o l g a * o r a n g e

2008-07-01T16:21:00.001-07:00

Library books:
Let's do something awful, part 2.

I first read this book, Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill, in summer 1993 when I was an intern at Macmillan in New York, proofreading and copyediting college English textbooks. The books were largely anthologies of short stories and plays, so I was proofreading things like True West and the Glass Menagerie. What could be better? And at $12 per hour I felt superflush (my rent was absurdly low -- I think $250/month -- due to an amazing subletting deal). I often ate lunch at one of those weird little midtown parks -- an empty lot on a normal street to which a waterfall had been added. I would eat my lunch (what did I eat? I somehow can't remember), read a bit, take a little nap, and return to work. That summer I read a lot of I don't know what fiction, books discussed in Shopping in Space, a book of criticism of so-called "Blank Generation" fiction -- a swath wide enough to contain, among others, Michael Chabon, Dennis Cooper, Catherine Texier, Bret Easton Ellis, Gary Indiana, and Mary Gaitskill. I guess other than Michael Chabon and Gary Indiana that's not such a wide range. Due, probably, to Shopping in Space, I read Gaitskill's Bad Behavior and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. Like me she had grown up in suburban Detroit, and she had gone to the University of Michigan, where I had just finished my junior year. A lot of Bad Behavior took place in areas I was sort of familiar with -- suburban places whose names I knew but that were a little grimier than the areas of the suburbs I knew well (that kind of suburban grime being, unlike Detroit grime, a little too immune to romanticizing to attract me).

And Mary Gaitskill really is grimy and spiky in a totally disarming way. "Let's do something awful," that great line from the Plot Against America, could be this book's epigraph. I was dazzled by Two Girls, Fat and Thin when I read it then. I still think Gaitskill is amazing -- completely in control on a sentence-by-sentence level. The plot fell apart for me a bit this time, and I seem to have developed a more delicate constitution in the past 15 years, as I found some of the sadism really sort of troubling in a way I know I didn't before, even though she's ultimately a very polite writer. Weirdly, I found the twinning of the characters annoying, even though I don't mind Martin Amis's overreliance on it. I know it's easy to make up a funny name, but the fat girl of the title's real name is Dottie Footie (I might be misspelling), though she changes it after she becomes a devote of an Ayn Rand-like figure. Dottie Footie.

2008-07-01T16:07:00.001-07:00

Library books:
The dark side of the library.

I forgot that in the first batch of books I borrowed from the library was Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander. First, a moment to contemplate one of the greatest names ever, especially for someone as alienated as Auslander. Hello Foreigner, it could be translated as, from Hebrew for Shalom and German for Auslander. Also, Goodbye Foreigner. (Also, Peace Foreigner, but that's not as good). I'm pretty sure it's not a pseudonym. If it were it would be kind of vomitous, but I think it's just serendipity.

I'd read some pieces by him in the NYer, and particularly remember the piece about him walking from somewhere in New Jersey, I think, to a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden in a slippery attempt to stay kosher. It was very funny. But the book. For one, it's a bit looser than the NYer piece(s), but not in a good way -- it's just not as tight. But more problematically, from a library user's perspective, is that it's just not the kind of book I want to read straight through. He writes just like what he looks like, and he looks like this:

That is, his writing is just a little too belligerent and intense for me to take at long stretches, even though it's very good. But I had to return the book to the library (it was unrenewable because someone else wanted it). So I sort of quickly picked my way through, reading short, disjointed bits. Just because of the due date I liked a book less than I otherwise would have. Caveat borrower, is all I'm saying.

2008-06-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Library books:
Call me shallow.

As I've said before (i.e., earlier today) I don't have anything against crazily hyped books, which is why I read the Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander and Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel. I read Englander's book of short stories, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, when it came out, but I don't remember much about it except that it involved a lot of illicit sex among Orthodox Jews and that I liked it (who wouldn't?). So the Ministry of Special Cases started really well. Englander is not at all a magically light writer -- you always see exactly how you got to where you are -- but he's competent in the best sense of the word. It started out pleasantly farcical -- I feel like he's writing in the I.B. Singer shtetl-humor mode, but maybe I think that only because I've never read Bernard Malamud or other such writers -- in Argentina in 1976, when lots of people are being "disappeared" by the military government. You sort of stroll through all sorts of darkly absurd scenarios until all of a sudden you realize you're in a serious political novel about the Dirty War. Then you -- er, I -- feel really stupid and morally bad for having been waiting for more funnies. But then I thought about it, and I think it's Englander, not me: the two halves of the book are really mismatched, and he doesn't seem totally in control of that. So maybe I'm wrong about him -- he actually did cause me to lose my bearings, and in a way that doesn't seem entirely competent. Still, the good parts are good.

Indecision also became serious when I least expected it or wanted it. At first I thought he was kidding with the epiphany and all that, but I think he actually wasn't. The book had a really appealing voice, though (don't be turned off by Michiko Kakutani's ridiculous Holden Caulfield-voiced review). But no one -- seriously no one -- wants to read about another person's drug experiences. Not so keen on reading about Americans having romances abroad either. Wait, so what did I like about this? I can't really remember any passages I liked, but I felt sort of constantly pelted by funny lines and startling phrasing. This is one of those books where you have to keep looking at the author's picture because you can't quite give yourself over to the book and you also can't decide whether you hate or love the author. It's rare that I wish someone would be more glib, but he's really nailed glibness and I wish he stuck with it throughout.

