Basket of Apples

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket!

Autumn has arrived, featuring wind-driven rains interspersed with crisp sunlight, and a marked drop in temperature. It is time for sitting indoors, reading and knitting – and for the occasional bracing walk to feel the weather. It is time for scarves and woollen socks and gloves and mitts.

I went out picking apples yesterday (during a spot of sunshine) for a new batch of mashed apples; during August, we got a whole bunch of apples from my parents’ tree, and especially Victor became very fond of apple mash. So, when the supplies ran low, something had to be done. Around here are several apple trees that belong to no-one in particular, and I could just go and gather a basket full of apples to cook.

The process of preparing this treat is simple, if somewhat time-consuming, and the finished product sits nicely in the freezer until you want it, for a dessert, layer cake filling, or just with oatmeal.

Mashed apples

Step one: wash and peel apples.

Step two: slice apples and put them in a cooking pot.

Step three: add water, appx 250 ml, with juice of 1 lemon. This can conveniently be done at once, to minimise oxidation.

Step four: cook apples, with appx 80 grams of sugar (1 decilitre) per kilo of sliced apple. Stir and mash apples a bit, if they don’t go mushy by themselves.

Step five: cool and enjoy!

Easy, right? And you can stick a book in your ear – or a podcast – while doing the peeling & slicing.

I filled up my big pot with 2½ kilos of apples and still had quite a few left over from the basketful; so there is more apple mashing for me in the foreseeable future. Might as well stock up before winter.

Apart from the fruity frolics, I have been teaching my undergraduates; in one of my two classes are a couple of repeat offenders, who enjoy telling me what they learned last year and how it was done. So they need be shown – nicely, of course – that a different way of, say, explaining Latin grammar is not necessarily wrong. The language was there first, and all the rules of grammar are attempts to describe the language, not hard-and-fast rules like the laws of nature.

I’m hoping that at some point they will mature into appreciating that a different teacher, a different learner’s book, and a different grammar are an advantage to them, because they get a whole new experience and a chance to explore new facets of the models for language.

We’ll see.

The Knitting

I haven’t got nearly enough interesting knitting to report on this week; there has been a bit of sock knitting on a design that I hope to get into Defarge 3, and that, of course, is very interesting, but I can’t show you just yet.

And then some straight up – or rather, straight down – work on my Leaf cardigan.

This is the adult version of the Laura cardigan, made in black light fingering weight cotton on 2.5 mm needles, so it’s taking a while. I am currently on the stretch down from below the body-sleeve-divide towards the lace border, and it is merely back and forth in almost plain stocking stitch. But I am getting close to the lacy part – so next week, I should have a photo of something more exciting than this.

It feels like it’s taking forever, even though I know it isn’t; I’m feeling the reduction in knitting time due to work, and that, combined with slightly boring knitting, is making me a bit impatient.

I did get a good chunk done yesterday, though, while chatting; my friend Aviâja had the usual suspects over for her birthday celebration, so the five of us got a chance to catch up, which was lovely.

And now I can show you the last of my purchases from the fair last weekend, as it was a birthday present: lusciously soft worsted weight silk yarn from Karen Noe, named Sitara. It doesn’t appear in the Ravelry database, so I may have to go over and add it.

I even lured Aviâja over to the dark side and had her make a Rav profile – mwahahahaha!

The Books

As I have mentioned before, I am, intermittently, listening to A Tale for the Time Being by the Japanese-Canadian Ruth Ozeki, read by the author herself.

The story takes off with the Japanese-Canadian novelist Ruth finding on the beach near her home in British Columbia a washed-up freezer bag than turns out to contain, among other things, a diary written by a 16-year old Japanese girl, Naoko or Nao (no coincidence that it sounds like ‘now’).

Ruth is gripped by curiosity, starts reading the diary and tries to investigate the persons and events described or referred to in it; so the narrative is divided between Ruth (and her husband, Oliver) and Nao’s reflections in the diary.

Quite apart from the contents and language of the novel, which are fascinating for so many reasons, the reading itself is brilliant. The author of course knows her story, but not only that: she has separate voices for Ruth and for Nao, and her command of accents is impressive.

One example: Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu plays a part in the tale; the Japanese teenager Nao butchers the title, pronouncing temps as [tamps], while Ruth has a marked Canadian English accent, but knows to not pronounce the ending of the word. At some point, Ruth enlists the help of a French speaker – and the French part of his dialogue is spoken in proper French, while his English is accented.

Similarly (okay, then, two examples), Nao’s great-grandmother Jiko speaks English with a distinct Japanese accent, when she doesn’t speak Japanese. And the Buddhist prayers are chanted, not just spoken.

