What follows has been abridged and edited for clarity, but it's mostly real.
I've submitted an article to the new online men's knitting magazine being put together over at menknit.net. My editor? None other than Tricky Tricot. Ain't it a small world?
(Oh, and before I forget: new women's shirt in the shop. Cartoon shirt designs to follow. Plus a knitting bag.)
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FR: Tricky
TO: Franklin
DT: 28 Sept 2005, 15:38:51
SUBJECT: Menknit Submission
I may have neglected to mention I need a short bio from you as well as a photo to include with the mag (it's coming, it's coming!). Can you send this ASAP?
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[Franklin then sent a message inquiring about specs for the photo, which is here omitted.]
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FR: Tricky
TO: Franklin
DT: 29 Sept 2005, 11:59:15
SUBJECT: Re: Photo and bio questions
Um, just send us a hi-res color jpeg of your face/head. Remember - millions of men will be looking at you asking, "Is he single?"
Don't go too wild on the bio - I don't want to hear about eating brioche as a child, or this one time at band camp. I need like a 100 words max.
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FR: Franklin
TO: Tricky
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 06:04:27
SUBJECT: My bio
How's this:
Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois.
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FR: Tricky
TO: Franklin
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 06:14:32
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
I'll take it - though if I had known you were going to be so brief, I would have allowed some brioche.
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FR: Franklin
TO: Tricky
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:16:00
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He rarely, if ever, eats brioche.
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FR: Tricky
TO: Franklin
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:24:43
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
better.
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FR: Franklin
TO: Tricky
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:37:25
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He rarely, if ever, eats brioche, because as a very small child he lost both parents in a freak baking accident, and ever since has associated the smell of yeast and the sight of traditional French pastries with loss and tragedy. This prevented him from taking over the generations-old family business (Crust and Company, LLC) and instead forced him to pursue what appeared to all outsiders to be the luxurious, devil-may-care lifestyle of a rich, young, and fantastically good-looking orphan. A society obsessed with celebrity eagerly awaited news of his latest exploits via the tabloids, various fan sites, and of course his critically-acclaimed MTV reality show "Oh, That Frankin!"
Who could know that behind the glamour, the fame, the adulation of millions was a shy, lonely boy who fought crime wearing a fetching mask-and-leotard ensemble under the pseudonym Captain Shortguy? Yes, apprenticeships with the keenest masters of martial arts, weapons design, pyrotechnics, aeronautics and data mining had turned him into an unstoppable crime-fighting machine, a force for justice, defender of the downtrodden, symbol of hope to millions of poor and underprivileged.
In his spare time, Franklin also enjoys fishing, batik, and four-way bargello. But he absolutely never eats brioche.
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FR: Tricky
TO: Franklin
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 7:01:09
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
Do you really want me to print this? I could make room...
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FR: Franklin
TO: Tricky
DT: 30 Sept 2005, 7:32:43
SUBJECT: Re: My bio
Um, no, we'd better not. I made up some of it.
(I'm only a symbol of hope to hundreds of thousands of people, not millions. One would hate to be accused of exaggerating.)
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28 comments:
Okay, I'm laughing out loud at work. Thanks. Just wanted to say that I always enjoy reading your blog and your cartoon drawings are fantastic.
You should put a warning at the top for the west coast folks that might read it while drinking their coffee. I wonder what the illustrated version looks like?
Franklin, you might want to use the slightly (ahem) exaggerated bio to incur fame & fortune. It worked for Barbra Streisand in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale." You know she changed her bio pretty much everytime the playbill went to print. As I recall, she was raised in Rangoon. I'm just saying.........
ps---It's good to know Tricky is still alive, as he hasn't posted for almost a month now.
Awesome. Actually, the Wasington Post prints autobiographical haiku from its readers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100101170.html?sub=AR
TOO TOO FUNNY...
so when is YOUR book and tour starting???
Franklin, you are exceedingly charming and clever. Certainly there is no shortage of people who are willing to let you know that (as is evident by the delightful comments on your blog), but you and your intelligent humor remind me that there are good people out there and how lucky that is -- so I figured instead of thinking it everytime I read an entry, I ought to say so once in awhile. Looking forward to (hopefully) having the chance to connect in person at Rhinebeck.
hahaahahehehhehehe oh god
Franklin, you never cease to make me laugh and smile. Thanks for reminding me that life isn't quite as bad as it seems.
Out of curiosity, are you going to sketch out that super hero costume for us?
All these posts make me think I should start publishing my little boys sweaters. They aren't men yet, but they will be someday.
I also have an incredible urge to send you some brioche.
Ok, guys, let me tell you a little story about how that woman apparel is even more fiting than the man's. This is a story that not many know.
In the good old days when Greece was the cradle of all culture and civilization (if history is seen from a strictly western world perspective), women were mostly prohibited to leave their houses. They would spend their whole lives living in the ginekeion, the part of the house that lodged women, nd leaving it only to serve at the banquets that were enjoyed by the men and their lovers (mostly male, and I added this comment just to make you guys feel even more sorry for us, and I want you to feel sorry because the nicest men I ever met were gays and that made me totally off their interest, so have always had to content myself with the heterosexuals). Not having any ocasion to move and exercise, they became weak, prone to sickness and to miscarriage.
