Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart! Comments turned off

Knitting projects update: Fast away the old year passes

By on December 31st, 2008

It’s New Year’s Eve and it’s snowing like mad outside. (I could post pictures, but they’d look almost exactly like the ones I posted on the 19th. Only more so.) As it’s an inescapably domestic sort of day, and as I’m looking back over the year in retrospect anyway, here’s an update on knitting projects past and present:

  • Cavern cardigan: Done but for the blocking and the ties that go on the front. Must get around to that today or tomorrow, especially as it looks like I’ll be snowed in.
  • Christmas present knitting: A pair of socks for my grandmother and a hat for my mother were finished on time (barely, in the case of the socks—like, just after 12 a.m. Christmas morning), and well-received. Whew.
  • Sci-fi shawl: Resting. Maybe I’ll get back to it now that I’m no longer on a deadline to finish the holiday projects.
  • Just started: Another pair of socks, which promise to be rather slow and fiddly to make. Am I mad? But the pattern was so interesting I couldn’t resist.
  • Vest project: After some more deliberation, I realized that I wanted something with a V neck that buttons up the front. I’m now leaning toward the Tryst Vest, adapted so as to be uncropped.
  • My next sweater project, for whenever I find the time (ha!): a modified version of the Durrow cycling pullover, knit in the round rather than flat, and resized. I love the cabled sleeves.
  • So hilarious I had to link to it just because: the Vlad Tepes hat, complete with little figures impaled on toothpicks! Cf. Cthulhu’s Unspeakable Hat. (As the designer comments, “The beauty of this hat is that from a distance it looks like a perfectly normal hat…And then you notice the tentacles, and then you go crazy.”) But before making either of them, I’m making myself a Jayne Cobb Hat.

I went to visit my family for Christmas, and at one of our gatherings my aunt looked over at me and another member of the younger generation with our respective knitting and remarked “You know, it used to be that when you saw women sitting together and knitting, they were all at least 60 years old.” Which prompted a discussion of the simultaneous appeal of knitting to both a handmade aesthetic and a geeky sensibility, both of which have caught on among people my age and younger in a big way.

And now I must go clear snow off my front steps. And block that sweater…

Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart!, Music 6 comments

Knitted things for opera people

By on December 21st, 2008

While searching for interesting sock patterns (I'm almost finished a pair of socks as a present for my grandmother, and I'm on a roll), I came across the Tsock Tsarina, who makes kits for clever themed socks: mythological socks, Egyptian socks, and even a fantastically geeky "Nine Tailors" sock that incorporates a colorwork panel to represent Kent Treble Bob Major. (As a fan of both mathematical knitting and Dorothy Sayers, I'm in awe. And I think I must essay these socks at some point.) But what especially got my attention was the Turandot sock, alluding to the Puccini opera and incorporating a Chinese dragon, double happiness ideograms, and three cabled question marks to represent Turandot's three riddles. And it got me thinking: what else could one design by way of operatic knitting?

There are, of course, plenty of elegant things one could make to wear to the opera. Ravelry lists quite a few patterns for operagoing attire, primarily shawls, shrugs, elbow-length gloves, of which this pattern is perhaps my favorite, and evening bags. But what about motifs that refer to particular operas? Few things are as tacky as an over-decorated sweater, so one would have to be careful not to go overboard with the design. And some operas might not lend themselves to such a project: I'd just as soon not knit a Lucia di Lammermoor garment, in a tartan pattern interrupted by splotches of blood-red and a knife motif. (Ditto for Verdi's Macbeth.)

But there are subtler approaches. I love the tree motif on these "Deep in the Forest" mittens; with a little tweaking, one could turn it a Norma-esque pattern of Druid oaks. Pyramids and lotus columns for Aida would be fairly easy, if a bit over-obvious. And I was thinking that it wouldn't be impossible to design a cable that looks like a lyre for Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, but someone has already created a Eurydice sock much along the lines I was imagining.

And then there are knitted things modeled on what characters in operas actually wear. One could make a whole suite of La Bohème winter knitwear (heavy scarves, shawls, muffs, bonnets), for example. Or Susanna's headdress from Act 1 of Le Nozze di Figaro ("Sembra fatto in ver per me!"), although what the libretto calls a little hat was more likely a garland of orange flowers.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on La Traviata and finish a sweater.