So, all in all, the audio version of this book is highly recommendable – I believe that the reading aloud adds to the immediacy and richness of the story.

Speaking of reading aloud, the flock of sheep who make up the main characters in Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, the September group read in the Ravelry group on Goodreads, love being read to. Their murdered shepherd, George – the finding of his dead body is what starts off the novel, so it is no spoiler – used to read to them, and a significant part of their knowledge of the human world comes from these books: the ‘Pamela’ novels (trashy romance), a detective story that was never finished, and a book about the diseases of sheep.

I greatly enjoyed this book – I always like seeing the world from a different perspective, and the way the sheep make up their own, internally coherent, explanations for everything they encounter, is brilliantly done.

A couple of intertextual references appear, nuggets for CraftLit listeners – among these a hugely fat, clever, cynical, grey ram named Fosco.

And once again: the reader of the Audible version, Hugh Lee, does a magnificent job.

Recently, I picked up on Amazon a QuickReads book, a novella by Conn Iggulden titled Quantum of Tweed. Iggulden is mainly known for historical novels, among these the Emperor series that is sitting neglected on my bookshelf; this is a bite-sized story of a middle-aged temporary career change from the sartorial to the mercenary. Fun and ironical, not too deep, but good enough.

That’s all, folks – short & sweet this time, but I will be back next week. Until then: have a great time, take care of yourselves and each other, and happy knitting!

Knits, knits, knits

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket! 

This week, we have a lot of knitting talk, and some book talk. I have been writing my August microstory and done some pattern writing, as well.

So, school has started – Monday morning saw all of the naught-to-ninth graders back, including a very tired Victor who had to go more or less straight from four intense days of music to the everyday humdrum of school.

Thomas, being a third-year of the gymnasium now, had a few rituals to follow: it appears that they have to party on the night before the first day of school, and that the first-years need hazing – just a bit, and the school has forbidden the customary throwing of water on the poor kids. Only glitter is allowed, which of course kept no-one from carrying cans of spray-on hair dye as well. So, for a couple of days, the streets of Viborg (and many other places, I’m sure) saw a lot of young people sporting uncharacteristically multi-coloured hair. And glitter.

The Knitting

This week, the knitting section includes advertising!

In the interest of full disclosure: I heard about this on CraftLit – so if you’re a listener, you know already – and this chat earns me a spot in the giveaway. So, I have not seen this book in real life, but obviously, I hope to get a copy. Anyway, here goes:

The lovely Andi Smith, a.k.a. knitbrit on Ravelry, has made a gorgeous sock book for everybody whose feet are not standard-sized. Which means, well, everybody.

The title of the book is Big Foot Knits, but it is really for big feet, little feet, wide feet, narrow feet, large ankles, long ankles, skinny legs, fat muscular calves – like me! – and everything in between, in whatever combination of features YOU have. So, if you knit socks, for yourself or others, this is a book for you.

The book contains a method for measuring, calculating, &c, to make the sock fit the foot exactly. You can rest assured, too, that the explanations are straightforward and thorough: Andi has a child with autism and thus a LOT of practice in breaking down complex explanations into manageable bites (believe me, I know the drill ...).

And all of the 12 pretty sock patterns are named for goddesses – how can you not love that!

So, let’s see if I get a copy – otherwise I’ll just have to shell out. Because I want this book.

Nice sockses, my precious.

And while we’re at it (advertising, that is): I finally published my lace shawl that I have been going on about for months, while knitting, writing, editing, fixing errors found by my sister, and knitting again.

So, I present to you the Bequin shawl:

The name hails from a book, the Eisenhorn trilogy – or to be precise, the first book in that trilogy – by Dan Abnett. I have mentioned these books before: they belong in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, where ‘there is only war’ against Chaos, fought by the representatives of the God-Emperor of Terra.

The story is that the Imperial Inquisitor Eisenhorn picks up a pleasure girl – not for his pleasure, mind you, as part of a case – and soon after that, she accompanies him on an undercover job, dressed in a porcelain blue dress and a cream-lace shawl.

Of course, my first thought was if this shawl was knitted and how it may look.

It wasn’t chosen by the girl, Alizebeth Bequin, but inherited from Eisenhorn’s partner Lores Vibben who is killed in the first scene of the book. So, which kind of lace shawl would an Imperial Inquisitor (or Inquisitrix) choose for herself? Nothing frilly or even remotely doily-like; feminine but cool. Hence the regular stitch pattern, the parallel lines of the faggoting, set into the geometric shapes.

It may have a complicated look, but it is really quite simple to knit, a succession of yarnovers paired with decreases.

