Panopticon Celebrity Smackdown V: When in Rome

I will have you know this is not a frivolous blog. We are not always about dancing sheep and lace. Oh, no.

Today, we're not only going to have an ancient history lesson, we're going to have a re-enactment. And you can help!

The Story of Empress Messalina

Valeria Messalina was the wife of Claudius, Emperor of Rome (ruled 41-54 A.D.). Unlike such female monarchs as Queen Victoria and Empress Maria Theresa, Messalina has not gone down in history as a model of royal domesticity. Instead, she is remembered as possibly the greatest slut ever to rumple the bedsheets.

The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius both describe her as a galloping nymphomaniac with a mercurial temper. If they are to believed, she did the horizontal bop with a fair cross-section of the male population, right under her doting husband's nose. When a potential lover denied her, or a past lover ceased to please her, she was not above mainpulating Claudius into having them executed.

This went on merrily for some quite time until she made the mistake of 1) plotting to have Claudius killed while he was out of town and 2) getting married (in public) to somebody else while this was supposed to be happening. Naughty, naughty.

Claudius, needless to say, was dreadfully annoyed. He had Messalina's co-conspirators executed, and ordered her to commit suicide. She couldn't bring herself to do it, so a helpful tribune stepped in and finished her off.

And that was the end of that.

The most notorious and picturesque of Messalina's endeavors, which is not mentioned in either Suetonius or Tacitus,* was her all-night schtupping contest against Scylla, Rome's chief prostitute. The challenge was to see who could take on the most men in a single night.

As dawn broke, Scylla gave up with the score tied at 25 to 25. Messalina, so it is said, kept on going well into the morning just for the ducks of it.

What Does This Have to Do with the Smackdown?

I'm so glad you asked. I thought it would be a hoot to stage a Messalina vs. Scylla re-match. However, as the two original participants are not available, I've secured stand-ins from the world of entertainment to take their places.

May I present, as the Empress Messalina:


Cathy

and as Scylla, Queen of the Prostitutes:



Thel, the mom from The Family Circus

One vote equals one boink. Contest ends tomorrow noon.

Who will take on the most lovers in a single night?
	Cathy (Messalina)
	Thel (Scylla)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

*I think it's in Pliny, but I don't have a copy and couldn't find on online confirmation. You classicists, help me out if you can.

Memory Skein

The first knitting shop I ever went into with the intent of buying yarn for myself was Woolcott and Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was a student, and under the spell of a friend who was an advanced knitter–the only knitter I'd ever met who was my age. She had given me basic knit/purl lessons with a scrap of alpaca, and I liked it enough to wish to continue with my own tools and materials.

After peppering the saleswoman with a volley of stupid questions, I left with an armload of incredibly pretty, breathtakingly expensive blue worsted (to make a sweater, of course) and my first pair of needles.

The sweater never happened, but over time the worsted became a succession of tediously long scarves. I never went back to Woolcott, as knitting was something I did once a year. In October, I would knit a scarf. In April, I would lose it. In between, I didn't knit.*

That was years ago. I no longer live in Boston, and many of the places I knew in Harvard Square have long since dried up and blown away. But Woolcott is back on my radar, due to a very happy coincidence.

Sean, a fellow blogger whose projects are an endless source of inspiration to me, has taken over as manager of the store. I wrote to congratulate him, and the response I got should cause Boston-area knitters to shake their needles with joy.

He's been working at the shop in a part-time capacity since 2001. He's a hardcore knitter. He knows what it's like to be a customer. He knows advertising, merchandising, marketing, etc at a professional level. And he's been given a mandate to do with the place as he sees fit. His goal? "I envision empowering people with a belief in themselves and their own creativity."

I read Sean's message to Dolores. "That's very touching," she said. "Ask him again what his vision is after somebody's kid barfs up Juicy Juice on the Rowan display."

(Dolores is not having a good week. She's got a bad cold and refuses to do anything but lie on the sofa drinking orange juice, reading Germain Greer and writing disgruntled letters to the editors of Vogue Knitting and The Economist.)

Anyhow, Sean, if you're reading this: congratulations, and good luck. Also, I was digging around in my stash and found that I still have a full skein of that blue worsted. Is fifteen years too late for a return?

*I know. I can't believe it, either. What the hell can I have been doing?

How to Have Fun with Your Spinning Wheel

Step One.

Consult expert friends regarding the proper lubrication of spinning wheels. Learn that 30 grade motor oil is the way to go.

Step Two.

Call your father, the mechanic, and ask him where one goes to buy motor oil. He will admit this is not a question he ever expected to hear from you.

Step Three.

At your father's suggestion, pay a visit to the little hardware store in your neighborhood.

Step Four.

Ask Miguel (whose coveralls, you note, fit like a kid glove) if they perchance have 30 grade motor oil for sale.

Step Five.

Miguel will say he's not sure there's "30" in stock, but they may have an equivalent. He will ask you what sort of car you're dealing with.

Step Six.

Tell Miguel you want the oil for your, um, spinning wheel.

Step Seven.

After repeating the words "spinning wheel" eleven times and attempting to communicate in mime, draw picture of spinning wheel for Miguel.

Step Eight.

Reassure Miguel that no, he is not being "Punk'd."

Step Nine.

Ponder how peaceful life must be for people with normal hobbies.

Step Ten.

Purchase your bottle of 30 grade motor oil and thank Miguel for his kind assistance. When he suggests that in return you should knit him a hat, tell him you'll think about it if the store would consider carrying a full selection of niddy noddies and orifice hooks.

Step Eleven.

Remember too late that one should never to make fiber-related jokes around the uninitiated.

Step Twelve.

Calculate how long it will be before you can comfortably shop in that hardware store again. If ever.

Call Me Perle Mesta

Aidan's on a Twelve-City All-Star Passover Tour, so I'll be the host* tonight for Stitches in Britches. Stitches in Britches is Chicago's (so far as we know) only men's knitting group. We have a Yahoo! group which you can join here.

We'll be meeting at:

Argo Tea Café**
16 W. Randolph Street (next to the Oriental Theater)

from roughly 6:30-9:30 p.m.

And you shall know us by the trail of yarn.

Out of the Sketchbook

Found this last night. In case you can't read the scribble, it says "Share and Share Alike."




*Meaning I'll say "Welcome" and shake your hand. Not meaning the drinks are on me. And I can't get you a hooker, either.

**Which had better have chocolate chip cookies this time, or I am gonna be pissed.

Gosh, a Year Already?

Word came from Jon last week that the class schedule for Stitches Midwest 2006 had gone up. Seems like only yesterday that I encountered the letters X-R-X for the first time.

Stitches events, in case you're not a knitter, are weekend knitting festivals put on by the company that produces Knitters magazine. The quality of the magazine is much maligned. The head of the firm is, to paraphrase a favorite childhood novel*, "much like marzipan, in that you've soon had enough of it." I went to my first Stitches last year, and loved the classes, the marketplace, and meeting other knitters. The rest of it, I could have skipped. And this year, will.

I was hoping ever so much that Nancy Bush would present her full-day Estonian lace shawl class, but no. She's offering a repeat of last year's half-day workshop (which I enjoyed immensely) and a class in socks, and something else that escapes me at present. All the classes I took last year are being offered and I highly recommend them: Estonian lace (Nancy Bush), Orenberg lace (Galina Khmeleva), and intarsia (Edie Eckman).

This year, the plum pudding of my Stitches feast will be a full-day gansey class with Beth Brown-Reinsel. I bought Beth's book, Knitting Ganseys, at Halcyon Yarns back in December and found it to be both boffo and socko–so much so that I want the benefit of her in-person instruction.

I also signed up for a half-day "Spinning for Knitting" class with Merike Saarniit. I am not acquainted with the dear lady, but is that a perfect name for a spinner, or what? I don't fancy schlepping my wheel to Rosemont on the subway, so I'm hoping they'll have a fleet of them there or something.

