(Click for big. Not as wrong–or as funny–as this, though.)
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Have you seen this story of the World Rally Championship in Mexico? You need to read it because it’s awesome:
Bill Caswell, an unemployed Chicago racing freak, entered the Mexico round of the World Rally Championship in a 1991 BMW 318i that he found on Craigslist. The car cost $500…he found a loophole in the FIA rules that let him enter a twenty-year-old car in the same event as guys like Ken Block and former F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen.
He gets mooned! He almost falls off a bridge! He finishes third in his class!
2. Haven’t we all wanted to see Michael Buble being stalked by a velociraptor? Now we can, thanks to bubleraptor.tumblr.com.
A Poem For When It Is NOT Snowing
I am not even going to talk about this snowstorm. Instead, here’s a poem from The Writer’s Almanac this morning about springtime and Easter.
Coltsfoot gives way to dandelion,
plum to apple blossom. Cherry fills
our woods, white petals melting
like the last late snow. Dogwood’s
stigmata shine with the blood
of this season. How holy
forsythia and redbud are
as they consume their own
flowers, green leaves running
down their crowns. Here is
the shapeliness of bodies
newly formed, the rich cloth
that covers frail bones and hides
roots that hold fervently
to this dark earth.
–For Jack Ridl
Manicure SOS (First-World Problem)
Does anyone reading this get manicures and have a place to recommend? I don’t know what it’s going to take to get me to stop destroying my hands, but that might be a place to start. (Of course, I would feel too embarrassed at the state of my hands right now to go to a manicurist, so I’d have to try to get them fixed up a little beforehand. Kind of like cleaning the house before the cleaning lady gets there.)
*Doesn’t that post title look like it could be a song title?
Tuesday Project Roundup: Prints Charming
Groan! Sorry, I only have a pile of spring fabrics this week. The current project has to be turned into a tunic instead of a dress because of length and fit issues, so I wasn’t very excited to finish it Saturday.
But as soon as I can finish the now-a-tunic, I can make those pink flowers on top into a pencil skirt. The bottom fabric is for another skirt and the two in the middle will be dresses.
It’s Monday
It’s going to be a busy week at work, but at least I can listen to Otis Redding knocking it out of the park with his cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Otis knows what it’s like to be unsatisfied! He knows how it feels to have to write websites when you just want to shop online! Sing it, Otis!
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Life has posted some previously unpublished pictures of Steve McQueen from 1963–“enlarge” will take you to the full gallery, which is well worth it:
2. My office started a March Madness bracket thing, which I don’t understand at all. I do understand a contest between cake and pie, though. (Pie for the win!) March Madness: Cake vs. Pie.
3. I don’t get a newspaper any more, as you might have guessed from the lack of all political content over the last six months, but yay, a health care bill passed! I really didn’t expect it to.There’s a good Paul Krugmen op-ed from the NYTimes to read here.
A Poem For Thinking About Stuff
Lately I’ve been going crazy shopping for spring fabric and thinking about shoes to buy and things to get for the apartment (more than usual, I mean), so today’s poem is about things.
Things
Liesel Mueller
What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.
We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,
and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.
I Know It’s Called "Before," But A Lot Of "After" Was Left Out
I finally watched Coco Before Chanel last night and it was about what I expected: More romance than fashion, with lots of montages. It started out pretty well but ended with Chanel being reflected in endless mirrors while models who were 2010-skinny put on a fashion show. I know there was more to the “after” of her career than that.
I enjoyed that the film’s first half presented her as so cynical about love…until “the love of her life” died and the penultimate montage made it seem like she spent the rest of her life mourning him. (What about Stravinsky? Or that German officer she met in WWII? Talk about a pretext for a film.)
But it was enjoyable, if only to see some sewing and fabric on film. My favorite part was near the end, when she unrolled a bolt of powder-pink boucle suiting in that same “my lover is dead and I’m sewing through my grief” montage. I want some of that boucle!
Tuesday Project Roundup: If You Get An Outfit You Can Be A Yogi, Too
When I wrote “Refresh my yoga skills” on my list of 30 Things, I never really did the math on when I actually last did yoga. Well, it turns out that “in college” doesn’t mean just a few years ago anymore, and after a decade without yoga I think I need to amend #9 to be “Learn yoga skills all over again.”
Fortunately, I have a way to carry my mat to class now, assuming I can make myself start going:
This was a fun, fast project made entirely of fabrics I had around the house. The pockets around the bottom, the strap, and the lining were left over from the pillows I made before Christmas, and the body fabric was a filing cabinet cover I made when I moved here that was recently retired in the Post-breakup Living Room Re-do of ’09.
I have to give special thanks to my crafty friend Kara, who inspired me with her bag last month and then suggested this pattern (a free Amy Butler download). Thanks, Kara!