Pictorial Comments turned off

Snowpocalypse now!

By on December 19th, 2008

The big snowstorm took its time getting to Connecticut, but it's definitely here. The College closed early today so that people could go home before the roads got too messy. When I heard the forecast this morning, I grabbed my camera, and I've been carrying it around taking pictures all day.

The calm before the storm Downtown, all was quiet, but the sky looked threatening.

Snowy streets, 1 The view from one of my windows after the snow started seriously coming down.

Snowy streets, 2 Even in the smaller-size photo, you can see how heavily it's snowing.

Car tracks in the snow Car tracks in the snow.

We've already got at least a couple of inches on the ground, and both the ground and the air have gotten noticeably whiter in the space of the last hour. Tonight is definitely not a night to leave the house. More pictures tomorrow morning if it's not all a slushy mess by then.

Film, Memes 4 comments

A favorite-movie alphabet

By on December 18th, 2008

I saw this meme over at Easily Distracted and liked it so much that I'm stealing it. The rules are simple: name a favorite movie for each letter of the alphabet. So here are mine.

After Life: I'm reluctant to give any summary, because any summary would make it sound cheesy. Just go watch it if you haven't already.

Babette's Feast and My Beautiful Laundrette (tie): I can't decide. Both of these are on my desert-island list. I considered putting My Beautiful Laundrette under M, but M was crowded with possibilities already. Runner-up: Bull Durham.

The Company: The first of several Robert Altman movies on the list (see also G and M). I love the scene with Neve Campbell's character playing pool by herself in the bar.

Dark City: This one makes the list largely for the amazing Edward-Hopper-esque visuals, but I don't care.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: I've watched a lot of movies about memory, some sublime (see After Life) and some crappy (the lame adaptation of William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic comes to mind). This one is definitely on the high end of the scale.

The Full Monty: Especially for the scene where they start unconsciously rehearsing their chorus-line routine while waiting in the unemployment office. Or perhaps Fargo, mostly for Frances McDormand: "Oh for Pete's sake, he's fleeing the interview. He's fleeing the interview!"

Gosford Park: Altman has a way of taking well-worn genres (the war movie, the Western) and doing things to them you never expected. Here he turns the English country-house murder mystery inside out.

High Fidelity: "That's the worst f$!@ing sweater I've ever seen. It's a Cosby sweater. A Cosssby sweatah!" Jack Black is my favorite thing about this movie. If I'm ever in a band, I want it to be named Sonic Death Monkey.

Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners): I never thought I'd enjoy a Dogme95 film so much.

What to pick for J? The dark and disturbing Jacob's Ladder, which messes with your head seven ways to Sunday, or the much sunnier and happier Juno? Or I might just cheat a bit and say (Being) John Malkovich.

The only thing I can think of for K is Kind Hearts and Coronets, with Alec Guinness as a whole series of members of a wealthy family who get bumped off one by one by the protagonist. It's been a while since I saw it, but I have fond recollections.

Life Is Sweet: I had to get some Mike Leigh in here somewhere, and this is one of my favorites. But I could also have gone with the Lord of the Rings trilogy considered as one massively long three-part work.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller: As the Lorraine Bowen song goes, I'm in love with Julie Christie (she makes me go misty). Runners-up: Magnolia, Memento, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Moonstruck, and Moulin Rouge!. (Criminy. Do all my favorite movies start with the letter M?)

North by Northwest: Hitchcock obsession, I haz it (see also under V for Vertigo).

O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Love George Clooney in this one. And the soundtrack. And the Homeric intertextuality. And everything about it, really.

Party Girl: Every librarian's favorite movie! Also, I'll watch Parker Posey in nearly anything.

Queen Christina: Because it has Greta Garbo in 17th-century drag, assuring one of her courtiers "I will not die an old maid. I will die a bachelor!"

Le rayon vert (The Green Ray): Oddly, I'm not really a fan of Eric Rohmer's movies in general, just this one. It's hard to say why I love it. Not much happens apart from the main character screwing up her summer vacation plans. But you watch it a few times and you realize that not a single detail or shot or bit of dialogue is superfluous, and the ending feels like a miracle. Runners-up: The Royal Tenenbaums, and, on a totally different note, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

Singin' in the Rain and The Station Agent in a tie for S. Also Sunset Boulevard.