2008-06-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Library books:
Missing Persons

This book, Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, was crazily hyped, but I don't have anything against crazily hyped books. Actually, I like reading crazily hyped books because I like to read about what I've read, and hardly anyone writes much about books that aren't crazily hyped. A vicious cycle, it is. So this book was fine -- superentertaining beginning, OK middle slog, weirdly but pleasantly drawn-out end. The voice was really amazing though, and it was told in first-person plural, which worked surprisingly well. I remember when everyone went crazy for Bright Lights Big City, which was written in second-person singular. It seems like that should have created a mania for the exploration of the other pronoun forms, but it didn't. I mean, first-person singular and third-person omniscient obviously constitute pretty much all literature, both Western and non-Western, from what I've read. If Jay McInerney laid claim to second-person singular, all there was left were first-person plural ("we") and second-person plural ("you"), though I think a novel written in only third-person plural ("they") as opposed to general third-person would be really startling. So Joshua Ferris took "we," which worked really well to express the Borglike (if I understand what Borgs are [what the Borg is?]) mentality of the advertising agency in which the novel was set. It wasn't just a brilliant conceit, it was well executed to boot. Now all we're really left with is second-person plural (and maybe third-person plural), though there might, of course, be superfamous books written in these forms (and I'm sure there are lots of experimental pieces), but I just don't know about them. It's funny to have the idea of a frontier be so tightly contained. I don't know about the remaining forms, though. "They" might be OK for a superparanoid sci-fi-ish sort of novel, but maybe it's just too irritating. I'm trying to think of the tone of a "you" plural novel. It's hard because you'd have to keep emphasizing that you mean "you" plural and not singular. Maybe it would best be written in the south, and it could be expressed as y'all. Fuck All Y'all, it could be called.

2008-06-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Library books:
Let's do something awful.

I can't really write about Philip Roth, given that everyone else has already done so and I don't have much to add. I will say that I love him, I feel oppressed by him, and he disappoints me, but only because I love him so. I feel about him the same way I feel about Martin Amis: I can't believe how funny they are, but they're such grizzled old clueless sexists it's kind of often not worth dealing with them (the eventual death of all of such men [Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, etc.] will feel really liberating, but I'll be pretty old and oppressive myself by the time that happens). As Roth and Amis slip into their dotage they get goofier and goofier (Exit Ghost? The Second Plane?), but at least P.R. has the excuse of being 75 and merely out of it, while crazytalk M.A. is only 57 and truly a paranoid nut. Oh, and they're both come across as really afraid of people in a way that makes them seem way too cosseted by their privilege and fame, but while M.A. is afraid of all poor and/or non-white people (he hasn't been afraid of Americans for decades), P.R. seems mainly afraid of his fans, which is more interesting. Also, obviously Roth is not as cold and soulless as Amis, but also maybe not as nimble. Or maybe he is -- he's clearly the better writer.

So: the Plot Against America. I love that line, "Let's do something awful." It's what the narrator's friend would say before doing some devious deed, like looking in his mother's underwear drawer. I feel like Portnoy's Complaint could have begun with that line. It suggests such a dirty, sneaky, totally controlled rebellion -- completely Rothlike.

In the novel Nazi-sympathizing anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. Around the time I read it Lindbergh's daughter Reeve published a book about, among other things, Lindbergh's three secret German families, which included seven children. Who knew? Apparently lots of people, but I was scandalized. Let's do something awful indeed.

2008-06-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Not so much reinventing the wheel, more like rediscovering a very low-key form of fire.

After living in Chicago for nearly ten years I just got a library card fairly recently, which is weird because I've always really loved public libraries. I feel really au courant, in the know, etc. for having a library card, which is clearly completely misunderstanding the entire point of the library. I can't really remember what spurred me to finally get a card, maybe that I wanted to read the Plot Against America by Philip Roth and the thought of spending $20+ to buy another brand-new fresh book from a bookstore or Amazon (the receipt, the packaging, ugh) and then having to own it just felt really oppressive and sad. Now library books are nipping at my heels all the time and I feel a little bit oppressed by the stack of them that's always sitting around, demanding (unlike books that I've bought) to be read in a timely manner so I can return them so some other (possibly more worthy) reader can get them.

I've been trying to remember what books I've taken out of the library since I started, but it's kind of hard to reconstruct and the "myCPL" section of the Chicago Public Library website doesn't -- unlike netflix -- have a list of everything you've ever borrowed (presumably the civil libertarian librarians are protecting me from the Patriot Act, damn them). I know among the first batch of books I ever took out was indeed the Plot Against America by Philip Roth. I had it when we were on vacation with friends a couple months ago. Trying to pick sand out from between the library-issue clear plastic cover and the actual jacket, I wondered whether it's in bad form to bring a library book to the beach. My friend, who likely has not been to a public library since elementary school, suggested the library was probably thrilled that someone had actually checked a book out and would be downright ecstatic that the person then returned the book with signs of genuine use. I'm not sure the library feels that way, and based on how long I've been waiting for I Was Told There'd Be Cake and All the Sad Young Literary Men, it seems that they really don't need my business. I guess going on about the library is sort of like exclaiming, "Apples -- they're delicious!" But the thing is, apples are delicious and the library is awesome.

