We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming after the holiday weekend. In the meantime, here's a little quiz.

A literary meme, taken from Eliza:

Apparently most people will have only read 6 of the 100 in this list. I find that hard to believe. Well, maybe not so hard, but I don't think that I know "most people".

Instructions:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read.
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them.


1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (see 35.)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (A great revisiting of the traditional boarding school novel. If you like these, I highly recommend Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling.)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (When I read this in high school, my English teacher told me that he envied me the ability to read it for the first time. Now I understand.)
6. The Bible (I went to parochial school, but the whole thing? no.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte(Read it for an English Lit class in college and found that I prefer Austen to Bronte.)
8.Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (This book made me cry.)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (blurg)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Complete? no. How many people have really read Timon of Athens? I do really love Henry IV, pt.1, a great riff on St. Augustine's story, one of the basic themes of Western literature.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I also recommd the Hitchcock adaptation. The cinematography alone makes it a classic!)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (Wants to be Proust. Isn't.)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Isn't this everyone's favorite American novel? Strangely, few people read it as an adult. It has much more depth if you re-read it once you've done a bit of living.)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Meh.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I couldn't believe that Oprah put this on her book list. The pacing makes Pasternak look like a Reader's Digest Condensed Book.)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (I loved these books when I was a kid, until I caught on to the blatant Christian imagery.)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (I just read this. Very engrossing. Apparently one of the first books to use multiple narrators in Western literature.)
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I'm a big Montgomery fan)
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan (The end of this novel is absolutely heartbreaking.)
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (If you meet any Colonel Brandons, please send them my way.)
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Not as good as its rep would lead you to believe, sadly.)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (I found the ending of this novel unsatisfying.)
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (Incredible narration.)
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (in English and French. I'm an overachiever.)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I agree with Truman Capote: "That's not writing. That's typing.")
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I'd recommend the Mayor of Casterbridge before this.)
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (started)
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (This novel was hugely popular during the American Civil War)

I've read an improbable 50% of this list. Apparently, all I did was read when I was a kid. That probably accounts for my total lack of coordination. Other books that I recommend without reservation:

* The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Wit beyond measure, in rare prose form. Thank God Wilde wrote in English.
* The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather. Not her usual dreck about Scandinavian immigrants fighting it out on the dusty plains. This novel deals with the emotional and artistic development of a young artist, which leads her away from home towards greatness.
* I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. The development of the narrator's voice in this novel is nothing short of incredible. Possibly the best first person limited I've read.
* Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman. I read this book in college and it changed my life. I cannot tell you how many times I have given this as a gift.
* Forever Amber, by Kathleen Winsor. Possibly the best researched romance novel ever, it is the classiest trash. A real page turner good for transatlantic flights, rainy weekends, and trips to the beach. Often compared to Gone With the Wind for scope and sauciness.
* All of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I adored these books when I was a kid, and I thought it was the coolest thing that one of my mom's quilting books was written by her daughter. Full of great anecdotes like the ox putting its foot through the top of their dugout house and the infamous fight with Nellie in the creek full of leeches. Nellie clearly needed to be taken down a peg or two.
* Time and Again and From Time to Time, by Jack Finney. Time travel similar to the movie Somewhere in Time. I should re-read these again soon....
* The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy. Epic, multi-generational love affairs and scandal within the august Forsyte family. It's a thick book, but quickly draws the reader in. My mother recently told me that there are more books following the Forsytes, which I intend to look for the next time I'm at Powell's.
* Maus, by Art Spiegelman. Yes, it's a graphic novel about the Second World War using cars and mice, but that's just the surface. Beautiful layout and art as well as an incredible story.
* Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. A distinctive voice and vivid design used to describe the Islamic Revolution from the viewpoint of a teenage girl.
* A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway. One of the few Hemingway books I really love (please everyone stop recommending The Sun Also Rises), this is an autobiographical treatment of his early years in Paris. If for nothing else, read for the anecdote involving Zelda Fitzgerald telling F. Scott Fitzgerald he has a small penis.

If you copy this meme, please drop me a link in the comments. I'm always interested in good book recommendations!

Everything's Fine

I apparently needed to have a fiber related freak out. Well, a couple of knitting related ones. The Malabrigo is fine. Wet Malabrigo smells remarkably like wet cat. Winston had to investigate the matter and ended up making a little nest for himself near the drying yarn. It is now unkinked. Having compared it to two recently wound skeins of Malabrigo, I have decided that it will knit to gauge. Maybe I can even go down a needle size. There will definitely be swatches in its future.

