etc.

Good day. To-day is the birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, and Stanley Kubrick. I’m not much of a fan of Shaw’s theatre, I admit that I have never read Brave New World, and Kubrick has been on my mind lately on account of just having watched The Dark Side of the Moon, which was bizarre, and good, and makes you appreciate the subtle and challenging (and devious) work of film editors.

This is not, at all, where I was going with all this, but what the hell, here are some other films I’ve watched lately, starred out of five:

• War of the Worlds **** (we went to the theatre!)
• Runaway Jury ****
• Blade: Trinity *
• Meet the Fockers ***
• The Island *** (we went to the theatre again!)

And, on a note entirely unrelated to the one already struck, I have been knitting. I’ve just finished “Earth” from Rowan 29 (scroll down a bit), which was light and breezy knitting. The pattern calls for Linen Drape, of which I have an ample amount in my stash drawer, I am just a little terrified by this yarn for its unforgiving weight and lack of, well, give (no give, zero give), so I substituted it for some Jo Sharp Soho Summer in a pale blue called “cloudless” (which it has been, both the knitting & the weather). The substitution was less than perfect on account of the fact that I was so thrilled to get the correct stitch gauge on my first try (huzzah! I don’t have to knit this with Linen Drape after all!), that I completely overlooked row gauge, which matters with Rowan patterns, doesn’t it? It’s that nasty habit they have of accounting for the number of rows instead of simply telling me how long it should be at regular intervals. Still, no matter. I am a fan of over-sized knitwear, O yes I am.

Soon after completing Earth, I started in on Swank (scroll down some more, and then imagine it without that belt and, therefore, with less bathrobe potential and more cool-summer-night potential) with a couple of bags of All Seasons Cotton that have awaited a project of just such substantial proportions. The yarn is the bluest blue I have ever knit with (and will ever have worn), a discountinued colour I got on sale last summer, that I almost immediately regretted buying on account of its incompatibility with the rest of my wardrobe. However, the colour now reminds me of the pool I’ve been swimming in daily for the past few weeks, and happy colour-associations make for happy knitting and, hopefully, equally happy wearing.

Soon, pictures! Happy, happy!