And it seems to be popular on Ravelry – relatively, nowhere near Hitchhiker or Color Affection level, but still.

I’m pleased, anyway.

The birthday knit for Laura is done and delivered; it is now Sunday evening, and I am posting pictures on Ravelry and here of the Laura cardigan:

Now, before you shout at me for being lazy and not coming up with a hobbit name, let me hasten to inform you that Laura is, in fact, the name of Bilbo Baggins’ paternal grandmother.

Laura had wished for – among other things – 20 Barbie dolls; I found her a beach girl and decided that she would need more clothes, wearing only a bikini. The two other Barbies she got are accompanied by horses and dressed accordingly. The beach Barbie, though, has bigger a.k.a. more natural feet, which I am quite pleased with.

Ravelry has, not surprisingly, lots of doll clothes, including links to a Swedish site, stickatillbarbie.se, featuring more than 1,000 outfits, all for free. The patterns are generally available in Swedish, English, Danish, German, French and some in even more languages.

I ended up devising something matching the cardigan.

Maybe Barbie will need something for everyday wear, too – apart from ball gowns and riding clothes.

The Books

I am still reading the Philippic speeches of Cicero along with The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough.

This last century of the Republic was bloody to an extent that can be hard to fathom. Cicero mentions in one of his speeches from 43 BCE that he has lived through five civil wars: three in the 80’s, the one between Caesar and Pompey in the early 40’s, and this one between Marcus Antonius and the Senate. The clashes back in the 80’s between Sulla and Sulpicius, Cinna and Octavius, Marius and Sulla, had their origin in part in the war of the Italian Allies in the 90’s, and all entailed proscriptions of thousands of Roman senators and knights.

And some of the troubles with the Italian Allies sprang from their dissatisfaction with the Roman habit of enlisting men for the legions, more and more forcibly, to fight on various fronts: Africa, Spain, the Germans who struck terror into the hearts of all Romans – and for good reason. Before 100 BCE, Italia had almost run out of men; farms were left untended, widows struggled to feed fatherless children, while whole legions were cut down by barbaric hordes.

So, wars external and internal, the slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 73-71, bitter in-fighting among the upper class to protect their privileges against any homo novus, new man, who might come and claim his share of the power and glory. As Gaius Marius did, and later Cicero. And against any member of an old family who might challenge the wealth and possessions of the rich by giving some to the poor. As the brothers Gracchus did – they were both killed in action, so to speak, murdered while performing their duties as representatives of the People.

This was not an easy time.

Men bearing the same names crop up in both sets of events, the 100’s and 44-43 BCE; the younger ones being the sons or grandsons or nephews of the elder. The Roman habit of naming the eldest son after his father does not help a lot to avoid confusion. This is, of course, a lesson in itself: the same families were at the top of the political system for centuries on end, so of course the same few nomina gentis – family names – and cognomina – surnames – will appear multiple times within the turbulences of a single century.

Caecilius Metellus, Domitius Ahenobarbus, Julius Caesar, Aurelius Cotta, Cornelius Scipio, Claudius Appius, Aemilius Scaurus &c: all these names are found again and again, with only first names and maybe extra surnames to distinguish one from the other.

A note on names: girls in Roman families were designated as belonging to their family rather than having individual names. Thus, the aunts, the sisters, and the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar were all named Julia; Caesar’s mother was an Aurelia, daughter of Lucius Aurelius Cotta, and girls from the families mentioned above would be Caecilias and Cornelias and Claudias. Of course, they had nicknames; Marcus Junius Brutus’ youngest sister was known as Tertia, the third.

This apparent lack of individuality can seem shocking; but, as I mentioned before, boys were named for their fathers, and thus a family typically used two or maybe three names for their sons, generation after generation. The Caesars were Gaius, Sextus, or Lucius; the Antonius family used Marcus for centuries, until the actions of Marcus Antonius after the murder of Caesar (I wrote about some of these last week) made them decide never to use that first name again.

Indeed, there were so few names for boys that abbreviations were unambiguous: M. is always Marcus, C. is Gaius (because it was originally the Etruscan Caius), L. is Lucius, &c. Easy peasy.

While knitting lace this week, I listened to Great Tales from English History vol. II by Robert Lacey (no pun intended) and read by the author. This is – well, it pretty much does what it says on the tin: well-known, popular stories about historical persons and events are explained inside their historical framework. So, this is history made approachable by story-telling; the titles of chapters recall mnemonic rhymes, children’s stories, &c.

Thus ‘Divorced, Beheaded, Died’ and ‘Divorced, Beheaded, Survived’ are about, of course, the wives of Henry VIII; ‘Five-Eleven’ regards the actions of Guy Fawkes and his group – and so on.

