Drive-by

So, I’ve been away from here for quite a while. Sorry about that – life has been getting in the way, and I keep meaning to do a catch-up post, and that job keeps growing, because there is more every week to catch up on, and ...

So, yes. I’m still here, I’m fine, I’m busy.

Work has picked up the pace somewhat in this second semester: the beginners’ book has run out – finally – which means I need to provide texts and notes and glossaries. And that’s fine, but a glossary for, say, a handful of smutty Catullus poems *ahem* took me a whole day to make. 

And thus the blog writing suffers.

Anyway, I’m checking in to let you know I’m still here, and I do intend to get into posting regularly again. No, I am not going to promise anything, no timeframe, because then I’m only going to feel guilty if I don’t make it. I have a couple of things I want to share, and I will.

Enough waffling: I have something for you today.

As mentioned before, I write microstories for two monthly contests in writing groups on LinkedIn. In February, the required elements for the sci-fi story were:

a crime,

a reference to a favourite author (or several),

and a first person narrative.

As usual, the whole story has to fit into one comment, so the limit is 4000 characters, around 620 words.

This is what I came up with to fit inside those parameters:

FALL

by D C Mills

‘Cause of death is obvious,’ I concluded, pulling off my gloves. For the record, I added, ‘Severe head trauma as well as a broken neck. Skull fractured, brain dispersed, spinal cord severed.’

The man’s body had been found lying crumpled at the bottom of one of the steep ladders going between decks. The cause of the fall was another matter.

It wasn’t my job to investigate this: I was the ship’s medic, and with the autopsy, my duty was done.

But I was curious. Besides, didn’t I have some obligation towards the general wellbeing of the crew? If the ladders were dangerous, I was the right person to point it out to the Captain.

And if Alvarez had been pushed – well, in that case we had a murderer onboard. Another potential health risk.

I went to my office next to the surgical theatre to address the database of the onboard computer system. The mainframe was a model 2.21-B, which had led to the inevitable nickname.

People, particularly people placed on a ship in the cold, dark void several light years from their home planet, have a need to give familiar names to their surroundings. And this one was apt.

‘Sherlock,’ I said, ‘show me your surveillance images from levels 4 and 5, by the cargo hold. Start with the time between 2100 and 0100 hours.’

‘You have calculated time of death to around 2300 hours,’ the computer said in its almost-human voice. ‘Why concern yourself with actions taking place several hours before the fall?’

‘Alvarez was on duty in that period. I want to see who he was talking to,’ I explained, as if to another person. ‘If he quarrelled with anybody.’

‘You are looking for a possible murderer,’ Sherlock said, ‘as well as a possible motive. I see.’

I knew he was filing away this information along with the vast amounts of data he already stored: Sherlock was built to be a learning machine, forever expanding his knowledge and understanding of humans. His proficiency at interacting had become quite remarkable and often made one forget that he wasn’t, after all, human.

Several images appeared on the screen, in separate windows. Not many people were moving about, and I quickly spotted Alvarez.

I observed the man during the last hours of his life. He chatted with one, then another, of his mates. Everything seemed calm.

‘I changed the lighting in your bathroom,’ Sherlock broke in, ‘deducing that the uneven state of your shaving was a result of poor light rather than a conscious choice.’

I felt my cheeks and jaw line; the left side was significantly more stubbly than the right. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

On screen, the end of Alvarez’ life drew near. The person who shoved him was indistinct in the dim light above the ladder; only height and body structure were discernible.

I gave the Captain a short list of suspects matching this information, who could have been nearby at the time. Only three: Singh, Adams, and Percy, all midshipmen like the deceased.

They were called in for questioning and subjected to further scrutiny: Sherlock was able to monitor them closely, as he had done with me, to detect changes in pulse rate, breathing, skin temperature.

Singh seemed only remotely concerned.

Adams wept throughout and was barely coherent.

Percy was aggressive and rude.

After the interviews, Sherlock and I conferred: my impressions versus his objective measurements compared against a database of symptoms.

We agreed on the conclusion.

It turned out that Percy had attacked Alvarez out of jealousy; this also explained Adams’ tears, as she was the object of the quarrel, though preferring neither of the two men.

No matter how advanced human technology is, it seems that humans remain human, with the same fears and loves and weaknesses as we have always had.

Internet Access

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket!

Well, this has been a busy week.

Being the end of the month, the deadline for the FWG short story contest came around (more on that); the monthly meeting in the Viborg story tellers’ guild was on Monday (and this time, I actually told a story to get feedback on it); I had to figure out how to get paid for my teaching (I could choose to report the number of working hours each month or have the complete number of hours for the semester divided equally between the five months of it – I chose the latter to have a more regular income).

This afternoon, it’s time for the monthly local crafting café – it’s actually been five months since I was there last, due to a spot of ill health (May), summer holidays (June & July), and the baby blessing in August.

