Year: 2011

To The Desert

Karen

I’m headed to the desert by Moab soon to make my inner hippie happy and get some perspective. Here’s Paul Bowles‘ feelings about it (even though his desert was the Sahara):

Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating…Once [someone] has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort or money, for the absolute has no price.

"Science: What’s It Up To?"

Karen

Have you been trying to ignore the gearing up of the presidential race, too? From what I’ve been unable to ignore, it seems every potential candidate so far is trying to win by being anti-science–anti-vaccine, anti-evolution, anti-global warming, etc. Thank god for satire:

“Luxurious palace of science”–I love it. Found via one of my favorite science blogs.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Warm, Yet Dull

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I have three knitting projects in different stages of completion, so because I don’t have any sewing finished this week, let’s talk about the most complete one:

I started this last winter to use up leftover yarn. (God only knows how I ended up with so many earth tones.) It’s coming along slowly; I’m sure I’d like working on it more if it were made of, say, leftover orange yarn. But it will be warm. I’m planning on using it as a layer for winter hiking–hopefully this winter, but if not, the next one.

And The Grinch’s Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day

Karen

…oh wait, I’m confusing my holidays. But this is a similar transformation:

I have a long list of reasons why I hate Halloween as an adult, but do you know what melted my shriveled little heart this year?

1. Charles Schultz and Vince Guaraldi:

2. Having an actual kid around. Is this baby jaded or disappointed? No–he is delighted by that pumpkin! He is going to be a cow tonight. I can’t wait.

Friday Unrelated Information

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1. Have you seen Animals Talking in All Caps yet? ALL CAPS MAKES THINGS FUNNY! (OK, no always, but this one makes me laugh so much. It’s how I feel about IKEA, too.)

2. Recently, I noticed that Jack Daniels had changed its bottle shape and label a little. (Hey, I buy whiskey pretty frequently.) Here’s a case study of the brand refresh by the agency that did it. Nice work–I especially love the new copy bits on the side panel (under “A Refined Identity).

3. And speaking of advertising, how about some Don Draper nihilism to kick off the weekend? You’ll have to click through and wait through an ad (how meta!) but it’s worth it to hear him say, “What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”

Convincing Myself

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As I’ve let my inner hippie free, I’ve caught myself, say, doing yoga and nodding when the teacher says this will help the solar plexus chakra–which is then followed by the thought, “Carl Sagan would not approve of this.”

However, this is Carl Sagan we’re talking about. This is the man who contributed an essay to Marihuana Reconsidered, who approved that theme music* to the Cosmos series, and who famously said:
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

That last line is what makes me think Carl would be all for letting the inner hippie out.

*Sometimes I just leave that site open and let the music loop. It’s great for irritating days at work.

Happy Birthday, Beryl

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It’s the birthday of Beryl Markham today. She was a horse trainer, pilot, and author (probably) of the memoir West With the Night, which I should read again and you should read too, if you haven’t. (It impressed the hell out of Hemingway.)

She was friends with Karen Blixen, lovers with Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and was the first woman to fly solo from east to west across the Atlantic. Beryl was fierce! Let’s all be more like her.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Active Active Active

Karen

In my new incarnation as Active Girl, I’ve discovered that active wear companies sell more than the actual active wear–they also sell comfy knit dresses that you picture someone even more active than you pulling on after yoga, or wearing walking around a ski town and drinking beer after an active day. (I am a sucker for marketing, no matter what lifestyle it’s promoting.)

The issue? The dresses are all at least $80, and they are all in earth tones. So I decided to try copying this one:


I used the basic t-shirt pattern in my trusty Built By Wendy knits book, then added length and width by tracing a Lands End polo dress I wore all summer. Add a length of fabric to make a cowl and blammo: a pretty good copy of the dress, not in boring gray.

I may go back and add a kangaroo pocket to the front, since pockets are always useful and that would make it look more (wait for it)….active.

Look, A Poem

Karen

Happy birthday to English poet Denise Levertov. I don’t know a lot of her work but what I do know, I like. Like this one:

O Taste and See

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

(The opening lines play on Wordsworth’s poem, “The World is Too Much with Us.”)

Friday Unrelated Information

Karen

1. Happy birthday to Ursula LeGuin. She lives in Portland and writes for herself all day. That sounds fun, doesn’t it?

2. While I love Bob Dylan’s “singing,” lately I can’t get enough of people covering his songs. I’m listening to this and this, and of course my inner hippy is all over this.

3. Ah, this is true of so many things:

(Check out the other stuff from this artist–be sure to read the painting titles, too.)