madelinetosh - tosh merino light, in northumbria. THREE glorious skeins!

flowers from a very dear author and friend, and Crumbs(!) cupcakes from a very dear colleague and friend

the rebirth of my wowie zowie sock! YAY for following patterns and friendly assistance!

is there anything more beautiful than a peony?

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I haven’t uploaded any new photos in a couple of years; the ones that are in my current gallery were taken before I knew very much about taking pictures. I’d delete some of them now. There’s nothing spectacular about them, but what’s so confusing to me is that 91 people have paid for this image:

It’s a fine picture of red leaves, but (1) photos of red leaves are a dime a dozen and extremely easy to find, (2) for free. I don’t know why 91 people paid for this.

I use stockphoto sites when I’m trying to find images to use on jackets of the books I am publishing, so maybe it’s just people like me, people doing their work and needing a quick and simple resource.

Anyway, I guess this makes me a photographer. After my excessive rumination below, I guess this nagging issue is taken care of.

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beautiful, beautiful marilyn

From the NYTimes:  “There is a sublime silliness to Halsman’s images that can make you laugh or at least smile regardless of how often you see them. They may offer incontrovertible proof of Schiller’s claim that ‘all art is dedicated to joy.’ Evidently the simple act of getting off the ground requires giving in to something like joy. You have to let go.  One of the purest examples of this joy is an image of Halsman himself, holding hands with a smiling Marilyn Monroe several feet off the ground. Facing his partner, he seems ecstatic, as if he cannot believe his luck.”   Credit: The Estate of Philippe Halsman/Laurence Miller Gallery

Second: this line from Nabokov, which has haunted me since I read it yesterday.  “The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.”

And third, one minkey down, one to go:

one minkey down, one to go!

And a bonus thing that made me smile and feel all sorts of things, courtesy of an email from Marnie:

“have you seen marina abramovic’s endurance performance “the artist is present,” where she sits in chair for the entire length of her retrospective. there is a chair opposite her, and visitors sit and look at her and she looks back. the flickr group is so compelling: about 1/4 of the people are in tears.”

Here’s to an interesting Wednesday.

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Sunday was supposed to be bad weather, so we thought we’d do a bit of downtown prowling Saturday morning, then come home and do the wedding dress business. So off we went to the Village, more or less, planning to wander semi-aimlessly and enjoy each other, and the beautiful day. We got out of the subway and into the sun, and headed a block away, to the Maypole party. This post is photo-heavy, so I’ll put in a jump to save you, if you want to skip the scene. Lots more, after the jump.

spring + maypole + colored ribbons

half of you towards the pole, the other half promenade!

this dude was organizing the small children and telling them what to do....

...and this little dude was NOT having it.

Marnie watched

So we watched for a few minutes, and decided to walk around – planning to come back on our way home to see the Maypole all wound up in ribbons. We turned around, I took a step, and made some kind of genius move that resulted in serious foot trouble. My foot hit a mini-pot hole kind of deal around a grating, my ankle turned and my weight ground my right baby toe into the grating and I nearly went down. Didn’t hurt my ankle at all, but BOY OH BOY did I hurt my toe. I thought I was just being a baby about it, and didn’t want to ruin our wandering morning, so I limped along and tried to whine as little as possible.

So we limped along, slowly, and ate some hummus and took pictures and talked talked talked. We saw

art studios and

did you know Barbie is a bitch? and

someone loves chalk, and

you can buy chow mein there, and

if you want some company, go over there, and

our dutch history is visible around NYU, and

the weather was perfect for gardening, and

we have urban cows, and

this joint has been around for quite a while, and

a flaky old market, and

WOMP (whatever!) and

here's how you lure the elusive wino.

We finally headed home because I was in so much pain. When we got home and I took off my sandal, I felt so vindicated because my toe was grossly swollen, and black and blue, and misshapen and the whole thing was awful looking. And feeling. So I wasn’t just being whiny after all, go me.