Oh, and my parents are coming over for dinner tonight, as I won’t be here for coffee. If you are not Danish, let me tell you that afternoon coffee, including bread & cheese & jam and / or cake, is quite an institution around these parts. The appropriate time is 3 p.m., and any deviation from this needs to be spelled out, if you’re inviting. So, having a crafting group meeting from 2 till 4 p.m. on a Sunday can be somewhat disruptive.

In between, I have been devising a little written test for my students, to see how they are doing and to give them a chance of trying out the format for the exam in December. I’ll spring it on them on Tuesday and have them do it in one of the two lessons. (And I can knit while watching them!)

The weather has really turned towards autumn – the lovely, bright, crisp autumn weather, happily, not (yet) the grey and rainy kind. Leaves are yellowing and beginning to fall, there is a threat of frost in the nights; and I want to knit big, woolly jumpers.

As mentioned, the September stories for the FWG contest are in; the deadline for the votes is tomorrow, so nobody knows anything about the results yet – except that 32 writers have submitted stories, which is lovely. And as ever, it is quite difficult to narrow the votes down to three favourite stories ... I am going to have to work on that.

Anyway, the theme this month has been SEPTEMBER TRICKSTER, and the highlights: a trickster, devious or dishonest behaviour, and a bag containing something fraudulent or stolen.

So, I give you my story as the Apple of the Week; hope you like it:

Internet Access

Driving slowly down the street, they passed a young woman walking in the opposite direction, giving him ample time to watch her. She was striding along on strong legs in high-heeled boots, blonde ponytail swinging and a big, white, studded leather bag over one shoulder. What caught his attention, though, was the black, glass-like slab she was holding up in front of her face, thin white cords leading from it to her ears. The woman was obviously upset, yelling angrily at the slab, on the verge of tears. The wheeled glass cage he was sitting in muffled all sounds coming from outside it, but he could still hear her voice, if not the actual words.

He had seen several of these slabs before: everybody seemed to be carrying one, talking to it, peering at it, stroking it.

He wondered whether this was a new kind of magic or a new kind of pet.

 ‘As you know, I have been away for a long time,’ he said to the bulky man beside him. ‘What are those glassy black things that you all carry around and talk to?’

‘Smart phones, sir,’ the man – Erik, he had to remember that – answered. ‘They allow you to talk to people who are far away from you.’

‘Interesting,’ Loke said politely. Magic, then.

‘They also have games,’ the man went on, ‘and Internet access.’

He must have looked blank, for the man (Erik) got a pained expression, as if he didn’t quite know where to begin. ‘Um,’ he hesitated, ‘you can find and read information from all over the world, words and pictures, and sound.’

Now, this was interesting. ‘And can you send information, too?’ he asked innocently.

‘Sure, you can upload whatever you want – if your connection’s good enough.’

‘Upload?’

‘Sorry, sir. Send.’

‘Send to this net thing.’

‘Internet, yes, sir. It’s called the Web, as well.’

‘Web? Like a spider’s web?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘I see. Can you get me one of these things?’

‘Of course, sir. I expect there may be one waiting for you at the house, otherwise we will get one for you straightaway.’

‘Thank you,’ Loke said gravely.

He leaned back in the leather seat, stroking his beard while musing quietly. Now that he was back in the world, he would finally get his revenge for the centuries he had spent trapped, chained and poisoned, punished by the Asar for merely being himself.

He would become a spider in a web that encircled the world.

A few days later, a new video appeared on YouTube. It showed a strangely attractive, skinny man of indeterminate age, with shoulder-length black hair and an immaculate goatee.

The man told a freaky story about being a god and about how the people he thought were his friends, his family, had cheated him, blaming him for an entirely accidental death. He couldn’t have known that that arrow would kill young Balder, could he? After all, the guy was supposed to be immortal.

He told of how they had caught him, tied him to a rock and let a snake drip its venom like acid on his face. He told of the physical pain and the emotional pain, of his longing for revenge and his newfound freedom.

The video went viral, getting hundreds of thousands of hits in a day and soon millions. Korean rappers and Norwegian comedy duos were forgotten: now everybody watched, liked and shared the Loke story.

Of course, nobody took him seriously. Nobody, except maybe a few Hindus or modern Pagans, believed in random gods appearing on YouTube. Some thought it was a promotion for a new movie; most merely thought it was cool.

That is, somebody did take him seriously. Loke immediately recognised the grumpy, one-eyed man standing on his doorstep one evening.

‘Father Odin,’ he greeted him politely.

‘Don’t you father Odin me, you wretched half-breed,’ the ancient father of the gods growled. ‘You have been using my invention to further your own twisted agenda, spreading your incessant lies again. You really haven’t learned anything, have you?’

