kmkat and her kneedles

Muttering through Mother's Day.

1. 537 :: is more than 400
2. Horizon :: line.
3. Episode :: seizure.
4. Character :: -driven.
5. Crossed :: town bus.
6. Shipping :: charges.
7. Jump :: Whoopee Goldberg.
8. Bowling :: Lebowski.
9. Grumpy :: Old Men.
10. Them :: Us.

 

I celebrated my own Mother's Day yesterday -- spent pretty much the entire day in my recliner reading, watching Netflix, drinking coffee/soda/wine (as the day progressed), and knitting. This is Smokey's weekend to work (always with the night shifts) so when he is home he is tucked up in his bed with two dogs and a cat and a box fan for white noise. Today I might be productive. Hard to say, really. 

 

Reading: 
A few weeks ago I read a piece in The Nation by Deborah Kopaken Kagan about her experiences as a woman author and how she was demeaned by the publishing industry. I was so inspired/enraged by her experience I clicked over to bn.com and bought all four of her books to read on my iPad. (I also clicked over to her website and sent her an email telling her what I did; she emailed back that it made her cry.) Anyhow, I want to recommend her books. She came from an ordinary middle-class background, graduated from Harvard, moved to Paris, worked as a photojournalist covering a lot of gritty stuff (ex., she went into Afghanistan alone during the Soviet-Afghan war), eventually married, had three kids, started to write. The woman has lived more in her 40-odd years than a dozen other other people put together. I highly recommend her books, especially Shutterbabe (memoir) and The Red Book (fiction). Her collection of essays, Hell Is Other Parents, is pretty damned good, too.

Yesterday's book was Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich. I had read the first 60+ pages in fits and starts and was not particularly engaged by it, but yesterday I decided to give it a chance to pull me in. Which it did, in spades. Protagonist is a quant who specializes in the odds of disasters; the 3-person consulting firm he works for makes him rich. Then a real mega-disaster hits New York City -- essentially Hurricane Sandy plus Katrina -- and his life changes. Some of the scenes were lifted straight out of the news stories of Katrina. Good book, four out of five stars.

Last night I startd NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Creepy as hell, that one. I follow the author on Twitter. He is currently on tour for the book and every day posts photos of readers attempting to kill him in various ways.

 

Knitting:
I am enjoying having several projects to hand at all times. A hat, a pair of socks, the top-down set-in sleeve sweater, a scarf of the same yarn as the hat. They are strewn about my chair in various stages of doneness. When I sit down there is the delicious feeling of What shall I pick up this time? Project monogamy, begone!

Stuff:
Remember the humungous external hard drive? I have moved most of my data files over to it and gone into my most-often used programs to direct them to that drive for files. Two programs have me stumped, though: Excel and iPhoto. I can deal with the former, but iPhoto is being a bugger. I have searched through all its menus and preferences and cannot find a place to tell it where to store its files. My internal 160GB hard drive has 76GB of photos. It would be nice to get them all moved and backed up. All suggestions welcome. (I started to email Younger Son yesterday to ask him but got distracted, had to reboot, lost the email, yada yada. So I'm asking y'all.) 

No photos popped into my head to illustrate today's post. Here, in honor of Mother's Day, is a gratuitous one from 1984 of me being a mom to Elder Son.

Life is random, why not me?

1. Baked :: Alaska.
2. Excited :: to go.
3. Print :: out of,
4. Obstruct :: -ionist.
5. Bladder :: full.
6. Matrimony :: wedding.
7. Car :: many.
8. Reconstruct :: Civil War.
9. Lenses :: contact.
10. Best for last :: save it.

* * * * *

I got to thinking about John Sandford and his Virgil Flowers novels because I noticed a new one had come out, Mad River. Love John Sandford, love Virgil Flowers. Maybe not quite as much as I love Lucas Davenport of the Prey series, but close. Couldn't remember which of the books I had already read so I requested all of them (five plus the newest one) from the library. Have been reading them one after the other, kinda like 350-page potato chips. Just started #4 AND got the email that the newest one is waiting for me at my local library.

Heaven.

Edited to add: the reason I like Sandford's novels and characters so much is that they are the most intelligent but down-to-earth ones I have read, amen.

* * * * *

Speaking of books.

I sit on the board of trustees of the regional library system, which is currently embarking on its [latest] long-range planning process. Members of the board were tasked with visiting all the libraries in their respective counties and chatting with the directors about the services they get from the regional system. On Friday the other board member from our county and I visited four municipal libraries and had four wildly varying discussions. Wildly varying in a good way, mind you -- their experience in the library system ranged from 1 to 29 years and their education/library size/community demographic varied almost as much.

