Song of the Week: My Head is My Only House Unless It Rains

Hard to pick one Captain Beefheart song but who says I can't pick ten more down the line? This is a nice love song for ya...

My Head is My Only House Unless it Rains

Grizzly Man blew my mind!

Yes, it was like watching a train wreck, but Timothy Treadwell is so entertaining that you almost forget about the train wreck. What a bizarre story! This is a documentary put together by Werner Herzog using footage shot by Treadwell of his time spent with grizzly bears in Alaska. After spending 13 summers "protecting" the bears, Timothy and his girlfriend Amie were killed and eaten by one in late 2003. Thankfully, we're spared the gruesome audio and photo details (Treadwell's video camera was on but covered during the attack) in the movie. We do get to know Treadwell fairly well from his footage and interviews with friends and family, and Herzog takes care to try to help us know Amie, too, though there is not much footage of her on the tapes. It's hard to describe why I liked this movie so much. Herzog is a giant, in my opinion, and it would never have been this great without his attention and not so subtle opinions about Treadwell's well-meaning but naive "relationship" with the bears being interspersed throughout the film. Herzog narrated the movie and his belief that "the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder" droning over Treadwell's constant, excited "I LOVE you!!!" shouted to the bears is just a bizarre contrast to behold. He manages to do this without being judgemental or unkind to Treadwell. You really get the feeling that Herzog likes Treadwell and appreciates the footage on a level that no nature channel ever could.

Okay, it certainly isn't for everybody, but I loved this movie. It was NUTS!

Link to website

What I'm gnitting on presently...

I used to feel guilty if I had several knitting projects going at once, like I was betraying one with the other. Somewhere along the line I decided that variety truly is the spice of life, and they do all eventually get done.
1) Ultra soft baby hoodie (no hood yet, though) made out of Blue Sky Alpaca organic cotton yarn (pattern by Reynolds)
2) Seed stitch scarf made from leftover Noro Silk Garden
3) The blue boyfriend cardigan knit in the round, made from New England Harrisville Shetland wool
and
4) "Branching Out" mohair scarf, a free pattern from knitty.com

These mutton-heads felt a need to come out and get in on the action while I was taking pics of the knitting:

Song of the Week: The Thoughtless Kind

A nice, honest song about friendship. John Cale: Whatta cute little Welshman! And such a smarty, too. Here's a beautiful song for you and your friends, never ever turn your back on them...







The Thoughtless Kind
If you grow tired of the friends you make
In case you mean to say something else
Say they were the best of times you ever had
The best of times were the thoughtless kind

We dress conservatively at the best of times
Prefer the shadows to the bright lights in the eyes
Of the ones we love, the bright lights in the eyes of the ones we love
What we see, what we imagine, the eyes tell us nothing
The bright lights in the eyes of the one we love will tell us nothing
Like the scars of imagination, the scars of imagination
The bright lights in the eyes of the ones we love will tell us nothing
Except that you're the thoughtless kind

So if you grow tired of the friends you make
Never ever turn your back on them
Say they were the best of times you ever had
The best of times were the thoughtless kind

link to his site

Squirrel Bait (call me nuts)

I have seen what seems like an inordinate number of little grey fuzzy dead bodies on the road here in Minneapolis in the last few years. Yesterday I actually witnessed one being crushed by a truck that could have easily avoided it. I'm starting to think that some creepy people actually enjoy killing critters on the road.
I happen to know from my experience that it's not that hard to avoid running over small animals. I know sometimes horrible accidents happen where it's you or the critter and of course you choose you---you could even call it self defense. I'm grateful to have never been in such a situation, I sure hope I never am. I watch for them, slow down a little, and usually we both come out just fine. Sorry to be a bummer, I've seen two animals killed this way, and the image kind of gets scorched into your brain (if you care the least little bit about another being's pain, that is). Give 'em a brake.

Addendum: My husband read this and said I should start a new category in the blog called "It seemed like a good idea at 3 a.m."

mmmmm...NORO...

I broke down and bought these books tonight, I needed a treat...


Perhaps I'll make this cute little number...

...after I order some Noro yarn at a reasonable price from Jannette

Here's a link to a page with more pics of the patterns from these books. I like Jane Ellison's patterns. A few years ago it seemed like all you could find for Noro patterns was kinda frumpy stuff, and it's such gorgeous yarn!

HEY! You got your Intelligent Design Peanut Butter on my Evolution Chocolate!

I promised myself I wouldn't rant about this stuff, so I won't other than to say if you haven't ever seen "Inherit The Wind", or if it's been a long time, you should watch it and consider the fact that it was made 45 years ago about a true story that happened 35 years before that. What kind of sick Wayback Machine has this country stepped into?

Here's a website that, er, addresses this issue that makes me very happy, thanks to my friend Tony for sending this link:

http://www.venganza.org/

And here is a beautiful painting by a feller named Niklas Jansson, Touched by His Noodly Appendage. You'll appreciate it if you bother to read about the church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Steek Mystique

Here's a good illustration:

and here's a pic that I took of my test run (click to see it bigger):


Here are a couple of links to info about the steek technique (some vary from those above), because steeky can be spooky to gnitters...

Knitty Steeks

tradewinds

Schoolhouse Press

One Step Beyond: The blue cardigan knit in the round

I owe my old man a sweater, cuz I kinda blew it on one I was making for him a while ago that didn't work out well. He picked out a pattern:

These are the pretty yarns we chose to make it with (Harrisville New England Shetland Wool):

With my ongoing desire to knit in the round, I did a little research on how to do that with a cardigan. I'm gonna try to use a technique called "steeking". The first step is to knit 5 extra stitches beyond what the pattern calls for, and these fall where the front split will be. These 5 stitches have to be knit through the back loop.

Someday, when I get to the end of the body of the sweater, I will either sew or crochet along the outer steeked stitches to secure them, and then CUT right up the middle! Stay tuned, more to come, albeit slowly...

Song o' the Week: Broken Hearted Melody

Broken Hearted Melody, performed by Sarah Vaughan. It's a pretty little pop song from the late fifties. I just have a scratchy little 45 of it and I like it, no big deal. I told ya there weren't no rhyme or reason to this song of the week thing...

It reminds me of Hymie, in fact I'm pretty sure I got it from him.





NOTE: The link to listen to my song of the week will only be posted for a week. after that you gotta find it yourself.

Saints be praised! Lush is done!

Well, I accomplished one thing this week (I've been sick, and whiney, and basically useless since last weekend). I finished my pet knitting project! I was really sweating this, as I converted the pattern pretty drastically, and Rowan denim yarn is a little tricky to work with because you knit it 20% longer than you want it to be and then wash and shrink it. I knit it in the round, the body and the sleeves onto the body (see previous Lush posts by using the google search on this page), and I was nervous that the sleeves wouldn't shrink right with the body. No worries! It worked!
Before washing pic:
After the shrink:

It's like Miss America is right in my frikkin' face!

Here's a link to make your own 3-D pictures!
Stereo View Tutorial

Song of the Week: Águas de Março

Link to listen to Águas de Março, by Antonio Carlos Jobim

What a beautiful song, written by this suave mofo pictured here, and performed by he and Brazillian chanteuse Elis Regina. A lot of people have lovingly covered this number, but this is the real deal. This version is in Portugese. If you haven't heard much Antonio Carlos Jobim, I highly recommend the "Man From Ipanema" Box Set.