Trois Couleurs: Rouge: The whole Three Colors trilogy, really, but if I have to pick just one, then definitely the final one.

The Usual Suspects: Because it made a huge impression on me the first time I saw it, even though I suspect it probably doesn't hold up to repeated viewings as well as I once thought.

Vertigo: I went through a huge Hitchcock phase there for a while, and while it's no longer the obsession it once was, Vertigo was the movie that started it, and to this day it's way up there among my favorites. Runner-up: Velvet Goldmine.

Wonder Boys: There's just something about this movie that makes you feel like you're living inside its world. Also, Michael Douglas is brilliant as the pot-smoking, pink-chenille-bathrobe-wearing novelist who can't finish his enormous novel, and the writing workshop scenes crack me up. Runners-up: Wait Until Dark and The Wicker Man (the original version; I avoided the remake because I suffer from an allergy to Nicholas Cage).

X is the letter that gets left out of every abecedarium. Mine is no exception. (I just didn't like The X-Men enough to consider it a favorite. Or eXistenz, fo
r that matter.)

Y: Like Tim, I think it's probably cheating to put Y tu mamá también for Y. But without it I'm Y-less, and I really liked it. So I'll cheat.

Z: Zéro de conduite? Zazie dans le Métro? What is it with French movies about rebellious children with titles that start with Z? (Actually, neither of these are on my all-time favorites list, but I wanted to have a Z.)

So there you have it. Feel free to spread the meme!

Poetry 2 comments

More on poetry and quotation (or, One-hit wonders of the literary canon)

By on December 13th, 2008

So I was thinking about quotation a few months ago, and then yesterday morning I was working on a reference question about a very, very obscure Victorian poet. (So obscure he doesn’t even get a mention in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and only a handful of libraries on this side of the Atlantic own any of his poems.) Said poet is one of those minor figures best known for a single often-quoted poem, or, in this poet’s case, a single line from a single poem, which is at once hard to find and strangely familiar. After a bit of sleuthing around, it occurred to me that the poem probably sounded so recognizable because it’s been anthologized to bits, and Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry in Anthologies confirmed that it appeared in The Best-Loved Poems of the American People in 1936. I suspect it’s also cropped up in others as well, and probably in a host of quotation dictionaries, because the familiar line had that kind of “heard it a million times before” ring to it.

I’m intrigued by minor poets—or rather, intrigued by the mechanisms by which minor poets become known as minor poets, represented by a token poem here or there, or a quotation in Bartlett’s. And I’m intrigued by the afterlives they have in anthologies. In front of me is my great-grandmother’s copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, in an edition published in New York in 1888. Palgrave’s is a very Victorian sampler, heavy on Wordsworth and Shakespeare and Shelley and the more lyrical Elizabethans, with no poetry by anyone born later than Keats. But some of the lesser poets in it sound hauntingly recognizable. There’s Henry Vaughan with an extremely truncated version of “The World,” no doubt included largely for the famous first line “I saw Eternity the other night.” There’s John Lyly with “Cupid and my Campaspe play’d / At cards for kisses; Cupid paid,” an anthology favorite from an otherwise barely-remembered Elizabethan author. And I’ve finally realized that the author of the line “I am monarch of all I survey” was William Cowper, in “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk.” I’d never read the poem in its entirety, but that line (like the one I was hunting down yesterday) is one I’ve known for years and years.

It would be interesting to compare the Golden Treasury with more modern anthologies to see which minor poets are consistently represented and which ones aren’t. I’m not really interested in canon-formation so much as minor-poet canon-formation. Someday I want to do a study of poetry anthologies from a book-history perspective, looking at why editors chose the poems they do, and what kinds of audiences anthologies were intended for, and where the connections might lie between anthologizing and other practices like classroom memorization and recitation. (Some of this, I’m sure, has been done already.) Some of the poets who seem minor now were major in their day, and vice versa; it would be interesting to find out if any of them were the always-already minor figures who managed to write one well-remembered poem and then fade into obscurity.

Come to think of it, that might be a good project to pursue sooner rather than later. Time to do a little research and see what I can find to start with.