Recently, I listened to an interview with the Japanese-Canadian writer Ruth Ozeki on the Guardian Books Podcast, about her book A Tale For the Time Being. This was a good way to have the book introduced, to get a feel for what it is before reading or listening to it.

A Japanese girl, Nao, writes a diary inside a ‘hacked’ copy of Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu – and the Japanese-Canadian writer Ruth finds the diary on the beach by her home in British Columbia.

The book is read by the author herself, which is often brilliant – one detail that I love is that neither Ruth nor Nao speak perfect French; but while Ruth merely pronounces the title of Proust’s book with an American accent, Nao rather butchers it.

I’m only a couple of hours into the 14-hour book, so there’s a lot I can’t discuss yet. But I like it.

Time is a central theme; Nao writes in her diary something like ‘I reach into the future to touch you [the reader], and you reach into the past to touch me’. Also, I’m guessing, it is no coincidence that the hacked book that is turned into a diary is about the search for lost time – all of which leads me to wonder about Nao’s name that does sound very much like ‘now’.

I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Well, this is it for this week! I do hope you have a great week; I will be back – on Saturday, next time, as the whole of my Sunday is booked.

Stay happy, stay healthy

Death To The Spies!

I am recuperating from quite a day yesterday: we had a big birthday party over at my parents’ house, with 32 people, family & friends. It was a shared or combined party: I turned 40 a few months back, and my mother will be 65 in a few days’ time. We had a lovely day, fabulous people all around, and the weather decided to play nice, so we could sit outside for lunch – which, in keeping with the Danish tradition, lasted about four hours. Both the lunch and the nice weather.

And, with wonderful people came wonderful presents; I got, among other things, a stack of books – and now I know how the amazon WishList works: very useful, that. When someone buys something from the list, it disappears, so you run no risk of doubles. This may be common knowledge, and my resident IT supporter, a.k.a. Andreas, said something like ‘well of course it does that’ – but I didn’t know before, and neither did the aunts & uncles who had done the shopping. You learn something new every day :o)

Anyway, the books are all about literature, writing, and language: On Writing by Stephen King, The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham, Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman, and The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco. So my kids will have to look after themselves for the next week or two.

As an extra, I got a copy of the Danish Language Society yearbook 2012, in which my friend George has an article on the meaning of the word marriage.

I also got a skein of – wait for it ... mink yarn: the Mimi from Lotus Yarns, a light fingering weight at 300 meters to 50 grams. I’ve read about mink yarn on Ravelry, but not until now seen it in person; it is sooo soft and lovely. I have a sneaking suspicion that it costs a fortune – but I’m not asking. I’ll be looking for just the right pattern; a scarf or a cowl, maybe. Oh, and did I mention it’s purple? My people know me well.

The Knitting

has all this week been about finishing the shawl for my mum in time for the birthday party. And I made it: the knitting was done by Thursday evening, then I soaked it over night and blocked on Friday. All ready for wrapping Saturday morning. Phew.

I am quite happy with it, if I may say so myself; so now I ‘only’ have to finish writing up the pattern. That part of the process is what feels like work: I enjoy the thinking out and the knitting (even, to some extent, the re-knitting to make it better), I don’t at all mind writing patterns and drawing charts – but writing out the rows in text is killing me.

But there you have it: I could, of course, choose to not do it; but I know that there are those knitters who have trouble with charts, so, as a public service, I’m doing both. Luckily, it’s a fairly simple pattern: all faggoting in geometric sections, so lots of straight lines and netting.

The Books

I’ve been messing with my own head this week, listening to and reading three books set each in its own alternate present world: The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Eyre Affair, and Rivers of London.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is fairly well-known: Henry travels in time, without any control of when he goes, or to which time and place. Claire grows up from the age of 6 with visits from the adult Henry; so when they finally meet in real time, when she is 20 and he is 28, she is delighted, while he has no idea who she is.

At first, I was somewhat crept out by Lolita associations: it seemed to me that this man in his 30’ and 40’s was grooming the little girl to be his future wife. The author, of course, is aware of this problem: Henry is aware of it, Claire several times points out that he couldn’t help it, that he didn’t choose, that she looked forward to every one of his next visits, &c. Humbert Humbert himself is explicitly mentioned a couple of times, as well.

However, as the story unfolds, I find myself drawn into it; and now that I am nearing the end, I want to know how it comes about – which makes the telling of it a success.

