Deviant Dispatches

First, allow me to say that next week, I'll be taking Monday off instead of Wednesday. Then you get to hear all about the apartment I'm going to see on Tuesday pretty much as soon as it happens. I know - it can't possibly get more exciting than that. Wrong. More beautiful steampunk art   Driveable sculpture motorcycle , made from recycled parts! Miniature cities - this one's made of soap! Have an excellent holiday weekend!

I got some new music this week, and Anoushka Shankar's "Red Sun" is a favorite of mine. Spousal Unit heard a piece about her on NPR a few weeks ago; she's the daughter of famous sitarist Ravi Shankar, and this piece is on her CD Rise . But her new CD, Traveller, features a blend of Indian and flamenco music. This live video of the title track features some gorgeous Indian dance, too. Another new song I got was Garbage's "Bleed Like Me." Nothing like Garbage to make you feel that your weirdness isn't that weird after all - plus, the melody is very catchy. (If you know Garbage, you know without my saying that this song is full of potential triggers. It's beautiful, but listen with caution.) Last was a new-ish song by The National: "Exile, Vilify." I love the duality of the song, and how it changes when the word 'vilify' is first used. Two halves of the same whole. This video features a sock puppet. At first...

Aladdin has pretty much always been my favorite movie, and every time I watch it, I learn something new. On my most recent watching, I heard something new in the scene where Jasmine "falls for" Jafar: she tells him his eyebrows are very angular, and that he has "cute little gaps" between his teeth. This can be added to the myriad things I've learned from Aladdin in the past, as follows. Source 1. Don't marry anyone who makes you change your clothes. Or, you know, spits on you. 2. People who say they're an excellent judge of character usually aren't. 3. Puns are often used for evil purposes. "Don't toy with me!" 4. A magic carpet is a pretty pimp ride. 5. Don't turn your best friend into an elephant. 6. So long as you have 75 golden camels, no one will question whether you're actually a prince. 7. If you make a wish to become a prince, be sure to include a "no lie-detector feathers"...

I had a pretty terrible Friday. Almost immediately that morning, I lost all faith in humanity - I really hate starting my days like that.  It began small, with a realization (while perusing Facebook) what a propensity mankind has toward selfishness and ignoring the plights of others, and everything snowballed from there. The lowest point was probably when I looked up the New York Times and found an incredibly inappropriate and graphic picture from the Empire State Building shooting. On top of all that, I was working all day, and dealing with the masses when already in a low place doesn't usually help bring you up. Yep. I felt like that. Luckily, things really turned around over the weekend, despite my slaving away unpacking textbooks all weekend. (In a way, unpacking 35 boxes by myself on Saturday helped - noticeable progress was made, I interacted with relatively few customers, and I got a good workout.)  When I came home from work on Saturday, Spousal Unit...

I am not a rare-book person. I'd rather be able to read it than have to keep it under glass and admire it from a distance. But that doesn't mean I don't admire something beautiful when I run across it. This book is Rosenblätter: Lieder und   Sprüche   des Volks ä ngers und Improvisators Assim-Agha  Gül   hanendé . Or, in English, Rose Petals: Songs and Speaches by folk singer and improvisor  Assim-Agha  Gül   hanendé.  The poetry was originally written in Turkish, so far as I can tell from the German introduction, and was translated by Bernhardine Schulze-Smidt. Try as I might, I can find little information online about this book - it seems to be somewhat rare, at least in the U.S. - but I'd love to know more. The above picture, on the lower left, mentions publication in Bremen, in 1893. There's even a small piece of paper cut and glued on the very first page: B ü chbinderei Hebel & Denck, Leipzig. Very old school. (And it's a ...

Last week, Spousal Unit and I were on our flying carpet of a porch when we saw something unusual in the sky. It wasn't a bird, or a plane. (And who gets excited about those, anyway?) I'm pretty proud of myself for getting a pic of the hot air balloon while it was gassing up. I'm also proud of myself for knitting a lightsaber. I found a picture of Darth Vader's and replicated it almost exactly - not an easy feat, and I did it all without a pattern. Above, I was using three balls of yarn at once, for the angular end of the handle. It got pretty tangly. I think I did really well for such a self-invented project. The saber itself was made of Fun Fur, the black yarn was Caron, and the silver was Vanna's Glamour, double stranded. I made the black parts  bulge by running the yarn behind it very tightly, and then stuffing between the back strands as I went along. You may notice the white thing sticking out of the first lightsaber picture. I...