It was an interesting and informative and fun way to spend a day. Which is good because next Wednesday we are going to do it again with four different libraries.

* * * * *

I liked the yarn I knitted the fingerless gloves out of so much (it's been sitting in my stash since 2007, why haven't I used it before?) that I decided to make myself a hat from it, the Twisted Toque from 60 Quick Knits. 

Fail.

Sorry, I should have taken a photo to show how terrible it looked. If you scan the projects in Ravelry you may notice that on some, the non-stockinette portion of the hat sort of... sticks out. Mine looked like the one in the link but much, much worse.

Ribbit.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that the pattern was written for Cascade 220, which is a light worsted, and I knitted it from a plump worsted. Perhaps if I had gone up a needle size all would have been well. 

But we shall never know because I am NOT knitting that pattern again.

So there.

Not that I am bitter or anything...

 * * * * *

(something I commented on another blog that seemed so revolutionary and astoundingly awesome that I had to include it here)

The possible long-term effects of global warming have been endlessly reported upon, but the day-to-day effects have been downplayed. I have concluded what the latter means for us in the northern latitudes is that our weather will change more quickly than we are used to. The past few weeks, with fronts blowing through seemingly every other day, are what have convinced me of this. Makes sense meteorologically, too -- globala warming is basically just more energy in the atmosphere = more volatile weather.

Kinda fun, actually. Every morning is a new surprise. Can I go into town minus hat/scarf/boots or will I need long underwear and three pairs of socks? 

* * * * *

Have any of you been watching House of Cards on Netflix? I started last night, got annoyed in the first 30 seconds*, so annoyed in the next three minutes* that I stopped watching. I eventually went back and am now ready to start episode 2.

But it is not nearly as good as the British original with Ian Richardson, imnsho. I blogged about that once twice before. When Kevin Spacey delivered that line -- You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment -- I actually groaned. He is a great actor, don't get me wrong, but this whole thing seems kinda flat compared to the original.

I will continue to suffer through it, though ;-)

* They broke a primary law of good writing/movie-making: show me, don't tell me. When FU kills the dog, that is showing; when he expounds to the camera to give every bit of background information we may need, that's telling.

 

LIttle free libraries.

You may have heard of Little Free Libraries. You may even have noticed one in your city.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this in my teeny tiny town.

It is in the lot occupied by Julia's Java, a tiny drive-up kiosk selling morning caffeine. I make my own latte/cappucino at home every morning, but I buy my ground coffee from Julia in a 3-pound bag.

And now I have another place to donate books!

Ten on (two-fer) Tuesday: the mystery edition.

My Ten Many, Many Favorite Mysteries.
What can I say? Mysteries have been my preferred reading since discovered #1, below.

1. Agatha Christie. We had many of these in paperback when I was growing up. I started reading them when I was about 12. Have read them all, many more than once.
    
2. Dorothy Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey was awesome, but Harriet Vane ROCKED! Have read them all multiple times.
    
3. P.D. James. Another classic. Have read them all. Twice.
    
4. Arthur Conan Doyle. Ditto, but more than twice.
   
   
5. Other authors whose books I used to seek out: Dick Francis (horse racing & murder), Lilian Jackson Braun (cozies; "The Cat Who..." series; Koko and Yum Yum and Qulleran), Donald Westlake (murder/crime mixed with humor; not a series, just a book a year... forever), Elmore Leonard (best writer of dialogue EVAH), Emma Lathen (murder mysteries about banking and finance -- how could I not read them all?), Sue Grafton (A is for [etc.]; the R book was so boring I gave up on her), J.A. Jance, but not any more. I have Moved On.
    
6. Patricia Cornwell. She deserves an entry all to herself. Her first five or ten books were excellent, but eventually those morose and self-destructive characters got boring. And depressing.
   
   What I read now:
    
7. John Sandford. Lucas Davenport Prey series is my hands-down favorite of all time. Also the Virgil Flowers ("That damn Flowers.") series and the Kidd series; excellent. Then Sandford wrote an espionage novel (don't remember the name). It was so awful I couldn't believe it was the same guy writing. He needs to stick to crime. But a new Prey or Flowers or Kidd book is always cause for rejoicing.
    
8. Jeffrey Deaver. The author who can pack the most plot twists into the last fifty pages of a book.
    
9. Tana French. Go read one of her books and you will be hooked.
    
10. Kate Atkinson. Ditto.
     
11. Steig Larsson. Of course.
     
12. Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell. Books written under the first pseudonym = excellent. Books written under the second = excellent but so unnerving I can only read one every five years or so.
     
13. P.J. Tracy. Techie mysteries set in Minneapolis.
     
14. Carl Hiaasen. Humor, satire, and murder in south Florida. There is a lot to satirize in that locale, and he does it masterfully.
     
