March 2007 Archives

by Emily

After the power went out and our room was filled with eerie quiet, I had a dream about a dystopian future where everyone was born out of machines. But the machines worked imperfectly, and produced babies that were all missing feet. So the doctor/scientists in the baby labs would attach magic metal feet to everyone's blunt-ended legs - feet that would grow along with the babies as they approached adulthood, and whose shiny silver surfaces melded perfectly with the fleshy legs of their hosts.

In the dream it was only me who had been born differently, in the old way, from a mother. When I was born I had had normal, flesh feet at the ends of my legs, but when I was little the doctors had cut them off and put metal feet on instead, so that I would fit in with my classmates and not be teased. Ever after, the sight of my metal feet replacements induced waves of fear and dread in me, even though they were the same as everyone else's feet around me. I wouldn't even let my fiancé take off my socks, because I had such a reservoir of trauma regarding the alien metal feet at the ends of my legs. I think I wasn't even sure why they seemed wrong; they just did, in that primal, bedrock way of fear that can't be gainsaid.

Then the power came back on. I awoke to the sound of the printer cartridge smashing around in its little plastic carriage, and got up to re-set the alarm clock and turn off the lights.

by Emily

Ah, that most nerve-wracking yet satisfying of all seams: the set-in sleeve.

This one went pretty well. The large gauge in which the pattern is written - which, by the way, is also causing the whole project to fly by in comparison to the sweaters I'm used to - meant that seaming the sleeve didn't take all evening, and was less beset by picky finessing of extra fabric into place, praying to the anti-puckering gods, and so on, than is sometimes the case. With this project I think I finally got past the sleeve-related confusion that has beset me with every other top I've ever constructed, sewn or knitted. Before this sweater, it just never seemed right that the sweater body should be inside-out but the sleeve itself should be right-side-out, and it was always a challenge for my already-slow spatial intelligence to work out which parts of the sleeve should match which parts of the body. I realize that by saying this I'm totally jinxing the second sleeve seam, but the first one went very smoothly, and I think it's a graceful match.

One thing that always keeps me going throughout the trying sleeve-attachment process, besides the plot-related "what happens next" feeling, is that I love the way in which the sleeve pulls the shoulders out and makes the neck opening look proportional. Every knitted top I have ever constructed looked smallish through the shoulders before I put the sleeves on, giving me that attractive "linebacker" look so coveted by Parisian models and other fashionable ladies. But then, like magic, the attachment of sleeves transforms the top from a bunchy-necked tube exaggerating my shoulder size, to a flattering, fitted top emphasizing the line of my neck. It's very rewarding to see it happen over and over again, with the exception of that time on David's sweater that my gauge was off and the shoulders really were too small, meaning that I had to rip out the entire front and back and start from scratch. But OTHER than that.

You know something else about this sweater? It has bobbles. And as it turns out, bobbles are a highly contentious subject in the knitting world. You may think they look innocent enough, but watch out! Apparently, they bring out the dark sides of many a knitter. Here are a few, lurking on my Demi, ready to strike:

Two of my co-workers seemed shocked to find I was knitting a project involving these nubbly-headed little buggers, both exclaiming in dismay, "But it has bobbles!" "Yes..." I replied, "...and how do you feel about bobbles?" One said straight out that she hates them, and the other professed to being "fascinated" by them, although they weren't something that she would ever wear herself, as they reminded her of sweaters her mother would knit. I think that people don't really take me seriously when I tell them that my entire fashion goal in life is to dress like my grandmother(s), and that I therefore am far from living in fear of being less than modern. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just take a look at my grandmother: can you really blame me?

Anyway, the whole brouhaha over bobbles is funny because I used to dislike them too, but not because they're old-fashioned (heaven forfend!). No, I disliked them for the same reason that I dislike that novelty car that's always driving around Portland with all the little toy figurines glued to the hood: I am overcome by the desire to scrape them off with my fingernails, leaving a smooth surface. I still don't like those sweaters that are completely covered with bobbles, like this monstrosity, but I've learned to really appreciate them in moderation, and I feel like the Demi pattern (by Kim Hargreaves, by the way, from Rowan's Vintage Knits) makes good, level-headed use of them, pacing itself and never getting hysterical. Not to mention, it turns out that bobbles are very satisfying to make, especially the part where I pull the little loop of loose yarn over them and make everything neat and tidy. I love anything in knitting that makes me think of the phrase "batten down the hatches." So whatever. YES. BOBBLES. HERE THEY ARE. I've also done a little experimental leaning back against them while wearing the sweater, and am pleased to report that it's so cushy and comfy that I can't feel the bobbles at all. On a related subject, you will all be shocked to learn that I can get a rockin' night's sleep with a pea under my mattress. Even multiple peas.

In other knitting-related news, my friend Marie Christine just turned me onto the French pattern house Phildar, and in addition to Proust, Camus, Colette and Jean-Luc Godard, I think this is the reason I was fated to learn French. These are incredibly good-looking clothes. For some reason, possibly because my countrymen renamed our hideous greasy potato snack "freedom fries" after their countrymen refused to join our unjust, money-grubbing war, this bastion of gorgeous Continental fashion refuses to accept my debit card. However! In this world of international friendship and fancy internets, I know there is a way to get my mitts on these patterns. We will see what we will see.

And choose a Q-tip
without worrying that I've
split a mated pair

By David, 1st Saturn Return

by Emily

While David and I were looking through our web statistics today, we saw that someone found our blog by searching Google for "pornography and birth control." They were referred to my entry on the antics of Dr. Bowdler and his cronies, in which I only mention pornography in passing. Bemused, I Googled the phrase myself, curious to know our search ranking when it came to this vital subject. I was flabbergasted to learn that we are the SIXTH hit on Google. And everyone above us? Either personal opinion sites, or right-wing "purity clubs" promoting abstinence among teenagers. This was shocking! "Planned Parenthood needs to get their ass in gear!" I exclaimed. "They should be the top hit." "But they don't really deal with pornography," David pointed out. "Well...so, the ACLU," I countered, realizing as I said it that they don't really deal with birth control. How could it be, though, that there is no organization addressing these two subjects in tandem, these two subjects which have been inextricably linked throughout the history of the United States? Well, I'm here to tell all you hapless Googlers out there: much information awaits you, and I happen to know some good places to start your research.

