Friday Links

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1. It was Bob Dylan’s 79th birthday this week; Austin Kleon had a nice post (with lots of Dylan quotes) about the guy’s creative process.

2. It’s a Twitter thread, so it’s not ideal to read, but the thesis is fascinating: “in the history of disney animated movies there have been exactly 18 types of songs, and i’m going to tell you about each of them.”

3. This is really, really accurate, especially on week 12 of working from home as sewing reaches a fever pitch. (The irony is, of course, that 90% of what I’m making isn’t WFH wear.)

(via)

Just Do This Today

By in gram time No Comments

I found the PunHub account on Instagram and, in the words of…someone: “For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like.” (I like it. My dad likes it. Doc and his whole family like it. We are Pun People.)

Anyway, if you need me today I’ll be looking at these:

Trying New Things

By in crafts, Tuesday Project Roundup No Comments

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was wondering why my elbow hurt all the time and making a fist was painful. Some googling and some forced rest (no gym for 8 weeks) made me realize it was probably tennis elbow. Knitting would also make it hurt, so I spent some (many) idle lockdown hours looking into needlepoint kits.

I really, really wanted to get a Kaffe Fassett pillow kit but they were 1.) at least $100 and 2.) the company wasn’t shipping due to the rona. So instead I was reasonable and got a cheap eyeglass case kit to see if I would even like needpoint.

I do like it! But I am very bad at it! I’ve been working bottom up and you can see some incremental improvement but…this isn’t going to win any awards. (I think some of the issue is that I refuse to admit I need a lot more light to stitch than I do to knit, so I can’t always quite see what I’m doing.)

It’s fun, though, in the same way a paint-by-number painting was fun when I was a kid: all the fun of colors AND all the fun of just following instructions and knowing it will all work out. (A good pandemic project after all.)

Start Of Summer

By in quotes, Ray Bradbury No Comments

It’s going to be hot all week but the weekend was just perfect: blue skies, big clouds, just the right intensity of sun. Bradbury-rereading weather for sure:

Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

(The opening of Dandelion Wine, the summer book)

Friday Links

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1. It’s the end of week 10 working from home for me. I think. What is time? I’m just glad I can go to the gym again, bros.

2. I had no idea people were still doing the [illegal] Cannonball coast-to-coast speed drive, but they are and someone just set a new record of 26 hours. Road and Track does NOT approve but honestly this sounds bonkers and amazing:

All we know about this new set of scofflaws is that there were three, maybe four of them, and that they were driving a white 2019 Audi A8 sedan with a pair of red plastic marine fuel tanks ratchet-strapped into its trunk. They started at the Red Ball Garage in New York City at 11:15 pm on April 4, and ended less than 27 hours later at the Portofino Hotel & Marina in Redondo Beach, California, the traditional start and end points of a Cannonball attempt.

3. Put this in the dictionary under “joy”. Might as well put it under all the other words too because it’s such a delight:

Wednesday Read

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Anne Helen Petersen is back with a longer piece about spending less during the last couple months of lockdown. She unpacks a lot in it–the economic boom of the 50s that still imforms today’s thinking, the amount of debt Americans have, how “supporting the economy” got to sound noble. Check it out: I Don’t Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore

An interviewee sums it up:
“The thing that’s staying with me is how many of these bad shit purchases are attempts to create control and satisfaction from circumstances where I (seem to) have little,” he continued. “…If our jobs and commutes weren’t wringing us emotionally dry on a daily basis, we’d be much more ethical consumers, maybe?”

 

Near the end, Petersen says this:

In this moment, the primary tension in America is how, and when, life is going to “return to normal.” But that “normal” was an economy that, even before COVID-19, was built on a form of consumption that felt compulsory, with household debt as normalized as the exploitative work conditions that make those daily consumption habits possible. A “normal” in which the vast majority of people still felt economically precarious, burned out, and swallowed by their student debt, and most still struggled to cobble together enough savings to protect them from medical or financial catastrophe. A “normal” in which the various manifestations of the gig economy—and the lack of healthcare, labor protections, or the general safety net that accompanies them—have been, well, normalized.

So what if we don’t actually want to go back to that?

Reminds me of this piece I linked at the beginning of the year/a century ago: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Little Pagoda On The Prairie

By in sewing, Tuesday Project Roundup

Nine weeks into working from home, I’ve been trying to pick projects that are more involved or take more time, so I don’t end up with a 70-piece wardrobe and nowhere to wear it. Case in point, this kinda-pioneer, kinda-Japanese quilted jacket:

I had been saving some of my favorite clothing for YEARS thinking I might make a quilt. On the left is a yukata I bought right after high school, which I loved and wore to literal shreds along the neckline. On the right is one of the first wearable dresses I made back in 2007, in Japanese quilting cotton. It didn’t fit but I still loved the fabric.

The quilted jacket that didn’t really work was languishing in my closet and I’d outgrown my quilted Tamarack jacket. As I was digging through the stash to make all the masks, I saw the yukata and the dress together and it all clicked: New Quilted Jacket! I’d use the back and pockets from Unsuccessful Jacket and piece together the fronts and sleeves.

I did use a pattern–Simplicity 8298–but I pretty much eyeballed the placement of the different prints before I started:

I spent some quality time with a seam ripper breaking down the garments and then just pieced them as I went to fit the pattern:


I had batting on hand, leftover from the other quilted jackets, and used some chambray jacquard I picked up on our trip to Montana a couple years ago for the lining. Then I machine quilted the different pieces, going diagonal on the fronts and straight on the sleeves just for the hell of it.

The Medium in the pattern fit great out of the envelope, but I ignored their method of finishing the collar seam.  I also straightened out the bell sleeve near the end because it was taking it all from “world-traveling ceramics teacher” to “Mikado cosplay”.

But all’s well that ends well–this might be the garment that feels the most like “me,” if my essence were translated to clothing: Print mixing! Japonisme! Pioneer spirit! Mandarin collars! Celestial motifs! Navy blue!

 

Sunday In The Park With Skates

By in skating

We watched 1979’s classic Roller Boogie Friday night, a work of genius. Here, enjoy the trailer which does indeed feature Cher singing “Hell On Wheels“:

 

Skate movies make me want to practice my tricks so we headed to the park Sunday afternoon. I still can’t do the things I want to do (jumps, turn around all the way and keep skating) but I’m getting there!

 

 

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Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. It is day 64 of the plague here today, but maybe it’s time to reset the counter to “new normal”: I’ve made a couple of quick trips back to the office, my gym is open again (very safely)–I’ve even been to Home Depot!

2. From Kottke, a couple of articles on how quickly language is adapting to the pandemic, including a list of new slang:

  • Infits – outfits worn in conditions of confinement
  • Covid waltz – manoeuvring to avoid close contact with passers-by while distance restrictions are in place

3.This blew my mind:

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