A year of books and knitting

Last year on this date I was thinking about books--especially about my own academic history book (in the works at the time):

And now I am totally crazy, unable to think about anything but the future of the book. I spent five hours without breathing this afternoon trying to do final edits. Then I hopped up and down for three minutes, knit a single purl row on Swallowtail (which, in its brand new incarnation, is behaving well), finally regained my ability to speak coherently, and then started craving spicy food.

* * *

Knit knit knit. I cannot imagine sleeping. Knit knit knit.

But today I am celebrating the recent publication of that book. My cowriter and I gave a presentation early this afternoon about the issues of justice raised by the book. The audience offered fascinating insights. What a great experience. (Even though, due to my incredibly introverted personality, I almost fainted from nervousness before things got started.)

It looks like we may have more engagements soon. Next month we're going to be interviewed by an NPR affiliate in the location where the book's story took place. Very exciting.

Now off to relax. Glass of wine. Knit, knit, knit.... Knitting (and wine) is the serve-all-needs response, isn't it?

Fuzzy Sweaters

...not because of angora--but because of a broken camera.



Son is modeling the Must Have Cardigan. Yup--the size small basically fits a relatively small 8yo. Although I knit the sweater, he himself knitted the scarf!

David is modeling his Boyfriend Sweater (just a basic drop-sleeved pullover that I made with two colors of Light Lopi)--knit as a holiday present in 1992.

It is in such good shape because:
1.) the neck bind off is so tight that David can barely get it on.
2.) it is a bit short....
3.) the yarn, while beautiful, is itchy.

Our relationship is just fine. The Sweater Curse seemed to have passed us by, perhaps because I assumed we were half way to the end of our magical year together before the two of us moved on to paths which we knew were taking us in different directions. I did not intend to stay near this sweater all my life. But things seemed to have worked out that way....

The scarf is some of his own early knitting.



* * *

Last night the boys put on their knits and we went to the Friday the 13th party at A Tangled Skein. Not the 13th? Well--we partied like it was 1998.... (My LYS's Friday the 13th parties are already a well-loved tradition, but there was no upcoming F-13 for just too long.)

I was going to be strong.

David needed some DPNs to replace a broken sock needle. I needed nothing.

I haven't even finished knitting up the sock yarn I bought at A Tangled Skein last time.

Barbara from my knitting group showed me the Interweave Holiday issue and I feel hard for these:



David and I BOTH bought yarn to knit them....

Face to Face

"Do not accept anything simply because it has been said by your teacher, or because it has been written in your sacred book, or because it has been believed by many, or because it has been handed down by your ancestors. Accept and live only according to what will enable you to see truth face to face."

--Buddha, as quoted in Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Oh, FRUSTRATION!

I love being home with Son all day. Homeschooling is an incredible way to see into his growing mind, and I love the opportunity to be a part of his growth. Everything he learns, I get to see--at least to a degree.

We "unschool" as they say. That means that Son is his own teacher, and I (primarily) am an observer. Son is his own teacher, the excavator of his own intellect. I merely take notes, and take photographs for his state-reviewed portfolio. And I take him to the library.

Today I planned to post about today's adventures in mathematics, about homeschooling, being weird, and allowing growth on its own timetable.

In other words, how wonderful homeschooling is for us as a family. How it not only allows Son to be Son, but Me to be Parent of Son. How homeschooling is a blessing, a Blessing.

* * *

But that is all for tomorrow.

* * *

Today:

David, who left for work early early early this morning, is also away for the evening for a meeting...

...and I am home alone with Son.

Why is it so hard? The 8yo is actually an incredibly mellow child, a child full of interesting things to say on top of incredible patience with his mother's neuroses.

Even when everything is going well, though, the mother's neuroses totally kick in (in full force) at around 6pm, and it is just a matter of waiting until FATHER comes home.

* * *

It has been almost three hours since 6pm.

* * *

Son has less need for sleep than I do. Bed is not in his immediate future.

* * *

I leave Son on the couch with a book. He reads--and I come in to blog for the day.

I'll download the pics from math--and all will be fine. I'll write about why I love homeschooling. I'll get my equilibrium back. I'll remember how much I love what we have every day.


* * *

Wrong cable. I have the stupid wrong cable. I can't download pics. Tonight's post is shot to hell.

* * *

Honestly, right now I just DON'T remember why we're homeschooling.