My favorite book addressing the nexus of birth control and pornography in the U.S. is Andrea Tone's awe-inspiring Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America. As Tone spells out in the introduction to her book, one reason that birth control and pornography were ever linked in the public mind is that both were classified as "obscenity" by a Victorian-era America. Yes, they were straight-up prudes, but the situation was more complicated: the United States, in the fledgling days of the American Medical Association, was beset by a thriving patent-medicine and sketchy-pamphlet trade that was indistinct from the "legitimate" medical profession and book trade. At the same time as certified American doctors were battling in courts and the public eye to combat cheap snake-oil treatments peddled to their customers under false pretenses, Americans were witnessing a brisk trade in what Tone calls "inexpensive, sensationalist, and sporting publications of 'questionable character' [which] promoted impotence cures, pornography, and contraceptives simultaneously."

Interestingly, one of the major battles for the early AMA was against the then-commonly-accepted practice of abortion and fertility control, largely promoted by unlicensed (read: female) midwives. The smut peddlers, midwives and hucksters all got thrown out with the bathwater in 1873, with the passage of the so-called Comstock Law. This legislation inaugurated the 100-year federal ban on abortion in the United States (individual states began outlawing it as early as 1821), as well as forbidding anything "obscene," including information about contraception as well as more obviously pornographic documents, to be sent through the mails. At the time, this was a very effective mode of censorship, as it was difficult to effect mass communication without using the postal service.

Tone does a great job outlining the amazing rationales that nineteenth-century Americans used to justify their anti-obscenity positions. These really run the gamut, from the familiar argument that education about contraception leads to promiscuity - seemingly strangely-placed in the mouths of nineteenth-century feminist suffragettes - to the weirdly essentialist notion, propounded by an AMA doctor, that a woman is "what she is in health, in character, in her charms, alike in body, mind and soul because of her womb alone," and that to deny the womb's child-bearing destiny to any degree would be to severely endanger the woman's health. Unlike bearing thirteen children in twelve years, which is great for any woman's health, lemme tell YOU. There is also the bizarre notion that using birth control renders MEN "weak and susceptible to...diseases of the brain and spinal marrow, functional disorders, organic diseases of the heart, lungs and kidneys, wasting of the muscles, blindness, and frequently impotence." That's right: using birth control results in impotence.

Clearly, the United States Government needed to STOP people from sending birth control information and devices through the mails, because it was very important that our American men not be rendered sexually impotent, and our women hysterical and sickly, through ill-advised use of birth control. Because the ability to have sex is very important to us Americans, and part of our national character. And clearly, the United States Government ALSO, in the same law, needed to stop people from sending pornography through the mails, because porn is titillating, and might induce some American people into the desire to have sex. And as everyone knows, sex is obscene and anti-American, and totally counter to everything we in this great country hold sacred. So, clearly, something had to be done.

Ever since 1873 and before, the histories of pornography and birth control - and the censorship thereof - have been intertwined, from the arrests of Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger for promoting information about the "obscene" practice of birth control, to the claims of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon in the 1970's that, far from promoting economic parity alongside birth control, porn actually prevents women from taking control of their own sexuality through its objectification of and violence towards them. Tone's book covers most of the ground in between and before these events, devoting an entire fascinating chapter to the evolving attitudes of the American military toward servicemen's sexual activities during shore leave, detailing in other chapters the methods that enterprising couples found even during the darkest era of anti-contraceptive legislation to limit their fertility, and progressing to the devastating saga of corporate irresponsibility, blatant mysoginist and racist attitudes in testing IUD's in the late 1970's and 1980's. (In one memorable letter, an IUD manufacturer claims that "If Mrs. Astorbilt, or Mrs. Searle or Mrs. Guttmacher gets pregnant while using an IUD, there is quite a stink - the thing is no good and a lot of people will hear about it. However if you reduce the birth rate of...the Korean, Pakistanian or Indian population from 50 to 45 per 1,000 per year to 2, 3 or 5, this becomes an accomplishment to celebrate." In a return to the pornography connection, women who complained of pain when defective IUD's pierced their uterine walls, were often accused of sexual promiscuity or improper sexual practices. I should also note: IUD's have come a long way since then, and ladies nowadays don't need to feel hesitant about getting one.)

Tone's is a fascinating and complete history from the contraceptive end of the scale. It does often deal with pornography, due to the connection in the American psyche between the two subjects, but there are other histories that tackle the BC/porn dichotomy from the more porn-centric side. For the United States story, Paul S. Boyer's Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age deals quite extensively with the pornography/birth control mishmash, and for the history of our neighbors across the pond I'd recommend Steven Marcus's The Other Victorians (an in-depth study of the Victorian-era pornography trade) and Michael Mason's excellent two-volume study The Making of Victorian Sexuality and The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes, which are a comprehensive look at how birth control, pornography, censorship, religion, morality and many other factors played into the sexual lives of real Victorian people, and - radical idea! - what they themselves thought about that.

Obviously, my knowledge about the nexus of porn and birth control is mainly confined to the ways in which both subjects intersect with the idea of "obscenity" and the historical efforts to censor it, being as I am a censorship-history dork. I'm sure there are many other approaches to the connection between these fields, and I implore anyone with good suggestions on relevant reading material to comment on this entry as a resource for future Googlers. Honestly, I was a little bit alarmed that this poor searcher wasn't getting any more developed discourse than a few toss-away mentions on personal blogs, and anti-sex propaganda. The least I/we can do is to put together a personal blog entry that they would find useful, assuming they aren't just a perv with a birth control fetish. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It would actually be the most responsible fetish I've ever heard of, come to think of it.