Source I have big, big plans for today, and for the rest of my four-day weekend. Unfortunately, if I can't shake off the sleep that's caught in my eyes, I'll spend the rest of today napping and being lazy. This is not an acceptable course of action. Here are the steps I'm taking to remedy that: 1. An immediate and cold shower, lasting about five minutes. This will make my nerve endings scream, "AUGH! We're awake!" 2. A cup of Assam Gold Rain  black tea to make the brain cells snort, "Whut? Iz okay, we can has think nao." Or maybe I'll skip straight to the English Breakfast . That always gives my brain a good kick in the pants. 3. A head-first dive into my list for the day. Usually, by doing that, I tend to just forget the rest of the sleepiness, and by the time it's all gone, I've already been productive. The problem with all of these is that I have an unusual sleepy feeling today - one not caused by a lack of sleep. I ...

This weekend, I get to have fun with a bizarre aspect of my life which, to most people, is a square peg in a star-shaped hole. But I love it and throw myself into it every year. This weekend is the fantasy football draft. I love the weird sense of community that develops between me and my friends - mostly guys, of course. The one other girl on my team always thrills at seeing how well we do overall, compared to the guys - and we've done pretty well every year. Here's hoping one of us wins it this time. I've been doing research on this stuff, because last year I was woefully unprepared to choose my team. I chose... poorly.  (Okay, I did just fine. But I wanted to use that line.) Still, when all is said and done, the English major in me can't resist having the most fun of all with the least important aspect of the game: developing a team name. The best one I've had so far was The Aluminum Falcons; I hope to top it this year. I spent a good hour putzing around ...

And now... the winner of Tuesday's giveaway , the Technicolor Madness Capelet! The correct answer was 504. Congratulations, Amor! Her guess, posted on my Facebook link, came closer than anyone else's. She (or whomever she gives the cape to) gets to call herself The Caped Avenger while wearing it. Because I said so. What will she be avenging? All the happiness in the world that has ever wanted to shine through, and couldn't for some reason. Through her, while wearing that cape, happiness will abound. Yes, I'm kind of a sap. Pessimists, deal with it. For those of you who looked at what I was giving away and said, "Who the hell would want a shawl?" (because I know some of you are out there), I'll be doing another giveaway next month. That one will be a scarf. Unfortunately for you guys, it (like the shawl) is kind of girly. But I don't judge - wear the hell out of it if you win. That, or give it to your mom for Christmas. Speaking of free stu...

I thought I'd try something new with today's post: a giveaway! The shawl above (which I've named the Technicolor Madness Capelet) is something I made for a craft booth a few years ago, and it's just been sitting around, keeping my yarns company behind a cupboard door and bringing joy to no one. It's time to change that. This shawl measures 11 inches from the center point to the corners, and is 20 inches across. The orange yarn is merino wool, nylon and acrylic; the blue border is wool. A great piece for early fall, and a great present, if you're not personally inclined toward capes. (Though who doesn't love a good cape?) Here's how this works: Leave a comment with your number guess - between 1 and 1,875. I have chosen the number and emailed it to Spousal Unit, so you all know I haven't changed the number at the last minute. (Because clearly, that's something I might do otherwise.) If two guesses are equally close to the number I...

This weekend, I partook in a way of life that is slowly fading away, as more country roads become big highways and more corn fields become parking lots: a barn dance. I went to lots of events like this when I was little, except they were held at a small rural town hall. They served as family reunions for the adults; they gave me the excuse to eat too many rosettes and spin in circles like a maniac. For hours. I loved going to those events, despite the cheek pinches from people I didn't know and the long drive there and back. I usually wore a dress my mom had made for me, with a pair of frilly socks - back when pink was my favorite color. My family provided the music for these events, as they did at this weekend's dance. Back then, there were a maximum of five or six musicians at once; this weekend, there were between five and ten. (Not pictured here are the ladies who played mandolin later on.) There was even a caller for the square dances. The only ones I knew ...