(Query: What does one call a group of spinning wheels? I can find no record of an accepted term, in the manner of "murder of crows" or "flock of sheep." Anybody got a suggestion?)

The online interface for XRX is pristine, state-of-the-art 1987 Web technology, so you get no immediate confirmation that your registration has gone through. I'm half expecting that after my comments last year about Her Serene Highness my registration might "accidentally" be "lost," so I'll be following up with a phone call.

The Sheep Pen

This here blog, and the shop it spawned, took off at rather a faster rate than I anticipated,** which threw my already precarious household organization into total disarray.

This weekend, I established a new workflow to keep track of things. And I managed to get five long-overdue items off the drawing board. There are still about a dozen more, but progress is progress and I am hopeful. (Thank goodness knitters are, in general, a patient clan.)

One of the drawings, which I have given the very unoriginal title "Knit Two Together," was purest pleasure. It's a design for the shop (currently on a mug) which, because it was inspired by the kindness of a reader in England, is dedicated to her. I'm also sending her the original sketch as a heartfelt thank-you.

Judith, this one's for you. Watch for the postman.



*The Doll's House, by Rumer Godden
** Anticipated rate: zero

Stupid Yarn Tricks

Yeah, I know. But you can't hit it out of the ballpark every time, okay?

Let's Answer Some Reader Questions

Jax: I just have to hear your opinion on one of the most important aesthetic questions in the art of cowboy watching: Wranglers or Levis?

Depends on the ass being covered. "Wrangler butt" is traditionally one of the great attractions of any rodeo. However, I find that on the wrong derrière (mine, for example) the effect can be flattening rather than flattering. So you'll almost always find me in Levis. However, if you're actually riding, Wranglers are softer. A full day in the saddle in Levis can wear the skin off your legs.

Ellen in Conn: How does one discern the sexual orientation of any particular cow-person?

If it's a hot cowboy, the best way is to go to bed with him. Failing that, participation in a gay rodeo (which is where all my rodeo photos are taken) is a generally reliable (though not infallible) indicator.

Cheryl: Maybe this is just a bi-cowboy.

Hey, whatever gets you through the night, babe.

Daisy: A friend is contemplating raising sheep and I mentioned the miniature sheep you had rhapsodized about on your blog. We can't find that post now. Did I hallucinate that entry? Was it just a dream?

No. The entry (with link) is here. On the larger question of hallucination versus reality, my roommate is an imaginary talking sheep who wears bifocals, so maybe you better ask somebody else.

Taphophile (regarding the Knit Knaked design): And the fourth needle is where?

Don't hassle me with your sick fantasies.

dhi: Could you please confess to the group something that you DON'T do well? Paper-quilling? Balancing the checkbook? Folding laundry?

Actually, you picked out exactly three things at which I am dreadful. Thanks for pouring salt into open wounds. And in public, no less. What did I ever do to you?

Stephen Fry: I have tried so hard to resist, but I've fallen madly in love with you. Please leave your nasty job on the bitterly cold plains of America and come live with me in my cottage in Derbyshire where I will bake homemade scones and be your love slave. I will send Jake Gyllenhaal to C's apartment in order to ease the transition. Please, my darling scrumptious boy, will you be mine forever and ever?

Yeah, fine, whatever. Just stop whining. I hate it when they whine.

Mail Call

Spinning wheels are lovely and all, but when I received a terse telephone call from the North End regarding Dolores's outstanding bar tab I decided there were going to be some changes made.

Contrary to expectations, she's turning out to be a quite good personal assistant. When I came home tonight she'd already sorted the mail.



"Would you mind going through it now?" she asked. "I have a date at 7:30."

"By all means," I said, settling myself into my armchair and taking up the chocolate milk (shaken, not stirred) that she had thoughtfully put out. "What have you got?"

"Elissa Meyrich sent you a cease and desist."

"Again? What is it this time?"

"She says she invented sheep in 1987 and you're violating her trademark. There's a handwritten postscript from Gregory Garvin that says something mean about your mama. What do you want me to do?"

"Send the usual response by return of post."

Dolores tapped a stamp reading "PISS OFF" into her inkpad and thunked it down on Ms. Meyrich's letter.

"Let's see...electric bill, postcard from somebody named Gervais who hopes you still remember Antwerp, an invitation to the Wet 'n' Wild Underwear Party at Cell Block–wait, that's for me– and a bill from your tailor for alterations. Oh, and Netflix sent you Emmanuelle at Stitches West."

"I don't remember putting that in my queue."

Dolores coughed. I made a mental note to change all my computer passwords.

"And you got a big fat package from Black Bunny Fibers. Sounds kinky."

What Carol Sent

Black Bunny Fibers is a new undertaking by a good friend, Carol, proprietress of the blog Go Knit in Your Hat. The lady has a way with fiber and she's decided to put it to good use. Wool for spinning, yarn for knitting, in colors too good to resist.

Here's what I got:



Until now, I've only spun the natural corriedale/montadale from Susan. When this slid out of the package, I couldn't resist the allure of that deep green (or the fact that she named the colorway after me) and so I pulled out a spare bobbin and got to it.

It's very different, spinning Wensleydale. The fibers are longer and silkier and not as tightly crimped. I kept thinking of mermaid hair as I was drafting. The change was mighty educational. I think I've finally grasped the differences between the woolen and worsted drafts, and I also tried spinning from the fold for the first time.

And this is what's come out so far:



I'm not in love with my spinning yet. But I'm falling hard for this fiber. Those greens, in sunlight, shine like emeralds. They're the deep, yellowy greens you find in William Morris textiles. (Excuse me as I break out in a sweat.)

I have this sinking feeling that Black Bunny is going be eating up a hefty portion of my monthly paycheck. If the damn sheep doesn't get me, the damn rabbit will.

Glencora Baby Shawl

I have finished the entire center of Glencora and begun knitting on a lace edging - Wave Lace from Heirloom Knitting. The jury is still out whether the green I picked for the edging is going to play nice with the yellow of the center. I'll post a picture later, when the edging is further along and doesn't look like an indeterminate pile of blech.

Look! A gay cowboy!

Knaughty

Don't look, Mom.

In response to a shocklingly large number of requests from borderline pervy readers, I've added the following to the shop.


I realize this is oxymoronic. If you're wearing the "Knit Knaked" shirt, you may be knitting, but you won't be naked. I suppose you could be wearing only the shirt, and knitting. If you choose to do this, please do not send me photos of it.*

"Knit Knaked" is on men's and women's clothes right now, including the first item of lingerie to appear under my shingle, but if there are calls for it I can put it on a bag, a mug, a magnet, a teddy bear. Whatever tickles your deviant little hearts.

As for more Dolores swag, I'm working on it. Notecards will be next.

*Unless you are one of the guys on my "special list." That means you, Stephen Fry.

Two Good Things

Thing One

I set about knitting the Glencora Shawl on the train yesterday morning and dropped one of my point protectors. It's of the rubber, bullet-shaped variety. When it hit the floor of the car, it bounced and rolled. I sighed and gave it up for lost.

Then a man sitting nearby, a man I would place with utmost confidence in the "straight" category, leapt out of his seat, got down in the aisle, and then presented me with the protector, which he had gallantly saved from oblivion. "I figured you must need this," he said. "You looked pretty upset when you dropped it."

"Thank you so much," I said, and meant it. Without that protector, I would likely have lost a dozen or more lace stitches on the way to the office.

"No trouble," he said. "Just being neighborly. Whatever that is you're making, it looks pretty cool."

Miss Van Hoofen, please file this one under "Hope for Humanity."

Thing Two

Today is the blessed anniversary of the birth of a friend and hero. Blogger, knitter, spinner, quilter, underwear model, all around mensch.

I'm a fan of occasional verse, so I have composed the following haiku in honor of the day:

See the queer man knit.
Swift needles go clickety.
And check out those buns!