Here's what I can remember reading from the library so far:
The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill
Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
There are other books I've forgotten, I'm sure.

There have also been a few baby gear and baby care books (e.g., Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp), but my intention is to write a bit about each book and I just can't -- at this point anyway -- imagine writing about a baby-oriented book.

As my friend Heather says, more later and soon.

2008-02-24T13:58:00.000-08:00

The fish eye

Up until yesterday there was a 2 or 3 inch layer of ice covering all of the dog park, except for a small area someone had cleared. Yesterday, though, the ice began to melt because it was finally sunny and fairly warm. Some of the water was running into the drain in the center of the park, but the majority had pooled up into small ponds. I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about making channels for the water to run smoothly from the pools to the drain, first just kicking and tossing ice chunks out of the way, then digging fresh passageways with a shovel. I was pretty into it. After I'd been at it for some time and was nearly done creating a new canal, a guy started breaking up some of the ice with his foot, and the chunks of ice blocked the waterway. I told him that he was "messing up my channels" and asked him to stop. He smiled but looked at me like I was insane. Then I got really embarrassed -- messing up my channels? -- and left.

Today we took Bean to the park -- the same dog park she's been to twice a day nearly every day of her life, the same one where she saw me snap at the guy yesterday. She has some bad character traits, I'll admit: she too can snarl and snap, usually at the handful of dogs that are smaller than she. We have mental lists of the thousand things that can set her off: another dog is on a leash; Yorkies; she's on or just got off of her leash; she feels trapped under the bench; she just saw the dachshunds; she's guarding a squeaky toy; etc., etc. Today, though, she just crazily attacked a beagle for virtually no reason (well, she had just gotten off her leash and the beagle was waiting for her right inside the gate). But she attacked this little dog's face with relish and the obvious intent to maim and kill. The beagle cried and bled right near its eye, but it went to the emergency vet and was fine. I'm still giving Bean the cold shoulder, which is kind of unfair -- who holds a grudge against a dog? Still, I can't look at her the same way again -- therein lurks the heart of a killer, which just totally messes up my channels to think about.

2008-02-09T14:47:00.001-08:00

Half-assery

I don't know, dear blog, but the fire's gone. Have you noticed? [blog nods solemnly] Somehow, knowing that someone might actually read what one writes can have a bit of a chilling effect. Also, I really haven't been doing many projects, and somehow once I began writing about projects it came to seem that that was the only thing to write about.

Whatev. Here's a shawl I made for my mom for Christmas:

It's made from vintage kimonos and obis and has a velvet back and edge. Here's a view of it laid out on my appallingly messy work table:

It's slightly wonky in places, but it was really satisfying to make; still, it's hard to imagine making something for myself with these fabrics (of which I have tons left -- I used only about a sleeve or so of each kimono).

My friend has a cousin who has some fairly severe developmental disabilities, but not so much that she can't live on her own (she's in her early thirties). She's always asking things like, can you tell by my earrings that I'm becoming more feminine? can you tell by my shoes that I'm indie rock? I'm all like, can you tell my blog that I am just so not up for it -- any of it -- these days?

2007-11-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

When there's a zippoorwill there's a zippoorway

Remember, way back in September, when I was inspired by zippers? Of course you do -- who could forget those crazy dayz? This is the zipper usage I liked:

This is what I ended up making based on that:

Instead of one zipper down the center, I made the two side seams zippers from the armhole to the hem. The fabric is a kind of techy Japanese synthetic that I got from the Discount Textile Outlet (or whatever it's called) in Pilsen, which is three enormous crazed floors of bolts in various stages of dustiness, disorganization, cheapness, and ill-repute. There was some orange marking on the fabric, which I had run down the left zipper in the front:

I'm happy with it, but the darts are kind of a disaster because I didn't use a pattern or a dressform and I'd never made darts before.

Also, if you like Obsession you'll love Compulsion, and if you like Project Runway you'll love Project Runway Canada. Go here, and search "Project Runway Canada." Each episode is divided into six parts, and if I could type in a French Canadian accent I'd do my best Marie Genevieve impression as an amuse-bouche to the amour fou that will overtake you. And I can't even begin to talk about Iman. As the old saying goes, blogging about Project Runway Canada is like dancing about architecture, so I'll just leave it at that.

2007-11-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Nudidity

I'm posting this now only so that no one has to immediately be faced with the horrible post below. Who would post something just to talk about how disgusting it is? And why? That person should be ashamed.

It seems I'm turning into my grandmother, who would often talk in detail about how, er, horrible it was that they had all that nudidity on Cinemax late at night. We were once at a large family dinner at which she began talking about bosoms or something. She became disgusted that we were engaged in such filthy talk (I was probably about 11 at the time), and insisted on moving to the other end of the table to get away from the vulgarity. Obviously the nudidity talk then subsided on the side she had left and picked up on side she had moved to.

So by posting this, I'm just moving to the other side of the table to get away from the post below.

2007-11-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

Brain dump

That's probably the most disgusting expression in English that is not sexual or intentionally scatalogical. I also hate the expression "pick your brain" (which makes me think of an ice-pick murder or of using a toothpick to get someone's brain grisle out of your teeth), but I don't even want to talk about "brain dump" -- just too too revolting.

2007-11-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

Um, how about a Petsmart gift card instead?