So now you know: Google. If you want me to write about some book I read on the case histories of one nineteenth-century French orphanage, or the politics of "the rogue" in eighteenth-century picaresque novels, or an essay I slogged through on how taking E is somehow a revolutionary act, all you have to do is Google it, and since I'm writing this right now you will find the blog, and I will see you and be horrified that the only hit you're getting is this rambling paragraph with no real information at all. WHAT IF YOU REALLY DECIDE THAT TAKING E IS REVOLUTIONARY? HOW WILL I SLEEP AT NIGHT???

See? Isn't that cool how the vicious cycle replenishes itself?

PS - In an interesting "it was all a dream" post-script to this story, when I Google the same phrase today I get exactly what I would have expected: a mix of personal, academic and institutional pages addressing the BC/porn nexus from a plethora of angles. Needless to say, I hope the second trend continues.

by Emily

by Emily

Well. It's been a small hassle dealing with getting everything on my new hard drive up and running. Amazing how much virtual stuff we accumulate in our virtual homes, how much nesting and adaptation we've done without even remembering it, but which becomes markedly clear when we're presented with a blank slate, symbolized (for me) by that generic Mac wallpaper in place of my usual peach-colored, Sappho-inspired background. Making posts about knitting seemed to involve most of the missing programs on my computer: the image viewer, the image editor, the FTP client...the list goes on. But anyway! I think everything is now back in my dock where it belongs, and to prove it:

Here is my progress on my Demi sweater! As I wrote earlier, I had an unfortunate event with the back where I got it all the way done and then had to rip out the entire thing due to a relatively subtle but unacceptable error. But now that's all behind me, as the back and front are both finished, and seamed together at the sides and one shoulder. I think the seams turned out quite nicely, in spite of the fact that I did fewer decreases on the back than the pattern called for:

As my mother always says, when it comes to sewing and knitting projects you have to look at ripping out as just a part of the process, not a setback. Unbeknownst to me, my process on Demi included two-and-a-half times around for the back, which just means that I was really familiar with the cable pattern by the last go-round. After soaking the wool to get the kinks out, it was softer and slightly less cushy than its fresh counterpart, so I was a little bit worried that the back would be noticeably less solid and pillowy than the front - or even that the gauge would be off - but luckily, I needn't have worried. They seamed together very nicely and the sweater looks like it's headed for a perfect fit (sorry, though, no fitting pictures yet, as my photography assistant has been gone to Cali.) The yarn, Jo Sharp's Silk Road Aran, is amazingly beautiful to work with, although it breaks more often than I would really like. I love the tweedy spring-greens and purples in amongst the seafoam:

I've heard of people finishing entire sweaters and having all the pieces lying in a basket for years, with only the seaming left to do. I cannot understand this. As soon as I finish each piece of a sweater, I'm always eager to incorporate it into the growing garment and judge how the overall fit is coming. I think I follow the development of a sweater like I would follow the plot of a novel; what keeps me knitting is often "finding out what happens next," how the decreases will look after I finish this straight section, or finding out how the pattern will match up when I seam two pieces together. Each piece is sort of like a separate sub-plot: it's interesting in itself, but the real paydirt comes when you can see it take its place in the larger story-arc of the book as a whole. Seaming is the equivalent of that kind of epiphany: Luke and Leia are siblings! Scout and Jem were saved by Boo Radley! No, Jane: Mr. Rochester's already married! Et cetera.

In other knitting news, I taught myself to cable without a needle for this project, and now I don't know why we all learn to cable any other way. Sure, it wouldn't work for huge cables, but the little flick of the wrist involved in needle-free cabling is so satisfying, and the entire process SO much quicker, that it's been a particularly rewarding little skill to learn.

I think this sweater will be the "comfy" garment par excellence; something to curl up with on the couch with a good book, or brave the cool springtime weather in without a jacket. I'm also, uncharacteristically for me, getting very excited about lightweight summertime knitting this year, but that's another post altogether.

by Emily

Regarding my little diatribe against St. Patrick's Day, it so happens that three women in my life have told me, more or less, to chill out. And if the fairy tales we read as children have taught us anything, it's to pay attention to events that come in threes, especially when wise women are involved. I have to say that although I have been in the process of learning to chill out my whole life, and I hope that all the good aspects of this evolution will continue, I am still not great at it. In the meantime, to remind me not to take myself too seriously, I propose a little extra bit of poetry memorization, in honor of St. Patrick's admittedly honorable role in teaching the Irish to write. This fragment is the first poetry I ever remember reacting to with (to quote the author) passionate intensity; I have loved it ever since I could react to the pleasing juxtaposition of words together:

"These masterful images because complete
Grew pure in mind but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

Even though W.B. Yeats wrote his own long lyrical drama cursing St. Patrick (The Wanderings of Oisin), the monk's gift of writing was certainly well used by him. This third part of "The Circus Animals' Desertion" is one of those rare verses that is equally appealing on a surface level of pleasing lingual combinations (the only level on which I was drawn to poetry when I first discovered it) AND on a level of intellectual thought and emotion now that I have grown up a little bit. At age 10, I thought the phrase "the foul rag and bone shop of the heart" was about the coolest-sounding thing I'd ever heard. Now I think it's just about the truest idea that all grand human ideas and conceits come out of the unglamorous ephemera of our existence. Sometimes we feel like we've elevated ourselves above all that, but then we have to get humble and return to our beginnings. Not often pretty, but there it is.

I love the idea of this causal connection between the refuse of a society or an individual and its grandest self-conceptions. Both categories speak to one another, are one another in some ways. It's what makes encountering a discarded Burger King wrapper while out on a hike not only disgusting but sort of melancholic as well. The grand American vista of natural beauty is all bound up with the sweeping American bent toward self-destruction and blind disregard for the world around us, often mythologized as "individualism."