Dolores will be by with the cake later on. She may possibly be inside it.

Dolores Calls in Two Favors

I came home Saturday evening to what is now a familiar sound: Dolores shouting back at "The McLaughlin Group" on Channel 11, and occasionally throwing popcorn at Pat Buchanan.

There's no speaking to her while the show is on, so I headed into the kitchen to fix myself a long, tall chocolate milk (tip: use a martini shaker–it's fab) and let my teeth unclench. We had "other duties as assigned this weekend," and I was wound up like a violin string braced for Mahler.

"So," came a voice from the living room, "Don't say hello or anything."

"You always hiss at me when I do," I said.

"Today is different. I got you something. And I'm not dragging it in there."

The last time Dolores said she "got me something," she meant she'd stuffed all my rather conservative wool suits into a sack for the charity shop and filled up my closet with sherbet-colored Italian silks with funny shoulders. I headed for the living room.

"What is it?" I said, trying to sound calm.

"Let's see if you can guess," she said, chucking a few unpopped kernels at Pat's wide-open mouth.

I was about to comment on the state of the rug when I spotted this next to the chair I usually sit in to knit.



"Who does that belong to?" I said, when I could find my voice.

"To you, if you want it," she said. "And you'd better, it was no picnic getting it here."

"You got me a spinning wheel!" I screamed.

"As ever," she said, "Your grasp of the obvious is astonishing."

"You got me a spinning wheel!"

"You're blocking the television," said Dolores.

I sat down and gave the treadle a tentative push with my foot. The drive wheel obligingly spun around, and the flyer gave off a pleasant little whirr. I felt my eyes filling up.

"Dolores...I just...how did you..."

"Spare me," she said. "I'm just sick of you disappearing into the bathroom with the Ashford catalogue for hours. That door is pretty thin."

"But..."

"It's used," she said. "And it's an older model. But it should work. Somebody in New Zealand owed me a favor. I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you."

I pointed a large, fluffy pile of white in the corner.

"Is that...?"

"From my sister in Vermont," she said. "Rolag. Two pounds. She owed me a favor, too. Just watch out for the split ends. The way Olive abuses that goddamn blow dryer you'd think it was 1978."

At that point, Eleanor Clift came on and every time I tried to speak Dolores just raised a hoof in my direction. So I sat down, and pulled out the corriedale/montadale from Susan that I'd been using on the spindle, and I spun.

First Fiber

All the practice on the spindle seems to have been a good idea. I wouldn't expose my spindle-made yarn to public view (one has one's little vanities), but the making of it did give me a visceral experience of the spinning process. I'm glad it's how I began, much as I'm glad I began making photographs with a relatively simple camera. A limited mechanism forces you to learn by making nothing easy for you. Your hands and eyes and mind must engage, because otherwise nothing happens. For me, in any case, this is and always has been the way to go.

The first thing I had to test for myself is whether Margeurite's spinning song from Faust, "Il était un roi de Thulé," really works to keep you treadling evenly. It does. I'll have to test the spinning song from Der Fliegende Höllander later, as my German is far from what it ought to be.

There were jerks and epithets at first, but things are now spinning smoothly and I made this:



According to all my written authorities, it's not bad. Reasonable consistency, doesn't snarl up in the orifice, doesn't pull apart. Upon close examination, even Dolores conceded that it "doesn't completely suck nine kinds of ass."

Perhaps I'm imagining it, but I think she's warming up a little.

Three Out of Four Readers...

...prefer whores to nuns.

In Panopticon Celebrity Smackdown IV, the Bad Girls (led by Madame Du Barry) have trampled the Good Girls (led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton) into the mud in Field Hockey.

The final tally:

• Bad Girls: 284 votes (72%)
• Good Girls: 108 votes (28%)
  

Accepting on behalf of the victors, Dolores was thrilled.



"À nous la victoire, motherfuckers," she said when asked for a statement.

The next time I see that trophy, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a little paper umbrella sticking out of it.

Celebrity Smackdown IV: Women's History Edition

Women's History Month* is almost over, but we're going to celebrate it Panopticon style with a Celebrity Smackdown!

The contest: Field Hockey

The teams:



squaring off against:


Without in any way wishing to drag the Smackdown into the realm of educational toys, something did occur to me as the teams were lining up. It has been very difficult throughout history for a woman to become notable without first becoming at least somewhat notorious. Unless you're a nurse or a nun, you're likely going to get a bad rap - and even then your success may ruffle feathers.

There's a lesson in that, no?

The Good/Bad designation is tongue-in-cheek, with a few guidelines based on the woman's career.

Good: nurses, canonized saints, devoted wives, public servants,** ladies who wrote about nice things, ladies who pursued gentle arts like writing and painting without stirring up too much trouble

Bad: professional whores, open lesbians, those connected (horrors!) with the stage, ladies who wrote about unladylike subjects that stirred shit up

Who's going to dominate in Field Hockey?
	The Good Girls (E. Cady Stanton, captain)
	The Bad Girls (La Du Barry, captain)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

*I think it's so nice how women get a month. It suggests that during the other 11 months they were getting their nails done. But I suppose it's better than nothing.

**That's how Elizabeth Cady Stanton wound up as captain on the Good side, although she really could have gone either way. Certainly in her own time realtively few men would have considered her a servant of the public good. But when she steps up and says, "I'm in charge," you don't argue.

The Journey of a Thousand Miles...

...begins with a single stitch.

My big summer project, under the watchful eyes of Ted and Marilyn, will be this, Sharon Miller's Wedding Ring Shawl.

No, I don't anticipate getting married. No, I don't know anybody who is getting married. No, I have no practical use for the item, once finished. Shut up.

Anyhow, I'm a good boy and I like swatching, so I swatched. When you purchase the (gorgeous) Wedding Ring Shawl pattern, Sharon sends along a card with samples of recommended yarns and little swatch chart, so you can try them out and see which you'd prefer to use.

Here we have Fiber A, a two-ply merino, worked on US size 1 needles.



And here we have Fiber B, DMC crochet cotton, worked on same.



I think I've decided to go with the merino.

Of course, maybe the cotton will look better after blocking.

Aristocracy Fixation

It's been so long since I posted any project photographs, I decided I'd better show you something in order to preserve my meagre allotment of knitter's street cred.

(If you're a new reader, welcome. Also, apologies. This is a very odd knitting blog in that actual yarn makes only occasional appearances. I keep meaning to post the latest ten rows of my whatever and never quite get around to it. So I draw pictures to distract you. Now you know the custom of the country.)

Here's the Regicide Scarf, front (right) and back (left).



I am still deeply in love with this yarn, which is Four Play from Brooks Farm. I can't believe how much yardage was included in the skein for a mere $14 or $16 (can't quite remember which). The scarf is 6 inches wide and a bit over 4 feet long, and I still have a good 1/2 the ball left to knit. That's generosity.

As you can see, the reverse of the scarf has the pebbly texture of reverse stockinette, because that's mostly what it is. There are traces visible of the King Charles Brocade diagonals, but they disappear at two paces. I quite like the look, especially in the variegated colorway.

C was away this weekend in New York City, so I spent a lot of time on another project as well, the square baby shawl from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. I'm working it in Dale Baby Ull.

The shawl pattern is simple (two paragraphs or so) but includes a lot of fun stuff, like Emily Ocker's Circular Cast-On (done with a crochet hook). If unaltered, it produces a very simple square with faggot stitch dividing the four plain stockinette quarters.

I decided to put Version II of the Tulip Lace from Barbara Walker Volume I into each quarter, with the strong central line of the stem running diagonally to the corners of the square. I also plan on a lace edging using some Shetland pattern or another, courtesy of Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting. My first attempt was good, but not what I'd hoped for. I frogged it all completely, started over, and am much happier.

Pictures forthcoming. No, seriously.