Bean spends much of her day monitoring, catlike, sidewalk traffic from a deep windowsill behind our couch. I put a filthy bit of fleece there for her but it was, obviously, really ugly. Yesterday I made what I think is a cute little bed for her perch:

She definitely prefers the ugly fleece. The tentative inspection:

Lying on it solely in exchange for a treat:

Pretending she's sort of OK with it:

I put it down lower so she could get used to it:

I'll try taking out more of the stuffing so it maybe feels a little bit more stable. I mean, I know dogs are pretty change-averse, but honestly.

2007-11-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

But what about that time he challenged Billie Jean King to a boxing match?

The day before he died, I was actually thinking of writing Norman Mailer a letter. I'm slogging through the very long middle of the Executioner's Song and, two nights before he died, had a dream about him. I think maybe the dream went something the way a real-life meeting with him might. I was showing him around what I guess was literally my dream house. He remarked brusquely and boastfully, sort of hiking up his little pants, that all the beds in the house were too short. I said that my boyfriend was 6'3" and was OK with them. Then we sat around talking about Norman Mailer. He said he was still in touch with Gary Gilmore and I was genuinely impressed, not finding it problematic that Gilmore was executed decades ago. At some point he started to sidle up to me and I knew he was about to make his move. I was kind of grossed out but thought, well, it's Norman Mailer and that's kind of funny. Then J came home and we all sat around talking about how weird it was that he was Norman Mailer.

In any case, we were thinking I should write him a letter to let him know that the ladies were still dreaming of him.

2007-11-04T11:54:00.001-08:00

Chartrooze charmooze

A couple years ago I bought a toggle coat ("please look after this bear") on supersale at Barneys. I thought I would eventually get over the fact that its hood was lined with rabbit fur, but I ended up wearing it only twice, both times cringing the whole time and imagining that PETA activists lurked around every corner and that I would have to quickly explain to them that I was a vegetarian who bought the coat in spite of the fur not because of it before they dumped a bucket of pigs' blood on me. (Yes, yes, imaginary PETA activists, I know, the coat itself is wool, but that only tortures and maims the animal rather than killing it -- that's better, right?. And yes, I do realize my shoes are leather. But christ, whatev!)

Despite the hood of bunny death and the constant threat of pigs' blood, I did love the coat, so I decided to swap out the hood lining. Fur removal in action:

I then used the fur as a pattern to make a new lining out of chartreuse charmeuse that I got at Fishman's Fabrics (yes, I do realize that silk is bad too):

I've worn the coat more in the past month of warm weather than I did in the past two or three winters. Sorry, bunnies!

2007-11-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

Dear My Blog,
Baby, baby, baby -- it's been so long, too long. I've been busy, but I've been thinking about you the whole time -- truth. It's just all this crazy shit that went down. It's not you -- it's me. I'm sorry, baby, I'll do better. We'll make sweet boom till the break of boom and it'll all be all right -- alright -- once again. That's a promise, from me to you.
TLF,
O*O

2007-10-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

Eurotopia

We've just installed the ultragroovy Laundry Lift. Now all of my H&M and Target clothes can dry in European-inspired comfort:

It's completely awesome -- it really is.

2007-09-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

Ta da!

I suppose of the deadly sins, pride in having finally painted our bathroom is pretty harmless. But I suppose that's what makes all of my showboating so sad.

Here it is, Benjamin Moore's Aura eggshell in "Marilyn's Dress."

It's really crazy how hard it is to paint a bathroom -- I really had no idea. The molding -- in "Atrium White" -- added to the difficulty.

Check out the supersweet doll with the Princess Leia hair from Susi and Maya -- eyes open on one side and closed on the other. And here is a close-up of the incredible tube boxes that are in the orange cabinet. They came inside tube cases (used for tool and project-parts storage) from ebay.

I wanted to paint the walls "Bunny Gray," but I realized that I was drawn to that largely of the name. The name "Marilyn's Dress" is so stupid that I think it demonstrates my maturity that I was able to pick it.

2007-09-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

Valderi

I made this backpack specifically for use while riding my bike. It's based (like practically every bag I make) on a Lotta Jansdotter Simple Sewing pattern. The outer fabrics come from vintage kimonos and the lining is heavy white denim. It has lots of little details that are I think are crazily clever, but it's also missing some things I should have included originally, but I somehow never seem to care enough to add them.

Clever:
- Braided self-loops inside the main compartment and one of the small pockets to which I hook my keys and other hookable things
- The large rear pockets are the perfect size to hold all the things I need easily accessible (my work security card, my bike lights, etc.)
- The smallest pockets are the perfect size to hold my cell phone (but I never use them for that because I'm not fully confident it won't fall out and I never use my phone anyway)
- The long center pocket on the bottom holds pens fairly well
- Between the kimono fabric and the denim is a plastic layer I took from a poncho so it's largely waterproof.
- The braided straps are asymmetrical, which serves no purpose, but I like the look.

Not clever:
- Although that one outer pocket holds pens OK, I really should make a panel attached to the top that would have lots of pen compartments and maybe compartments for my phone and my wallet.
- It should really have a waterproof panel that somehow snaps or velcros the hole at the top shut when it rains so that the bag is entirely waterproof.