Pericles, the great Athens leader, decided that this weakness that characterized the women was making the population of Athens weaher and less numerous, more prone to be defeated (hey, are you still wake?) by enemies, or just overcome by immigrants. His solution was to promulgate a law that forced all the women to take a minimum level of exercise. Since the only time women were allowed to leave their apartments was to go to the temple, he decided that all the women had to daily walk up to the Acropolis and pray. Bum, well done! Good idea! Women were exercising more and therefore were becoming stronger, so to breed more and stronger babies for their husbands.
It was a pity that since the women that usually walked the streets were prostitutes, often enough these women were mistaken for prostitutes. And if they were not mistaken for prostitutes, well, they were game anyhow! And when pushes came to shoves, the women had to defend themselves (hey, you, down there in the second row: pay attention!).
The weapon they customarly used was the two long pins (in a sense similar to knitting pins or needles) thye used to keep their clothing in place, and wihich were usually pinned near the shoulders. Now, imagine this frightened woman, being pursued and cornered by a guy that's trying to rape her: and what does she do? She pulls out the pins that hold her dress up in front and, while the raptor stares her (likely sagging) breasts, she drives the pins into his eyes! WOW!
Unfortunately, Pericles decided that there were going to be too many blind men, and the fact that the blinds were actually trying to rape the women did not mean a thing for him. So he wrote yet another law that required women to stop wearing the pins and sew up their clothing over the shoulders. Now, what I am trying to say is that those shirts remind me strongly that when I am out and about and carrying my knitting in a purse or bag, in case someone tries to rape me, all I hve to do is to pull out the nedles from whatever I am knitting and stick them in his eyes. And this time no Pericles will ever prohibit female knitters to walk out in the open with their knitting kits! This is why I absolutely love those shirts!
You said "fetching." How cute is that?
What a shame - You left your job as celebrity photographer out of the bio.
Franklin, when I saw you in your combat boots and shorts at Stitches, you became a symbol of hope to me. Hope for what, I'm not exactly sure. But hope none-the-less.
Dear Franklin, Your autobiography leaves me weak from laughter. Whilst reading Typesetter's history lesson I kept thinking of the Harlot's airplane companion (see yesterday's blog) and... Did you say knitting bag? As in a Franklin Habit design on a Knitting Bag?? I cannot wait! I just cannot wait! And it'll be unisex so everybody will be happy - you're just too grand.
franklin, darling - i want a shirt with "captain shortguy" on it! and I've noticed you've collected quite a few female followers of late. very interesting... don't forget the ladies! :)
tricky - wrong, wrong, wrong. only the skinny, waif-like women need less yarn. i need twice as much as you do so stop yer complainin'
typesetter - interesting story but i'm not sure that's gonna get you a shirt
oooh, my word verification word is "thenu." I love it!
Fabulous! How can I lurk with prose like that?? The best.
God - you always make me laugh out loud. I love your blog, and am waiting for the cartoon shirts so I can add on to my order...
If Franklin wants to specialize in gear for male knitters, that would be his right. An underserved market for sure. (He might like the extra cash from women's stuff though to buy yarn with. Maybe a compromise would be stuff for men that doesn't have a women's version.)
And tricky, some of us bigger women are just as pissed at how little yarn those skinny girls can make things with. But you are falling into a common trap of assuming that men in general are bigger than women in general. The overlap on that is more than 80%. For example, a LOT of women are taller than Franklin. (no judgement, just a fact)
LOVED the biography. superhero, eh? (i hear mighty mouse theme song going)(no offense meant by the mouse comment, my real name is minnie, i understand). and the shirts are fabu. if you wanna make a women's version, more power to ya. i was gonna order a sweatshirt, but i swim in a large (ducks all the larger people). ah well. i'll wait for a t-shirt.
I am speechless, more than likely from giggling at the bio and the response. Both Tricky and Franklin are a hoot, throw in Jon's protest and this is a fun way to end the day.
I won't even enter into the battle of the sexes and sizes discussion. I am scratching my head at the thought of poking someone's eyes out with my needles. There has to be some other form of torture that won't get blood on my yarn or latest project. YIKES...
Trickytricot, imagine me writing that piece with a very obvious tongue in cheeck.
TrickyTricot: sorry, I was disturbed by that ugly thing called "work" while still writing my message. I am completing it now. If you failed to see it, it's enterely my fault. I am not a native english speaker, and probably my phrasing was lame in spome pints.
Also, for those who asked, the piece was inspired by a book by Jacopo Fo, son of nobel prize winner writer and actor Dario Fo, and to be precise La vera storia del mondo, where he (based on lots of good reading and even more indipendent thinking) reinterprets the world history in a way that is funny adn satirical and yet extremely well documented. A work of whatr in the 1970's used to be called "counter-information" applied to history.
In support of all the whiny boys who want their very own, male-only Franklin-designed knitting tee, I would like to announce that I will NOT BUY THE WOMEN'S VERSION.
Happy Jon? ;-)
absofrigginlutely brilliant.
It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud during the Arsenic Hour, but you just did. Thanks!
I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. god I miss you!
What's four-way bargello?
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