Grab bag, Music 2 comments

Il tarocco dell’opera

By on December 8th, 2008

At various points, I've had friends who did Tarot readings, and who could occasionally be prevailed upon to read my cards. I've always found the Tarot iconography interesting to think about, even though I'm a terribly amateurish reader myself. Last year I was amused to come across both a Knitting Tarot deck and an Edward Gorey Tarot. All of which is by way of introduction to the topic of this post, namely: for quite a while I've been wondering if anyone has ever assembled an opera-themed Tarot deck, with cards representing characters and scenes from the entire operatic repertoire. This deck is the closest thing I've found to what I'm thinking of, but it's not all opera-related.

A few of the cards suggest obvious possibilities: Parsifal for the Fool, Sarastro for the Magician, Norma for the High Priestess, various versions of Mephistopheles for the Devil (though, personally, I'd choose Nick Shadow from The Rake's Progress). One could take one's pick of couples for both the Lovers and the Two of Cupss. The Chariot makes me think of Aida because of the Egyptianness of the imagery in the Rider-Waite deck. And so on. (I confess myself stumped by the Hanged Man.)

Just now, Googling "opera tarot," I found this discussion thread at the Aeclectic Tarot forum, and saw that other people have had the same thought, with all sorts of clever ideas for cards I hadn't even thought of. (The Nine of Swords as Lucia's mad scene? The Brindisi from Act 1 of La Traviata for the Three of Cups? Excellent.) But I don't think anyone's actually produced such a deck, all the same.

Anyway, this is one of the things I ponder when I'm in a speculating state of mind. Fellow operaphiles, care to weigh in?

Academia, Recession 2008 3 comments

Dickensian U.

By on December 4th, 2008

It seems like there’s been a cavalcade of bad news about Hard Times in Academia lately. The grim story about the University of Tennessee adjuncts that I blogged about last month was just the beginning. In just the last few days, I’ve run across articles on:

The recession has everyone worried about money. Things aren’t very dire at MPOW so far (cross fingers and touch wood), but the news coming out of a lot of similar colleges is anxiety-inspiring: hiring freezes, construction projects halted, whacking sums of money chopped out of budgets all at once. I suspect the next crop of campus novels will all receive the epithet “Dickensian.”

For those of you who work (or study) in higher education, how are things on your campus? And what are you doing to stave off Recession Anxiety?

* I know, I know: football makes people happy, and football programs pay for themselves, make alumni feel loyal and warm and fuzzy and willing to donate, yada yada yada. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy watching enormously expensive spectacles as much as the next person; I am an opera fan, after all. But still: 2.5 million dollars? A year? What can a person even do with that much money? Buy a private island? Install solid gold plumbing in their Versailles-sized mansion? Order a custom-built spacecraft complete with warp drive? If Stanford’s president and provost can take 10% pay cuts to help their university out, why can’t some of that money get plowed back into the university and benefit a few more people who need it, instead of further enriching someone who’s probably already a gazillionaire?

Memes 2 comments

In which this blog takes a personality test

By on November 25th, 2008

Via Academic Cog and New Kid on the Hallway, the Typealyzer: a site that analyzes your blog's Myers-Briggs personality type. In my case, it wasn't far off. Every time I've taken the Myers-Briggs test, I've scored as either an INTP or, on a couple of occasions, INTJ. The Typealyzer thinks my blog is a bit more practically oriented than I am:

ISTP – The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned
to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges
that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for
themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and
highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their
work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in
driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

I'm surprised that it pegged my writing style as more oriented toward sensing than intuition, and the whole "race-car driving" bit is way off, but actually, I kind of like the idea of being a mechanic. Who knew this blog would be where I'd channel my inner Kaylee Frye?

Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart! 6 comments

Knitting bleg: Help me choose my next project

By on November 23rd, 2008

It's getting rapidly colder up here in New England, and with corresponding rapidity I'm learning where the cold spots are in my apartment (the front door leaks heat like a leaky thing) and in my office. My plan for dealing with the cold involves weatherstripping, long underwear, a space heater for the office, and, of course, sweaters. I'm close to finishing my first sweater project of the season, the Cavern Cardigan, carefully chosen as an extra layer of alpaca/merino warmth for when I'm sitting at my desk:

Cavern cardigan in progress

And I'm already thinking about the next keep-me-from-freezing project. Specifically, I'm thinking about vests. I like having an extra layer that doesn't trap my arms in too many sleeves. But sweater vests have an unfortunate reputation for dorkiness. I had a particularly uncool sweater vest in high school (acrylic yarn in a garish shade of fire-engine red, square neckline, boxy), so I'm a little gun-shy. All of which is to say that I'm in search of a stylish-looking vest pattern, preferably one that's kind of androgynous, but fitted enough not to look baggy. (I'm aiming for "dashing," not "grandpa.")

