etc.

Seems that this is becoming a bit of a weekly feature. Might stay that way, as long as the movie viewing continues apace. Here is last week’s viewing, starred out of a possible five:

• The Shape of Things ***
• Capturing the Friedmans ****
• The Big Bounce **
• Living Out Loud **
• Godsend **
• Something’s Gotta Give ***
• Napoleon Dynamite ***

Pardon me, but yesterday I forgot to commemorate the birthday of one of my favourite playwrights – Berthold Brecht. If you have not yet read Galileo and Mother Courage and Her Children, I commend them to you.

And today, feast day of Helwisa, 9th Century recluse after whom I would, some day, like to name a cat or a plant.

And, if you are planning to attend graduate school, and you are looking for something to read, this Friday, look no further: the Canadian Association of Graduate Students has put out a new handbook [pdf] to assist you.

Last night, I began work on Weekend Jacket #234 (scroll down), a comely little top-down pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple, in a super-bulky weight yarn, and boy howdy, believe me when I tell you that this little feller will be ready for my trip to the ROM tomorrow with the mister. Super-bulky yarn, I sing songs to you.

The ROM and a new cardi, all in one day, hip hip!

For any of you who may be wondering where all the knitting has gone:

Pattern: Silk Tweed Sweater
Yarn: Estelle 100% Silk Tweed, 10 balls (and a bit)

This might well be my favourite sweater pattern yet. As I expected, the front and back are knit as normal, and the shoulders are joined with a three-needle bind-off. The next bit was new to me: the sleeves are knit by picking up stitches between the two armhole shaping bind-offs (once the front & back are joined). Ergo, very neat sleeves & no sleeve to body seaming. The only seaming this sweater needed was up the sides and down the sleeves, with simple mattress stitch (the only seam I can pull off with relative ease and satisfactory results).

Forgot to mention: as you may or may not recall, I’m a bit of an overzealous sleeve knitter (I enjoy an oversized sleeve). Thus far, this has mostly gotten me sleeves of ludicrous proportions, forcing the roll-up to make the sweater wearable. This pattern, with its pick-up-stitches sleeves, circumvents the problem — since you’re starting from the shoulder and knitting down the sleeve, you can stop when you’re happy with the length! Did you see those sleeves? They’re perfect!

When I first picked up this yarn, I was not unduly impressed. It felt coarse and twiggy and had that special mustiness reserved for 100% natural fibres. However, while it knits up as a slightly coarse fabric, it has a surprising drape and is remarkably robust (and is the warmest fabric I’ve ever worn). I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say that it seems to knit up as a fabric with “memory” – i.e.: crunch it into a ball and it wrinkles; smooth it out and it lays nice & flat. To wit (and a wee confession between you & I): I didn’t block this sweater. I was certain that I’d have to, given all the stocking stitch, but when it was all done, I unrolled the edges, spread them flat, and stood back to marvel at how they stayed flat and didn’t bounce right back to where they were. At that point, I thought maybe I could skip the blocking and seam right away, and that’s what I did. With remarkably little frustration.

Ash Wednesday. Also, happy year of the rooster to you!

Have you noticed the recent (and dismaying) trend towards vapid post titles? Yesterday, it was “Tuesday”. A few days before that, “recently” (a recycled favourite). Today’s post, after much consideration, had bestowed upon it, “To-day”.

But wait! I thought dull was being pretty well covered elsewhere?

So. I have made a grand editorial decision to eliminate post titles altogether, in favour of the date. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to take it up with the Romans.

Carnival, Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, Fat Tuesday. Am I missing any? Also, feast day of Cuthman, patron saint of bachelors, poverty, and shepards.

Lately I have been dreaming of heat. Heavy, stifling, turbid heat, the kind of heat in which I’d rather like to vacation (currently), with dense, soupy air, wispy dresses and shoeless feet, drinking mint juleps and reclining under a canopy of leaves. A Good dream, for February.

If you have ever wondered why black olives are canned and green olives are bottled, go here.

Elementary students at this Yukon school hunt, skin, and barbeque a bison during a February bison hunt every year. Makes me want to drop to my knees in gratitude for the needlepoint class I was forced to take in elementary school (which I hated).

If you’re reading this via RSS, you might want stop by and have a look at my strangely nostalgic header. Howdy, lil’ bowling lady, I like your shoes.