After Jane Eyre on CraftLit, the Ravelry group are having a read-along of Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while; at some point in my CraftLit catch-up Heather mentioned and praised Shades of Grey – and when I finally realised, after much wondering, that this had nothing to do with Fifty Shades of Grey (d’uh), I looked up Fforde and his work and decided that it was worth giving it a go. I saved it for after Jane Eyre, though – and I am glad I did.

Reviewers on Goodreads have wildly differing opinions: some enjoy it as much as I do, while others find it too much, too silly, too – everything. Our heroine is Thursday Next, a LiteraTec with the London police in a somewhat different 1985 than the one we remember; she fought in the ongoing Crimean War, has a pet dodo, and deals with the lucrative literary crime while warding off door-to-door Baconians trying to elicit sympathy for their armed struggle against Marlovians – because the underlying question, propping up in conversations through the book is who really wrote the works of Shakespeare? We get an unabashedly evil super villain, time travel, vampires & werewolves, a machine that can take you inside a poem – and characters with silly names. Great fun.

In another take on London, Peter Grant is a regular police constable – until he tries to interview a ghost about a murder. Soon, he finds himself the apprentice of the last magician in the police force and trying to – while solving the murder – work out the dispute between Mama Thames, who is Nigerian, for some reason, and Father Thames, who lives in a caravan camp highly reminiscent of the dwelling place of the a-constable-is-not-supposed-to-call-them-pikeys in the film Snatch. All the while avoiding being killed by the mysterious murdering force, or seduced by a sexy young brook named Beverley: a river in Southwest London and one of the daughters of Mama Thames.

The narrator of this Ben Aaronovitch novel, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, tends to sound like he’s slightly out of breath, which fits in with the narrative most of the time. There really is a lot going on in Peter Grant’s new life as a magic constable. Some readers prefer this series to the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher; I can’t tell yet, but I certainly do enjoy the London of it.

So, having mentioned Shakespeare, let’s move on to Amled (feel free to place this on your Worst Segues Ever list).

Last week, we saw Amled escape The Test of the Sexy Girl – while getting the girl. So, the stakes have to be raised; and we know what is coming: the interview with the mother, while a spy hides to listen.

SAXO: The Deeds of the Danes (Gesta Danorum)

Book 3, chapter 6

12                         In this manner the young man outsmarted all of them. No-one could find the key to his hidden intentions, and now one of Fenge’s friends who was conceited rather than cunning, declared that all these well-known tricks were not at all adequate to reveal such convoluted and crafty a wit. He had far too strong a will to fall for these easy trials, and against his complicated playacting it was therefore no use to employ facile temptations. He had now, he said, thought the matter over more deeply and found an intricate procedure that was not difficult to follow and would be extremely efficient in finding out what they wanted to know. Fenge had to take himself out of the way, claiming urgent business, and in the meantime Amled was to be shut in alone with his mother in her bedchamber, where, in advance, without the knowledge of either of them, a man would be placed who from a dark corner would listen carefully to what they had to say to each other. For if the son had the full use of his faculties he would not hesitate to speak openly to his mother, and not be afraid to confide in his parent. This man very eagerly proposed to himself take on the role of spy, so that it should not appear that he was only capable of thinking up plans, but not carrying them out. Fenge was delighted with the idea and immediately pretended to go on a long journey.

13                         The man who had suggested the plan now snuck into the room where Amled was to be shut in with his mother, and hid under the bedstraw. But Amled knew well how to avoid a trap. He was afraid that the walls should have ears and so, as usual, at first threw himself into his accustomed silliness: he crowed loudly like a cock, flapped his arms like wings and jumped up into the bedstraw where he hopped around to feel if anything was underneath it. And when he found a lump under his feet, he stabbed at it with his sword and struck the man down there, after which he dragged him from his hiding place and killed him. The body he cut to pieces which he boiled and threw down through the open latrine for the pigs to eat, and thus he let the wretched limbs of the man end up in the shit and filth.

14                        As soon as he had thus evaded the trap, he returned to the room. And when his mother now started crying and moaning over her weak-minded son, right to his face, he exclaimed: ‘Vile woman! Do you think this kind of put-on whining can hide a serious crime? You yourself have behaved like a wanton whore by agreeing to a hideous and impure marriage. You open your shameless loins to your husband’s murderer, and with lustful fawning your make yourself pleasing to the man who murdered the father of your son. This is how mares behave: they join the stallion who defeat their mate. Only animals behave like this, mating indiscriminately, but you have done exactly the same thing: see, you have forgotten your first husband! And when I play the fool, it has a good reason, for I have not a moment’s doubt that a man who has killed his brother can move just as ruthlessly and cruelly upon his remaining relatives. For this reason it is more sensible to seem stupid than clever, for I can save my life by pretending to be completely mad. Deep inside me is always the longing for revenge for the murder of my father, but I want an opportunity, I wait for the right moment. All in its own time! When one is faced with a man so capricious and brutal, it takes more than usual inventiveness. No, there is no reason for you to bemoan my madness – you ought more to mourn your own shame. Your own sick mind should you weep for, not that of others! As for the rest, you had better keep quiet about it!’