I finished the beginning of the shawl during the final minutes of the last episode of The Pallisers, and so in honor of one of my favorite characters from English fiction I have re-named the project "Glencora." (Susan Hampshire, I love you.)

A scarf commemorating a dead king and a shawl named after the fictional Duchess of Omnium. Boy, some democrat I am.

Cast On: Episode 17

Thank you for all the enthusiastic comments about Episode 17 of Cast On. My dominant feeling is relief. Relief that my trusty essayists (C and Buzz) turned up trumps in both writing and performance. Relief that I got my bits recorded. Relief that said bits successfully arrived in Wales. Relief that I did not, in fact, sink Brenda's ship by rambling on incoherently and then making everybody listen to bluegrass.

People have been asking to see the sweater with the Latin inscription worked into it. It's here.

My Former High School

A concerned parent from Honolulu also wanted to know the name of the awful high school I went to. Here's their Web site. My disappointment at learning that the place hasn't been shut down and replaced by condominiums or a Pizza Hut knows no bounds.

I was particularly amused to find the following listed as an aspect of the school's educational mission:

Celebrates the value and dignity of each person and nurtures the development of the whole person.

I guess the faculty are no longer allowed to publicly single out members of the student body who ask questions like "Why are there no female authors on any of our reading lists?" as "stupid fucking faggots."

They've probably also dropped the lesson in biology class where AIDS is explained as God's punishment on men who sleep with men. And the attempts in gym class to find out who was gay so that they could torture the suspects.

(Before anybody starts an anti-Catholic or anti-Catholic school tirade in the comments, don't. I have [extremely] bad memories of this particular school. I don't allow slams at any religion on this blog, and I'll delete them without exception or apology. So hold your fire.)

And Finally

Hot gay cowboys on pretty horses.





See? You forgot all about how I didn't take pictures of the baby shawl, didn't you?

Dolores Responds

My gracious host and employer has given me permission to touch the Sacred Macintosh today on two conditions: that I put out my ciggies and keep liquids away from the keyboard. Right on, chief.



My mail has been piling up, so I'm here to answer it. If you ask me, it's a little early in the day for a lady to be out of her boudoir and dealing with the public, but if I don't get some of these questions out of the way now I'm going to be late for my massage.

Q. I notice you always seem to have a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. Isn't it tough to get the smoke odor out of your fleece?

You should get a whiff of my relatives. They should be so lucky as to smell like a nice, fragrant Pall Mall on a spring morning.

Q. Were you offended when Franklin referred to sheep as "fluffy, grass munching poop machines?"

As a lifelong practioner of Taoism, I find I can only pity the anger at the core of Franklin's being. It causes him to act out in this way. As Lao-tzu said to Confucius, "Put away your proud air and many desires, your insinuating habit and wild will. They are of no advantage to you; this is all I have to tell you."

Q. I notice that in one of your photographs you're wearing a red bow and purple glasses. Are you a member of the Red Hat Society?

Please consult your nearest English dictionary for the definitions of "bow" and "hat" and you may be shocked at what you learn.

Q. You are so mean. What did Elizabeth Taylor ever do to you? You are just a bitter old sheep living on somebody else's nickel and she is a beautiful, beloved legend whose fame and beauty will never fade.

Liz, I'm banning your IP address so don't bother trying to write anonymously again. It's not my fault that I turned out to be right about Eddie Fisher. Get a life, honey.

Q. Since you're living with Franklin, are you in a position to tell us anything juicy and revealing about his personal habits?

How long have you got? We could start with the way he sometimes pretends to be Cokie Roberts while he's listening to "Morning Edition" on NPR in the mornings. And then there was the time I walked in on him in the bathroom and he was singing Olivia Newton-John's "Please, Mister, Please" in front of the mirror using his beard trimmer as a microphone. I would tell you about what he keeps in the little box under the night table, but it's time to move on to the next question.

Q. Where are you from originally? Can you tell us something about your early life?

I was born on a small, rather exclusive sheep farm in a lovely corner of Vermont to Mr. and Mrs. Harold Van Hoofen. I have far too many siblings to name, and as I don't speak to most of them anyhow it doesn't matter. I was always a little different from the other sheep, and from an early age preferred curling up in the barn with a dog-eared copy of Euripides to running around the fields rolling in my own excrement. Call me a rebel.

Q. I, too, am a student of the classics. I consulted the Columbia University library about getting a copy of your doctoral dissertation on the Oresteia of Aeschylus, and they were most unhelpful. Would you send it to me?

I would love to, but my only copy is currently in the possession of Professor Eugenica Doxiades of the Faculty of Ancient Literatures at the University of Athens. Ask me again in six months, I figure she'll have finished plagiarizing all the good parts by then.

Q. Are you dating anybody? What happened to Emilio?

Emilio who? No, I don't have a steady beau. There's just too much good ploughing in Chicago for a girl to stick to one acre, if you know what I mean.

Q. I love you. Will you marry me? I enclose a picture of myself. In the event of a favorable reply, I stand ready to relocate from Manitoba to Chicago.

As I stated in answer to the previous question, I'm not looking to settle down any time soon. However, if you wish to become a stalker, I am sending an application by return of post. Thank you for your kind inquiry. (P.S. What would your mother think if she saw this picture of you, you filthy pervert?)

Okay, enough of this. Mama's gotta make herself pretty for the world at large.

Your faithful correspondent,
Dolores Van Hoofen

Sense and Sensibility and Sheep

Thanks and thanks again to yesterday's knowledgeable commenters. I feel rather better about the burning of the Cumbrian wool clip now, after hearing that it's not as though great whacking piles of lovely soft knittable stuff is going up in flames whilst the sheep farmers cry over lack of demand.

Our guide in the Lake District was full of information about Herdwicks (I remember a chart of their characteristic color changes being passed around), but apparently she wasn't up-front about how coarse their wool is. In fact, I remember her saying the yarn was full of lanolin and would give you lovely soft hands after you'd knit with it.

Perhaps she was thinking of wool that for some reason had not been scoured. But I'm more inclined to trust the words of reader Vivienne and Vivienne's mother, Jean. Vivienne's fingers bled after knitting a swatch of Herdwick when a schoolgirl. And her mother nearly maimed herself making a sweater from it. Ouch.

And I thought Dolores was the most abrasive sheep on the planet.

Jean Miles called me on my overly sentimental view of sheep a couple weeks ago and she was right. In my defense, I'm a very typical American in that my knowledge of animals is largely third-hand, drawn from sticky children's literature and Disney films that turn everything with fur into a variation on the teddy bear.

Disney is probably the greatest culprit, come to think of it. Bambi, for example, is generally thought of as gritty and realistic because (spoiler alert!) the eponymous fawn's mother takes a hit from a hunter. But the same film also shows the wise old owl making friends with the fluffy baby bunnies, when in reality he would be eating them for breakfast.

And Beatrix Potter Heelis of Hill Top Farm is also largely to blame, which I am sure would annoy her to no end. Although she, as I recall, referred to rabbits and mice and hedgehogs as "rubbish animals," her books have for most of a century caused people to think of these animals as living in teensy little cottages, wearing shoes and jackets.

Her stories are not sentimental for the most part–the ones that are, seem to me have been produced mostly later on, when she was running out of steam and would rather have been dealing with her sheep. But her illustrations, with that charming line and that deft handling of color, are what people remember. And they are the picture of Nature Made Cute, even when the itty bitty sweeties are trying to devour each other.*

Speaking of Dolores

She will not be appearing on Episode 17 of Cast On when it airs. We had finally come to an agreement that there would be no harmonica solo, but that she could either read aloud one of her essays on metaphor and symbolism of landscapes in Virginia Woolf; or she could sing Schubert's "Gretchen am Spinnrade" as one of the musical selections. But unfortunately, when the time came, she was accidentally locked in the linen closet. Oops.