I spent at least an hour looking for buttons online this evening. Buying buttons online is far from ideal. The project in need of buttons should go to the shop selling notions for the fiber equivalent of speed dating. Holding the yarn up to my monitor is not the same. Still, I squinted away. I have three projects that must have buttons before xmas, and no suitable buttons in the button jar. That thought made me realize that I had no idea where the amazing ceramic buttons that I bought from Jennie the Potter were. The safe place strikes again! They were located in less than fifteen minutes, in a stack of mail. Must have made sense at the time. While searching for them, I found other buttons that had been assumed missing or lost, including a set that I bought from Jennie at the first YarnCon. Those rediscovered buttons look smashing with the revitalized Malabrigo! So, the next time that I decide to put something in a "safe place", I've got to stop myself and put it in a sensible place. Otherwise, I will keep St. Anthony very, very busy.

According to the sign in front of a local firehouse, Thanksgiving has the most fires of any day out of the year. Hmmm...booze, relatives, and questionable cooking? I can see how that might start a few fires. My Grandmother and I were discussing deep-fat frying turkeys. Apparently, both my dad and uncle somehow acquired a device that allows you to deep fat fry a turkey on a grill. This must have been invented by one of those guys who lights a fire in a grill with rocket fuel (no shit, there's a video somewhere on the web. I vaguely recall a bet and NASA employees involved) or some woman who had had enough of her husband wrecking the kitchen. Potential for burning down the house, or at least singeing off arm hair: high. Please be safe this Thanksgiving. Don't drive drunk, burn down any houses, or aggravate more conservative relatives with your Obama love. Perhaps you will be thankful that these big family holidays come but twice a year.

Random Thoughts:

When will Blogger learn the word Obama? I know it doesn't like proper nouns, but come on!

The song in the ads for the new Dido CD is the only good one on the CD.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is such a delightful movie that it made me want to read the book. How often does that happen?

My grandfather tells me that it takes 3-5 years to get a car from the drawing board to production. Three years ago, Detroit was selling heaps of SUVs and other gas guzzlers, so there was no economic incentive to design smaller, more fuel efficient cars (which would be available now). There should have been a bigger push to get people to give up larger vehicles to decrease our dependence on foreign oil when the War on Terror(ism) began. We haven't been asked to sacrifice anything here on the homefront. Maybe members of the Bush administration were asleep during the "guns or butter" discussion in econ, because we've been stuck with shitty guns* and margarine.

My friends list on Facebook has become somewhat unmanageable, and I know people whose lists are larger than mine by a power of ten.

I like cover albums.

I once saw a defaced Dido poster on the subway in New York. They had simply added an L. So brilliant I remember it years later.

Etsy is a sponsor of NPR. I didn't think it was possible to love etsy more until I heard that.

I never catch the first half of The Play's The Thing. It's like the opposite of my evenings at the opera.

I'm getting more annoying calls since I renewed my enrollment on the Do Not Call Registry than I did before. They're all robocalls, so there's no one to tell to remove me from their list.

I think that my Malabrigo is dead. It isn't recommended to wind yarn into balls until you're ready to use it. I know this. I have advised people of this many times. That is what I did. I wound three skeins of Malabrigo into balls a while ago and never got around to making the intended project. No biggie, except the balls were wound really tight. I must have been in a hurry at the time, and cranked the hell out of the ball winder. The Malabrigo was co-opted for the Liesl marathon, because somehow three skeins is enough for an adult sweater in that pattern. Well, I cast on this evening and noticed that the yarn wasn't as cushy as usual. It was far more compact and kind of kinky, as though I had frogged a project, and looked more like DK than worsted weight. So, I decided to take drastic measures, reskeining the yarn by hand over a couple of kitchen chairs. But that wasn't enough. I proceeded to give the yarn a bath, with a liberal dose of Soak wash thrown in to help relax the fiber. Whether or not this works remains to be seen. The skeins are laid out to dry on the bed now, atop a pile of towels and blankets. Fiber revival is my hope, though if it doesn't recover, it won't be the end of the world. Disappointing, yes.



*Shitty guns? Well, more like overpriced supplies due to bad DoD contracts, and a scarcity of armor and gear.

Today was not my day for transportation. The lights were turned on downtown for the holiday season, with much fuss and crowds, so I decided to take the train in. Except the train still hadn't left the depot ten minutes after it was supposed to have arrived at the station. The announcement offered no hints as to when it might arrive, so I decided to drive in instead and stash the bug in one of my secret parking lots. Cheap parking never puts you near where you're going, so I had to take the bus to the theatre. I waited half an hour for a bus, which meant that I had to run through the crowds of people wandering aimlessly after the parade to get there before the curtain.
On the way home, I was nearly broadsided by a panel van who didn't see me changing lanes. We must have decided to get into that lane at the same time from its neighboring lanes. I was doing seventy at the time, which made things exciting. The van driver never saw me, because he didn't try to avoid hitting me. Thank god for my desire to live and well-engineered car!