15. Jonathan Kellerman and Fay Kellerman. I have read all the Alex Delaware books, but I like her Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus series better.
     
16. Susan Wittig Albert. Herb-themed cozies set in the Texas Hill County. 
     
17. Others where I read one book and liked it enough to seek out others by the same author: Markus Sakey, Chelsea Cain, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Dennis Lehane, Tess Gerritsen, Harlen Coben, Alex Kava, Nelson DeMille, Greg Iles, Terri Persons (set in MN).
     
18. Others I read, but this is the B-list: good enough to invest the time to read but not stunning. William Kent Kruger (all set in northern MN), Janet Evanovich  (Ranger or Morelli -- you choose), Lee Child (Jack Reacher is every man's fantasy alter ego, imnsho). 
     
19. Others I prefer to consume in audiobook format: Michael Connelly, Stephen Cannell, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. 

I could go on (and on and on) but I won't. ::collective sigh of relief::

It's the little things that drive us crazy.

Case in point:

I am currently listening to book 3, Blameless, in the Parasol Protectorate series. Light, frothy, amusing paranormal suspense/romance set in Victoria England. Perfect fare when life is a little... heavy.

There is a character in these books called Lord Akildama. (Since I am listening to the audiobook, that spelling is my guess and may bear no resemblance to its actual spelling in the book.) In books 1 and 2, Soulless and Changeless, this is pronounced Lord Ah-kill-DAH-mah. But in book 3 -- same narrator, mind you -- it becomes Lord Ah-KEEL-dah-mah. Annoying, but oh, well. 

Imagine my astonishment when suddenly in the middle of book 3 the name become Lord Ah-kill-DAH-mah once more. WTF? How will it be pronounced in book 4, Lord Ab-ber-CROHM-bee?

And that is what has set my teeth on edge today. I knew y'all wanted to know.

How to hypnotize a chicken.

This one is for Erika and Yarnhog.

You may not be familiar with Michael Perry. He is a local author from New Auburn, Wisconsin (population 485) now living on a farm in the Chippewas Valley near Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His first book was Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, which came out in 2002 when I was working part-time at our local library. That book was never on the shelf; it was always being requested by someone somewhere in n.w Wisconsin. Eventually I decided I needed to read it and found, much to my happy surprise, that Mr. Perry is a thoughtful writer. I recommend all his books. Read 'em in order and follow his life.

Reading.

During tax season I didn't read much, but I did listen to several audio books.

Before I went back to work I read a couple mystery novels by Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News? They are in the Jackson Brodies series and set in Scotland. The weird thing is that as I read that last one, I knew I had seen it on PBSMasterpiece Mystery. And I had, just didn't remember that the main character was Brodie. Atkinson is an excellent writer; the first book of hers that I read was Case Histories and was recommended on someone's blog. (Whoever you are -- Kym? CarrieK? -- thanks!)

First, I finished listening to all five books (so far) of A Song of Ice and Fire. Started that endeavor in September, finished in February. What a trip!

    

After that series, anything else was a bit of a let-down but I soldiered on. Cuz I am brave like that.

First came The Amulet of Samarkand, the first book in the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. Fun book, dry humor, magic and demons abounding. I didn't realize until after I finished, but it is a YA book; I think that speaks to the fact that it is an intelligent YA book ;-) I have the second book of the trilogy, The Golem's Eye, from the library but I'm having trouble ripping it to my iTunes -- disc 13 of 14 keeps locking up my computer. DRM? Perhaps...

(Which reminds me, I need to delete Amulet from iTunes. I don't *steal* audiobook contents, I *time-shift* it to when I want to listen.)

Next was Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I probably won't continue with the series. It was a good story but I know I missed a good three-quarters of it because at least that much was in 1800-ish nautical terminology. Learned a couple new words: there were specific sails called "royals" and "lateens". I have since used that second word in Boggle. Someone who is more conversant with maritime jargon than I would love this series.

I started The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (#2 in his Discworld series) but somehow didn't get hooked into the story, so I put it aside and listened instead to Good Omens by him and Neil Gaiman. That one was a lot of fun.

I listened to Pavane by Keith Roberts, an alternate history set in late 20th-century Britain where the Roman Catholic church rules the world and has done so since Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated in 1588. There is no electricity, only steam power, and long distance communication is accomplished through a network of human-powered signal towers. Interesting concept, well-written.

Real history came back in Eric Roberts's In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, an account of the Dodd family, whose father was appointed ambassador to Berlin in 1933, only a few months after Hitler came to power. The intimate and detailed descriptions of Goehring and Goebbels are fascinating, as was the entire audiobook.