Within a given person, as Spaulding Gray has pointed out, the same applies. Gray has analyzed how our demons and neuroses are inextricably bound with our best qualities, but Yeats goes even further: our grand self-conceptions and beautiful images take their nourishment and impetus from our demons and the dirty realities of our everyday hearts, combined with our desire to make something useful, lovely or complete out of the pre-existing fragments or "garbage" that's left over after we live our quotidian lives. I love how the progression of trash in the poem steadily builds in value, causing the reader to question the worthlessness of any item listed: "old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can" (well, none of that is very valuable, the reader thinks), "old iron, old bones, old rags" (bones were once a living creature, and iron and rags items of utility), "that raving slut / Who keeps the till" (surely a living person is full of value; maybe we should take another look at that broken can). And "taking another look at that broken can" is just a less graceful way of expressing the need to "lie down where all the ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart." Personally, I feel lucky that Yeats did just that, and wrote this fitting initiation into the poetic world. I have a feeling that as I continue growing up, it will only develop new shades of beauty and meaning.

I want to get up
at a reasonable time
and write thank you cards

By David, 1st Saturn Return

by Emily

Not to be a downer, or criticise anyone who can't get enough of green beer and...green beer, but I have to say that I dislike St. Patrick's Day on an amazing number of levels. In an attempt to get all this bitterness "out of my system," I will lovingly detail those levels in this blog entry. And so, without further ado:

Things I Hate About St. Patrick's Day

1. Amateur drunks. My father always makes a distinction between "professional drunks," for whom alcohol intoxication is a way of life practiced on a religiously regular basis, and "amateur drunks," who only drink to excess on New Years, Independence Day, their birthdays and, of course, St. Patrick's Day. He claims that professional drunks are less dangerous than amateurs, because although they still function better sober than drunk (until the DT's set in, that is), they learn through steady practice how to live more functionally while intoxicated. Amateur drunks, on the other hand, are totally at the mercy of the alcohol, to which they are unaccustomed. Personally, I wouldn't want to meet a professional OR an amateur behind the wheel of a car, but I do find amateur drunks to be much, much more annoying than pros to, say, have a conversation with, or encounter on the street. And St. Patrick's Day is pretty much Amateur Central, complete with jerkoffs catcalling through their puke if some unlucky lady (read: me) happens to walk by. The fact that I live by a strip club does not help with this problem. Now that I come to think of it, the item "amateur drunks" really has two sub-categories:
1a) Obnoxious behavior by amateur drunks; and
1b) Unsafe behavior by amateur drunks.

2. Alcohol in general. Thanks to a long and traumatic personal history with alcohol, I am no longer a big drinker, and I'm uncomfortable with drunkenness in others. Obviously, St. Patrick's Day is not my thing, since the entire mode of celebrating is alcoholic. In addition, isn't it kind of ironic that we celebrate Ireland by getting tanked, given that alcoholism is a huge social problem there, continuing to cripple the economic and family lives of many Irish people? After reading the novels of Edna O'Brien and hearing about the death of Oscar Wilde, I find it hard to countenance a free-wheeling drunk as a good way to celebrate Irish history.

3. Shallow mass importation of another culture in the service of alcoholism. I'm all about opportunities to learn about different cultures from around the world, but in this regard the 17th of March is a sorry joke. Like Cinco de Mayo but to an even greater degree, St. Patrick's Day is a holiday that's ostensibly a celebration of a particular culture, but is actually just an excuse to get wasted. Popular icons of Irish culture, such as leprechauns shamrocks, are dusted off and put on display, and people of all ancestries try their hands at bad imitations of an Irish brogue, but the degree to which St. Patrick's Day is about "the Irish" never rises out of abject stereotypes. This is a shame, since Ireland has a long and fascinating history and has produced a plethora of fantastic artists and other individuals. I have never yet, though, encountered anyone at a St. Patrick's Day celebration who wanted to talk about Samuel Beckett or W.B. Yeats. Come to think of it, I have never met an Irish person at a St. Patrick's Day celebration.

4. It is gross to dye food green. In nature, a green food is either a leafy vegetable or it has molded. Dying cookies and beer green is disgusting, and makes me feel like I'm chowing down on moldy bread.

5. What St. Patrick is supposed to have done. Banished the snakes from Ireland? Why is that something to celebrate? Aren't snakes part of the food chain in places where they exist? If you banished them from a pre-existing ecosystem, wouldn't you be greeted with an infestation of rats and other small, unclean vermin? In fact, there were never any snakes on the island, so "banishing" them is the equivalent of me wearing a watermelon around my neck to "keep the elephants away." Hey, it works!

6. What St. Patrick actually did. He introduced Christianity to Ireland on a mass scale. In my admittedly anti-religious opinion, it's pretty questionable whether this is anything to celebrate, given the now century-long "troubles" between Protestants and Catholics that have riven that country and robbed it of many fathers, sisters, daughters and sons, both young and old. Irish poet Seamus Heaney has written at length about being haunted with grief by the ghosts of his friends, casualties of the "troubles." Besides this most recent bout of religious violence, there are the forced conversions and trampling of prior religious traditions (in this case, the druidic faith) that took place with mass conversion to Christianity. In addition, many Irish authors, among them James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh, have written with anguish about the culture of guilt and fear that scarred them as youths growing up in Catholic Ireland, obsessively afraid of going to Hell and terrified to acknowledge their own sexuality. And speaking of sexuality, Christianity in Ireland also lead to the establishment of charming institutions like the so-called Magdalene Laundries, where unwed, pregnant women were forced to go get mistreated and scorned, and then have their babies taken away from them after giving birth. (Did you know that the last Magdalene Asylum only closed in 1996?) Ironically, it was also Christianity which discouraged these women from using birth control in the first place. Good going, St. Patrick! You really improved these peoples' lives!

7. It is not cool to get pinched. I don't enjoy the prospect of getting pinched by strangers. Also, it seems like creating a holiday where you have free reign to pinch anyone who doesn't wear green had to be the work of some lecherous old men. Just saying.

So. That may or may not be the extent of my anti-Patrick's Day vitriol. All of this said, I hope you have a lucky day full of Springtime green.

by Emily

Well, as it turns out, I came back for that last half a sock after all.