*I must add that I love them with all my heart. It was a gift copy of The Tale of Benjamin Bunny that first made me pick up a pencil to draw, instead of scribbling as small children will.

I Used to Knit

I was searching my archives for a particular photograph tonight when I ran across the shots I took during a trip to the English Lake District back in 2002.

I was there for work, believe it or not, acting as The Smiling Face of the University on a tour for alumni. It was a dream assignment, as I'd wanted to see that part of the world almost since birth.

Beatrix Potter (one of the District's two most famous residents, the other being Wordsworth) was the first writer whose name I learned and sought out, and her drawings are undoubtedly one of the reasons that my retirement fantasy includes a stone hearth under a thatched roof in a green valley. I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, or when, but one of these days I'm moving to some part of the UK or another.

My pictures from the trip are a source of frustration to me now. I'd only had my first camera for about three months, and I had no idea how to use it. I saw shots all around, but I couldn't capture them. The most advanced picture I took was a self-portrait at Ruskin's grave in Coniston. The remote-release is hidden in my right hand.



Most of what I got was decidedly in the tourist snapshot class. Such wasted opportunity. Sigh.

If you know the Lake District at all, you know it could just as truthfully be called the Sheep District. Aside from a petting zoo or two, I don't think I'd ever in my life seen a sheep up close and personal. Now, I was surrounded by...millions? At least tens of thousands, surely. I shot about 600 frames during the week, and if you look carefully you can see at least one fluffy, grass-munching poop machine in most of them.

We had a fantastic travel director, a local woman named Janet, who was so deeply in love with her part of England that even the stuffiest members of the group fell under her spell. She was passionate about local farming and husbandry, and so we learned an awful lot about sheep breeding and the sad state of the local wool industry. In this day and age, she told us, the modern demand for Lake District wool was so small that most of the annual clip was burned instead of being sent to market.

I'll give you a minute to recover from that one.



All those sheep, all that wool, and the only evidence of its use that I saw was in a small National Trust Shop not far from the Beatrix Potter Museum. In an effort to find some outlet, any outlet, for local wool, the shop was offering knitted garments made from local fiber and a small selection of yarns spun from same.

I distinctly remember looking at the yarn, and remarking to a fellow tour member that "I used to knit," and then walking out of the shop without buying any yarn.

"I used to knit." I think about that now, and I wonder how I can have said it. How I can have used the past imperfect with such finality. As though the idea of never picking up the needles again could be contemplated with anything other than shuddering horror.

I think there's a line one crosses, a subtle line, on the day one changes from a person who knits into a knitter. It's not quite the same as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's distinction between knitters and Knitters, because I'm not necessarily thinking of the acquisition of technical prowess. I'm thinking of the difference between a person who thinks knitting is a nice way to spend some time, versus a person who becomes actively disturbed when kept away from his needles.

I'm thinking of the man who looked at those skeins on sale in Hawkshead, dark and lustrous in the light of a watery English September, and walked away because he had no use for them. I wonder what ever happened to him?

Spin Doctor

Brenda Dayne Regrets

Well, she doesn't regret it yet, but the week is still young.

If you listen to Cast On: A Podcast for Knitters, then you know that the hostess and creator, Brenda Dayne, has been taking a little bitty break and allowing guest hosts to fill in for her.

Guess who the next guest host is, for the episode slated to appear this Friday?

Yep.



So far assembling the show is going well, except that Dolores is being peevish because she wants to do a harmonica solo and I'm putting my foot down. I'm not certain whether you'll hear her or not. Kinda depends on whether she's already passed out for the evening.

But there will be two (count 'em) essays on knitting from non-knitters, plus a whole lot of me.

She's a brave gal, that Brenda.

Art Crawl

My friend Tim was in town this weekend from St. Paul, Minnesota and wanted to take a spin through the Art Institute, and Dolores said she was sick of hanging around the apartment, so on Saturday afternoon the three of us joined the throng at 111 South Michigan Avenue.

Our first stop was a temporary exhibition, Girodet: Romantic Rebel. In case you've not heard of him, which you probably haven't, Girodet was a student of David who has kept a rather low profile since his heyday in the years just on either side of 1800. There's considerable buzz around the show, which was the brainchild of the Cleveland Museum of Art and helped along by the Louvre. Girodet, so the gossip goes, is a master sadly neglected and now rediscovered.

Um, no.

There are about 100 pieces in the show, ranging from small prints and drawings to heroic canvasses. All of them are at least workmanlike, several have considerable bravura, and one–his take on the myth of Endymion–could not be improved upon, especially in its use of dramatic light. But a neglected master? No. If you plan on stopping by, Endymion is hanging in the second room, so you can duck in and duck out without missing anything.

(The show's signature image, The Burial of Atala, is hanging in the final room and it's typical eau sucré from the period. Pretty? Oh my word, yes. Why, the only thing missing is the basket of kittens!)

All the same, I'm pathetically grateful to the Art Institute for not mounting one effing Impressionist show after another. I had to deal with that during my years in Boston, and it was one of the things that drove me out of the city.

After Girodet, we wandered about the galleries with no fixed plan. My mind, which turns (ha, ha) very much on spinning just at present, kept spotting works I'd never given much notice before, such as La Filatrice:




Ain't she a honey? Here's a close-up of the business end of her apparatus.



Then, in the Thorne Rooms (an amazing collection of miniature tableaux that showcase the history of interior design), I found this:



In the photograph, it's just about actual size. Impressive, eh?

Everything was just dandy until we visited the Impressionist galleries. Tim and I were standing in front of a Monet water lily canvas of which he's fond when a guard came over, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Sir? Would you kindly tell your sheep to please stop licking the haystacks?"

I was going to deliver a stern lecture about the effects of ovine saliva on oil paint, but in Dolores's defense it was getting to be time for lunch so I let it go.

I shouldn't have. As were leaving, we passed a children's art class and Dolores, who feels strongly about art education (she's apparently just two credits shy of her MFA in the field) decided it would not do to have the little darlings working from a dreary bust by Horatio Greenough.



We were then asked if we would mind leaving the museum and never coming back again.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but no. The next day, C wanted to check out the new Warhol exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art and there was simply no keeping her at home.




It was all downhill from here. Apparently the nice people at the MCA don't care what Liz Taylor did to you at Andy's birthday party in 1963. They still expect you to leave her portrait right there on the wall where they put it.

Top o' the Mornin'

No, I am not Irish, not even the littlest bit. In fact, years of living with an angry alcoholic whose antecedents hailed from County Cork rather took the zing out of St. Patrick's Day for me, as I usually got the worse end of the shamrock. A decade spent in Boston listening to the locals talk about why people like me shouldn't be allowed into their little parade didn't help, either.

However, time and distance and a new appreciation for countries full of sheep have restored my enthusiasm, so if you're Irish and not an asshole, you have my best wishes, and the above cartoon is for you.

Dolores sends her best. She started celebrating last night, to beat the rush. Erin go baaaaa.

Girls on Top

Panopticon Celebrity Smackdown III: Live Pigeon Shooting is over. I hasten to reassure all that no pigeons were harmed during this purely fictional event.



Here's the bag for each competitor:

• Marilyn "The Knitting Curmudgeon" Roberts: 314 birds
• Joe "Queer Joe" Wilcox: 67 birds

I'm pretty certain this is the last time the Smackdown is going to involve (intentional) bloodshed. You just don't even want to see what the carpet looks like, and I just had it shampooed.

Ever since I tabulated the results, Dolores has been driving me bonkers running around in one of my cowboy hats singing selections from Annie, Get Your Gun. Later on, after she passes out, I plan on checking her makeup case for firearms.

Cover Girl

Mornings were already difficult enough for me without seeing this across the breakfast table.


On the other hand, it turns out she makes a pretty good farmer's omelette.