After tax season was over I continued to listen to audiobooks. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett was... awesome, the best book I have read/listened to in a long time. If you haven't read it, do so. My book group is going to read it in September, and I will read the analog version then.

Right now I am listening to A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman. I have wanted to read it since I saw her interviewed on the Dick Cavett show when the book came out in 1978, but I also knew that I probably would get bogged down and lose interest. Audiobook is the way to go in such a situation! I must confess I do not listen to every word, just drift along with the reader. I don't care about the specifics of which count married his daughter to which king's nephew, but I love getting a mental picture of what life was like then, both for the nobles and for the commoners.

Last week I downloaded the Kindle edition of Ann Shayne's book, Bowling Avenue to my iPad. When I started reading I thought it might be a little too much chick-lit style for my taste, but then I got hooked. Next thing I knew it was 2am and I was halfway through the book, loving the characters and the story and the setting. I can recommend that one unreservedly.

Knitting book destash.

When I started to straighten the bedroom this morning, I discovered the reason my knitting books are topsy-turvy: I have too many to fit on the shelf. 

Time to destash the knitting books.

All are in like-new condition and are linked to their Amazon page. Where there are two links, the second is to the publisher's page because Amazon did not have a picture of the cover.

Confessions of a Knitting Heretic : Tips, Techniques, Projects & Reflections by an Unorthodox Hand Knit Designer & Teacher / Annie Modesitt. $14 + media rate postage.

Domino Knitting / Vivian Høxbro. $14 + media rate postage.

Handknit Holidays ; Knitting Year-Round for Christmas, Hannukkah, and Winter-Solstice / Melanie Fralick. $15 + media rate postage.

Handknitter's Handbook / Montse Stanley (note: my copy is probably 20 years old, bought used on eBay; it lacks a dust cover but is in very good condition otherwise except for slight yellowing of the pages). $10 + media rate postage.

Knitting for Peace : Making the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time / Betty Christiansen. $10 + media rate postage.

Knitting Vintage Socks : New Twists on Classic Patterns / Nancy Bush. $18 + media rate postage.

Mary Thomas's Knitting Book / Mary Thomas. $9 + media rate postage.

Modular Knits : New Techniques for Today's Knitters / Iris Schreier. $15 + media rate postage.

Stitch 'n Bitch : The Knitter's Handbook / Debbie Stoller. $11 + media rate postage.

Vintage Modern Knits : Contemporary Designs Using Classic Techniques / Courtney Kelley & Kate Gagnon Osborn. $20 + media rate postage.

Like I did last time, I set my prices based on cover price vs. Amazon's price. In almost every instance, what you pay over Amazon's price is more than enough to pay for media rate shipping. 

Media rates for smaller packages is at right.  To give you an idea, the heaviest book is the Montse Stanley, which tips the scales at 2 lb 4 oz. Domino Knitting is the lightest at 6 ounces.

PayPal or personal check accepted; if the latter, no shipping until payment clears. Email me if you are interested; click on "About" at upper right and hover over "Email me" to see my addy. 

 

The Game continues.

Premiering April 1 on a cable network near you.

While Andrew was home for Christmas we watched Season 1 on his laptop. Excellent.

I had clued him in on these books a couple years ago, and he had found somewhere on the web where he could download a pdf of the text. He put them on his iPod Touch and read whenever he had a minute or two to waste -- waiting for an elevator, in the bathroom, wherever.

Last year when A Dance with Dragons, Book 5 of the series, came out I emailed him to let him know. He replied that he already had an autographed copy*, acquired when he went to hear George R.R. Martin speak. Rotten kid, taking advantage of all NYC has to offer.

 * "[He'd] already got one, you know." Name that reference.

Go. Sign.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

 
Ensure that every child in America has access to an effective school library program.
Every child in America deserves access to an effective school library program. We ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Such action will ensure more students have access to the resources and tools that constitute a 21st century learning environment. Reductions in school library programs are creating an ‘access gap’ between schools in wealthier communities versus those where there are high levels of poverty. All students should have an equal opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to learn, to participate, and to compete in today’s world.

 

The librarians need 5,083 5,074 5,073* more signatures on this petition…

wh.gov/Wgd

via http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/

* The first number was how many more signatures were needed when I first went to the website. Between then and when I went back after verifying my account via email, 9 more people had signed. Then I did.

Books and reading. And libraries.

I read at least 58 books in 2011; "at least 58" because I know there are a few missing from this list.