Although seized by the need to knit a sweater while turning the heel of the second sock in this pair, I did eventually remember that I should get these finished, as they're actually not for me but for a mystery recipient at whose doorstep they will be arriving come April 15. That's right, I'm just trying them on for the photo op. Soon they will be washed, dried, and packed up on their long journey.

I have to admit, I'm finding it a little hard to part with them. The "diaper stitch" (1X1 rib that shifts one stitch every three rows), which has perhaps the least appealing name of any stitch I've come across thus far in my knitting adventures, nevertheless feels delightful against the foot. It's just textured enough to give a light amount of massage-like friction against the foot, but not in any way rough. I was a bit concerned that the concentrated decreases in the shell-like lace panels would feel too stiff against the foot, but I was wonderfully mistaken. They're very comfortable and pretty socks. I particularly like the way that the diaper-stitch panel continues down along the heel flap:

Nevertheless, I must give them up. And despite the protestations of my mother, who has a weakness for vibrant pinks and reds, that she just doesn't know about sending them off to a stranger in a foreign country, someone I've never even met, while my own flesh and blood (nobody in particular, I'm sure) have to make due with storebought socks, despite all these anglings, I say, they are bound far away, to a mysterious and distant land.

I think my resolve on this point might have wavered when I felt the socks' appealing texture (I am a sucker for a nice texture) if I hadn't designed the whole sock project with my mysterious recipient in mind. I have very limited information about this woman, but I know that her favorite color is red and she is a fan of Victorian fashion. As you can see, these socks are red as can be, and the pattern I used for them is genuinely Victorian, from Nancy Bush's excellent Knitting Vintage Socks. In Vintage Socks, Bush does some minimal tweaking of actual patterns that were originally published in the late-Victorian periodical Weldon's Practical Needlework.

This kind of historical twist is just the sort of thing I flock to in spades. The patterns have great names like "Gentleman's Shooting Stockings," "Heelless Sleeping Socks," and "Baby's Bootikin" and, my favorite, "Cycling or Golf Stockings with Fancy Cuff in Trellis Pattern," a name whose excessive length and specificity feels truly Victorian. There is also an original drawn illustration and a timeline with each pattern, showing the exact year the sock was originally created, and relating its design to such events as "First kiss on the silver screen" and "Wristwatch becomes popular for men." SO COOL. These are the socks that Miss Havisham wore under her wedding dress, the stockings that Mrs. Ramsay was knitting for the lighthousekeeper's little boy. Very exciting for an English major-turned-fiber-artist.

These particular confections are the "Child's French Sock in Citron Pattern and Diaper Knitting," from 1898 - the same year that the Curies announced the discovery of radium, and Emile Zola brought the Dreyfus Affair to a head with J'accuse. They were, as the name suggests, originally designed as socks for children, but since knitting needles and yarn have both grown dramatically in size over the last 100 years, the same pattern makes quite nice ladies' socks nowadays.

And that is my happy news. In sad news, my computer hard drive has chosen today, March 14, 2007, to perform its last function and keel over dead. My computer is therefore spending some quality time at the Mac veterinarian, and will hopefully come back all cured, maybe with a comical plastic lampshade around his little computer head. More than the $250 I will be spending to restore my fine friend to full health, I'm finding it emotionally disconcerting to have him out of the house. Even though David's computer, which I'm using to make this blog entry, is physically identical, the virtual environment in here is much greener, all my bookmarks are missing, and the space bar has a funny clopping sound which is actually kind of pleasant, but to which I'm unaccustomed. It's funny how attached we get to those little bundles of silicon and metal.

Also in sad news: I will have to tear out the entire back of my sweater, which I finished on Sunday. Mistakes were made - mistakes of a subtle yet nefarious quality up with which I choose not to put. So, out it comes. Of course, on the bright side, with $250 less in my pocket I won't have any money for yarn in the near future anyway, so I may as well be working on this sweater for the foreseeable future.

And that, my friends, is What Happened.

I want to drink cokes
and eat burgers and just not
know how they got here

By David, 1st Saturn Return

by Emily

I recently got a letter from Erik, one of my Norwegian penfriends, which included an incredulous rant about a censorship scandal of which we're probably all aware by now. "Have you heard of Laura Mallory?" Erik asks, incensed. "The woman who is trying to get the Harry Potter novels banned? I do not understand this! Do people in America believe in witchcraft? And what about all the magical things that Christians believe in, like turning wine into blood, and raising the dead? How is the magic in Harry Potter any different from that? I am interested in your thoughts on this." Erik often ends his passionate anti-conservative rants with the phrase "I am interested in your thoughts on this," which strikes me as extremely humorous. "I have heard that the United States represents 60% of the market for methamphetamine, a terrible drug which continues to grow in popularity. What are your thoughts on this?" "I am often filled with rage when I hear your politicians debating the war in Iraq. Don't the Iraqi people deserve some degree of self-determination? I am interested in your thoughts on this."

As it turns out, I do have quite a few thoughts on the subject of censorship, although personally, I think Mrs. Mallory's overly persistent attempts to get Harry Potter novels out of Georgia's public libraries are more ludicrous than seriously threatening. I mean, as much as I love J.K. Rowling and think anyone who wants to should be able to read Harry Potter, does Mallory really think that a kid who wants to read Rowling won't be able to borrow the book from a friend and keep it secret? I like to imagine Mallory's own children sneaking clandestine time with Ron, Hermione and Harry in the cafeteria at lunchtime, while their friends shake their heads and say again, for the hundredth time, "Your mom is crazy!" Probably the Mallorys' friends are already "over" Potter, at least pretending to be too cool for kids' books, but for the little Mallorys of my imagination, Harry and the gang have been endowed with limitless allure by virtue of their mother's Dursleyish attitude toward magic. Maybe they are even hiding illicit copies of The Order of the Phoenix under loose floor boards in their bedrooms, with the passage about Umbridge's ineffectual censorship of Harry's "Quibbler" interview lovingly highlighted.

