparently I was less interested in Mussorgsky by the time I was buying CDs, because I realized after the concert that I had neither version.)

As far as I can recall, this was the first time I have ever watched a performance of this piece, and I have little training in orchestral music. The result was that I knew what the piece was supposed to sound like, but I had not ever considered what instruments were making those sounds, which left me wholly unprepared for the giant bell during the Great Gates at Kiev--which the percussionist had to climb a stepladder to even reach.

More than anything, though, I was unprepared for the emotional encounter I would have with the piece, because there, sitting next to me in the balcony, or perhaps in my lap, was a much younger me, whose enthusiasm for this over the top intensity had not been tempered by years of sarcasm and irony. Instead, this person still delighted in the music--still remembering the progressions of the piece just before they happened, reveling in the wobbly rhythms of the ballet of the little unhatched chicks, feeling chills in her scalp when the percussion section went to work in final section.

When I was in high school, I fell in love with Shostakovich's 5th Sympony, and especially its enormous final movement. Or maybe just as much, with the anticipation in the third movement of what is to come in that final movement. So much of music is about time passing and time to come, and for music that you know well, the pleasure of anticipation is as powerful as the pleasure of the sounds themselves. In a symphonic performance, this anticipation can be even greater, as you watch the middle strings ready their bows, or the tuba player place the world's biggest mute in the bell of his horn, or you watch a percussionist raise the big clapper.

But I digress from my digression: One time during my first year of college I was riding with a classmate to an off-campus gathering. His car was convertible, it was a beautiful day, and he was blasting Shostakovich from his super-duper stereo. "I absolutely love this piece!" I said, thinking to myself how different college was from high school and how here there were people who thought like me. "I know," he said, "It is such magnificent kitsch!"

I was crest-fallen. I knew what kitsch was from reading the novels of Milan Kundera, who associated kitsch with everything that was aesthetically, intellectually, and ethically wrong with Soviet Russia. How could something that I loved so much, that I took so seriously, be kitsch?

The person who sat in my lap during the NSO concert had never heard of kitsch, and if this piece was on the program because it was so well known as to be unoffensive, well, that had never occurred to her either. And what an unadulterated thrill it was to hear that music through her ears!

The second such confrontation happened last night, when I went to see U2 3D. Had you lived in my house when I was in high school, you would remember that numerous large photographs of the members of this band adorned my walls, that I had all their albums (well, technically, their tapes...), and that, well, maybe I will not today confess to my fierce crush on Bono. That was about 20 years ago (oy), but did you know that even after 20 years' time, those feelings do not go away either?

Rock music is unbelievable that way, because there I was in the Hollywood 20 last night, wearing my 3D-glasses, reduced to the powerful feelings of a teenager. But not exactly: because I was still partly my present self, but also that earlier self, as I imagined myself in what seemed to be the world's largest soccer arena, watching this band that can still kick some serious ass with all the power that they did back in the day. Granted, Bono wasn't talking about the Troubles directly (and I wonder if most of the folks in the crowd in Buenos Aires, like my students, have no memory of that), or about Apartheid, but the songs were still there, now applicable to other horrors, and he still performs an unabashed disgust at these recent incarnations. The Edge and Adam Clayton and the only drummer I can think of who uses the appelation ", Jr." as a part of his name were still unbelievably excellent to watch. It took me back to the Hampton Coliseum and the Joshua Tree tour, when I was having my eardrums blasted away and straining to get as close to a band as a person could from the upper ring of seating. It reminded me of playing Rattle and Hum over and over and over, listening to a tape of it in the car with a friend who could never get the lyrics to "Desire" right. And of listening to "Hallelujah, Here She Comes" on my walkman as I walked to the music building in college.

So today I went out and bought a new CD recording of Pictures at an Exhibition, and the remastered Joshua Tree, and Zooropa, all of which I used to have, in some non-digital format. I am thrilled to hear them again, even though I know that in playing them again and again now, I am inadvertently exorcising the spirits that inhabit them.

