A la recherche du temps perdu

Browsing through the books in a secondhand dealer (because Lord knows I need more books: my reading pile got down below a metre while I was on holiday last week) I came across this little retro gem.
This book--well, not this actual book but one of its sisters-- was on my high school Textiles & Design book list. I fondly recall its advice on caring for worsted fabrics, how to tell the difference between cotton and rayon, and what constitutes a jacquard weave. After all, I did top the class in Year 11, so I must have learned something. It certainly wasn't my slapdash sewing skills that won me the honour!
Dear old Rosalie wrote this book in 1962 (reprinted in 1964). Its sister was first put into my hands at the Canobolas High School some 20 years later, and now this copy completes the circle 20-odd years after that.
Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Light on the Hill

101 uses for a Kevin Rudd. Following in the footsteps of "the definitive John Howard biography", one of my favourite pre-election sites. Make sure you click the switch.

New South Whales

Call me Ishmael. This pair of humpback whales were making their way up the coast to get laid at the Great Barrier Reef as Queequeg (aka the Dude) and I cruised aboard the Pequod (aka Moonshadow IV) outside Nelson Bay. We followed them around for a while and they put on quite a show, with some tail slapping and waving of fins. Just like big, scary dolphins, really.

Herman Melville's Ishmael describes the humpback whale thus:

He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them.

The devil's wisdom

Say, hast thou naught descried that met thy wishes?
Thou didst o'erlook a boundless territory,
'The kingdoms of the world and all their glory,'
But all insatiate thou art,
Lusted for naught at all thine heart?

Mephistopheles, in Faust Part II Act IV, by Goethe.

Very Machiavellian.

Impressionism

And we sit there, by [the river's] margin, while the moon, who loves it too, stoops down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and throws her silver arms around it clingingly; and we watch it as it flows, ever singing, ever whispering, out to meet its king, the sea--till our voices dies away in silence, and the pipes go out--till we, commonplace, everyday young men enough, feel strangely full of thoughts, half sad, half sweet, and do not care or want to speak... we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young again.

Jerome K Jerome, Three Men in a Boat, Chapter 2

Music: Nocturnes: Sirenes by Claude Debussy
Image: Sunset on the Seine by Claude Monet

One week until P-day

Yesterday I stopped in at Cardinal Pell's Moneychanging Emporium Inc (prudently located across the road from the temple rather than inside it). Unfortunately they were all out of Pope-on-a-rope, and I hesitated to ask for the T-shirt I really want ("John-Paul, George [Pell] and Ratzingo: Australian tour 2008") just in case I was spotted by an oversensitive SES volunteer and incarcerated in a tin shed in Kellyville for the duration.
For those who haven't seen the monstrosity yet, you'll be pleased to know that the Merchandise Marquee only covers about half of Hyde Park, right under the benevolent gaze of Apollo atop the Archibald Fountain. Let's hope the pilgrims spill a few drops of holy water on the trampled earth so that the grass grows back quickly after they've gone.

More guerilla art at Bare Island

The Dude and I went down to Bare Island to make some art for the V&A Museum's World Beach Project. The rock stacks in the picture were our first attempts, but then we found some pieces of flat, grey sandstone that the Dude assembled into the shape of a reef shark. We've submitted it to the Project, and it should appear on the website in a day or two, so please check it out. Updated 7/7.
I challenge everyone who is near a beach to have a go at this form of guerilla art. It's free, fun and easy, and Australian beaches are sadly underrepresented in the project!

Tell me in the comments below when you've done it.

Guerilla art

The new camera has arrived!

Let's all make some guerilla art. Post links to yours in the comments below.