 

TITLE	AUTHOR
Case Histories	Atkinson, Kate
At Home: A Short History of Private Life (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir	Burden, Wendy
Fool Moon: Book 2 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Grave Peril: Book 3 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Heartsick	Cain, Chelsea
Sweetheart	Cain, Chelsea
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate 1) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate 2) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
The Alchemist (audiobook)	Coelho, Paulo
The Poet	Connelly, Michael
Cathedral	DeMille, Nelson
Vanished	Finder, Joseph
Dress Your Dog: Nifty Knits for Classy Canines	Fredens, Sys
Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn	Friend, Catherine
The Goblins of Labyrinth	Froud, Brian
The Graveyard Book (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
Same Kind Of Different As Me	Hall, Ron
Star Island	Hiaasen, Carl
The Knitting Circle	Hood, Ann
Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue in the Jazz Age	Irvine, Coco
Full Dark, No Stars	King, Stephen
Breathless	Koontz, Dean
Iron Lake	Krueger, William Kent
My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black; Or, A Culture-Up Manifesto	Lancaster, Jen
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (audiobook)	Larsson, Stieg
The Stone Angel	Laurence, Margaret
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	Lewis, Michael
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street	Lewis, Michael
A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3 (audiobook)	Martin, George R. R.
A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
Deception	Mina, Denise
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer	Mukherjee, Siddhartha
21 Essential American Short Stories	Pockell, Leslie M.
Knitting for Dogs: Irresistible Patterns for Your Favorite Pup -- and You!	Porter, Kristi
The Complaints	Rankin, Ian
Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp	Rapkin, Mickey
Silent in the Grave	Raybourn, Deanna
Vintage Baby Knits: More Than 40 Heirloom Patterns from the 1920s to the 1950s	Rengren, Kristen
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (audiobook)	Robbins, Tom
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry	Ronson, Jon
The Men Who Stare at Goats	Ronson, Jon
Sarah's Key	Rosnay, Tatiana de
The Blade Itself	Sakey, Marcus
At the City's Edge	Sakey, Marcus
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading	Sankovitch, Nina
One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery	Spencer-Fleming, Julia
A Dark Matter	Straub, Peter
Shoot to Thrill (A Monkeewrench Novel)	Tracy, P. J.
Moon Over Manifest	Vanderpool, Clare
The Tale of Halcyon Crane: A Novel	Webb, Wendy
Passage	Willis, Connie
Fire Watch	Willis, Connie
Night of the Grizzlies

.

Found at: The Eclectic Bookshelf (thanks to Chris for the link)

The 2012 Support Your Local Library Challenge is being hosted by The Eclectic Bookshelf.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. Anyone can join.
    
2. You don't need a blog to participate. If you are a non-blogger please leave a comment with a link (if you review elsewhere) to your review or with the book(s) you read.
    
3. Audio, ebooks (some libraries allow ebooks to be checked out), bound books are ok. I would have included graphic novels, but I don't cannot read those so it is a moot point.
    
4. No re-reads.
    
5. Create a sign up post and post the link in the linky.
    
6. Challenge goes from January 1, 2012 - December 31, 2012.
    
7. Levels:
   * Level 1 - Read 12 library books
   * Level 2 - Read 24 library books
   * Level 3 - Read 36 library books
   * Level 4 - Read 37+ library books
   

I already read at least 50 books/year, almost every single one from the library, so I am not going to sign up for this. But supporting your local library is A Very Good Thing, especially in these days of tight municipal budgets when some folks question the needs for libraries.

I encourage you to sign up for this challenge at whatever level is comfortable for you. Knowledge is a good thing; we all need more of it. Please go forth and investigate your library!

 

Psycho weirdness: a fanblog post.

As some of you may know, I <3 Neil Gaiman and have done so ever since I saw/heard him speak at a library conference in about 2002*. He is thoughtful, kind, brilliant, and a marvelous writer. Plus, although he is British he lives only about 90 miles south of me in a gorgeous old Addams Family-type house that looks like it should be haunted.

He has a lamppost, straight out of Narnia, in his woods.

I read his blogs, both the one on his website and the one on Tumblr. I follow him and Amanda Palmer on Twitter. Does that make me a stalker? Maybe, but I prefer to think of it as being A Dedicated Fan. 

If you have never heard of Neil Gaiman, here is a long clip of him on Craig Ferguson's show last June:

As much as I admire him, though, I have a hard time reading his books. I can listen to them on audio, especially when he reads them. (If you haven't listened to The Graveyard Book, I direct you to acquire the audio version forthwith and listen.) Except for Stardust and Neverwhere; those two are much gentler books. I struggled through American Gods a number of years ago. This year is the tenth anniversary of its publication, and there was a bit of hoopla about it, including a special tenth anniversary edition with 12,000 additional words. I chose American Gods for my book in my book group's November read. We all agreed that it is a strange, many-layered book, and one that we all found intriguing.

Gaiman is also very, very weird, and I mean that in the best possible way.

From An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer:

. 