Also, if Christopher Marlowe was still alive, he would be 441 years old to-day. In fact, he died an ignoble death as a result of a tawdry bar brawl at age 29, poor topher. It is likely that I will outlive him.

I once had an English professor (a failed novelist who taught a handful of courses on longer fiction genres, the most gracious man you ever met) who always invited the class into the faculty lounge during coffee breaks, offering free coffee and, sometimes, assorted baked goods. The class was small (8 of us, I think), and oftentimes, I was the only one who took him up on his offer (it was back in my contrary coffee-drinking days). The coffee was never very good, but it was warm and free, the only two qualities of any importance to a poor undergrad, and the faculty lounge, being scantily appointed, only offered those little non-dairy creamers by way of whitener. At the time, I drank my coffee with no-sugar and a quick dash of milk, and always (always) mistrusted non-dairy creamers, so when he asked me what I would like in my coffee, I’d say “nothing, thanks”, and every single time he would respond with “you drink your coffee black? What, do you also smoke cigars [guffaw, guffaw]?” Every. Single. Time.

This is a propos of nothing at all.

Feast of St. Agatha, virgin martyr and protector against fire. Also, birthday of Marie de Sévigné, 17th Century epistolarian.

Tired.

It was a good conference. Here’s a scratch-pad of presentations I attended, more for my own benefit than yours (I will add presentation links as they become available):

• How to Use RSS to Know More and Do Less [pdf] – Jenny Levine
• Always Fresh: Fast Content for your Web Site with RSS [pdf] – Darlene Fichter
• Keeping it all Together: Web Site Management Beyond the Launch – Lisa Goddard
• Implementing Federated Searching: A College’s Perspective [pps] – Carolyn Lam, Jane Foo
• Virtual Reference Users: Expectations and Perceptions – Diane Granfield, Mark Robertson
• Top Technology Trends – Art Rhyno, Karen Schneider, Roy Tennant

Also, the swag was good, although not as good as previous years. I actually stepped outside of my personal comfort zone and bought a few books this year (library conferences are supposed to be about free books, hence the comfort zone). The thing of it is that a wonderful local comics/graphic novel retailer had a booth on the trade floor, stocked high with piles of graphic novels and manga at 20% off retail prices. Here’s what I bought:

• Ghost World, Daniel Clowes (I’ve been meaning to pick this up for ages)
• Bone: Out from Boneville (vol. 1), Jeff Smith
• Joan (books I, II, and III), Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (manga about a Medieval saint? Resistance was, well, futile.)

But, considering that I netted 4 free books (most ARCs, some signed) for every book purchased (I count the three Joans as one; they were bundled, after all), I’d say I came out ahead. The free pile:

YA:

• Hero, Martha Attema (signed!)
• Sing a Song of Tuna Fish: Hard-to-Swallow Stories from Fifth Grade, Esmé Raji Codell
• Getting to First Base with Danalda Chase, Matt Beam (signed!)

Fiction:

• Gloriana, or The Unfulfill’d Queen, Michael Moorcock
• The Bird Factory: A Novel, David Layton
• Horizon Storms (Book 3, The Saga of Seven Suns), Kevin J. Anderson
• Regrets Only, Nancy Geary
• Detour, James Siegel
• Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (signed!)
• Blood Father: A Novel, Peter Craig

Non-Fiction:

• A Brother’s Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse, Richard B. Pelzer
• To Love, Honor, and Betray: The Secret Life of Suburban Wives, Stephanie Gertler and Adrienne Lopez
• Young and Hungry: Making the Most of Fresh and Affordable Food, David Lieberman

A number of films, most mediocre, a few terrible, starred out of a possible five:

• The Human Stain **
• Old School ***
• The Thing ***
• Kissing Jessica Stein ***
• Two Weeks Notice *
• Van Helsing (zero stars. Is there a diacritic for this? There should be.)
• Down with Love *
• Ararat ***
• Sylvia ***
• Wyatt Earp **
• Ju-On ***
• 50 First Dates ***

Groundhog Day. Also, Candlemas.

An additional 6 weeks of winter, proclaimed at the very beginning of February, never has seemed like a particularly misfortunate predicament. Not in these parts, at any rate. I think we will cope just swimmingly, thank you.

I have happily discovered that I can comfortably camp out on my couch, laptop upon my lap, reading blogs and e-mail, while knitting steadily away on my latest effort. It is where I will be for the rest of the afternoon. And for the rest of the week, I will be supercharging the librarian batteries at a conference. Perhaps I will see you there.