Happy birthday to my father, the best dad–and now, grandpa!–we could ask for. He is actually 64 today, so you know I had to celebrate with “When I’m 64.”
And yes, we still need him. And still feed him.
Happy birthday to my father, the best dad–and now, grandpa!–we could ask for. He is actually 64 today, so you know I had to celebrate with “When I’m 64.”
And yes, we still need him. And still feed him.
1. To finish up what turned into ranch week, here’s part of an interview with a real-life cowboy. Recorded in 1937 as part of a WPA oral history project, the retired cowboy, L. M. Cox, was in his 70s. Fascinating stuff, and real Cowboy Way attitude:
“We never heard much complaint about hard times. People thought about a lot of things more than they did money then, ’cause it didn’t take so much money to live.”
and
“Everything else changes though, so guess we’ll just have to get used to that like we do other things and if we can’t get used to it, quit.”
2. I know I posted something from The Sifl and Olly Show last week, but I can’t stop watching clips on YouTube. If you’ve heard any Bob Dylan–especially the mid-60s stuff with the far-out lyrics–you may find this as hilarious as I do:
Somehow I ended up on fancy ranch real estate sites yesterday and look what I found:
It’s the LaSal Wildlife Ranch–8,800 acres 50 miles east of Moab, surrounded by national forests, with 310 acres of water rights, herds of elk and deer, and views like this: There’s even a lake somewhere in there:
Of course, its average elevation is 7,500 feet, it’s mostly undeveloped, and it’s currently not habitable in the winter, but if you can afford the ranch* I think you can afford to build a new ranchhouse and get this operation going. Who’s in?
*Um, yeah, it’s $8.5 million. Plus about $10k a year in taxes. (Oh yes, I downloaded the PDF.)
They’re just so cute.
These are the new arrivals at Blue Moon Ranch. You can see them in person at the end of next month at Open Barn Days, or buy some yarn made of their fluffiness at the Great Basin Fiber Arts Festival at the end of this month.
I’ve been having too many adventures lately to have anything to show today, and I’ve been feeling uninspired to boot. I’ve grudgingly accepted that fall clothes are out and here to stay so I should probably think about making some, but I don’t really have a vision for what to make or what fabric to get…except for this:
It’s fabric from the Liberty of London fall “Liberty Rocks” line; it’s designed by Storm Thorgerson, the artist behind a lot of Pink Floyd album covers; and it has rock-and-roll/sci-fi birds all over it. Birds. Rock and roll. Liberty.
I have a weakness for stuff like this–see the psychadelic star print hippy dress and the dress with horses that look like they were airbrushed on the side of a van–but fitting them into my regular rotation of pencil skirts and 60s shifts makes me feel a little bipolar, fashion-wise.
So I’m still on the fence for fall fabrics. Stay tuned!
So I went to a demolition derby Saturday, after a break of four years. (I had to balance out the early music concert somehow.) It did not disappoint. There was beer:
There were cars:
There were people who rushed out to tip a car back over that had rolled:
And there was this–perhaps the single most sociologically fascinating thing I’ve seen in an event that gives you PLENTY of things to be sociologically fascinated by. It was the brown car. That says “Butt Bomber” and “San Francisco here I come” on on side…
…and “Hershey Highway” on the other.
What prompted these messages? Small-town homophobia? A puerile (and still homophobic) commentary on the car’s original paint color? Or is the driver really gay and making a statement? We may never know. But I’m hoping for an out and proud driver, because he kicked ass.
1. The concert last night didn’t take a lot of aplomb at all–only listening to the fantastic Anonymous 4. The first half was early music from 1188, which dredged up all sorts of stuff from my music history days and made me very happy. (If I can geek out a little: how cool is it that people are researching and singing music from over 800 years ago? It’s kind of like time travel to hear it.)
2. Speaking of geeking out, I’m still reading sci-fi, and I discovered that YouTube has most of The Sifl and Olly Show (one of the most brilliant TV shows ever aired) available. So this is perfect:
Hey!
Tonight I am going to a chamber music concert. By myself. This is the first time I’ve been brave enough to go solo to an event and I’m proud of myself before the fact.
My BFF M.F.K. Fisher wrote about dining alone, and I like to think I’m channeling the same spirit here–just with a concert instead of dinner:
I came to believe that since nobody else dared to feed me as I wished to be fed, I must do it myself, with as much aplomb as I could muster.
If you need me, I’ll be attending a concert with aplomb.
It’s Mark Doty‘s birthday today, but looking back through the archives I haven’t really quoted from him–maybe because a lot of his work is long and/or or particularly heartbreaking. But here’s the first half of a happy poem about clothes and fabric.
Couture
1.
Peony silks,
in wax-light:
that petal-sheen,
gold or apricot or rose
candled into-
what to call it,
lumina, aurora, aureole?
About gowns,
the Old Masters,
were they ever wrong?
This penitent Magdalen’s
wrapped in a yellow
so voluptuous
she seems to wear
all she’s renounced;
this boy angel
isn’t touching the ground,
but his billow
of yardage refers
not to heaven
but to pleasure’s
textures, the tactile
sheers and voiles
and tulles
which weren’t made
to adorn the soul.
Eternity’s plainly nude;
the naked here and now
longs for a little
dressing up. And though
they seem to prefer
the invisible, every saint
in the gallery
flaunts an improbable
tumble of drapery,
a nearly audible liquidity
(bright brass embroidery,
satin’s violin-sheen)
raveled around the body’s
plain prose; exquisite
(dis?)guises; poetry,
music, clothes.
Is it me, or does this dress really remind you of summer picnic tablecloths? I may just be reacting to the fabric, which is a madras from IKEA that I’m pretty sure was intended for summer picnic tablecloths–but it was soft and cheap and helped me test out the pattern.
The pattern sewed up well but I thought I would like it more when it was finished. There’s nothing wrong with it and there are no fit issues, but I tried it on and just thought, “I expected more from you, shirtdress.” So I’m blaming the fabric.