We had a discussion last night about whether or not she ought to be on a shirt in the shop. [Addendum: She's on a mug now, too. You ask, I try to give.] Actually the discussion was more about what her cut of the profits, if any, should be. We finally settled on a 20/80 split in my favor, but I had to give up one of my shelves in the medicine cabinet.

Modeling comes naturally to Dolores, who as you already know first made her mark in the advertising world as the Woolrich Girl way back when. She's only opened up a little to me about that part of her life, but I know there was some kind of feud with Lauren Hutton that still stings.

"We signed on with the Ford Agency around the same time," Dolores told me. "Of course at first I was getting a lot more work than she was, and I knew it pissed her off even though she wouldn't admit it. She came over one afternoon after a go-see at Vogue where Diana Vreeland ripped her a new one, and she was crying and throwing stuff so I popped her one right in the mouth to calm her down. That's how she got the gap teeth, and you know the goddamn rest. Did she ever thank me? Hell no. Bitch."

I know what you're thinking, but it checks out. She showed me this clipping from Interview of a party at Studio 54–Dolores, Truman, Andy, Liza, and Lauren–and Lauren is totally giving her the stink eye.

Other Sheep-Related News

Susan was able to find out exactly what I've been spinning on the spindle. It's wool from a sheep who resulted from a love affair (or at least a fling) between a black Corriedale and a white Montadale. Apparently Dean, from whom she bought this ebony-and-ivory roving, also has a white Romney. I wonder if his is given to leaving hairs in the bathroom sink and lipstick on the guest towels?

Bang Bang You're Dead

So it's come to this. External forces have pressured me to pit two of my dear friends and blogging inspirations against one another. I didn't want to do it, but she made me.

It's time for Panopticon Celebrity Smackdown III.

Marilyn "The Knitting Curmudgeon" Roberts vs.
Joe "Queer Joe" Wilcox

Who do you back in Live Pigeon Shooting?

Live Pigeon Shooting is a now-defunct Olympic event that was held only once, in 1900. The rules, according this handy site, were:

The birds were released in front of a participant and the winner was the competitor who shot down the most birds from the sky.

There you have it. Each vote equals one dead bird. PETA members and pigeon fanciers may substitute an imaginary clay pigeon. Jean Miles may pretend they are shooting at rabbits if it makes her feel better.

Who do you back in Live Pigeon Shooting?
	Marilyn (The Knitting Curmudgeon)
	Joe (Queer Joe)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

The gunfire stops around 5 p.m. United States Central Standard Time on Thursday, March 16, 2007.

A Night Out

Apparently it's my turn to give the recap of Stitches in Britches, so here goes.

The group assembled as usual at the Argo Tea Café that's just spitting distance from Marshall Field's, and managed to secure a good table on the first floor in spite of the usual crowd of moms-n-daughters grabbing a quick latté before the performance of Wicked next door at the Oriental Theater.

We were honored to be joined by wit, raconteur, and bon vivant Joel, aka Faustus, MD. Joel is all too briefly in town from New York City, where he works as a freelance blacksmith in between seasons with the New York City Ballet. In fall 2007 he will dance Giselle. Joel and I were at university together, so he knew me when I had a full head of hair.

This is Joel, working on his own version of the Regicide Scarf. He is much cuter than this (sorry, Joel), but he already has a steady boyfriend so he's off limits anyway.



Andy was knitting the cowl from Last Minute Knitted Gifts using what's left of the yarn from his 20-year-old unfinished object. He brought along his completed Noro hat and scarf, presents for a niece. They are absolutely adorable. I didn't manage to get pictures of them, but I took this picture so that you can see that he hasn't had a manicure this week.



Aidan was there but he was on the other side of the table and I don't have any pictures of him. Sorry, Aidan. Aidan was knitting socks and had two pots of tea.

Jonathan, who enjoys the sort of knitting that would make other people cry, is knitting two fancy-ass multicolored, textured socks at the same time on a circular needle using the Magic Loop method. I would rather singe off my nose hairs with a butane lighter, but to each his own. The socks are awesome.



Isn't he cute? But he's not only straight, he's got a very nice wife, and the socks are for her. So you just keep those sick fantasies to yourself, thank you very much.

Oh, and Buzz came to visit and take pictures.



Buzz is my good buddy and upstairs neighbor who blogs here. I told him not to take pictures of me and he didn't listen and so I'm putting up this shot mostly out of revenge. In person Buzz is very nice looking, and smart and polite, and not married, so if you think he's hot I say go for it. I can provide other pictures of him if you want more to go on before making an offer.

Buzz is interested in joining us as our token needlepointer so I loaned him a pile of books from my needlepoint days and offered him lots of floss and canvas that I have sitting around. So if he wimps out on us it won't be my fault.

The manager of the Argo is this cute twinkie of Polish extraction who keeps asking us to let him know if there's anything he can do for us, which is kind of a dangerous question given the nature of our group.

I had two large chocolate milks and a really phat chocolate chip cookie and by the time I got home the sugar rush was making me vibrate and I didn't fall asleep until 1 a.m.

Dolores came home as I was getting ready for work, wearing a Sigma Chi sweatshirt and carrying half a bottle of tequila. She put on the stereo, wiggled around the living room to Saint Etienne's "Like a Motorway" and then passed out with her head in the windowbox.

Questions?

Technology Is Insulting Me

Did you ever have one of those moments when you suddenly realized you couldn't live another minute without Asleep at the Wheel's recording of "Cherokee Maiden"? I did, just yesterday.

So I pulled up the iTunes Music Store to download a copy, and while doing so noticed a new feature on the home page called "Just For You." Upon closer inspection, this turned out to be the equivalent of Amazon's recommendations: "You bought X, therefore we think you'll enjoy Y."

Unfortunately, the people who will probably unveil a 400GB video iPod the size of a Rice Krispie for Christmas 2007 are having problems refining the database queries that determine what's just for me.

Here are my last five purchases from the iTunes Music Store, aside from "Cherokee Maiden":

• "Va, pensiero" from Verdi's Nabucco
• "Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabella" sung by Marilyn Horne
• "I'll Fly Away" sung by Alison Krauss
• "Au fond du temple" from Bizet's Les Pecheurs des perles
• The Brokeback Mountain soundtrack

Based upon this track record, Apple's algorithm or logorithm or whatever rithm is responsible for such things feels strongly that I would love to own:

• "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas
• a dance remix of "Toxic" by Britney Spears
• "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson
  

Just what, pray, are you trying to suggest, iTunes?

If this were 18th century France and iTunes were the Marquis de Fromage-Verte, I would slap its face with my glove and call for pistols at dawn.

Stitches in Britches

Chicago's own men's knitting group, Stitches in Britches, meets tonight at the Argo Tea Café, 16 W. Randolph Street, Chicago, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. I will be there. Dolores will not. She says she's going to a prayer meeting.

Spinning, A Report.

Since Dolores has been hogging the computer (not to mention the bathroom), I've spent quite a bit of time trying to make the suspended (Ted says not to use the word "drop") spindle do what I want it to do.

I have quite a bit of fiber to play with right now thanks to a generous gift from my incredibly thoughtful sister, who sent me large box of roving from an unspecified breed. It seems the janitor at the school where she teaches does a little sheep farming in his spare time. (Ah, Maine.)

I asked Dolores if she knew what the fiber was, but she just glanced up from her tattered copy of On Being and Nothingness, grunted "It's nobody I know," and went back to reading.

Anyhow, as a mark of progress I am positing this first attempt. I don't think even really counts as "spinning." But you have to start somewhere.



A few hours later I was getting much thinner, more consistent results, thus:



I think this is more how it's supposed to look. I'll know better when the books I ordered arrive. At present I'm working from the sage advice of you, my dear readers, and the brief demonstration I got from Queer Joe at Rhinebeck.

I've learned a few things I should note before I forget them:

1. Let the weight of the spindle help in the drafting.
   
   
2. Pre-drafting is one of those things you can have described to you or demonstrated for you ad nauseam, but which you must try yourself if you're to understand it. Hands-on practice is the only way this spinning thing is going to happen for me.
   