2007-09-12T17:21:00.001-07:00

Note to self:

The top I'm imagining making uses silk kimono fabric and cotton tape. Most of the seams will have the tape, secured with rectangular X's at each end. Somewhere along the front (either above or below the bustline) will be a series of small knife pleats with a box pleat in the center. A wide bias self-tape with the cotton tape on top will go across the pleats in the middle so they're not blowsy and unflattering. Or maybe experiment with having the pleats on the sides instead, with a fairly tight tape across (connecting with snaps or velcro so you can put it on without other fasteners) in order to show the waistline. This whole look may be impossibly unflattering, but I could also make it as a tunic so it would be more drapey/flowy. Hmm. But try it short first.

2007-09-12T15:16:00.001-07:00

Stockholm Syndrome

We used to have one of these toilet paper holders in red. We could never figure out how to affix it to the wall, and eventually it fell off of the toilet tank and broke. I still miss the friendly paper-spewing smile of our robot overlord.

2007-09-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

to do

August 2 list revisited:

-- Completed:
- paint bed wall a sunny, not-too-buttery light yellow
- paint bed a laquery dark gray
- make mondo gray pillow (white leather piping)
- reupholster hairpin footstool in mondo gray with white leather piping [I decided against the piping]
- make alphabet apron and patches [I decided against the patches]
- finish white leather wine bag
- get new computer and transfer photos from old one

-- In the middle of:
- make striped apron and patches [but I won't make the patches]

-- Way down the list, if on it at all:
- spray-paint bean's sticks bright green, hang above bed on little nails
- paint ikea deep boxes, mount fake butterflies, typed cursive latinate labels; or
maybe use big evidence frame instead, no boxes? no, probably not
- will i ever learn to crochet?
- will i ever sew-draw a portrait of a walrus?
- what goes into that weird mirror frame?

New list:

-- Things still on list from last time:
- paint bathroom light gray
- reupholster drafting stool in white leather
- make camera bag (what fabric? kimono? ikea? superbuzzy?) [now I'll use old neoprene computer bag]
- make mittens from felted brown sweater [but now I think it will be a hat instead]
- refashion felted gray sweater into cropped cardigan
- shorten brown cashmere cardigan
- learn to use my camera
- refashion veruca t-shirt

-- New:
- Reline hood of toggle coat
- Repair vintage suede coat
- Make pants from kimono
- Make computer bag
- In the near or distant future: Yohji Yamamoto crazy mystery shrug
- Learn to do weird textury fabric manipulations
- Hang pictures of presidents and prime ministers
- Hang Sitzmoebile piece
- Hang drying rack
- Make some sort of interesting Japanese-ish top using kimono fabric, basic Butterick pattern, and fabric manipulation technique
- Research serger, eventually buy one
- Find interesting, superlight road bike frame for fixie conversion
- Think about light touring bike -- Electra Amsterdam, men's Classic 3, minus the skirt guard?
- Research clothing/supplies for riding bike in winter
- Choose and buy spray paint for lamp (Montana Spain probably, or, less appealing, Montana Germany from Blick)
- Paint lamp -- light turquoise-ish, or maybe something graphic (geometric, not like, porn) in orange and white

2007-09-09T12:31:00.001-07:00

Mondomaniacal

I'm totally in love with mondo black fabric from reprodepot and have finished making a pillow and reupholstering a footstool out of it. The pillow has white leather piping (oh my god that's hard). I was going to put similar piping on the footstool but decided it was better to be smoother and cleaner (and oh my god that would have been hard).

The pillow:

The footstool:

Both, in situ:

2007-09-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

Great Wednesdays in History, Volume 1: November 8, 2006

On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, it became clear that the Democrats had trounced the Republicans in the midterm elections and were poised -- pending a couple still-contested races -- to take over both houses. Also on that day, Donald Rumsfeld finally resigned, after the imprisonment, torture, and/or deaths of untold thousands shocked and awed but failed to secure his legacy as the author of a new, easier form of war. Finally, on Wednesday, November 8, 2006, the Times published Mark Bittman's article on no-knead bread.

There's really nothing I can add to the discussion of the midterm elections, the Rumsfeld follies, or no-knead bread. Still, in the ten months since the recipe was published we've made at the very least 50 loaves of it (a loaf a week, often two, and missed only a couple weeks). Each time we take a new loaf out of the oven we say "A.L.L." -- another lovely loaf. That's A.L.L.:

2007-09-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

My First Wine Bag

That's the name of the children's book I'm writing. Well, no. But here it is:

It's a little bit too narrow (you could never carry white wine in it, e.g.) and pretty messily made, but I love the pattern. It's from a vintage kimono, but what sort of groovy do you have to be to wear a kimono like that?

2007-09-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Not for Sale

For some reason I just remembered this amazing dress Cat Chow made several years ago, constructed of 1000 $1 bills donated to her by 1000 people (including me):

It's displayed with a list of the names of the 1000 donors and is called Not for Sale. Her work requires such painstaking, highly skilled craftship and she creates these amazing well-formed pieces of clothing that manage to gracefully convey a "message" (something art usually does so clumsily and which I normally think is stupid and pointless). For instance, she's made wedding dresses called "Bonded" out of a single piece of 100-foot long coiled zipper:

This dress is made from measuring tape:

And here is a picture of Cat (real name Catherine) wearing it:

She has just scads of other amazing things, like chainmail made of not just shredded dollars, but also of photographic slides and of snaps joined together by little metal rings. And look at the form of these dresses:

I always just make things to solve a problem -- way way way more craft than art. It just blows my mind the way people use traditional crafting techniques and ideas to make real art. I mean, yes, of course, I know that craft-making is seen as less than art-making because the former was typically done by women and considered the latter only when done by men and that maybe it's inherently anti-woman to draw the distinction. But look at those fucking dresses!