* After he spoke, my librarian friend and I ambushed him in the hall. She put her arm around him and I snapped a photo. Flashed it right in his face. She has the photo in her office, and I cringe every time I see it, remembering how rude we were to get it. He was far more gracious than we had any right to expect.

Censorship.

Last week there was a small meeting at Mozilla to discuss SOPA, the Internet Censorship Bill. It was eerie. The DC groups were practically screaming, "this bill is the worst we've ever seen and we can't stop it" -- while everyone else had barely heard of it.  The consensus?  We needed to wake people up.Well, yesterday the Internet woke up. *You* woke the internet up.Check out these numbers and screenshots. To everyone who wrote their rep, made calls, posted to Twitter and Facebooks -- and especially to everyone who ran the modal and blacked out their logos, you are courageous and you made history yesterday.  You just took the first step to combine the web's largest sites, its strongest communities, its staunchest defenders and billions of users into and unbeatable force for stopping censorship. The scary part?  We still might lose.   Though growing fast, our coalition still isn't strong enough. The bill is backed by an unholy alliance of Hollywood, its unions, drug companies, and the Chamber of Commerce.  They are pouring money into it, and they've been working on this for years.   Yesterday, big players like Tumblr, Mozilla, Reddit, BoingBoing, and even 4chan came out strong on our side.  Now it's your turn.  We've got to dig in and go viral. Can you add a "Stop Censorship" message to your blog, Tumblr, Facebook, or Youtube pages?  Click here for the code.

.

.

From: Fight For The Future <info@fightforthefuture.org>

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:18:58 +0000

To: M*** J***

Subject: Uh oh. You woke up the Internet

Last week there was a small meeting at Mozilla to discuss SOPA, the Internet Censorship Bill.

It was eerie.  The DC groups were practically screaming, "this bill is the worst we've ever seen and we can't stop it" -- while everyone else had barely heard of it.  The consensus?  We needed to wake people up.

Well, yesterday the Internet woke up.  *You* woke the internet up.

Check out these numbers and screenshots.

To everyone who wrote their rep, made calls, posted to Twitter and Facebooks -- and especially to everyone who ran the modal and blacked out their logos, you are courageous and you made history yesterday.  You just took the first step to combine the web's largest sites, its strongest communities, its staunchest defenders and billions of users into and unbeatable force for stopping censorship.

The scary part?  We still might lose.   Though growing fast, our coalition still isn't strong enough.

The bill is backed by an unholy alliance of Hollywood, its unions, drug companies, and the Chamber of Commerce.  They are pouring money into it, and they've been working on this for years.   Yesterday, big players like Tumblr, Mozilla, Reddit, BoingBoing, and even 4chan came out strong on our side.  Now it's your turn.  We've got to dig in and go viral.

Can you add a "Stop Censorship" message to your blog, Tumblr, Facebook, or Youtube pages?  Click here for the code.

 

If you ran "Stop Censorship" or the "Contact Congress" splash on your page yesterday, we humbly ask you to keep it running until this bill is dead, and to find more people who can.  We understand if you can't, but the bill is just as bad as it was yesterday -- so we've got to ask.

Click here to get the code to add to your page.  It's easy.

Yesterday was amazing.  There will be more, we promise.

Homes Wilson 

Fight for the Future

AmericanCensorship.org

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Speaking of censorship, here is a Salon article about saving some of the 5,000 books confiscated by the NYPD. (Was confiscating the books censorship? Discuss among yourselves.)

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Edited to highlight CarrieK's comment from below: "Those would be bills: S 968: Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 -A bill to prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes and H.R. 3261: Stop Online Piracy Act."

You can send your support or opposition to S 968 to your senators and representatives here, and your support or opposition to HR 3261 to your US representative here.

I'm back (again).

We spent nine days on the North Shore (of Lake Superior) in the mini-mini-motorhome, returning on the day before Labor Day, and it was glorious. I have some photos but am currently too lazy to upload them. Be assured, though, that I knit my little fingers to the bone -- finished three projects (photos to come), started two more (ditto) -- and had a great time doing it.

Before we left home, however, I bought myself a little prezzie.

It all started when I read a Gizmodo post abuot how the Motorola TouchPad was such a great deal for $100* (originally $400+). I was in WI when I read it and Smokey was in Minneapoils, so I emailed and sent him on a quest to buy me one. It turned out, however, that Motorola had recalled all the unsold ones from Best Buy the week before. There were none to be had. ::sob::

After much thoughtful consideration I decided that an ebook reader that was compatible with my library's ebooks would do the trick, and a trip to Wal-Mart and $139 plus tax later I had one of the El Cheapo Nooks in my hot little hands. 