One sock down.

2008-02-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

I finished my first sock on Sunday:

Seriously, despite everything you may have heard, kitchener stitch--the way you graft the toe together seamlessly--is not that hard, and it is amazingly cool.

And I feel amazingly cool for having finished one sock.

Sadly, my other foot feels amazingly chilly with no sock to wear.

So I started on the second one before we headed off for our Superbowl party. I knit about 4 inches of it during the game (and got many looks from people wondering why in the world a person would knit socks), but then the work week came, and now I am stalled again. But it will come.

In the words of many a sock-knitter, faced with an impending Dook game, GO HEELS.

On Having Been X-ing for a Long Time.

2008-02-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have been doing something for a long time? Of course, this questions presumes that perhaps there is something that you have started recently--whether it be a new hobby, a new job, a new sport, a new baby, etc. Perhaps as you read this, you can insert your own new thing in lieu of my obsession with knitting.

I read blogs or books by (in my case) knitters who have been knitting for a long time with a combined sense of wonder and desire. Perhaps the person makes reference to a book published in the '70s that now has a tattered cover, many dog-eared pages, and is full of scribbles. Or perhaps the person talks about the many many sweaters that they have made, the many techniques learned, the many pairs of socks worn through. In all these cases, I wonder, what would it feel like to have that knowledge, that memory? Then, soon afterwards, I want very much to have that knowledge, that memory--partly to understand what it would feel like, and partly because I have come to love knitting so much.

For me, this experience is radically different from, say, reading something written about swimming. Many of those posts I read with the thought, "well, yeah, I know what that is like," or "man, he had it worse than I did," or "I wonder what it was like to be that serious about your sport." Sure, even with swimming, I can think ahead of what it might be like to be a masters swimmer in her 60s, to have had that much more experience with the thing, but still: I have put in my yardage, and I know something about what swimming is.

When I read writings of long-time knitters, though, I cannot really imagine what it might feel like to be so experienced. What is it like to have designed many things (and had them come out well)? What is it like to have made sweaters back in the 1980s when we as a culture were making very poor choices about colors and fibers? What is it like to look back on a book that you have consulted so many times that it has become a part of your soul?

Perhaps it is something about these cycles of wonder and desire that lead us to try new things, to spend time with them.

Dual citizenship.

2008-02-05T16:17:00.001-05:00

Over at "The Seated View," Lene Andersen, responded today to a description of a book as containing stories about people dealing with chronic illnesses. She quoted from that description and responded to it:

And I quote from the Book Descriptions: "In 2003 Cohen published Blindsided, a bestselling memoir of illness. The outpouring of support revealed to him that not only does the public want to hear from people who overcome the challenges of illness, but that in the isolated world of illness, there are people who want their voices to be heard. Strong at the Broken Places was born of the desire of many to share their stories in the hope that the sick and those who love them will see that they are not alone each” (emphasis mine). And I got a little stroppy.

She goes on to explain "the stroppy":

Which brings me to the reason for the stroppy: that line about the overcoming (which isn’t written by the author, so I’m not dissing him). I looked it up and to overcome: to defeat, to prevail over, to surmount, to conquer. And that's the tricky bit, because traditionally, yes, the public only wants to hear from people who "overcome" the challenges of illness. They don't want to hear about the daily struggle unless it culminates in an achievement, unless you're the plucky kind, preferably pretty enough to qualify for poster child status, the one who can smile through the hardship, remind the great unwashed of how lucky they are to be healthy. And you know what? There is no overcoming of disability.

(Even though I have quoted a lot from her piece, you should read the whole thing.)

I am ready to confess that I have not (yet?) experienced living with a chronic condition like MS, or ALS, or arthritis, or Crohn's. But I am going to try to learn what I can from over a year of pain and a couple of spikes.