With these stinging reproaches he forced his mother back to a more chaste life, and to see that the old love was worth more than the temptations of the moment.

15                         When Fenge returned home, he could not find his spy anywhere: he looked long and hard, but no-one thought to have seen him anywhere. For the fun of it, they also asked Amled if he had seen anything of the man, and he replied that he had fallen into the can, and when he came out below, he was buried in shit, and the pigs had eaten him up. That reply did indeed convey the pure truth, but those who heard it only laughed, as it sounded completely silly.

16                        Fenge was still convinced that his stepson was cheating him, and would rather have the suspicious person removed, but he dared not really do it for fear of what Amled’s grandfather Rørik and his own wife would say. He therefore decided to let the British king kill him, so that he himself could pretend to be innocent while another did the work. In his desire to hide his own brutality he thus preferred to draw a friend through the mud rather than bear the shame himself.

Upon departing, Amled secretly instructed his mother to adorn the throne room with woven blankets featuring knots, and when a year had passed, to have a wake for him as if he were dead. He promised, then, to return home at that time.

With him travelled two of Fenge’s courtiers bearing a letter to the British king, etched into a piece of wood. That was the most common writing material in the old days. In the letter, the king was instructed to kill the young man thus sent to him. While the two of them slept, Amled searched their luggage and found the letter. When he had read it all, he made sure to scrape away all that was etched upon it and replace it with new letters to change the contents, so that the death sentence was not over himself, but over the escorts. And he did not stop at freeing himself from the death sentence and place the danger on the others; he even added, still using Fenge’s name, an application to the British king to give to the sensible young man who was thus sent to him, his daughter in marriage.

...

§12: Well, our proto-Polonius does not deny himself – he is verbose rather than wise, always eager to eavesdrop.

And after Ehren’s well-placed Freud bashing concerning the supposed – and utterly ludicrous – Oedipal connotations in Hamlet, it was fun to note where the interview between Amled and Gerud is to take place: in her bedchamber. This, of course, has no sexual or Oedipal connotations, either: while a lady in Shakespeare’s day could be expected to have an office as well as a sleeping chamber, this was unheard and unthought of in the 7^th or 8^th century. The only place where a woman, even the mistress of the household, could be alone or have a conversation in private, was in her bedchamber. Nothing more to it.

§16: In this version of the story, we do follow Amled to England, where he plans to stay for a year – this, of course, is not so easy to pull off in a play, which is probably why Shakespeare gives us the pirate story. The two companions, proto-Rosencrantz and proto-Guildenstern, are in place, though.

And there we leave the story for now – next week, we shall see what happens in England ...

I hope you have a lovely week, I hope we don’t get blown away by the gale-force winds around here – and I’ll be back.

Temporal Displacement

Happy spring time to all! I hope the weather and the holidays are treating you well, whether you are celebrating the season or just enjoying the return of daylight. Depending, of course, on your hemispheric persuasion; those in the southern parts of the globe will be on their way to a cooler season.

This week, we have had the ten-day Easter break that includes the upcoming Monday; a nice quiet week for us with lots of sleeping late for the boys and a couple of family gatherings. We celebrated the birthday of my nephew Emil on Thursday with a delicious brunch and lovely weather.

For Victor, the break may well turn out to be longer than usual: the negotiations for work hours and pay and work conditions in general for the teachers keep breaking down, and a lock-out was announced quite a while ago. Unless something radical happens, it is to begin on 1^st April, keeping all primary and middle school teachers away from work – and all children away from school. This, of course, has a huge impact on everybody, not only teachers, parents, and children, but also anybody employing parents who suddenly need to look after their children during school hours.

I wrote a while ago about the conclusions of the negotiations for high school teachers, which were not favourable for either teachers or students; this may turn out along the same lines, though I sincerely hope not.

And today, we are all jet-lagged, I am at least, having set the clocks forward for the Daylight Saving Time. I find this immensely annoying; there may very well have been a time, when the saving of daylight hours was important – but the world works differently now, and the need for daylight for manual labour has decreased dramatically. At the same time, the period in which the clocks do not tell the right time has increased to seven months per year, from the last weekend in March till the last weekend in October.