   
3. Do not look to Dolores for positive reinforcement, unless you consider "What do you want, a medal?" to be ample praise.
   

Drinks with Dolores

There's no shortage of watering holes near my apartment, so I asked Dolores what sort of bar she'd like to go to.

"Some place with strippers," she said. "Mama hasn't seen a good piece of tushie since Oprah wore girdles."

We walked down Halsted Street to the Lucky Horseshoe, an establishment noted for just this sort of entertainment. Dolores hopped up on a stool and ordered a cosmopolitan and a bowl of hay.

"A bowl of what?"

"I said hay, bartender," said Dolores, fishing a pack of Virgina Slims out of her purse.

"What'll you have?" the bartender asked me.

"A Coke with lime," I said.

"Ooh," said Dolores. "Don't hold back, killer. You mind if I smoke?"



As she'd already lit up, I decided the question was rhetorical.

"So," she said, taking a deep drag, "I bet you're wondering what the hell I'm doing here."

I couldn't disagree, and said so.

"Well," she said, "I tried the retirement thing. Got myself a nice little condo at Twelve Willows and figured I'd just cruise along until it's time to head to the big fiber festival in the sky, but–you ever live in the country? I mean deep country?"

I shook my head.

"Too damn quiet. No shopping. The nearest decent cup of coffee was four hours away. And the goddamned cows mooing every morning at 4 a.m. was driving me batshit."

"I don't mean to make assumptions, Dolores, but I thought sheep preferred the country," I said.

Dolores slugged down the last of her cosmo. "Mother's milk," she sighed, waving the empty glass at the bartender. "Another of the same, kid, and send Emilio over here."

"I did the farm thing until I was old enough to duck out. Never suited me. I wound up on a commune outside Seattle for a coupla years, had a thing going on with this ram who turned out to be a bigamist, so I split. Fell ass-backwards into a modeling gig with Woolrich, that took me to New York, picked up an MBA in marketing, yadda yadda yadda. The usual."

Emilio, a member of the Lucky Horseshoe's corps de ballet, sauntered over to us and presented his very original interpretation of "Baby Got Back" on top of the bar.

"Oh, now that's more like it," said Dolores, peering over the top of her glasses. "Come here, honey chile."

She slipped a five-dollar bill between her teeth and Emilio deftly removed it without the use of his hands.

"Where was I?" she said vaguely.

"Yadda yadda yadda," I said.

"Oh, right. Anyway, got an ulcer and high blood pressure from agency work, so I went into academics for a while. But when Columbia denied my tenure I told them if groundbreaking work on the Oresteia wasn't to their liking they could kiss my wooly ass. Which brings us to the present, and my need for another cosmo"

"I'm afraid I still don't quite understand what you're doing here," I said.

"And I'm afraid I don't quite understand how you can nurse a Coke with lime all night, but then life is full of mysteries. Look. You need wool, I got wool. You got an apartment with a view of the lake, I got a pen with a view of a cow's ass. I give you wool, you give me a pied a terre. I call that synchronicity."

"Well, but–"

Dolores, however, had grabbed her purse and jumped off the stool and was following Emilio's retreating figure toward the back room.

"Don't wait up," she shouted. "See you tomorrow morning. Or Wednesday at the latest."

Meet Dolores

You can't learn to spin without fiber, so a couple of weeks ago I sent away to an online operation specializing in such things and ordered two pounds of Romney roving. I've heard from so many people that Romney is a good beginner's wool that I decided to go with it.

Last night after work I was kntting on the Regicide Scarf (it's coming along well, thank you for asking) when a call came up from the concierge saying I had a delivery from Twelve Willows Farm. "You want me to send 'er up?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I said. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. And then I opened the door, and then I saw this.



"Hi," said the sheep.

"Hello," I said.

"I assume you've been expecting me?" said the sheep.

I wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

The sheep held out a small slip of yellow paper with "TWELVE WILLOWS FARM: BILL OF SALE" printed in block captials across the top.

"Um...I was expecting two pounds of Romney roving," I said.

"No kidding," said the sheep.

"Are you two pounds of Romney roving?"

"Eventually," said the sheep.

"You're not quite what I anticipated," I said weakly.

"Yeah, well I thought you'd be taller," said the sheep.

She extended a hoof. I shook it.

"I'm Dolores," she said.

"I'm Franklin."

"Swell. Terrific. Are you going to ask me to come in or what?"

I stepped aside and Dolores toddled into the living room, pulling a small purple wheelie bag. She settled herself on the sofa, stretched out and burped delicately. There was a faint aroma of hay.

"Traffic from the airport was a bitch," she yawned.

I sat down in my armchair and we looked at each other for a few minutes.

"So, chatterbox, are you going to offer me a drink or do I need to get it myself?"

"I...well...what would you like?"

"Whisky, neat, thanks."

"I have...orange juice."

"Oh," sighed Dolores, "this is going to be some gig. I tell you what, big shot. Point me to the powder room. I need to freshen up and then we're going out for a wee drinkie."

While Dolores was brushing her teeth, C called.

"How's your day going?" he asked.

"A sheep is here," I said.

"Oh?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"What does it want?" he said.

"It wants a cocktail," I said.

"Of course it does," said C.

To be continued, apparently whether I like it or not.

Stein Narrowly Defeats Parker

Welcome to Panopticon Sportscenter!

We're here to announce the victor in this week's Celebrity Smackdown: Gertrude Stein vs. Dorothy Parker in 3000m speed skating.

The results:

Gertude Stein: 58% (257 votes)
Dorothy Parker: 42% (184 votes)

We interviewed the competitors in the locker room.

Stein: "We were standing and she was talking and I was not listening, and then we were skating and not talking she was talking and skating, and I was skating and not talking. She was talking and skating then not skating and talking and I was not listening. Skating and talking is talking is not skating. Skating is skating. She was skating not skating and talking and drinking not skating. She was talking and drinking not skating and I was skating. I was skating and not listening and skating and not drinking and I was winning. And then I was mopping the rink with her skinny New York ass."

Parker: "When ice is not covered by scotch, I am deeply uninterested."

Panopticon Celebrity Smackdown II

Are you ready to rumble?

Today's competitors: writers Gertrude Stein and Dorothy Parker



Today's event: 3000m Speed Skating

This poll will close around 5 pm American Central Standard Time on Wednesday, March 8, 2006.

Who will win in 3000m Speed Skating?
	Gertrude Stein
	Dorothy Parker
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Spindle Notes

As I was saying to Paris Hilton the other day, don't you just adore the Internet?

You ask for suggestions about spinning on a drop spindle, you get suggestions for spinning on a drop spindle. You get many, many suggestions about spinning on a drop spindle. You get so many suggestions for spinning on a drop spindle that if you had a nickel for every suggestion, you could finally quit your day job and open a puppet theater just like you always wanted to.

I've decided that before I pick up (and drop) the spindle again it would be a good idea to write down the things I do remember about my first, brief attempts. It'll be fun (or painful) to come back and look at them later.

1. Tall people have an unfair advantage in using a drop spindle. It's further to the floor. This must be their karmic trade-off for not fitting properly in standard airplane seats.
   
2. The spindle is an inanimate object and does not respond to threats, coercion, foul language, diplomacy, prayers, or abject pleading.
   
3. The process of spindling makes me wish I had four hands. Not for the first time, but for a very different reason.
   
4. There's a fine line between "yarn" and "rope" and it's an easy one to cross.
   
5. Crying never solved anything.
   
6. A man in his mid-thirties should not have to repeatedly consult a real clock to remember which way is "clockwise."
   
7. The nice lady in the "Joy of Handspinning" videos is an evil enchantress who sold her soul to the devil to make it look that easy. She enjoys taunting you.
   