After seeing Love by Cirque du Soleil a couple of weeks ago (I promise, this might be the last time I mention it here), I felt really inspired. That's my favorite thing about the good art of others, no matter the medium: really good art inspires others to do good art, too. (Sometimes bad art does that too, but I'm focusing on the good stuff right now.) I have a couple of specific future projects in mind. One is a Help! scarf. Source I've been trying to think of a way to distinguish it from a Where's Waldo scarf, and the best I can come up with is adding Beatles silhouettes on the white part of the scarf. Available on Etsy I also want to make some cross stitches, featuring Beatles lyrics and psychedelic patterns. While I haven't found anything like my particular vision out there, I have found some amazing Beatles-related artwork. Available on Etsy Look at the detail! And look at Ringo's afro! Source This Beatles cross sti...

All of these pieces I love are by famous artists, but they're some of the less celebrated works - and that's part of why I like them. Cafe Terrace at Night   For example, Van Gogh's best known piece is probably Starry Night. But I like The Cafe better, for many reasons. It gives me the feeling of being peacefully alone in a public place. In high school, I often went to Perkins late at night for a cup of tea and a muffin, and I would sit in a corner and write till the place closed. This painting brings that feeling to mind - there's some minor bustle around you, the night is gently magic, and you're content to watch the world rush by in all its glory. I also love the solitude in this piece by Salvador Dali. Untitled (Woman With a Head of Roses)   Better known as That Mustachioed Guy Who Melted Clocks, Dali didn't need bright colors all the time to make a strong statement. Follow the link above for some interpretations of his work if you like. Pe...

The City's Son by Tom Pollock   There's one main reason I'm excited about The City's Son: it's a young adult title with a very unusual plot. It's not often, these days, that something original appears in that genre - or at least, something that breaks the mold a little. The City's Son follows Beth, a teenage graffiti artist who runs away after her best friend betrays her. She turns to life on the streets - streets full of strange happenings, because unusual gods and menaces lurk in the shadows. Beth meets Filius Viae, or Urchin, the crown prince of London's underworld, whose mother is one of those gods - Mater Viae, Our Lady of the Streets. Mater Viae has been missing for fifteen years, though; rumors say she's returning soon. Reach, the god of urban decay, wants to kill Filius before his mother returns. So Beth helps him to raise an army - and then is forced to choose between her old life and her new one. Having read only the first chapte...

Sometimes I have trouble coming up with blog post ideas. My wells of creativity become dusty and void of intelligence, to the point where I consider posting a picture of how thick the dust on my dresser has gotten. I actually kind of love it when I reach the final crumbs of pseudo-original thought my mind can conjure. It means I get to search the vastness of the internets for people who've had this problem many times before - people who are willing to help me out. This time, I just searched "blog post ideas," and here are some of the fun things I accidentally found.  - Joy the Baker . Usually, a list of post ideas has all the ideas I've already done, plus a bunch that I would probably never write about (things like starting a 401k and hiking across Tunisia). But her list actually got me thinking - especially her idea to post about where inspiration comes from! Post I'll feature soon: crafts I hope someone  will make, inspired by Cirque du Soleil's Love ...

Today, you get this. I, on the other hand, get an extra-long, extra-hot shower to burn away the terrible pain in my neck. And then later today, I get a new pillow. Have a spectabulous weekend.

Last night, I tried to make falafel. I had a new recipe I wanted to try, one that eagerly proclaimed, "Falafel didn't have binding agents back in the day, so you don't need any now! Follow our directions and you will be amazed at how utterly disappointed you can get!" I'd really been hoping to have a nice dinner ready for Spousal Unit and I - it's fun to take full advantage of my days off and make something a bit more involved than usual. Along with the falafel, I had lots of CSA beets waiting to be nommed, so I decided on creamy mashed beets. Yes, beets and falafel don't really make a full dinner, but I started later than I wanted to, it was the only idea I had, and I was counting on Spousal Unit being full-ish from the work pizza party. So it was okay to make such an odd combo. As you might guess, after processing the falafel ingredients and heating a pan full of oil, four falafel balls fell to disgusting, chunky pieces before my eyes. Now I had a ...