Where was I so determined to go, despite all of these obstacles? A Lar Lubovitch dance concert, which was incredible. Amazing. Difficult to describe. I have decided that I love Lar Lubovitch. Well, I love his work; I've never met him. His choreography, his company, the incredibly strong male dancing, all of the lifts were riveting. There was an all male piece in the program that blew me away. Even the fog was sublime, which is difficult. It hung over the stage at the beginning of the piece and the movement of the dancers drew it into the dancing space. It was so well done that I wasn't distracted by technical thoughts, which are hard for me to turn off.
The seat was a surprise. I don't remember it being so close to the stage when I bought my tickets for the year. I prefer to sit near where the tech table sits in the house: about half to two thirds of the way back. Better sight lines. My seat this evening was in the third row, between a man who looked uncannily like one of my female college professors and an older woman whose elbow poked me throughout the entire evening. I should have known she would be trouble when she and her husband made no effort to move when I wanted to get to my seat, as though I could just levitate into it. The change in perspective was interesting. There were times when I wish that I could have taken in the whole stage more easily, but there was so much more detail. I could hear their feet on the stage, see the texture of the costumes and the musculature in the dancers' legs. There was even a brief moment when I met eyes with one of the dancers during an intense solo, which was electrifying. Isn't that we want in every performance, as an audience member?

On the knitting front, I am still working on Liesl #2, which I am calling Raspberry Truffle on Ravelry. I happened upon one of the tags for the yarn since my last post and realized that I am using Big Blue instead of BFL Chunky. Either way, it is cushy and rich and a delight to knit. The color distribution in the skeins worked out well, with no noticeable pooling. The lace isn't as prominent a feature as it was in Liesl #1, but this one has much more depth to it. Maybe when I'm out from under all of this xmas knitting, I'll have a chance to put up some pics.

I Spent Twelve Hours Outside the House Yesterday

See, I'm not really a shut-in. I hit the road at an hour usually devoted to sleep to get a start on a very long day. I planned all of my errands and appointments in the city for the same day, to be more efficient in my movements. So, I had a doctor's appointment, my standing appointment, a hair appointment (the back was getting a little mullet-y), and swung by the Weimar Republic. A very full day.

I may have discovered the only place in the world where hot air does not rise. Yes, the Lyric Opera's top balcony defies the laws of physics. I subscribed this year, but missed the first two operas in my series due to scheduling conflicts. I was pleasantly surprised by my seat for the season, which is at the front of its section. I'd expected something in the last row, like the first year that my mother subscribed. By chance, I made the difficult opera of the season my first of the year. Lulu was something I'd looked forward to seeing. I love the Weimar aesthetic, and one of the sopranos featured in Fliedermaus two seasons back was starring. She was excellent, and the design was spot-on. However, I can only suffer so much for art. This may seem like hyperbole, but I felt warmer standing under the lamps on an exposed El platform than I did in my seat at the opera house. So, I've seen the first act of yet another opera. The next time I go, I will have to bring at least one shawl.

I seem to be in a Feather and Fan period. That easiest of lace patterns continually flows from my needles. It began with a quick scarf in Colinette Tagliatelli, which my cat has adopted as a blanket for his nest. He only likes the good yarn. Then, I began a series of four Liesl cardigans. The first was knit in RYC Soft Tweed, which I definitely recommend for anyone else interested in making this sweater. It's soft, shows off the lace well, and has just enough visual texture to keep things interesting without overpowering the pattern. The second one is in progress, in Fleece Artist BFL Aran. It's not as lofty as the Soft Tweed, so it has a different look. The other two will be knit in Malabrigo Worsted. It will be an excellent illustration in how yarn choice can make a pattern turn out differently.

Thanks for the comments on my previous pity party post. I feel much better about the whole thing now, possibly because I sold the yarn shortly after I wrote it. Ravelry will provide. I've had a few good trades through Ravelry: snagging a sweater's worth of Tagliatelli, some Madelinetosh, and a skein of Kureyon sock. My destash sales have gone well and relatively quickly. I even found a Colinette book (for the Tagliatelli) for $2. You can't beat that. Yes, there are some bossy knitters who like to throw in their $5 on Ravelry, but that's no different than the knitting klatch at most LYSes.

Mo-om! All the other kids are being mean to me!

It is hard to determine tone on the internet. This probably leads to a lot of unnecessary flame wars. I'm not in one, but I am frustrated and my feelings are a little hurt. I should explain. I am trying to sell some unloved yarn from my stash, fourteen skeins of alpaca that just don't interest me anymore. So, I posted them on Ravelry for $50, which is the wholesale price. Shortly afterward, a new member wrote a post saying that the price was "the problem". Seems critical, eh? I explained that the price I am asking is a 50% discount, at which point other people tried to "help" me understand. I understand that the economy is in the shitter. One of the reasons that I am selling the yarn is that I need the money! I know that a lot of people are losing their jobs (like me) and can't afford my asking price. I wrote a post saying that I am willing to give the criticizing poster the benefit of the doubt, which apparently only encouraged her to belabor the point. Ugh. Being the bigger person so rarely pays off. Now, I just want to take my marbles and go home. Maybe someone will buy my yarn, or maybe they won't.