‘What exactly was I supposed to learn from being chained to a rock and poisoned?’

Odin glared at him. ‘Luckily, humans these days don’t give a fig – as long as they are entertained, they don’t care by whom or what. So there’s really no harm done. Nothing you can do.’

It never occurred to anyone to connect the popular YouTube video with the waves of aberrant behaviour sweeping over various parts of the world.

In Germany, Japanese style cosplay gained a hitherto unseen popularity, with night club-like cross-dressing spreading to daytime activities. Universities and businesses saw otherwise serious professionals decked out in school girl uniforms, wigs, and heavy makeup. Bank clerks wore clown masks and carried soft guns to work.

Tokyo night life already mastered the art of dressing up and instead developed a new trend of deliberately and consistently lying to your lover, demonstrating fidelity by flirting with others.

A shoplifting spree originating in Paris spread like an epidemic across most of Europe, causing near panic in shop owners, exhaustion in detectives and police, and intense worry in parents of teenagers. As a kind of internal signal or uniform, the shoplifters all carried white bags for their loot, from tiny shoulder strap purses to baskets to rucksacks.

Applications for sex change operations proliferated, along with a sudden market for not only the usual gender-specific enhancements, but additions as well – hermaphroditism became the new black.

In England, an animal research facility was burned to the ground by the ALF after it came out that an obscure line of research had reached new heights, so to speak: the successful grafting of wings onto mammals.

Meanwhile, in a large house somewhere in the Scandinavian countryside, Loke leaned back in a comfortable leather armchair, stroking his beard and smiling contentedly to himself.

© 2013 Dorthe Møller Christensen

The Knitting

I’ve started taking my knitting to work with me; the daily schedules have lessons starting at a quarter past the hour, so between each lesson are 15 minutes (give or take). This is just enough time to go to the bathroom or fetch a cup of coffee when needed, but often, I just stay in my classroom. Sometimes, a good portion of the break is taken up by questions from students, but if I am left to myself, what can I do?

So, I brought my stripy sock along to knit a few rows; this is good for my calm and centeredness. And the students like it, generally; many of them have come straight from school and living at home to a new life in a new city, and watching someone nearly old enough to be their mother knitting is familiar to most, either from home or from school.

A couple of the girls talk about knitting (and crochet) – and the next day, one of them brought her knitting, as well.

So, the socks are moving along – the multi-coloured yarn moved from a long stretch of green that made the beginning of the first sock look like a Christmas elf sock, into blues and then purple (yay!), which means that the toe of the second sock is three shades of purple.

My Leaf cardigan is at a tricky stage right now: I am working the garter edge all the way around the body. The tricky part is having 600+ stitches on an 80 cm circular needle; as I am working on 2½ mm needles, I am stuck with fixed circs instead of my favourite interchangeables that only come in 3 mm and upwards. With the interchangeables, I could switch to a longer wire; but I’ll manage. It’s only 7 rows, after all, and I’m on the 5^th now.

And then come the sleeves on dpns, and I might finish this cotton cardigan before winter. Brilliant timing, right? Something tells me I miscalculated or forgot that my knitting rate would slow down when I started work. Oh, well, it may be spring again sometime.

With much better timing, I finally sank my teeth into the red cowl I have been wanting to make, inspired by The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (which I reviewed here two or three weeks ago – and on Goodreads).

The circus in the book is kept in black, white, grey, and silver, and the group of followers of the circus also dress in those colours to show that they adhere to it – but then add ‘a shock of red’ to show that they are not part of the circus, merely spectators. The items most mentioned in the book are scarves, but also hats, roses, ties, &c.

I decided to make a moebius cowl, to keep the magic feel of the circus and the sense of not quite knowing which side is which.

I am using the lusciously soft Sandnes Kashmir Alpakka that I bought at the craft fair (Husflidsmessen) three weeks ago – when I for once was drawn to the red yarn and not the purple. And when it is done, I will post the pattern for the Rêveur Cowl on Ravelry.

As ever, I have lots of plans for further knitting; right now, I have a bunch of wool stacked up in front of me: some Donegal Aran Tweed for another sleeveless o w l s, and two samples of Peruvian Highland wool for – well, I think I will use the moss green for the cabled hoodie that is nudging me, the adult version of the Samwise.

And I have patterns that need to be finished and handed over to the Free Pattern Testers group for test knitting.

The Books

All too soon, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki ended – I have written about it here several times and a short review on Goodreads, so I won’t go into it again, only to remind you to look it up.

In an afterword, Ozeki mentions that the printed version of the book contains annotations, footnotes, and illustrations, so ideally, one should probably have both the audio book and the printed book; the audio has such immediacy and charm that I wouldn’t want to miss that, either.

I’ve managed to finish several books this week, actually: when Trespass by Rose Tremain ran out, I continued with At Home by Bill Bryson and finished that one, too.