8. Selling your soul to the devil is not a option. You already signed it over in order to hang on to your waistline past age 30. Who's sorry now?
   
9. Remember that roughly 25% of your ancestors actually raised sheep in the mountains of Lebanon. There's folk memory in there somewhere. Tap it.
   
10. If all else fails, a wooden spindle makes a handsome desk toy, a striking drop earring, or a totally cool American Colonial Ninja throwing star.

Dear Marie

Your collective comments about yesterday's post made me laugh out loud more than once. This is a fun crowd, and I'm delighted you've found your way here.

There was one dissenting comment, though, from reader Marie, which went as follows:

Franklin, I'm horribly disturbed by your answers to those two people.

Outlining the reasons why would most likely only get me flamed by the cheerleading squad. I would like to say that I'm not in sympathy with either J or L and that I think L's tone was way out of line. In my religious and rather republican family, I have been the artist, the black sheep, and the liberal crusader. Once upon a time I would have written a comment just like all the others here.

I have loved your blog and your artwork. It was often the brightest spot in my day. I thought the medal was brilliant. Until today, it was fairly safe to say I was crushing on you just a bit. I don't know if I can be comfortable here now. What would a dignified, balanced, and courteous response have cost you?

I feel inclined to respond to Marie, if she hasn't bailed out already. I welcome all sorts of comments, provided they are civil. As Marie did not use language I consider inappropriate, the polite thing is to answer her.

If I may address the second message first, the message itself was couched in terms which according to the conventions of etiquette render it unworthy of response. If the writer simply had asked me, "Why did you choose to represent an event in which most competitors were women with a male figure?" I would have written a response describing my initial inspiration in the symbols of ancient Greece, where the Olympics were born; and my delight in allegory and symbolism, which I fear in our too-literal age are becoming lost languages.

However, the writer instead used a hostile tone and peppered it with obscenities. The overall effect was less persuasive or thought-provoking than absurd, and so I responded with an absurdity. Enough said.

As to the first message, I was initially inclined to write an apology. After all, I hate the thought of someone doing a lot of knitting and looking forward to the medal, then finding it unusable.

But one thing stopped me.

It was the remark about "how other people live."

J's basic complaint, stripped (forgive me) to its essence is that I have created an indecent image, unsuitable for viewing by children and churchgoers. She then infers, in her final line, that this "indecency" may be fine for those like me, but it will not meet her presumably higher moral standards.

This offended me for two reasons.

First, I do not create indecent works of art. Furthermore, I do not believe works of art can be inherently indecent. Indecency is more often in the mind of the beholder than in the mind of the artist. Ask any Danish political cartoonist.

Myron's Discobolus is a monument of world art, an early manifestation of the civilization that gave us (among other things) our own form of government. I will not countenance the suggestion that it is in any way pornographic. It does not seek to shock or titillate. It celebrates the human form which, if J would care to consult her Bible, is God's own form. In His own image He created them, did He not?

Second, to suggest that my way of life readily encompasses the indecent is a slap in the face. It is indicative of still-pervasive homophobia. Contrary to the beliefs of many, most gay men do not live lives of constant wild abandon. If we are often freer in our discussions of sexuality (and even this is not true of all of us) I attribute it to the fact that we've been forced to think about it a heck of a lot more than straight people and so we're more comfortable with it.

Upon reflection, I did not feel inclined to write an apology where no apology was needed. If J's own morals find the artistic display of the human form* titillating and inappropriate, that is her issue. I will not apologize for my own convictions, and I do not take kindly to suggestions that my own lifestyle is immoral.

I will say that I feel sorry for those like J who are so determined to see obscenity everywhere that they deprive themselves of many of the good and beautiful things that humanity has created.

So, to sum up my response to the first message, I decided it was in its way as insulting and unanswerable as the second. Absurdity deserves absurdity, and it got it. That is my point of view.

So there you are, Marie. I hope that explains it. I honestly felt my responses were perfectly dignified and wholly appropriate, given the nature of the initial communications. If you disagree, we may respectfully agree to disagree. Or you may choose not to read my blog any more, which would be sad, but this is a free country and nothing is easier than to not read what one does not wish to read.

And finally, I hate to think of the people who comment on this blog as a "cheerleading squad." I've never asked them to be that, and I hope they all understand that I don't accept only bouquets of roses.

Now, can we please get back to knitting and photography and the perils of urban life? The sheep are very bored indeed. The subject is closed.

If you want to discuss among yourselves, I'm interested to hear of any tips for spinning with a drop spindle, because I have a beautiful one (thank you forever Mr. and Mrs. Knittiot) which I am, at last, going to begin working with.

Any advice is most welcome. My very first attempts, under the watchful eye of Queer Joe, looked like poo. And I don't mean the teddy bear. Don't hold your breath waiting for pictures.

*A human form which, on the medal, is actually a one inch tall modified electronic rendering of a scan of a photograph of a copy of a marble statue, which is rather different than a Playgirl centerfold.

Medal Mailbag

I'm trying to be better about responding to e-mails, so when I got the following two amusing notes about the Gold Medal (rather different in tenor than the very kind words so many of you have sent) I decided it behooved me to immediately give them the responses they deserve.

(I quote verbatim.)

From J* in Kansas

Dear Franklin,

I am sorry to see that when you made the medal you put a naked person on it. My children and family look at my blog and so do members of my church. I worked hard and I really wanted this medal and now I can't use it. I can't put a naked picture on my blog. I wish you had thought of how other people live when you made a medal that is supposed to be for everybody.

Dear J,

I know just what you mean. I can't count the number of times I've had to answer the door or the telephone while cooking and come back to find my rice had burned and left a nasty black stain on the bottom of my stainless steel pots. And that stuff doesn't come off easily, either!

If you don't have access to one of those fancy dishwashers with a pot scrubber cycle, try this: bring a mix of clean water and 3 or 4 tablespoons of baking soda to a full boil, and let it continue to boil for a good half-hour or so. (Don't let it boil away!) You'll likely find that this helps to loosen that stubborn black crust enough to allow you to scour it away with a good helping of elbow grease and a piece of steel wool.

Thank you for writing!

Cordially,
Franklin

From L* in Wisconsin

Nice job, asshole. You make a button for a zillion knitters who are almost ALL WOMEN and you put a fucking MAN on it. Fuck you.

Dear L,

Rest assured, it's not nearly so complicated as it seems. Here, in a nutshell, are the rules for turning the corners on your visiting card:

• Upper right corner turned: the visit was made in person
• Upper left corner turned: expression of congratulations
• Lower right corner turned: indicates taking one's leave, also known as pour prendre congé
• Lower left corner turned: expression of condolence to one in mourning

Note that in some regions meanings may differ or be differently shaded. For example, in New York City a folded upper corner (either side) often means that the visit was meant for all ladies of the family. You would do well, if you are newly settled in a strange area, to learn from your neighbors their own interpretations of this custom before turning your cards.

Thank you for writing, and I wish you every success in making new friends.

Yours very truly,
Franklin

*Initials changed because, well, I'm just that kind of guy.

Rick Takes It on the Chin

That's it. I am ending this now, because I am in my heart a humanitarian.

The result of yesterday's first-ever Panopticon Challenge, Lily Chin vs. Rick Mondragon in bare-knuckle boxing, ended thus:

• Lily: 80% (240)
• Rick: 11% (31)

Ouch.

While the Medic Sheep look after the loser, and the victor writes a press release and arranges for another appearance on David Letterman, I'm considering the next bout. Apparently the taste for blood is widespread around here, and I aim to please.

O Sainte Médaille

I would like to thank everybody who took the time to write nice things about the Knitting Olympics Gold Medal. I had fun putting it together.

Since I finished my project, I guess I should display it, eh? Voilà.


There was a question about whether the medal can be adapted to have a black background. By all means - have fun with it. You earned it.

I've also had two other comments about the medal by e-mail which I'll have to answer later on, as they deserve special treatment.