[digression] I tried to find a photo online of the aforementioned El Cheapo model, but nobody puts a picture of THAT poor thing online. All I could find were color Nooks and Nooks whose screen didn't quite look like mine. So you will have to settle for the image above; inadequate, but accurate. [/digression]

I immediately bought the tenth anniversary edition of American Gods by Neil Gaiman from Barnes & Noble, my choice for my book club's November read, and downloaded two ebooks from our library consortium. It turns out  that there is a very limited selection of ebooks from the library, but I did manage to find a couple that appealed as vacation reading. (Cathedral by Nelson DeMille and My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster, for those of you who are counting.) 

If you know of any other sites for  free, Nook-compatible books, please sing out in the comments. Thank you in advance.

* I have since read that Motorola was surprised to discover what a great demand there was for a $100 (or $150, if the buyer wanted 32G instead of 16G of memory) tablet computer. They rethought their previous decision and subsequently decided to offer a few more TouchPads at the clearance price. In October. We shall see. In the meantime, I've got my Nook to keep me warm read.

 

Amusements.

To me, vacations are a time to knit and read. How can I stand the excitement, you ask? Don’t try this at home, folks – I’m a professional.

Reading.

 

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Feed by M.T. Andrewson
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend
Vanished by Joseph Finder
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman*
CO₂ Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge by Tyler Volk
Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen
Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy by Alfred W. Crosby 
Earth, The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pipeline to the Pump by Lisa Margonelli

Heh. Can you guess what I was obsessed with when I chose my vacation books?

So far I have read Vanished (suspense novel, supremely mediocre) and Night of the Grizzlies (nonfiction account of two 1967 fatal grizzly attacks in Glacier National Park; recommended by soxanne; glad I didn’t read it before we went to Glacier last year) (headline in Thursday's local paper: Man Killed in Grizzly Attack in Yellowstone National Park. Eeep.). The top three paperbacks are all sci-fi, the other is probably horror; all excellent, non-demanding amusement. I started The Compassionate Carnivore – by the same author as Hit by a Farm – before we left home. It is a nice blend of humor, introspection, and ethics; I might be able to handle it. The others, mostly nonfiction, may be too much for my vacationing brain.

On the audiobook front, so far I have listened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larssen. I had read or listened to all of them before but wanted to do it again in one continuous string; #2 and #3 are really one story. Then I listened to A Study in Emerald read by the author, Neil Gaiman. That was a short one, less than one hour.

I just finished Grave Peril, #3 in the Harry Dresden series. I heartily recommend listening to the audios of this series. The read has the sexiest voice on the planet, plus he reads them as though he were telling the story over a beer the day after it happened. Much more enjoyable (again, imho) than reading them.

* Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I grabbed a book from my stash -- in the dark -- and a headlamp to read until I got sleepy. This was the one. Friedman is such a wretched writer and egoist that I made it to page 32, skimming large parts, before my eyelids drooped. Success!

Knitting.

I brought along enough knitting projects to sink a battleship.

The Lace Shawl of Doom  Delight for BGFE.

 

This is coming along swimmingly. I have finished the first chart and am ready to start on the border. That simple statement belies what lies ahead, though; the pattern warns that most of the knitting is in the border, plus chart 2 is altogether different and appears far more complicated than chart 1. Stay tuned.

Fast Forward, for the Red Scarf Project.

 

This is currently about two-thirds done but was put on hold when I took up the Lace Shawl of Doom again. Nice pattern, nice yarn – I’m using Louet superwash merino worsted left over from my kimono sweater.

Palindrome, also for the RSP.

 

Notice how well-defined the cables are? Not. The yarn is Drops Alpaca Sport, luscious stuff but not at all suitable for good stitch definition. I have since frogged that effort and am instead doing a mistake rib pattern that works much better with the yarn. It is also nice mindless knitting :-)

 

Actual color is somewhere between the two photos, orangey-red like the second but darker like the first.

Sock for me.

 

This was to be my fall-back project, the one I would carry into restaurants, etc. Instead the mistake rib scarf has become the take-along. That’s okay; I’m not dying to have the socks done. Yarn is some OnLine Supersocke 100 Circle Color that was on sale at Webs last year.

These last two projects got packed to come along when I was apparently on drugs and in a fantasy daze, thinking how awful it would be if I ran out of knitting projects. The chances of either of them even getting cast on during this tripe is roughly... zero.

Yarn for a narrow Montego Bay scarf for me.

 

Worsted weight silk from Alchemy.

Yarn for Braided Glory for me.

 

I was thrilled to match this yarn with a pattern. The yarn is 1600+ yards of Brooks Farm Acero, a sport/DK blend of superwash wool, viscose, and silk. It is not enough to make a sweater for me and has been yearning for a pattern for several years. I think it will be perfect for this shawl, although the pattern will use only about half of it. I am not wild about wearing shawls, but this one seems like it will stay in place without fussing.