But anyone who knows me well can tell you that the history and human urge of censorship are endlessly fascinating to me. I actually own three seperate histories directly devoted to book censorship, as well as three more having to to with the history of "obscenity" or pornography (that oft-sought-after censorable commodity), and another dealing with the history of birth control in America - birth control, which was defined as obscenity and outlawed, and any literature promoting or mentioning it was censored. I just can't get enough of stories about censorship. I'm drawn to them in the same way that people are drawn to rubberneck at the scene of a car crash, but I am also fascinated by the systems that people put in place in order to censor, the unfathomable (to me) passion that some people bring to the task of censoring, the different sources of censorship-worthy squeamishness that have existed for different cultures in different times, the inherent contradictions involved in BEING a censor (most notably, that you have to accept the hypothesis that "obscenity" is harmful to the reader, but then somebody has to read the material in question in order to see whether it's obscene), and the persistance of the censoring impulse in the face of evidence that it's never really worked. Even in intensely repressive places like modern-day China, people are finding ways around the government control of web and print media. My Russian professor Tatiana used to tell stories about trading outlawed copies of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita back in Soviet Russia. And in nineteenth-century America and England, population statistics show plain as day that people were practicing semi-reliable birth control, despite being thoughtfully "protected" from its harmful influence by their governments. So why does this urge persist?

For me, the fascination with censorship is a combination of genuine concern with maintaining free expression, and unabashed hilarity at the ridiculousness of the censorship urge. It's not that I think powerful censors can't wreak havoc, but for some reason I also find them irresistably funny. Of the specifically censorship-related histories I've read thus far, I think these two elements come together best in Noel Perrin's Dr. Bowdler's Legacy: A History of Expurgated Books in England and America. Its narrow focus (it deals only with the book-expurgation movement, not obscenity laws, outright banning of books, censorship of the mails, the pornography industry, birth control, etc.) means more entertaining anecdotes and character studies, as well as a cohesive story which has a clear beginning, middle and, somewhat disingenuously, end. Perrin's book originally ended with the quasi-sanctimonious and obviously untrue assertion that we're moving beyond such silly pursuits as chopping up and disfiguring books; he then revised it in 1992 to say, more or less, "Oops! Apparently we haven't!"

But the unduly optimistic original ending is the least interesting element of the book. In its beginning pages, we become acquainted with early expurgators like Sir David Dalyrimple, Lord Hailes, who replaced mildly improper lines in Scottish songs of Protestant propaganda with lines of asterisks that suggest much more impropriety than was ever there to begin with:

"The Parson wald nocht have an hure [whore],
But twa, and they were bony,
The Viccar thought he was pure,
Behuifet to have as many;
The parish Priest, that brutal beist,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * "

What can the parish priest have been doing? It turns out he was only "tickling" some girls: much more boring than anyone would have imagined, staring at that line of asterisks.

The reader also learns stories of latter-day bowdlerism, such as the case in the late 1960's where some anonymous hack at Ballantine Books decided to put out an expurgated edition of Farenheit 451 - yes, the seminal anti-censorship novel of the 20th century - for schoolchildren who might be irrevocably damaged by reading the word "damn" or encountering a passage where fluff is removed from a human navel (this actually was censored from the expurgated edition). Then, in 1973, probably through some kind of administrative snafu, the adult copy of the novel disappeared, and the expurgated copy became the only one available!. I love the ludicrousness of this happening because of un-noticed carelessness on the part of some secretary or other. It's just like Bradbury's novel itself: nobody cares enough to actually read the books! Nobody noticed the expurgation until 1979, at which point Bradbury himself stormed Ballantine and demanded that they restore the book to the document he actually wrote. As Perrin writes, "Ballantine meekly agreed."

In between these two stories are a whole lot of even better ones, including entire chapters on Shakespeare, the Bible, dictionaries, poetry and prose. I eat this stuff up with a spoon. In the Shakespeare chapter, for example, there is the story of expurgator Francis Gentleman, who italicized offensive passages in Othello, with the thought that ladies and youths could just skip over the highlighted text. Ladies, youths, I ask you: even with the best of intentions, who among us could help skipping straight TO the italicized text and gobbling up the juicy bits? I mean, that's what italic text DOES. It grabs the eye. Probably my favorite story from the Shakespeare section, though, is that of the version edited by William Chambers and Robert Carruthers, which attempted to mark bowdlerizations with quotation marks, rather than merely replacing Shakespeare's words with their own and leaving them unmarked. In practice, this is truly hilarious; Chambers and Carruthers turn Shakespeare into some kind of over-the-top postmodern hipster egregiously addicted to air quotes. They replace this quote from Othello, for instance,

I hate the Moor;
And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office

with this version:

I hate the Moor;
And it is thought abroad that "with my wife"
He has done "me wrong"

By which Iago probably meant that he found a merchant selling "fresh fish" down by the "Vinny's bar." The eagle has landed, Desdemona.

My favorite story from the Bible section of Dr. Bowdler involves a brilliant ploy by a censor who put all the dirty bits at the back of the book (it must have been quite a hefty portion, considering how many dirty bits the Bible contains) and then claimed that he wished everyone to look at those chapters relegated to the back, although he feared that the reader may find them dull, as they mostly had to do with old Jewish laws and other obscure subjects. But he assures the reader that, if they have the strength of character to struggle through, they will benefit morally from the exercise. Imagine the surprise of the one person who actually decided to read one of these ostensibly ultra-dry passages, upon turning to the given page and finding an account of an old man whose daughters decide to bear children by him! Ooh la la.

Other wonderful characters include the aptly-named Mrs. Trimmer, who trimmed down the Bible so her kiddies could read it, and James Plumptre, who had grand dreams of "cleansing" all the great dramatic works of literature for the English stage and being hailed by history as a literary hero on par with Shakespeare and Johnson, but faced the minor hurdle of a total lack of interest in his project, even at the height of the bowdlerism craze. Poor Mr. Plumtre.

Of course, there are more sweeping and significant insights in Dr. Bowdler's Legacy as well, like the insight afforded by the changing standards of different cultures, the different things that make us uncomfortable. And the persistent idea that rich/educated people are "stronger" and better able to handle obscenity than poor or uneducated people. But mostly, I devour this stuff because the histories of these individuals and systems are simultaneously horrifying, fascinating and, in their own ways, enchanting.