Shameless self-promotion

Yesterday's mail brought a copy of a book I edited before Christmas and I have really looked forward to seeing in print: Wild Tea Cosies. You can guess what I'll be knitting this winter...
I've also just received copies of two books I produced for Inspirations Books, Stitch it: Home and Stitch it: Quilts. These are co-published in the USA by Leisure Arts and available from amazon.com, too.
I'm really proud of these books, but another reason I'm telling you about them is to prove the Master (VoR, FP, HD, MBT, and *now* AFSM) a liar--he keeps telling people that I sit at home all day watching Dr Phil on cable TV. (Actually, I sit at the computer all day writing blog entries and reading other people's blogs...)

Stripe me pink!

A new shop opened up recently, just a few doors down the road from my house. The Remnant Warehouse buys the ends of bolts of fabric from designers and clothing manufacturers and sells them, if there is a large enough quantity, by the metre, or by the bolt end for smaller quantities. (They also have general sewing supplies, from thread and needles to embroidery accessories and braid, thus promising to save me many trips to Spotlight.)
The beauty of this is that these fabrics are not necessarily readily available elsewhere and they are cheap. This lush, stripy cotton print has a hint of metallic gold that really makes it zing, and it cost me just $10 for 2.5m! I also bought a 3m end of a bolt of sheer polycotton fabric with woven navy and white stripes for $6.00 -- cheap or what?
Now, what am I going to make? I've got a few ideas already, but suggestions are welcome...

Dancing with scissors

Ms N.D. and I went to the Opera House to see Edward Scissorhands, the ballet. I confess that I've never watched the movie, but I couldn't resist the concept of the story told in dance. Without the words, the emotions expressed in the narrative seem so poignant. I'm not sure if I want to see the movie now: it might spoil the ballet for me!
My only criticism of the production was that it was performed to a recorded soundtrack--the original soundtrack from the movie--and I missed the light and shade of sound that would have been added by the use of a live orchestra.

The audience was rather younger than average, not surprisingly. On my left during interval, two schoolgirls discussed their plans for post-HSC travel: "I want to live in Germany," one said, "but I want to learn French. So I'm going to learn French and live in Germany." Subsequent eavesdropping revealed that she only knew the name of one town in Germany, Hamburg, and she wasn't really clear on which part of Germany it was in, or what attractions it hosts. One suspects that she would do better to live in France, where at least she might be able to communicate, or perhaps in studying German culture and language before she launches herself on a country of which she knows next to nothing!

I love listening to teenagers talk in public, they have that perfect combination of thinking they are very smart while at the same time revealing that they are quite ignorant.

Chelonious postmodernism

"...it is unlikely that tortoises brood under the shelter of their shells on the condition of being a tortoise. Tortoises are in this sense remarkably similar to postmodernists..."

Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Accordions for peace

(c) FreeFoto.com

This speaks for itself, really.

Foxy!

I love books. (I know, you are all thinking, "Tell us something we don't know!") Only fellow book lovers can understand, though, that sometimes it's more than the words in the pages, or even the pictures on the cover. Sometimes it's the texture of the paper, the way the edges of the pages are cut, or the weight of the cover as much as the thoughts printed thereon. Some of my favourite recollections of books include their physical presence; for instance, the paperback edition of Our Uncle Charlie by Elizabeth Lane, with the glossy coating peeling off the bent corners and the crease down the centre where I'd rolled it up to carry around in my bag, evokes almost as many happy thoughts as the stories of the Murphy Boys and the fire in the shed and the barefoot kids crawling all over the gig as the family drove to church on Sunday. Or the inscription on the yellowed pages inside our blue buckram-covered copy of Three Little Maids by Ethel Turner that reminded me that my mother had once been a little girl excitedly reading the tale of Phyllida and Weenie. Or there is the tattered paperback edition of The Adventures of Milly-Molly-Mandy by Joyce Lankester Brisley with illustrations that had been carefully hand-coloured by my artistic older cousins, using one of those little tins with the square cakes of watercolour paint. More recently, the Dude has discovered a series of teen boy adventure books that come with stiff cloth covers, an elastic band to hold them closed, and several gatefold inserts with maps and pictures and other clues to the mystery on them.
I know I am not alone in this love of books and reading, as evidenced by the existence of the booklover's magazine, Slightly Foxed. A free issue is available online for your perusal. Check out the article "Nuffin Like a Puffin" for a beautiful insight into the development of reading habits in childhood. I want to subscribe, but I'm afraid I'd spend too long reading the magazine about reading and not enough time reading the books!
Anyway, now I'm off to tackle Ulysses again, and it's a brick of a book with pages that feel like newsprint, reminiscent of the paper that wraps the soap in Leopold Bloom's pocket.

