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Friday Links
1. The best thing I read this week about the violence in Gaza: Isaac Chotiner interviewing Tareq Baconi, the president of the board of the Palestinian Policy Network. I’m just going to pull quote an entire exchange:
Many of the anti-colonial or revolutionary figures we revere—Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress come to mind—did use violence to achieve their ends. And I think there’s a naïveté today about how often groups throughout history have used violence. At the same time, when I hear Israelis say things like, “People in Palestine are animals who will be treated as such,” or when I hear the reports about dead children in Israeli towns, I sometimes have trouble thinking of this as military strategy, or some part of a coherent political struggle with clear ends in mind. It often seems like sadism. And I don’t know how we should think about these acts in the context of larger struggles, even larger struggles we support. How do you wrestle with that?
It’s a really important question and, I think, a very, very difficult one. I grapple with it every day. What you’re saying is absolutely right. There was no anti-colonial struggle or struggle for decolonization without violence. Part of the issue here is that it’s really important for us to go back to centering the primary cause in any anti-colonial struggle, which is colonial violence. It’s crucial to ground the discussion in that context because Hamas’s violence isn’t coming out of the blue. And part of the issue around, as you say, sadism, is that Palestinians have, day in, day out, been living with death and violence.
This is the first time I have been interviewed by The New Yorker, and it’s happening because Israelis were killed. What happened when Palestinians were killed in the thousands, just in the fifteen years that I’ve been covering Hamas? And so, when we really want to think about what this driver of violence is—and the pictures that have been coming out are sickening—we need to understand that colonial violence instills dehumanization both in the oppressor and in the oppressed.
2. The second best thing I read about it: David Klion’s Have we learned nothing?
3. No Context Noir continues to deliver:
Delighting In Things
This Heather Havrilesky essay came through my inbox about the same time I started the current book/box hobby, and this definition of “dilettante” in it floored me:
“Did you know the word dilettante comes from the verb ‘to delight’?” my friend asked. “As in, to delight in many things at once.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah! People get so hung up on mastery, when all that really matters is delight.”
“People get so hung up on mastery, when all that really matters is delight.” You don’t have to be good at your hobbies. You don’t need to gain all the knowledge on every subject. Just do them and be delighted.
(The rest of the essay is pretty great, too–less about hobbies than about staying open to delight, which pretty much translates to noticing and showing up. Yes.)
Like Legos, But With Glue
I finished another project from the Constructing and Covering Boxes book. The book outlines every step you need to do and gives you all the measurements, so all you have to do is follow the instructions… and we know how I feel about that.
You even start with rectangles!
And you end up with something pretty impressive!
It’s interesting to compare this new hobby to sewing–there was a learning curve on the different papers, just like figuring out which fabric is best for which project. (This Florentine jewelry print is much thinner than the Japanese paper I used before so it wasn’t as forgiving when being glued). There’s figuring out how much material you need–I went through a whole half yard of bookcloth (I thought I’d use half of that). And much like pressing during sewing, you can really improve how things look by just rubbing them with a bone folder.
You can also see how box making evolved straight out of bookbinding: this is the base and lid for the box, but it could also be a hard cover for a (giant) book:
Look at how those pieces all fit together! Exactly like Legos–or even a quilt–but a lot faster.
Tuesday Quick Palette Cleanser
My sewjo has been low lately, both because of that terrible pack sewing experience and because my brain is focused on COVERED BOXES. But I got an email last week that Grainline had 20% off their Field Bag pattern, and I had a kit (for a different bag) sitting around that had fabric and webbing, and I knew Grainline’s instructions would be impeccable. So I bought it and sewed it up in an afternoon.
I’m sharing the pattern illustration both because I didn’t get really detailed photos and because this is how it’s done. That LearnMYOG guy should take notes.
The webbing in my kit was wider than what the pattern called for, but it works. I like how it looks like a little pumpkin when it’s all gathered:
And it matches all my seasonally-appropriate sock projects:
It Only Takes One Visit
I spent Saturday morning in the greenhouse at the arboretum and the rest of the weekend being a Plant Lady. I was there with my sister-in-law to learn about forcing bulbs, but the class let us wander around their giant working greenhouses afterwards and it inspired me to step up my care of the potted plants at home.
Bulbs ready to bloom… in about five months. (I don’t know why I thought forcing bulbs was fast, but now I know. And I got sources for heirloom paperwhites that don’t need the long cold period.)
The greenhouses were massive, big enough to devote a corner to water plants:
This lovely thing was called a snail vine and was growing on a 12-foot tuteur. It had just been moved in for the winter and the fragrance was astonishing:
Back at home, I topped off the houseplants with fresh soil and fertilizer and put some smaller orchids in fancy pots with moss. Then I moved outside and cleaned up the sad, heat-baked containers. (I had a pretty strong start with spring bulbs but the summer planters weren’t impressive.)
I’m trying again for fall though–I went to the wholesale nursery and got some ornamental kale and pansies, and will pick up some decorative gourds on the next Trader Joe’s trip.
Friday Links
1. Groan-inducing but also fun: Welcome to Mary Oliver Garden
2. A historian has tracked down how the Underground Railroad got its name.
3. I’ve been trying a standing desk this week and this is accurate:
Me firing off emails at this standing desk pic.twitter.com/0RbVRmskJ8
— Joseph Rezek (@RezekJoe) September 26, 2023
4. This is also accurate:
Thursday Moods
I might need to buy this print by Roger Peet:
Me muttering, “My brother in christ..” to my brain all day when it doesn’t want to focus:
I’d like to just wander the woods like a ghost (art by Autumnal Wood):
I’ve posted this before but oh, how they are words I live by:
Wednesday Book Arts: A Box!
I followed the instructions in my Constructing and Covering Boxes book and lo, I have constructed and covered a box:
Is it perfect? No–I messed up the measurements somehow so the fore edge of the lid is a lot longer in front, and there may be some glue spots here and there. But do I love it? Oh yes. Fancy little boxes are deeply satisfying to Past Me, who used a fountain pen in eighth grade, who worked at a stationery store for six years, who still thinks about “the writing desk facing the windows of azaleas” scene in Rebecca.
In fact, the hand-marbled Italian paper I used for this first box was from my time at the stationery store (which ended in 2006, so…). Finally I have a reason for moving it from apartment to apartment to house for years!
Tuesday Project Progress: Seasonal Socks
I got the pair of short socks off the needles (they still need a pompom, though) and only have the heels to do on the last two pairs from this year. So that meant getting started on MOAR SOCKS! Especially since the mornings and evenings are cool enough now to need them.
The darker yarn is part of a Webs order from earlier this year (Lang Super Soxx Cities “Bern”) but the lighter pair I picked up from Harmony on a summer trip. (It’s Cascade Heritage Prints, “Southwest”).
(Where is all the sewing content? I’ve been struggling with that pack. I got it sewn up ok but the way it holds the weight is all wrong, and I honestly don’t think I want to put more time into it. It’s definitely sucked up all my sewjo, though. So knitting and bookbinding it is for now.)