The effect of this temporal displacement is not the same as when you travel. Going to a different place in a different time zone changes the environment and your routines as well as the time; you are in a liminal state, and all bets are off. With the changing of the clocks, you are supposed to believe that the time of day is another than it was yesterday, even though the light is the same, and everything else around you is the same.

This disturbance wears off in a day or two, I know, but today, I am annoyed. Or rather, continually confused.

So, let’s get to something a bit more pleasant:

The Knitting:

Now I can finally show you the birthday jumper for Emil: a hood down hoodie, with a henley opening and cables running from the top of the hood right down over the body and sleeves. I made it in lovely soft angora silk tweed from BC Garn, with a bit of nylon to make it sturdier, in a light fingering weight on 2.5 mm needles. So it will be warm, but not too bulky and stuffy for the little guy.

He got to try it on for his afternoon nap and after:

The little birthday boy - and cousin Thomas in the background

For the time being, I prefer having two projects running at a time: one ‘interesting’, with cables or lace or something like that; and one simpler, like a stocking stitch jumper, for TV knitting or while being social. So, I had the cabled birthday jumper and my striped driftwood cardigan; and when the birthday jumper was done, I immediately cast on for a pair of socks – for me, this time. My driftwood is ongoing, now striping down the body.

Remember I got this lovely yarn for my birthday? A skein of Mary Queen of Socks from Superknits in the colourway Feel (not Come Back to Me Colour TV, as I thought I had figured out), a gorgeous tealy turquoise. And so soft: it is MCN, merino, cashmere and nylon.

Almost right away, I found a sock pattern I liked. This is the Water Cycle Socks, a free Ravelry download – always loving those! – and I have been looking forward to knitting them. Not only because I am selfish and love to knit for ME, but also because the last four pairs of socks I’ve knitted were man-sized, and it is so much quicker to knit for my little feet. I have already nearly finished the first sock after a couple of evenings spent on re-watching film trilogies: Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. All of these films are so well known that I can easily handle a bit of lace sock knitting while keeping up with the running and screaming. Not to be disparaging; the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) just popped into my head.

The colour of the yarn suggests to me a tropical sea, maybe the Caribbean, with white-beached islands, palms, sunshine ... and so, the water theme of the pattern fits perfectly: there are waves above the toes and on the heel, raindrops up the instep and front of the leg, and billowing steam or clouds on the back of the leg.

The pattern is well written and easy to follow; the charts are even placed logically on the pages, so that Chart C and D used for the front and back of the leg are on the same page and easily fit on a screen, as well – I haven’t printed the pattern and keep it in a PDF window on my laptop.

As for books – well, I haven’t been reading much this week, what with the boys being around and family dos and all. And the watching of films.

I did go to Audible to buy the second book in James P. Blaylock’s Narbondo series, Homunculus; but so far, I’ve only listened to 22 minutes of it.

On Chop Bard, to which I am a new listener, I devoured Ehren Ziegler’s comments on Romeo & Juliet. This podcast works differently than CraftLit, in that you do not get the whole text read aloud, only salient bits and pieces; so you will want to have the play within reach. I did that, listening and reading – and discussing the play with my boys.

Thomas recently watched the Baz Luhrmann film adaptation (which Ehren Ziegler does not approve of, for many valid reasons) for school, and while in London, they attended a workshop at the Globe with a real live actor, working on how to express various characters through movements and modes of speech. Thomas got to be Tybalt ...

Anyway, after I had listened through the whole story and re-told it to Victor, who didn’t know it beforehand, only as the common concept: two young lovers die; we watched the Baz Luhrmann film together. I critiqued, and we had another good talk.

And then I got to thinking about Rosaline and her side of the story. You know Rosaline, the girl Romeo is moping about when we first meet him; Juliet’s cousin. No? Well, she never appears in the play. But she is there in the storyline, not least as the reason why Romeo and his pals even go to the party at the Capulet house where, of course, he meets Juliet. Rosaline is the catalyst for the whole sequence of events that unfold during those four days in July.

Anyway, if you are into Shakespeare, Chop Bard is great; Ehren really knows his stuff. And he’s on Ravelry.

I’ve just started listening to the Jane Eyre episodes of CraftLit; this is interesting, as I have never read the book or watched any film adaptations of it. I know the title, of course, but only as a title in some vague connection with the Brontë name – one of those books by those sisters ... So now that I have listened to Wuthering Heights by Emily, I will listen to Jane Eyre by Charlotte, both published in 1847 – and all of Heather Ordover’s comments and annotations on biography, Yorkshire, history, &c. And the discussions on Ravelry, too. I know I’ve said it before, and I will probably say it again: if you like books, if you think there are books you ought to read, but never have: go to CraftLit. You will have great works of literature read aloud to you and all the tricky bits explained, all the background filled in. And you can skip the crafty talk, if you want, by going to the JustTheBooks feed.