One thing I have noticed so much recently--and that Lene's piece made me think about--is how ready people are for me to be finished with my recovery. I have received any number of e-mails from friends saying, "I trust by now that your shoulder is back to normal..." or well-wishing comments from colleagues, making it clear that what they are ready for is good news. These comments are hard to hear, because, frankly, I am ready for it, too: who isn't, really. But after I smile at them and tell them how much better everything is, I feel like a big fibber, because I am also extremely aware of how far I have to go, of what is still wrong, and also of my fear (understanding?) that this recovery process will probably continue until something else goes downhill.

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry writes about the inability of a person in physical pain and a person not in pain to communicate about it:

For the person whose pain it is, it is 'effortlessly' grasped (that is, even with the most heroic effort it cannot not be grasped); while for the person outside the sufferer's body, what is 'effortless' is not grasping it (it is easy to remain wholly unaware of its existence; even with effort, one may remain in doubt about its existence or may retain the astonishing freedom of denying its existence; and finally, if with the best effort of sustained attention one successfully apprehends it, the aversiveness of the 'it' one apprehends will only be a shadowy fraction of the actual 'it'). So, for the person in pain, so incontestably and unnegotiably present is it that 'having pain' may come to be thought of as the most vibrant example of what it is to 'have certainty,' while for the other person it is so elusive that 'hearing about pain' may exist as the primary model of what it is 'to have doubt.'

When the pain from my infection was coming on (I did not then know what the problem was), I called my then-orthopaedist's office for help. The nurse told me to take some Advil. I told her the pain was very severe. She said she would talk to the doctor and call back later. "Later" means two different things when you have a schedule to uphold and when (it turns out) you have a colony of organisms outgrowing and devouring your joint. Yet, I see upon reflection, this nurse probably gets many complaints of pain: it is easier and more natural (and probably even necessary) to doubt.

Looking back now on my account of that weekend of pain, I am reminded that I do not succeed in communicating the feeling of the pain. In fact, my memory of the weekend makes it hard for me to imagine that that account describes the same experience that I remember. As Virginia Woolf says, "English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear has no words for the shiver or the headache...." I do describe the various parts around the pain, and, I am ashamed to note, I do it all in the rhetoric of see-how-much-better-I-am-now. Well.

Susan Sontag writes:

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.

Sometimes now I do feel like I was living abroad for a time, and even now I take occasional trans-oceanic flights, getting back just in time for some meeting or to teach a class. These days, my trips are less frequent than they once were, my stays abroad shorter. In fact, I can even think as the night-side kingdom as "abroad."

In my file of important documents in my desk I still have my c. 1997 readers' cards from the British Library and the National Library of Ireland, for whenever I need to go back. I expect that even if for a time I stash my night-side passport in that folder, it will never expire.

Back to the well.

2008-02-05T08:36:00.000-05:00

I had been holding off on vertical kicking for a while, waiting for my knees to adapt to kicking again. It seems they are adapting, so I did some verticals last night--and remembered quickly that it is its own physical skill and much harder than horizontal kicking. All to say, I am still out of shape.

I did three rounds of a set where you kick hard for 10 seconds, rest for 30, kick hard for 20 seconds, rest for 30, kick hard for 30 seconds, rest for 30. Based on the sets I used to do, where it was always 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, or else 20/30/40 on, I thought this would be a breeze. Wrong. The 30-second-on segments kicked my butt (so to speak).

But this is all part of the process. (She said, hoping this time she would believe it.)

MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY
1000 warm-up (400 kick with fins; 300 kick w/o fins; 300 alt. 25 one-arm, 25 kick)
500 kick, descend sets (no fins)
.....3x50 FR kick descend
.....4x50 BR kick descend
.....3x50 BA kick descend
100 easy kick
300 flutter kick with board: 6x50s alt. 25 flat board and 25 "tombstone"
100 easy
8 minutes vertical kick (=~400 yards)
200 cooldown
TOTAL: ~2600 yards

Good for your soul (if not your arteries).