* * *

Except, what's the choice? What do you do with a child who thinks algebra and geometry are intuitive and obvious, but also can't spell reliably and thinks learning his multiplication facts is a task beneath him?

* * *

Both David and I are nerds who carved out very comfortable places for ourselves in public school. Son has many many many more social skills than either of us possess. He'll handle the demands of school just fine. Right?

* * *

"You're taking an awfully long time to write this post, you know. When are you going to be finished?"

* * *

To bed. Tomorrow, with sleep and time to soothe the soul, I will remember. Right?

Sausage Strata

For the Dark Days Challenge (and for a local-foods dinner organized by friends in Gettysburg PA) we cooked a Sausage Strata (although I only rifted off the linked recipe):

From Rainbow Acres (the Amish farm from Lancaster PA which has a delivery arrangement with a group in our area):
Sausage (ground by the family's neighbor who is a butcher)
Mozzarella Cheese (made by the family)
Milk
Eggs
Butter

From our garden:
Rainbow Chard
Anaheim pepper
Tomato (the last one!)
Parsley
Basil
Chives

From the TPSS Co-op:
Bread made by the Spring Mill Bakery—a small local company which uses some non-local ingredients

Completely non-local:
Salt

Shakespeare in the Waffle?

Playing with one's food when one is obsessed with theatre can lead to some rather unusual constructions, like this remarkable recreation of Carter Barron Amphitheatre (where the Shakespeare Free For All is held each year) which Son made during breakfast:



I can't wait to see which play they will do here....

The Problems of Living the Past...

...in the present.

Yesterday we went as a family to Colonial Williamsburg for the day. As most of you probably know, Williamsburg is a recreated colonial settlement that tries hard to show the history of the eighteenth century in a way modern historians would say was responsible and as accurate as possible through the use of interpreters--some dressed in period costume but talking about the past as the past, and others playing the role of citizens of the colonial world caught in time.

Some of the attempts to be accurate are pretty funny--like the careful placement of discreetly-treated horse manure along the paths of the city--out of the way of the majority of pedestrians, coated with hay and sawdust (?) so it will not stick to folk's shoes, and completely devoid of smell. But, as they reason, it would hardly be the eighteenth century without poop.

Other things are really hard to grapple with in a place like Williamsburg. It is hard enough to deal with the oppression of non-elite-white-men in the past--but if you are one of the role-playing interpreters, you have to respond to visitors' questions about slavery and the place of African Americans in society, about the treatment of American Indians, about the position of poor people of all races and ethnicities, and about the roles of women. To be accurate to the part you are playing--at least for most of the parts of those in authority--you have to support the oppression of others. But to be sensitive to the very different audience of today's visitors, you just can't spout the pro-slavery rhetoric common at the time. An interesting dilemma.

Clearly, the interpreters are trained to respond to this kind of question and often are full of very careful explanations of the beliefs of the time as well as interesting mentions of dissent from those standard beliefs.

The interpreters answered questions about racial hierarchy very seriously and remarkably respectfully, given the true stances of the real people they pretended to be. Without lying, they managed to convey a larger picture than they might have been able to see at the time.

And as soon as gender discrimination with mentioned, there was an awful lot of laughing and joking going on--both by the interpreters and by the visitors.

Why is this? Why is is so much easier to make fun of discrimination against women than it is discrimination against African Americans and American Indians and people who lived in poverty?

Is it that the fight for women's rights is further along, more ingrained in our society, that we feel it is safe to tease about it? Or is it that we just plain accept a certain amount of discrimination against women without even realizing its injustices?

Living History

While I've been at my academic history conference, David and Son have done plenty of exploring. They especially enjoyed themselves at the Jamestown Settlement--where Son was quickly put to work.

Even on his imaginary trip to the new settlement...



...he wound up not only hauling rope...



...but steering the ship.



After he arrived, he continued to work with boats...



...and water.



He built a fence with some new friends...



...and even defended the settlement.



* * *

How funny that I spent my days sitting in a conference center, alternately too heated and too air-conditioned, talking about the same things they were exploring.

Since I did not get to go back in time so viscerally, I'm happy David and Son shared these pictures with me! (Son is much cuter than most of the professors who present at academic meetings....)

Never Forget

Yesterday I went to a session at my academic history conference about the connection between violence and amusement in southern history.

The first paper discussed the fact that Mardi Gras parades and other civic celebrations included floats with enormous papier-mache toads, contingents of men dressed in coming-out ballgowns, and also Ku Klux Klan figures. Did the observers see the Klan as funny? Quite a new perspective on the national vision--that is, the national white vision--of the Klan.