2007-09-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

nancypants

I'm totally inspired by the long metal zipper on this tunic from Acne Jeans:

I think to work, though, it really does have to be on a piece like that, which is likely to look really sack-like or very little-girl-play-clothes-ish on me. Still, maybe something good could come of that zipper for me.

I have plans to make my first pair of pants ever. I want something wide-legged, but no so wide I can't use fabric from old kimonos, and easy enough that it won't turn me off of sewing pants completely. I think my first pair will be these pants, from a free Burdastyle pattern:

Those are wide but still narrow enough to use a kimono. I'm also interested in trying these, from an out-of-print pattern I got from LanetzLiving.

The pleats and interfacing on these might place them out of my league for now. Also, I'm not sure they won't look like a pair of pants I bought at Urban Outfitters a billion years ago and recently made into cut-offs because the drawstring bottom was just too too goofy.

2007-08-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Another fabulous use for refashioned sweater trimmings:

I mean, I'll never learn to knit and would instead attach old sweater/scarf/mitten trimmings to thrift store or Forever 21 bangles (or, far preferably, cuffs) using a glue gun, and these, from Yarborough Jewelry, are clearly beautifully purpose-knit. Still, I love the idea of figuring out how to make something inspired by these in my own half-assed glue-gunned way.

[via dearada.typepad.com]

2007-08-26T17:56:00.001-07:00

Are you there God? It's me, Fern.

So far I've made two things for my mom, who's extremely crafty (I never tire of bragging that one of her quilts won a blue ribbon at the Michigan State Fair, though part of the reason I like talking about it is that it makes it seem that I had a far more Charlotte's Web-style childhood than I did). She taught me how to sew ages ago and gave me a sewing machine for Christmas last year. Despite her generally critical nature and high standards for craftship, she's a good gift recipient and kindly overlooks all the flaws and mistakes.

I just finished making her this apron, which she hasn't received yet:

For an apron it's kind of pedantic, what with the letters and yardsticks and all. It's from reprodepot, but they're out of this fabric now. I like how clean and odd it is. The yardstick straps are from the trim that ran along each edge of the fabric for some reason.

For Mother's Day I made her the garden tote from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing book. The outside fabric comes from a vintage kimono and the yellow gingham lining is from Joann's. There's also a heavy white denim layer between the kimono and the gingham to make it stronger because I can't stand the feel of flimsy homemade bags. My dad took these photos:

I'm really happy with how the bag turned out (it was hard to think of the best ways to use the kimono pattern). I love searching flickr for photos tagged "jansdotter" because there are all sorts of photos of things people have made from her book (including some really lovely and humbling versions of this bag). I'm thinking of making the sunhat next, but I'm a bit afraid I'd look like a dowdy baby with accelerated decrepitude or like Laura Ingalls if she took up golf (it's kind of a modern bonnet).

2007-08-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Oh! La vache (et les bison)

This tent reminds me of the first time I ever camped (other than in my parents' backyard):

We camped at the "primitive" site in the Badlands -- amazing. South Dakota is far from my favorite state (awfully regressive hate-based politics), but the southwestern corner is one my favorite regions in the U.S. (and not solely because I love those fuckin Deadwood cocksuckers; the Badlands, the Crazy Horse memorial, and Mt. Rushmore are totally underrated. No, that's not right: I mean, they're very well-rated, but I was surprised by how stunned I was by each -- expectations were low because accolades were so high [and often so goofy] and yet, I felt genuinely amazed, touched, awed, humbled by each). In any case, when we were at the Badlands there was a crazy windstorm that looked like it might become a cah-raaaazy thunderstorm, and we were kind of scared of staying there, in the open plain. (Luckily we had Ambien ["Campien" by the end of the trip] so the fact that our tent was nearly torn off of us by the wind wasn't as disturbing as it otherwise might have been.)

When we woke in the morning all was calm and cool and still, but there was this weird springing squeaky noise, almost like someone was jumping on the bumper of an old car. We looked out of the tent and a huge male bison was just a few feet away, hurtling himself at a horse-hitching post, trying to scratch an itch. Throughout the open, barren campsite were several more solitary male bison(s?) (exactly the sort all of the signs all over the Badlands urged you to steer [get it?] way, way clear of). They were sniffing around, rolling around, hanging around. No one was trampled or gored and the entire scene was completely magical. If I got this cow tent I could have a similar experience but with out so much nature and crap (though actually I really do love all that nature and crap).

(As a needless aside: Although I may lust in my heart, I would never be unfaithful to my Orla Kiely dome tent, which I love love love and can't wait to use on a little weekend camping trip/Farnsworth House visiting trip soon.)

(Photos via matejewski.com via, indirectly, the Times)

2007-08-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Cold Lampin

This used to be the most perfect pendant lamp (until it became both expensive and unavailable [which I guess is like complaining about the small portions of bad food -- what do I care if it's expensive if I can't get it anyway?]), and I superwanted it for above our table:

It's the Caravaggio P4 by Cecilie Manz, and it's huge -- 700 mm (27.5 inches) tall and 550 mm (21.6 inches) across. When I ordered it, it was only $395 -- not Ikea but way less than anything else. But the UL approval process that's apparently required for sales in the US is stalled, and the prices seem to keep going up -- I think it's set to be like $700-$950 or so once it's finally sold here. Now that I've seen this lamp, though, all the salvaged/industrial solutions seem so, I don't know, coarse and dirty or something, and all our homemade ideas seem so messy and amateurish, and every other new lamp seems so slick and soulless. Who do you have to blow to get some light above your dinner around here?