2008-02-03T13:41:00.000-05:00

When I was in college, my mother and a family friend conspired to convince me that brownies from scratch are not that much more work than brownies from a box, and they taste quite a bit better. They were right, of course, and that opinion shows that their little plan worked. Now, when I think of making brownies, brownie mix never crosses my mind. (Well, apparently it does, as I have just mentioned it, but perhaps you get the idea.)

This made for an especially good result one time last fall, when the PP and I went to dinner at a neighbor's house, and we brought brownies. One of the other guests said she could never eat brownies because she was allergic to cottonseed oil, and pretty much all the mixes include it. AHA! I said, but these are not from a mix, and I listed off the ingredients. So she had one. And she loved it.

Tonight we are headed to her house for a Superbowl party, so I am making the brownies again. Besides, I have recently found myself in possession of what experts agree is a shitload of good chocolate, thanks to a friend who was looking out for me back at the time of my surgery. So brownies are the perfect thing, especially when they can involve excellent super-dark chocolate.

Furthermore, the Superbowl party in question has a bit of a Mardi Gras theme to it. Longtime readers of this blog will know that there is exactly one thing that I associate with that holiday, and that I spend pretty much every Mardi Gras mourning their lack. This is not the spirit of Mardi Gras, I know, so this year I am trying to think metaphorically. If the idea of the paczki is to make something that uses up such goodies as eggs and butter (or really, lard), then my brownies get into the Mardi Gras spirit!

The basis of my brownies comes from a recipe from Laurie Colwin, who claims that she got it from a friend who claims to have gotten it from a magazine article claiming it was Katharine Hepburn's family recipe. As Laurie says, "If there were no other reason to admire Katharine Hepburn, this pan of brownies would be enough to make you worship her."

FAT TUESDAY (and also my fat ass) BROWNIES
2 sticks butter*
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate*
2 cups sugar*
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 bag Ghiradelli white chocolate chips
as much additional chocolate as you can stand, chopped**

[*I substituted quite dark (70% cacao) chocolate for the unsweetened. That means I also reduced the butter by 1 1/3 teaspoon and the sugar by 4 tablespoons.]
[**By "chopped," I really mean beaten into smaller bits using the back of an ice cream scoop.]

Preheat oven to 325 and butter and flour a 13x9 pan. Melt butter and chocolate in a sizable saucepan on your stove (this saucepan will become your mixing bowl). Remove from heat and add sugar. Then add vanilla and eggs (make sure the mixture is a bit cooled first, so you don't cook the eggs). Then add flour and salt. Then add white chocolate chips and all the dark chocolate bits you think you can get away with without your guests complaining. Pour the chocolatey goodness into buttered and floured 13x9 pan and bake at 325 for 40 minutes. Don't even hope that a tester will come out clean, since there is so much additional chocolate in there.

Feels like swimming.

2008-01-31T08:33:00.000-05:00

Last night at practice I tried again to do some one-arm drills (with the "good" arm, of course): this time, they felt just fine, so I did a set of 50s, with the first 25 being one-arm drill (cycling through free, fly, and back) and the second 25 being kick, thinking I should be careful not to overdo it. Since it kept feeling OK, I made it a set of 18 x 50s, or 6 times through the cycle of strokes. I did the whole set with the big fins, so there would not be too much pressure on the extremely out-of-shape upper body. Felt great all the way through: even the rotation for free and back did not cause any pain in my "spot," where the labrum was stapled back together. And best of all? It felt like swimming.

WEDNESDAY, 30 JANUARY
1000 kick warm-up (500 with fins, 500 without fins)
900 one-arm drill + kick (18 x 50, alternating FR/FL/BA)
100 easy
300 BR/FR kick (no fins, of course)
TOTAL: 2300 meters

Go Heels.

2008-01-27T14:26:00.000-05:00

Behold:

As of yesterday, while watching the Winter X Games, I had knitted a heel flap, but I did not know how to turn a heel. Today I do. Watch me go!