Another paper discussed the public executions of elephants in early 20th century America. In 1903, an elephant was electrocuted at Coney Island, filmed by Thomas Edison himself. You can even see it on YouTube.

And in 1916, an Elephant was lynched.



This story shocks with its animal cruelty, makes us laugh at its absolutely incredible sensation, and makes us marvel at this bizarre use of new technology (like electrocution or enormous cranes) that made such acts possible. We should also remember how such acts were a threat, a reminder of the danger of stepping out of line in the social hierarchy of Jim Crow America.

Lynching of African Americans is no longer even tacitly condoned by our government, but shocking spectacles in our own time keep reminding us of the limits of our freedoms and the dangers of stepping out of line. Perhaps studying how societies have manipulated our fears in the past will help us realize the manipulations today--and resist them more effectively.

Family History

While I was sitting in sessions at my academic history conference, enjoying a very different kind of intellectual stimulation than I get from my days homeschooling with Son, he and David went exploring in Richmond. In addition to their visit to the science museum where they seemed to learn more about snakes than I can ever imagine absorbing, they also visited the Confederate Pyramid:



I wonder what the architects of this memorial were thinking, what symbolism they were intending.

And then there was this grave, among the thousands of graves:



And while Son and David grappled with this image of the complicated history of Jews in the American South, I was having lunch with a colleague who studies southern Jewish history.

I was raised as a non-religous person whose family had been Christian. Faith did not identify me. But my upbringing in the rural South, the child of southern white liberals involved in the Civil Rights Movement, was absolutely central to my sense of self.

I converted to Judaism--or at least my own weird combination of Jewish traditions, ritual observances, atheist beliefs, and leftist intellectual leanings--as an adult living in Philadelphia.

My southern self and my Jewish self are not connected. Although I am a southerner and I am a Jew, I am not a southern Jew. But those two parts of myself meet here in Richmond--as they do in many other southern cities. Everywhere from Charleston SC to Birmingham AL have a strong and old Jewish presence, one that has sometimes challenged the racial hierarchy of the traditional South and one that sometimes is highly complicit in its support.

All this leaves me with questions, a need to think about my pasts and my almost pasts, my fictive histories.

* * *

After David and Son returned from their adventures, they joined me at a reception where we got to spend some family time with my brother and father, both academic historians themselves.

My brother was asked to play the piano as background for part of the reception. At some point, my father (also a musician in his spare time) joined him for a duet.



Their hands are so similar. Striking.

Last year at this conference, an annual conference that was transformative for him back when he was young, my father's health was on such tenuous footing. Beforehand, he had feared he would not be able to attend at all, and during the conference he told me he assumed it would be his last.

And here he was this year, full of confidence and health and plans for the future, happy to be sharing his blessings with all his old friends, eager to meet the young newcomers to the profession.

It is wonderful to be here.

All Saints Day

A conference has brought me to Richmond, Va. for a few days. In honor of the patron saint of this blog, we visited the city's Edgar Allan Poe Museum.





* * *

Today, I'm off to the academic meeing (where my book will be on display!) while David and Son explore the city. I hear there are at least two yarn stores here....

Socktoberfest

In honor of Lolly's Socktoberfest, both David and I finished up socks and started new ones. I had forgotten how much I love socks!

My knitting:







Just one of these, with baby cables:



David's knitting:





Love these toes!



* * *

Off for a conference--with socks on the needles!

Another Spin Job

From spinning the news to spinning women:



Supposedly, if you see the dancer turning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa. According to the makers, most people see the dancer turning counter-clockwise.


LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking


For me, she turns one way and then the other.

I'm curious if knitters (people who use both hands and use both logic and creativity all the time) have more integration between the right and left hemispheres than others and might be more likely to see both.

So, which do you see? (And do you knit?)

A New Spin Job on the News

Just found this in today's headlines:



Old-newspaper yarn. Check out the link for information. I've got to try this....

TransShakespeare

We had a wonderful time at the Folger Library production of Shakespeare's As You Like It. It is from this play that we get the famous line, "All the world's a stage."

As is so common in Shakespeare plays (and perhaps especially in his comedies), there is a lot of gender-bending going on. Many modern productions of this play add extra emphasis to this aspect.