As I typed that, the vision of a short- or three-quarter-length sleeved lace cardigan came into mind. Lace takes less yarn than stockinette, right? And I am now lace-qualified, right? I may need to investigate that. I have some other, not-enough-for-a-sweater yarn in my stash that would work for the Braided Glory, actually better than the Acero. Stay tuned.

Ten on Tuesday, the reading edition.

Oh, boy, books and reading! This will be fun.

Ten Books I Would Recommend To A Friend

1. Winterdance: The Fine Magic of Running the Iditarod / Gary Paulsen. This is my favorite book EVAH! It is funny, spiritual, and amazing.
   
   
2. The Prey series / John Sandford. Best, most intelligent police procedurals I have ever read. Characters and dialog are so real you can see and hear them in your mind. Set in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and regions within driving distance. Start with the first one and read them in sequence because there is real character development.
   
   
3. Emperor of All Maladies : A Biography of Cancer / Siddhartha Mukherjee. I read this recently and found it fascinating. It reads like a suspense novel -- I didn't want to put it down when I got sleepy because I wanted to know what happens next.
   
   
4.  Ripped : How the Wired Generation Changed Music /  Greg Kot. Another fascinating read for anyone who occasionally -- or frequently -- downloads music or obtains it in some non-DRM manner.
   
   
5. The Tortilla Curtain / T. C. Boyle. We read this in my book group several years ago, and it still haunts me.
   
   
6. Five Quarters of the Orange / Joanne Harris. Same author wrote Chocolat. I loved this book, set in rural France during WWII. Have listened to it twice and read it once.
   
   
7. The Song of Fire and Ice series / George R.R. Martin. A Game of Thrones, the first book, is now an HBO series. I have listened to the audiobook -- four of them, very long -- twice. Book five is due out... soon. Medieval fantasy, but with richly developed characters. I adore this series, will probably listen to it again later this year.
   
   
8. The Exception / Christian Jungersen. I wrote a post about it. Have read it twice. Disturbing.
   
   
9. Infidel / Ayaan Hirsi Ali. An Ethiopian woman's story of how she ran away from her homeland and a forced marriage. Author is now a member of the Dutch Parliament.
   
   
10. The Stand / Stephen King. My favorite of all his books. 

Free reading.

Three stories from the Bordertown series.

Free.

On the net.

Go.*

Read.

(Image at right shamelessly lifted from the linked page in hopes of luring you over there.)

* This has been a not-paid-for advertisement written in hopes of winning one of three [purportedly magical] prizes.

Things that make me say, Hmmm. And stuff.

From today's Interweave Knit's daily email:

How can ebooks be all gone? They are not physical objects that exist in a limited number. I think what they mean is that the 70% off sale will end on a specific date, but the books will not be *gone*, just more expensive.

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Do any of you ever wear your socks and high heels together? Have you ever seen ANYONE actually do this? I live out in the sticks where a clean flannel shirt and bib overalls counts as Sunday best, so I may be a bit out of touch.

* * * * *

This one doesn't make me go Hmmm but it did make me laugh.

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Aren't these just the cutest things you have ever seen?

Found via knithacker.

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I got a package from Amazon today. Lost one of my Yak Trax a couple weeks ago so had to get some more. These are glow-in-the-dark!

And of course had to add a book from my wish list in order to get free shipping. Fiscally responsible, that's me!

Googlausten.

Today is Jane Austen's 235th birthday. Happy birthday, Jane! 

Thanks to @amycrea, who tweeted this.

All Hallow's Read.

A new tradition, invented exactly a week ago by Neil Gaiman (pictured at right), is All Hallows Read. Stephen King and Joe Hill (SK's son, also an author of scary stuff) and The Huffington Post are already totally on board with it. 

NG says:

I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy.

A book-giving holiday! A new book-giving tradition! Awesome! Of course, as authors, Gaiman and King and Hill have a vested interest in promoting the sale of books, but NG specifically says "...new books or old or second-hand..." so I forgive them completely. Besides, my take on Gaiman, having heard him speak and read his blog faithfully and heard/seen him interviewed many times, is that he is a genuine and humble and thoughtful person who is more interested in getting people to read than in selling his own books. So there.

Somewhere on his blog I read a comment from a person -- a mother, I think -- who said that one year she bought a sh!tload of R.L. Stine books at Goodwill or some such and handed them out to trick-or-treaters. More awesomesauce!

We don't get trick-or-treaters here in the rural woods so I cannot partake of that last idea, but I am thinking deeply about what scary book I can give to whom.

How about you?