The dress-fitting was a lot of on and off and on and off, but Marnie and I enjoyed the process as much as possible. It’s really beautiful on her, and I think it’s going to fit when I finish. We had shrimp curry for dinner, courtesy of my husband and his day o’ cooking, and Sunday we piddled and played and talked and finished the fitting. She left for the airport at 4………and came back around 7. Due to the “weather” her flight was canceled. And by “weather” I think they meant “gee we don’t know but it might rain.” So she missed work today, and that sucked for her. Of course it meant I got one more evening with her, and breakfast this morning, but I felt so bad for her.

Anyway. My toe hurts.

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The day after I graduated, I moved to Austin (which is really the only place to be, in Texas, if you’re a thinking person). I’d lived there a number of times before, and loved the hippie vibe, the weirdness of Austin – immortalized for the last many years in t-shirts saying “Keep Austin Weird” – and the strange characters like Leslie, the cross-dressing homeless guy who looked damn good in his bikini and high heels (from the back, anyway). When I’d lived there three years earlier at age 14, my dad would take me to the Armadillo (Armadillo World Headquarters, if you weren’t a regular) where we heard live music by Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, Willie Nelson (duh), and Linda Ronstadt. When I’d lived there even earlier, around age 9, my mother would take me to The Broken Spoke with her, a dive-y saloon where Janis Joplin got her start. Armadillo is gone, but the Broken Spoke is still there, and it still looks like the same dive-y saloon.

So this morning, when I saw this idea to search flickr for a particular year and post my favorite photo, of course I immediately thought of 1977 and Austin. I can feel it on my skin and in my bones, I can smell it, I hear it in my mind’s ear as clearly as the traffic below on Madison Ave. I couldn’t limit myself to one favorite photo, I found two that captured a couple ways of being a Texan.

This one is from a chili cookoff in San Marcos, a small town just south of Austin (now, it’s more like a far-flung suburb). What’s more Texas than a chili cook-off! This one isn’t at all self-conscious, like the fancy ones in Terlingua. The cowboy hats, those make my heart race. The very un-PC (now) “Indians,” what were they about and what did they have to do with chili? Whatever. I know just how it felt to be there, even though I wasn’t there. Thanks, Don Hudson, for sharing.

chili cook-offs should all be like this

And these, from Austin in the summer of 1977. Every year since 1963, there has been a party celebrating Eeyore’s birthday, on the last Saturday of April. It’s something of a free-for-all, a big costume party, a day to eat and drink and play silly games like sack races and egg toss (adults attend, by the way, it’s not an event for kids brought by their parents). There is a photo set on flickr of the 1977 party, courtesy of digitalmovie. I went to the party that year, but didn’t see myself.

What year would you pick?

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*  A 19-year old male committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train in my part of town. It’s so sad, to be so filled with despair at only 19 years old. And do not judge New Yorkers whose quick response is to complain about the way that affects their commutes. When you don’t have a car and rely exclusively on public transportation to get you to and from work, or grocery shopping, or anything at all, you have a slightly different perspective. It’s very sad – it is – and now how am I going to get to work!

* I was reading a piece in the NYTimes magazine by the former editor of House & Garden, Dominique Browning, and she was talking about grieving the loss of her identity when Conde Nast closed the brand. She cited this line from Psalm 22:14, as the most eloquent description of pain, and I do agree:  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. The tone of that line brought the work of Robert and Shana Parkeharrison to mind, whose work used to be one of my son’s favorites:

* And I’ve been thinking lately about the way our society has moved away – ever closer to entirely away – from the authority of  institutions to the authority of individuals. In the process, it seems like the output of individuals is of much higher quality than ever before. This is just a note to myself, still unpacking the concept.

* Finally, even though all my knitting time is being assigned to the secret wedding shawl (hi Marnie!), a girl does need something to knit in the subway to and from work. That’s a good 20 minutes each way! So I started a new pair of socks for me, this time. I’m making the really cool Kai-Mei socks from Cookie A’s Sock Innovation book, using madelinetosh sock yarn in the crow colorway. As it’s knitting up, it looks more like denim, like your favorite dark pair of blue jeans. I’ll take photos asap, tomorrow maybe. Anyway, here’s the yarn:

madelinetosh sock, colorway: crow

not my kai-mei socks, just posted here so you can see the interesting pattern

[courtesy of reeniebeanie - check her out!]