2007-08-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

To do [or at least think about]:

- Bag for camera: For the camera bag I think I'll use an Etsuko Fuyura fabric, maybe turquoise honeycomb, but I'm also interested in working with burlap and felt, so I might make a burlap bag lined with moss-colored felt. A zipper would look silly on burlap and a grommet wouldn't work well, so I'll probably fashion some kind of button closure if I do that (I think a drawstring would look too rustic, but maybe it would be just right).

- Computer sleeve: I'm not sure what I'll do for the computer sleeve. I made a leather one with a fleece inner lining for a friend recently (photos to come; why do I never take pictures of things that I make before I give them away?) that I was pretty happy with, but I might end up using burlap and felt for this instead.

- New backpack or bag: I almost never take the train to work anymore, but today promises to be a bit stormy, so I left my bike at home. One of the pleasures of taking the train (besides about 40 extra minutes of reading each day) was always walking past the shop windows on Damen (though they don't change them nearly often enough). Now I go past them so rarely the displays are always new to me, which is somehow satisfying. Today there was a sort of good bag (when will I learn to bring my camera with me?) in the window of a shop that I think is totally off in every way(shoddy, goofy). I had seen something like it before (where?) but it didn't occur to me then that I could sew something similar. It was a leather bag with sort of inverted pleats of fabric, with a grommeted drawstring closure. It could maybe be a backpack (esp. since I almost never carry a shoulder bag), but I'm not sure -- and also, been using way too much leather (even though it's only remnants -- I swear to god!).

But at least I'm crossing things off of my old to do list:
- I finished the wine bag (photos below)
- I'm nearly done making the alphabet apron
- I'm nearly done painting the bed dark gray
- I've bought a new computer and am nearly done transferring photos from the old one (I'm sure I'm making the process a blillion times harder than it has to be.)

2007-08-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Tour de Pants
(There's really no reason to call this entry "Tour de Pants." I mean, it does deal with biking and and it does mention the peloton, but I only thought of pants because peloton reminds me of pantalon, and, well, there's this place in France . . .)

About two months ago we were riding our bikes to a byo restaurant and I carried wine in a bag I had made, slung over my shoulder. My mind is still blown by bike riding. It feels just as liberating now as it did when I was 7 and the only way I had to get anywhere quickly on my own. I started riding regularly only this summer, but a day I can't ride to work is a day that sucks. I mean, I ride a 40-year-old three-speed, I'm not in particularly good shape, and the only people I pass tend to be homeless-seeming people tooling around apparently aimlessly, but still, I frequently fantasize I'm in some sort of peloton of one.

But the bag I was carrying that night wasn't ideal for wine, and as we were riding to the restaurant (Bite; riding side by side in the cool wind on quiet dark summer side streets) I was thinking about creating a messenger-type bag specifically for carrying wine while riding bikes to byo restaurants or parties. I found in Lotta Jansdotter's excellent book Simple Sewing a pattern for a bag for a yoga mat:

I used the basic yoga bag pattern, but changed the proportions and a few other things to make it into a wine bag. My first attempt worked fairly well (though I haven't made photos of it yet). I used fabric from a vintage kimono in a weird sort of Miro-ish pattern, but the proportions were somewhat off. My next one, which I brought as a gift to friends we stayed with in Philadelphia, was pretty successful, and I used the same kimono fabric. My third iteration of the bag was my first project using leather. I was going for mod, but given my general impatience and my inexperience with leather, it came out more rough-hewn, so I've sort of tried to convince myself that rough-hewn was, in fact, what I had been going for all along.

I think the proportions of this one are about right. I like the way I attached the strap to the bag and the D-ring to the strap as well as the little pocket I made for the wine key:

It also fits two bottles of beer (and probably two Soda-Club bottles), but it's too narrow for a standard Nalgene bottle. More bags to come, maybe: I'm thinkng about a double-barrelled bag and one that could somehow carry a six-pack, but that would probably involve a different paradigm.

2007-08-09T15:33:00.001-07:00

Members Only

I've just joined Soda-Club, which for some reason I always think of as Soda Club International (more classy for sure that way). Well, not really joined, but I bought one of these soda makers:

It carbonates water! On my countertop! I've broken free of San P.'s chains (imported mineral water being the opiate of the masses and whatnot). I mean, you just use Britta'd tap water et voila -- this machine shoots fucking air into it. It's awesome. The chargers fill a hundred bottles and they're refillable, which is perfect, what with the planet and all.

2007-08-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Bean sings this every morning:

All the little dogs say good morning.
And the bigger dogs say good morning.
And all the dogs say good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.

2007-08-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

The fact that I use only remnants makes it OK, right?*

Although I still buy leather shoes, using a leather bag just feels like reaching into the body of a lifeless animal with its guts scooped out. But why, then, is sewing with leather so awesome? Cutting the skins with my sharp Gingher scissors nauseates me -- it's way too fluid and easy. It reminds me of when I sliced a chunk out of the fleshy part of my left index finger without feeling any resistance in the scissors, without even noticing -- until I saw my dead tissue stuck to the stainless steel blade as blood ran down my hand. eeeewwwww. Sewing with leather is like reading Kathryn Harrison -- visceral.