The opening chapter of Jane Eyre describes how the 10-year old, orphaned Jane lives with her aunt and cousins in her late uncle’s home; how she is mistreated and bullied by her 14-year old cousin, a big fat boy who behaves horribly towards animals and his little cousin and nevertheless is his mother’s darling. The aunt defends her son’s interests (!) to the point where she refuses the tutor’s attempts to improve his diet by cutting down on cakes and sweetmeats, because denying the boy any pleasure is unthinkable. Of course, Jane gets the blame for any alteration between the children and is, apparently frequently, told that she is ungrateful for this useless life she leads at the mercy and generosity of her relatives.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Yes, Charlotte Brontë obviously read Harry Potter. Or maybe it’s the other way round, I’m not sure ...

So, it seems that the film 300 is going to have a sequel, mystifyingly titled 300: Rise of an Empire. I cannot fathom which empire that is supposed to be, nor who or what 300 are referred to.

Apparently, they want to continue the story of the Persian Wars in 480-479 BCE. OK, there is a lot of story to tell, and the trick of throwing Herodotus’ text up in the air and see what lands can be repeated many a time. No Frank Miller this time around, though. But Xerxes is still supposed to be the guy who thinks he is – or maybe is? – a god.

Here’s how it goes according to Herodotus: after the battle at Thermopylai in northern Hellas, where Xerxes was delayed for all of a week in his progress due to the 5 or 6,000 Greek troops assembled there – who dwindled to the famous 300, when the odds became obvious – the Persians continued southward, heading for the really important city states. Athens worked hard to rally the others and present a united front against the invaders, with varying success. Themistocles, who seems to be the lead figure in the new film, recommended building a battle fleet after a prophecy from the then Pythia in Delphi had spoken of a ‘wooden wall’ to protect the Athenians from being wiped out when the Persians destroyed the city. Which they did. After much debate, the battle fleet was, in fact, built, and a naval battle ensued in the strait between Athens and Salamis. The fleet of Persian and allied ships was much larger than the Greek one, of course – but the Persians were landlocked, brilliant horsemen, but no sailors. As soon as things heated up a bit, they panicked, crashed their ships, jumped overboard and all that. So this time, Xerxes suffered a crushing defeat; and in the battle at Plataiai in the following year – alluded to at the end of 300 – the Greeks beat him again, and he dropped the invasion. Overtly, at any rate.

So again: which empire are we talking about? Stretching things somewhat, not least the term ‘empire’, it might possibly be Athens and the subsequent Ionic alliance, in which Athens played an increasingly dominant role during the following decades. Meh. Not convinced. And the ‘300’ part is plain silly.

According to IMdB, the Spartan king Leonidas is not in the film because Gerard Butler didn’t want to do it. Huh?? Leonidas died, people! That’s the whole point of the 300: Spartans do not leave a fight. Either they kill everybody else, and the fight no longer exists, or they die trying. Which they did in this case.

I will probably watch this film when it comes out, just to see what hash they make of the history. The naval battle could be spectacular, if it is done well.

Aside from the Hollywood mangling of history and stories in general, there is the rather disturbing aspect of the way the Persians are presented in this / these film(s): subhuman, grotesque, fantastical. Now, a lot of the bizarre paraphernalia, including Xerxes’ looks and presumed divinity – which is utterly a-historic – derives from the comic book phase of this story-telling, Frank Miller’s version of it. For a skilled reader, this presents no problem: it is quite obvious what is realistic and what isn’t. But there could be a sneaking subtext here: Persians a.k.a. Iranians are the Enemy, they are inherently evil and deserve to be wiped out, because they are a constant threat to our Civilisation and Democracy and the Free World.

This is, of course, what Herodotus says, but he has very good reasons for it: in 480 BCE, the fledgling proto-democracy in Athens was under a very real threat from a huge empire that had spread over the whole Middle East and intended to spread westwards, too. If the Hellenic city states led by Athens had not defeated the Persians when they did, the whole of Hellas would have been subjected to Persian rule. And Rome would not have been capable of stopping them back then, either. So, in the 5^th century, Persia really was a threat to what was the beginning of democracy and free thought.

That is not the situation today, though; and the parallel is dangerous. I can well understand those Greeks who take offense at American movie-makers and money-makers abusing their history for their own ends.

Well, then, I will get off my soap box now and enjoy the remainder of today’s sunshine.

Keep happy, keep healthy, keep crafting!