Stay warm, stay dry, stick around.

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Hedera, in KP Felici, colorway cochineal

a pair of socks for a cold dorm room floor

my rav project page here

The snow has been really amazing here in Manhattan – yesterday we got just shy of 21″ of snow in Central Park! We’re knocking on the top 10 list of biggest snowfalls since 1869 or something like that. Here are some newer shots from my neighborhood…..

isn't this a strange icicle?

in front of my building

my street corner

panorama of Riverside Drive

birdie num num

my little corner of Riverside Park

Riverside Park

stop reflecting on the snow

snowy gargoyles watching over us

Now, off to make pillows and watch people play in the snow outside my window. The city has proclaimed that this is snow day, and they’ve set up places to play and sled, and they’re serving hot chocolate. One reason I love this town, they do things like this.

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As much as I complain about the soul suck of my job, one good thing about it is that for the most part, it’s possible for me to work from home if I need or want to. And today I wanted to, because of the silly pronouncement of the “snowricane” or “snowrnado” (depending on which weather site you pick). Reports of Gusting! Winds! UP TO 75 miles per hour! Days and days of power outages expected! Watch out! And also: back alert weather. The snow is heavy, and you might hurt your back so watch out.

We haven’t had the winds – at least here in Manhattan – but it has been snowing without stopping all day long. It started snowing before 7am and there hasn’t been a moment’s pause. Some hours the flakes are huge, like monarch butterflies (thanks to my husband for that one), and other times they’re normal sizes. The trees are hanging with heavy snow on the branches – all the way out to the tips, hanging heavy. The snow is so wet, it falls in fists off the ends of the branches. It’s really pretty. I sit at a desk right by the window and work work work, pausing to glance out the window at the beautiful view. Want to see?

practically my back yard

pretty lampposts

Riverside Drive - so empty!

the end of my street

I know they look like black and white photos, but they’re not. It’s just a black and white world right now. Very very pretty – especially since I get to just watch it out my window.

Tonight I hope to get some knitting done, and I have a LOT to get done this weekend: making the pillows using my new fabric, finalizing a syllabus, cutting out that wedding dress I still haven’t cut out, and encouraging my husband to paint. That one might be the trickiest. You know how that goes, right?

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So, WOTN! Item #1, the wedding shawl. Nupps are “fun.” I won’t show the shawl in its entirety, to preserve the surprise, but little bits here and there seem ok. Case in point: nupps.

nupps (unblocked, of course)

Next up on the needles: socks for my youngest daughter (nonrav link), whose dorm floors are very cold. I want to finish them by the time she comes home for spring break in a couple of weeks, so I’m alternating these with the shawl. (Doesn’t that gusset look mighty huge to you? It does to me.)

A's socks

While not technically on the needles, these are destined to be on the needles very soon – sock yarns chosen by my oldest daughter. Katie, which one do you want me to use first?

Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock: Beverly

Knit One Crochet Too: Meadow

When I showed my husband this photo of his blueberry coffee cake, he said “I want some now.” Me too honey, me too….but we’re back on our diets. Too bad:

I. want. some. now.

And finally, in this brief period between snows, we walked over to Riverside Park – our back yard, kind of – and I took a picture I take over and over, in all seasons. Here it is today:

winter view

And here it is a few months ago, and a few before that:

November

May

Seeing the park blanketed with snow, and ice in the Hudson River, made me think about Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that focused on Lent (ours focused on the fun combination of both fire and brimstone), and I’m not religious in that way, but the idea of it struck me. There’s a longing for life to come – the life that’s pent up in the trees and plant life buried under the snow. The wheel turns, it’s bleak now, but rejuvenation is coming. It’s coming. The world will begin again, as it always does.

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