(Please click image to proceed.)

By David

Hello, new hawaiian visitor! David and I are here with my mom, Jessie, who is wondering if you are her friend Sally.

Are you? Who are you? We are curious and delighted to find you here on the blog. We hope that this direct address is not freaking you out.

Love,
Emily

by Emily

Well, if this blog isn't the right place to announce it, then I don't know where is: David and I have been together for seven years! Monday will be our big go-on-a-daytrip-and-out-to-dinner celebration, but yesterday was the actual anniversary. We marked it by embarking on a great project that David came up with: each of us started teaching the other one how to do one of his or her favorite things. Specifically, David taught me some very basic website-making skills, and I taught him some very basic knitting.

It was super-fun! I may have been the last person of my age on this green earth who didn't know the basic components of a website, but it kind of demystified them for me to learn the background guidelines, that there are four main components, one of which controls what appears top of the browser, and so on. I never thought of a website as a document I could create in a text program on my computer, save on my computer, then view in a browser with all its visual elements. It kind of blew my mind (please laugh heartily at my expense....now.)

At the same time, just as with most things which are "demystified," websites seem even more amazing to me now. Why does it work? How does the browser know that when you type in <img>, you're trying to add a graphic? The whole experience reminded me of that part of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide books where Arthur Dent is stranded on the primitive planet, and he thinks "I can show these people so much! I come from a much more advanced culture!" But then he realizes that he himself can't build any of that technology; he can't build a toaster or a bicycle, let alone alone a computer. All he can build is a sandwich. A metaphor for the modern condition.

In my lesson with David, I learned how to make the page, head, title and body of the website, how to add text and align different parts of it differently, how to add links and images, and images that are links, and how to put an image in the background of the page. All of these exciting discoveries are showcased to less-than-breathtaking effect on My First Web Page, right here. Check it out!

David's lesson with me resulted in, I think, somewhat more impressive results. I gave him a ball of autumn-hued Manos del Uruguay to work with, and taught him the knitted cast-on (I know it's not standard, but it's what I usually use) and the knit stitch. Look at how neat and tidy his garter stitch is on his first attempt!

Knitting is more a "getting the hang of it over a longish stretch of time" sort of learning curve, rather than a "suck up a bunch of facts right off the bat" sort, so he and I sat knitting and listening to Harry Potter together for a little while yesterday afternoon. He had the tendency, just as I did when I started, to knit extremely tightly, but by the end of our little session he looked like he was really getting the hang of tensioning the knit stitch. I think the variegated Manos looks gorgeous in garter stitch.

Together, these lessons were a really sweet and interesting way to celebrate our partnership. Y'all know I'm deep into symbolism when it comes to gift-giving, and this was an excellent representation of how we both contribute knowledge and ability to one anothers' lives on a regular basis, if in less structured or conscious ways. I feel so lucky that this is the case, that there are so many things we like to do together, and that we can communicate about them so well. I feel amazingly enriched by having him in my life. Okay, end of mushy rant! Hopefully the vengeful relationship gods won't strike me down for making such pronouncements in a public forum. In any case, it was really fun and exciting to share our hobbies so directly.

Next time: CSS style sheets, and the purl stitch!

Music is "If She Wants Me"
by Belle & Sebastian
from the album "Dear Catastrophe Waitress"

Please click image to proceed. If you cannot view the movie, try this version on Vimeo.

Happy 7th Anniversary, Sweetamaphone. Love, David

by Emily

I like the idea of knitting or stitching something of my physical and emotional surroundings into the clothes I make, so that at the end of a project I have a garment with cozy evenings by the rainy window knitted into the seams, and quiet times in a teashop with a friend sewn into the collar. This weekend, as David and I embarked on an epic Portland odyssey, traversing hither and thither on foot in the brave March sunshine, I took my latest project with me and worked a few rows here and there throughout our walk, stitching the sunshine and adventure of the gorgeous day into the seafoam sweaterback. Now when I wear the sweater, even in the dark, cold days of winter, it will contain the warmth of the first sunny days of spring.

Remember how I mentioned trying out socks and liking them, but sort of preferring sweaters anyway? Apparently my limit for sock knitting is actually three and a half socks exactly, because as I was stitching along the other day on my current sock project, I was suddenly overcome with the desire - nay, the compulsion - to be knitting a sweater. I had been hemming and hawing over sweater patterns for months, unable to find something I was head-over-heels for. But after that third-and-a-half sock I could feel the sea change in my knitting soul, and this time, as soon as I took down the knitting books from the shelf, I was immediately awash in patterns I felt I must make up. The next day I bought the yarn and swatched, and half a week later I was reclining on the westside waterfront, fastening sunbeams into the sweaterback.

Unfortunately, the semi-magical transfer of ambient emotions and physical atmosphere into the knitted garment works both ways. Yesterday, much to my detriment, I attempted to ignore this vital fact and paid dearly. I don't know how yesterday went down for YOU all, but for me it was One Of Those Days. You know, those days when computers break, friends betray you, businesspeople forget appointments, the rain coats your brain with fuzz, and an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty pervades everything. Foolishly, I soldiered on with my knitting, failing to read the signs even after I made a couple of uncharacteristically simple mistakes. Sure enough, I ended up having to tear out almost an entire days' worth of knitting, due to an inexplicable mistake whose genesis I still don't understand. Drat. I suppose it's just as well, though. Now all that ill-will is expulsed from the fabric of the sweater, and I can comfort myself that other atmospheres, such as happy tiredness and the first growth of spring green, are affixed there instead.

or watch some T.V.
I want to be consistent
and well adjusted

By David, 1st Saturn Return

by Emily

In honor of the nicest weekend of 2007, and walking 18 miles in two days after remaining totally sedentary for four months, the poem I've decided to memorize for March is Theodore Roethke's buoyant ode "I Knew a Woman":

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

What is not to love about this poem? In a season starved for the beginning of springtime, it is a light wiff of summery playfulness and lovely sunny language. I love the roguish, slightly goofy sense of humor in lines like "But what prodigious mowing we did make!" (nudge nudge, wink wink!) and the reference to "English poets who grew up on Greek" being uniquely endowed to speak of the love interest, along with gods. But mostly I take a sheer, visceral delight in the quality of the language, the way the words trip along so musically and unexpectedly. "She played it quick, she played it light and loose" is a line that embodies so perfectly its own content, that it makes me smile to myself every time. Try saying it out loud; it trips so joyously off the tongue that I almost feel like singing the melody rather than saying the words.