I've found a few patterns that I think would work:

(This honeycomb pattern is a bit girlier than I'm in the mood for, but I like it as well.)

So, readers, if you feel like helping me pick out my next project, which of them do you like?

Academia 7 comments

Adjuncting in the tar pits

By on November 21st, 2008

[Update: Greetings to everyone visiting from How the University Works, and thanks to Marc Bousquet for the link. If you’re new to my blog, you might want to check out the “Academia” category archives.]

Via Timothy Burke comes a thoroughly depressing story from Inside Higher Ed on adjunct pay in the Tennessee state college and university system. Adjuncts there have been unable to get the system to to raise their maximum pay to $20,000 a year for a 5/5 teaching load, with no benefits. As Tim says:

You could pay someone $200,000 a year, and I doubt they could teach a
5-5 load with any degree of focus or attention to students, but
$15,000? No benefits? Seriously, Tennessee: just close down your
university system. Or just be honest and make public higher education
in the state into a volunteer system, like getting people to work the
line at a soup kitchen. And adjuncts there? Seriously, there has got to
be a better way to make ends meet, whatever your circumstances and
aspirations might be.

Indeed. Really, I can’t complain that much about my own year of adjuncting after I finished my Ph.D; I made a living (though not what one would call generous) wage, and I taught a 3/2 load. I had health insurance. I was part of a large and active union, as I’d been when I was a grad student. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to earn $15,000 a year, with no benefits, for teaching five courses a semester.

A lot of the commenters on the Inside Higher Ed story can’t understand why the adjuncts would let themselves be exploited so thoroughly and ruthlessly. But I can remember that headspace very clearly. It was a weird state of learned helplessness, based on a set of assumptions that everyone took for granted—many of which were part of our socialization into academic culture:

  1. The job market in the humanities is notoriously arbitrary and capricious. Getting a job is, to a large extent, beyond one’s control.
  2. There are no worthy, interesting, or rewarding careers outside of academia. You either have a faculty job, or you have to become a corporate drone (or else consign yourself to a life of flipping burgers).
  3. If you don’t get an academic job, you’ll not only be a failure, you’ll have wasted your youth getting the Ph.D. [A.K.A. the sunk costs fallacy.]
  4. Being an intellectual (and having an academic job) is more important than anything else. If you put a higher value on choosing where to live, or having a life outside of work, or earning enough money to raise a family, or not spending your weekends grading papers, well, maybe you’re not serious enough for an academic career. Maybe you don’t deserve a faculty position. Maybe you’re just not smart enough.
  5. Not being smart enough is a fate worse than death.
  6. Unhappiness is a normal part of the scholarly life. What are you complaining about? Smart people are naturally melancholics, alcoholics, tortured geniuses, and/or brilliant depressives.
  7. Academics are completely impractical people anyway. They don’t value money, and they’d be hopeless at any other kind of career. So why bother?

When you spend years working to become part of a culture where all of those assumptions go without saying, it’s hard not to wind up immobilized. Pulling myself out of that mindset was like trying to escape from the La Brea Tar Pits.* I still don’t quite know how I managed it. Unfortunately, short of starting a deprogramming service for adjuncts, I don’t know how one would even begin to persuade people not to work under such conditions.

Not for the first time, I miss the Invisible Adjunct. (And I hope she’s doing well, wherever she is.)

* My mother and I lived in Santa Monica for a year when I was 13. One day we went to visit the La Brea Tar Pits museum, where you can see the fossilized skeletons of all kinds of extinct animals—and one human, an apparent murder victim—that were found in the tar. There was also an exhibit where you could see what it was like to get stuck in the pits; it consisted of a vat of hot tar with levers protruding from it, and when you pulled up on one of the levers, you could feel the immense weight of the tar dragging it back down again. I’ve never forgotten the sensation.