Not only is it gross, sewing with leather is hard because all of the little needle punctures remain after you make a mistake, so you really can't make a mistake. Back to the grossness, this is also gross, because I imagine sewing through living skin and having blood emerge from each puncture. And I think of Ed Gein and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Also, it's hard to maneuver leather through my sewing machine, and sewing it by hand is impossible and also gross.

But white leather is so groovy. And in working with it I've begun to appreciate all the things about leather that people have loved forever: its heft and its drape and its flaws and the ways it evolves and even the fact that it's skin. [eeeewwww]

In any case, along with my preexisting plans to reupholster the drafting chair in white leather and to experiment with leather piping on a fabric pillow and a fabric-covered hairpin-legged foot stool [did I just write "hairpin-legged foot"?], I'm totally inspired by the simple rawness of these pieces from http://truck-furniture.co.jp/, which, somehow, honors the beauty and horror of the material:

Also, this is the fabric I'm using to make a pillow and reupholster the footstool:

(It's mondo black from reprodepot: http://reprodepot.com/mondoblack.html; not really simple nor raw at all.)

* I'm writing this while I have two deep, long, infected cuts on my leg from a retractable dog leash. The constant awareness of a painful gaping wound contributes, at least partly, to the gruesome physicality today, I think.

2007-08-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

If she were a St. Bernard she would be Camper van Beethoven.

Bean with my Orla Kiely tent.

2007-08-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

Don't forget: washers as sequins.

2007-08-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

disappearing

yesterday I went to work without my security card, and Dora, a secretary, was sitting at the front desk in lieu of Dawn, the receptionist. I knocked on the glass door so she would let me in, and she indicated that I should pick up the phone outside the door and call her desk. Um, OK. I called her and asked to be buzzed in, and she asked me who I was there to see. I said that I worked there and she buzzed me in.

today I was riding my bike to a doctor's appointment for my retractable-leash wounds, and I passed someone I know (barely, but I saw him two days ago). I said, "Hey, Harvey." He said hello but clearly had no idea who I was.

then, in the hallway outside the doctor's office, which was in one of the Northwestern Hospital buildings on LSD, I ran into someone I knew from law school. I said hello and asked him what he was up to. He said that he was working at "a law firm downtown." Dude, I could tell that by your shirt. I asked him which one. He said Kirkland, in a tone suggesting that I might not be familiar with it. He then asked me if I had ridden to work, as though he thought I worked at the hospital.

2007-08-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

I would prefer not to.

If Bartleby the Scrivener were a children's book about a dumbo octopus it would be called the Obstinate Octopus. Of course the octopus would refuse to go to school rather than refusing to leave work, but it would be the same idea.

(from thedeepbook.org, via book-by-its-cover.com)

2007-08-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

loldog

I was going to get a blog for Bean called bmho.blogspot.com. We always imagine that she has a blog that has a million entries reading, "Saw the dachshunds on their deck again. BMHO! BMHO! BMHO!"

The dachshunds are her archenemies and BMHO = bark my head off.

Instead, though, bmho.blogspot.com is a dead blog by a German(?) whose headline reads "suche frau fürs leben u zum kennenlernen." Even to my nicht-deutsch ears this is barely literate, but I think it means something like "looking for a woman for life [living?] to get to know." Actually, if Bean spoke German that's probably the kind of grammar she'd use ("IM IN UR BLOG KENNENLERNEN UR FRAULEINZ").

2007-08-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

to do [exhaustive edition]

- spray-paint bean's sticks bright green, hang above bed on little nails
- paint bed wall a sunny, not-too-buttery light yellow
- paint bed a laquery dark gray
- paint bathroom light gray
- make mondo gray pillow (white leather piping)
- reupholster hairpin footstool in mondo gray with white leather piping
- reupholster drafting stool in white leather
- make alphabet apron and patches
- make striped apron and patches
- finish white leather wine bag
- paint ikea deep boxes, mount fake butterflies, typed cursive latinate labels; or maybe use big evidence frame instead, no boxes? no, probably not
- make camera bag (what fabric? kimono? ikea? superbuzzy?)
- make mittens from felted brown sweater
- refashion felted gray sweater into cropped cardigan
- shorten brown cashmere cardigan
- will i ever learn to crochet?
- will i ever sew-draw a portrait of a walrus?
- what goes into that weird mirror frame?
- learn to use my camera
- get new computer and transfer photos from old one
- refashion veruca t-shirt

2007-08-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

A running [queue] list of lazy twitches*

- Frankly
- To be honest
- Regular readers know
- For those who don't know
- For those who are curious
- As a matter of fact
- In the first place
- See,
- Ah, but
- Let's face it
- Literally [to mean figuratively]
- Legitimately [to mean genuinely]
- Profoundly [to mean very]
- Actually [to mean nothing]
- When all is said and done
- After all
- WHEW!

* An attempt to empty my head of the spastic linguistic ticks of a blogger who cannot be named (due to his excessive self-googling) but whom I've been reading -- with great care and exasperation -- for nearly 10 years.

2007-07-26T17:50:00.000-07:00

Choodle Choodle Choodle!!!