Also breathtaking for their word-candy quality are "I'm martyr to a motion not my own" and "These old bones live to learn her wanton ways." The uncontrolled exuberance implied by all of the poetic devices employed in the second line - assonance between "old" and "bones"; alliteration between "live" and "learn," as well as between "wanton" and "ways"; the fact that the entire line rhymes with the line above it AND the line below it - encapsulates so perfectly the overwrought lover intoxicated by the object of his affection as (perhaps) only an older man in love with a younger woman can be. Or maybe the speaker only felt old before meeting the woman who reinvigorated his state of being and taught him to delight in making a happy, sensual fool out of himself. That, too, is a satisfying interpretation.

I like the poem's accepting, even celebratory, attitude toward the less dignified aspects of falling in love: "She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, / Coming behind her for her pretty sake / (But what prodigious mowing we did make!)" Whether because one is the old (feeling) man being blessed with an infusion of youthful beauty, or for myriad other reasons, loving another person usually involves humbling oneself and coming off as a bit ridiculous on occasion; this poem joyfully proclaims the exercise more than worthwhile.

Of course, there is also a hint of sadness in the poem, a bit of the elegy even, since it is written in the past tense: the speaker knew a woman, but, he implies, no longer knows her in the present day. All of her flowing, dancerly actions are taking place in a gilded past of perpetual summer. Toward the end of the poem, in particular, are many reminders of mortality: "Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay" being the most blatant. This gives the line "These old bones live to learn her wanton ways" a little more emotional weight, since the speaker may be carrying on a legacy in addition to imitating an inspiring lover. I think the joy of the poem works even better with the addition of this hint of sadness. Personally, though, I choose not to dwell on the tragic elements of the poem; or, more accurately, I have a hard time focusing on them because the astonishing lingual delight of the words and phrases keeps distracting me. I end up, like the poem's narrator, "martyr to a motion not my own," and that motion will, hopefully, keep me smiling until Spring arrives for real.

You can expect to see more of this funny, charming lady in the coming months.

By David

Music is "Guaguanco (Afro-Cuban Percussion Interlude)"
by Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers
from the album "Rip A Dip"

Please click image to procede. If you cannot view the movie, try this version on Vimeo.

By David

by Emily

Ta-daaa!

My first pair of socks (Erica Alexander's Web Socks, with the addition of contrast heels and toes) are cozy, toasty, and, if I do say so, pretty darn cute. The first of the pair was finished over the Atlantic ocean on the way to Switzerland, the second was started in the luxurious atmosphere of Scuol and finished during the long haul in the DC airport, when we were biting our fingernails waiting to see whether our flight back to Portland, already 30 hours late, would take off at all. For only having been worn once, they are already remarkably well-travelled.

I resisted the sock-knitting craze for a long time due to my perception that sock knitters and regular knitters are two distinct groups, and never the twain shall meet. Or, if not quite to that extreme, there was at least a sense that people go off the deep end for sock knitting. They stop knitting anything else and just obsess on socks. They start sock knitting clubs, sock knitting webrings - they even go on special sock-knitting cruise ships from which sweater-and-hat knitters are banned. Sure, socks are great, and it always feels good to have a nice cushy envelope for one's feet, but I had a fear of falling off the knitting map, turning in my sweater needles for tiny double-pointeds and descending into a morass of sockmaking. Socks aren't a spacious, blank canvas in the way a sweater is, and while their miniaturism is attractive in certain ways, it's bothersome in others. Plus, I have a selfish desire to produce knitwear that I can easily show off and glean compliments from, which, since I emphatically do not wear clogs, isn't so easy with a pair of socks. I will do my best, though.

Having finished my first pair, I can understand why people go for sock-knitting, even though I think I still prefer the wide, rolling knit-plain of a good, old-fashioned sweater project. Socks are very quick and portable, and they're done right away. Actually, although the speed with which they get finished is sort of satisfying in an instant-gratification way, it almost felt premature to me. I guess maybe I enjoy all the anticipation and epic plotline involved in a longer-term project, and having the socks get done almost before I had realized they were started was a little bit of an anticlimax (insert uncouth sexual joke here).

Nevertheless, it is very satisfying how much interesting shaping there is to sock construction given the object's small size. I often marvel at the ingenuity of the generations of women who figured out this beautifully clever and elegant system called "knitting," and heel-and-gusset construction on socks is a prime opportunity for this kind of meditation. A series of very, very clever moves follow close on each other's heels (so to speak): the slipped stitches on the heel flap; the short rows that magically "turn" the heel; the way that a few stitches picked up along the sides of the heel flap mean that you're suddenly knitting in the round again...it's all so simple, yet so pleasing. There is an economy of movement in creating a relatively sophisticated shape in a fairly small object, which is extremely appealing.

Regular Thursday readers may recognize the socks' color scheme from my pre-trip mitten project, and indeed, they were inspired by the amount of yarn I had left over after finishing the mittens. I love the texture of the Koigu, and I think that the goldish orange makes the stitch pattern look like oak leaves in the fall:

This gives you a good look at the subtle variation in color that makes the yarn really shine. I liked having an opportunity to see it in a less complex color pattern than the mittens provided, because it is so beautiful in large blocks. Also, as an extra bonus, making multiple projects in the same color combination means I can now dress for Halloween as Blue And Orange Girl:

What more could a lady ask for?

PS - Thanks to David for help with the photography. That shot of my own heels from the back would have been particularly challenging to capture without him.