Beautiful beche-la-mers

Go see 'em at National Geographic dot com. Gorgeous!

David Doubilet/National Geographic

Too much author

During the American Civil War, a female sergeant disguised her sex until, to the horror of her commander, she "was delivered of a baby... in violation of all military law and of the army regulations."

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History.

Okay, the poor guy was probably a bit shocked that one of his 'men' delivered a baby, but are you really telling me that it was written into the mid-nineteenth century army regulations that 'Thou shalt not give birth to a baby'? Why would they have bothered, if they weren't expecting to have women in the army at all? I feel that Ms Ulrich has used that ellipsis for nefarious purposes, to make the poor man look (more) stupid.

On another tack, the whole premise of this book is built on the fact that the eponymous line from the author's PhD thesis has been quoted–and misquoted–on coffee mugs, bumper stickers and T-shirts ad infinitum, often with spurious links to the original sentiment. To make sure that it doesn't happen again, Ulrich has very kindly italicised certain sentences in her text to let the reader know what she considers suitable for reproduction.

This is quite annoying, because it takes away that delightful feeling of discovery that comes when one finds such a quotable gem. And, contrariwise, it makes you not want to quote that sentence at all, and quote other bits of lesser wisdom and more spurious provenance.

Disclaimer: I own a "Well-behaved women" T-shirt, and am otherwise enjoying the book very much.

What's happening?

Trampled underfoot, saturated and scuffed, this piece of formerly glossy paper drifted under my front gate this morning. I just love the texture of the abraded surface and the way it has made the colours bleed into each other. It reminds me of the oil painting of my grandmother's stepfather that hung, crumbling and cracking, in the hallway of her home for most of my life.

On the selvedge

New discovery of the week is a glossy UK magazine celebrating the rich culture of textiles: Selvedge.

"If France was to get back on her feet [after the Germans retreated from Paris in 1944], she would have to find the money to buy herself some shoes."

Kate Constable, writing in Selvedge about La Theatre de la Mode, a postwar exhibition of mannequins dressed by couturiers such as Balenciaga, Nina Ricci and Pierre Balmain.

Sad dude II

This image is from a story on homeless youth in Sydney in today's Sydney Morning Herald. The wall of the squat features artwork similar to the sad graffiti people I have been collecting images of around the city.
The story that accompanied the image was pretty sad, too. Most of the homeless teens interviewed were caught in a cycle of drug use: they can't get accommodation unless they stop using drugs and they can't stop using drugs until they get accommodation. Some of the reasons they gave for using drugs were to stay warm and to stay awake so they wouldn't be bashed or robbed while they slept.
No wonder that old dude and all his grandchildren are so sad.

P.S. Do you have just enough faith to help the homeless?

Vale Swadlings

We were woken by sirens this morning, which turned out to be an eighth alarm fire at the hardware store two blocks down the road. Flames 15 metres high were shooting through the roof, fuelled by timber, paint, LPG cylinders and all that hardware stuff...

This afternoon the Dude and I wandered down on the pretext of buying the makings of dinner at the smoke-logged grocery store, to survey the damage. We just loved the irony of the smouldering remains, walls tilted at a precarious angle, behind the footpath sign proudly proclaiming "Now Open". It sure is.

Another great achievement for the fireys: the Swadlings Memorial Carpark.