Rosalind, after being banished from the court, pretends to be a man (Ganymede) and flees to the forest of Arden in the company of her female cousin. They see the young man, Orlando, with whom Rosalind is in love, and he too is mooning all over the woods, head over heels for the woman he doesn't have. He does not recognize Rosalind in her disguise. She offers to cure him of his love if he will pretend that s/he is Rosalind. He takes her/him up on the offer and they act out love scenes as two men. In the end, Rosalind appears before Orlando as a female and they are married. But before they are, a young woman of the forest (Phoebe) has fallen in love with Rosalind/Ganymede...until she realizes that R/G is a woman.

In Greek myth and poetry, Ganymede is often a symbol of same-sex love.

In Shakespeare's day, female parts were generally played by male actors. So in As You Like It, you have a male playing a female (Rosalind), playing a male (Ganymede), playing a female(mock-Rosalind). (Whew!) And when Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede, it was actually a male actor showing love to a male actor, even though on stage it was a female character showing love to a female character.

We think of our own century as so much more aware of the fluidity of gender roles than any other--but while we may have different underlying ideas, we certainly aren't the first to imagine a world (for Shakespeare, the forest of Arden) that allowed increased freedom and openness, where you can have it "as you like it."

Oil

Yesterday afternoon I read on Bloomberg:

Crude oil for November delivery rose $1.61, or 1.9 percent, to $85.30 a barrel at 12:30 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures reached $85.48, the highest since the contract was introduced in 1983. This is the fifth straight daily increase. Prices are 46 percent higher than a year ago.

Today's intraday high passed the previous all-time inflation-adjusted record reached in 1981 when Iran cut oil exports. The cost of oil used by U.S. refiners averaged $37.48 a barrel in March 1981, according to the Energy Department, or $84.73 in today's dollars.

and emailed the quote to my partner David. (The price eventually hit $87.97 and, as of this morning, is only a few cents less.)

David wrote back:

"Let’s have latkes tonight to commemorate the occasion…"

Bring out the potatoes and the grater....

Startitis

Although I have a tremendous number of partially-done knitting projects on the needles (including some just a few stitches from completion),I somehow managed to cast on two new ones within the last two weeks. I think finishing the book really gave me a bad case of fiber startitis.

One is a beautiful red Icarus, currently on the final repeat of the pre-lace section:



The other, meant to be just a swatch...



...turned into a sleeve for the sweater I was intending to start in November for this year's NaKniSweMo. I've always said I would never knit a sweater on sized 10.5 needles, always insisted I disliked the way entrelac looks (and I assumed it was hard), and always swore I'd avoid Noro yarn like the plague. But after seeing a really beautiful pattern with entrelac sleeves and a relatively simple body, I'm afraid I gave in to all of the above.



Oops. Is it cheating if you get sucked in by that awfully addictive combo of Noro and entrelac? Hey--if you haven't tried it, you'll be amazed at how much fun this stitch pattern is. Ooh, just one more square and then I'll stop....

But something is finally slowing me down: I am absolutely stuck on the next directions of the pattern.

So, I guess it is time to cast on something new....

Finished Objects

Right before we left for our week in Chicago (more details soon), I finished knitting the purple silk Swallowtail shawl. My first Swallowtail took forever and was absolutely cursed. Once it was actually finished, I could see that its very fine silk yarn made it stunningly gorgeous. This one, with slightly thicker yarn, flew off the needles within a week, without incident. While not as delicate, it is lovely as well. Fantastic pattern.

Here it is on display at Chicago's Millennium Park:









* * *

And I came home to an advanced copy of my book! While no needles were involved, it is quite a sense of accomplishment to have one's oldest WIP (Work In Progress, for you non-knitters) come into life.








Celebration all around!

Off...

...to Chicago for a week. I'll check in if I can--but if not, see you when I get back!

Pottery and Beer Bread

While we were in North Carolina, I found a beautiful bread bowl at a local potter's studio.

BEER BREAD:

3 cups white whole wheat flour
2 TB baking powder
pinch of salt
3 TB sugar
1 bottle or can of beer

Mix together,
adding a little water if necessary to get it all mixed in.
Put in a greased bowl and
bake in a preheated 350 degree oven
for 50 minutes.

* * *

I loved the glazing on the pottery--and it looked astonishingly familiar. Surely it wasn't the same glaze combination I used for a set of small bowls made in a pottery class almost fifteen years ago.

I bought it and brought it home to compare:



WOW!