Trespass tells of siblings, of ageing, of handling your past and attempting to secure your future; it is also a mystery with an interesting, though not unforeseeable, twist.

At Home walks you through a house, the old rectory in England where the Bryson family lives, regarding the provenance and fittings of the various rooms in a home; the walk turns into a world-wide journey to find spices for the kitchen, wood for furniture, and not least the challenges for the new inhabitants of North America to build and acquire all the things they saw as essential for a comfortable life.

And I made it through Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. I’m probably being unfair to this book, expecting it to be a novel (as I did at first) and then being disappointed when it didn’t meet my expectations.

So: this is a portrait of Savannah, Georgia, in the 1980s, and the protracted murder case against Jim Williams, a Gatsbyesque figure, for the shooting of his assistant and lover Danny Hansford. The book resembles a series of feature articles in the New Yorker where, indeed, the author had his day job at the time.

Recently, I listened to an interview with the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood on the Guardian Books podcast (from 28^th August 2013), about her book The Blind Assassin – so I went to look for it and found it in the local library (they have shelves with literature in foreign languages, mostly English, but also German, French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, &c).

I haven’t got all that far into it yet, but I’m liking it.

And do go find that interview: Ms Atwood is a charming lady. One person in the audience remarked admiringly that she is very well read, and she replied: ‘I’m old. It accumulates.’

My current on-the-go audio book is Silver by Andrew Motion, a sequel to the classic Treasure Island by R. L. Stevenson.

The sub-title of Motion’s book is Return to Treasure Island, so the silver in the title refers to both Long John Silver, the nefarious ship’s cook, and to the silver left on the island when Jim Hawkins was a boy. Now, his son, also named Jim, is approached by the lovely daughter of John Silver to go back to the Island and claim the remaining treasure.

Silver is read by David Tennant whom we all know and love as the Tenth Doctor. I have heard David Tennant read Doctor Who books before, very appropriately, and he does this one very well, too, with the occasional doctorial emphasis on a word.

That is all for this time – I need to tidy up a bit before I go knitting (parents coming over, remember?). I will be back next week with more knitting, more books, more chatter.

Until then: have a great week, take care of yourself and your loved ones, and happy knitting!

A bit of this, a bit of that

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket!

This has been a full week – I started teaching my two classes at university, which meant getting up quite early on Tuesday and Wednesday, driving an hour (or more, depending on traffic) each way, coming home late on Friday, and meeting 40 new people all at once.

Needless to say, when I got home on Tuesday afternoon, I was knackered. There’s no other word for it. Happily, it is already getting better: gradually coming to know these new students is less taxing than meeting them for the first time, and I am easing back into teaching mode. Plus, the subject matter is, if not limited, then at least cohesive.

It’s all about Latin: grammar – very basic grammar, at first, as some of the students have no clue – words, the structure of the language and how it works to express all the variety of the natural, human, and divine world. This awareness of language is new to some of them and needs to be deepened for all of them.

I do enjoy expanding their horizons; someone once said that when he was a student in the late 60s, a lot of young people took mind-enhancing drugs – while he read Latin. Which can be somewhat safer.

The bits of text are, for now, construed by Latin teachers; later, we will read ‘real’ texts by actual Romans. So, there is content to deal with, as well, and I get lots of chances to digress into the history, culture, and mindset of the Romans; at least, I can introduce themes that they will be able to explore further later on.

With the job being part-time, I do have a life outside of it, including my writing. The FWG August Short Story votes were counted and came back last Sunday – and this time, my story achieved seventh place. So, it did get some critical acclaim :o)

And a reminder from the feedback group to use more dialogue; I’ll have to not only be aware of that, but actually do something about it in the September story.

Anyway, here it is:

The Countryman

I always knew that I should be king.

Even when we were boys, it was obvious to me that my brother’s claim to the throne was merely an accident of his being born first. He was meek, sweet, forever seeking approval and friendship, love. Too weak to rule.

Not even as king did he endeavour to impose fear and respect on others, mark his territory, so to speak. He sought alliances, preferred diplomacy to battle. Diplomacy can be useful, of course, honeyed words and gifts to lull the opponent; but never should it be the end, only the means to the true end.

This could not go on: our position was gradually weakened, others saw us as an easy target, land to be conquered. My brother would not listen to me.

So I had to prove my point. I am stronger, more fit to rule.

I did not kill him or have him killed. That would have brought down the wrath of the gods on my head; I merely placed him under house arrest end even let his wife follow him. They told me his brat was killed in the melee, though I never saw the corpse.

For fifteen years now, I have had it all. The power, the title, the riches. My wife and my daughters adorn their hair with ribbons of the finest Tyrian purple. They wear gold bracelets and pearl earrings. And Akastos is growing up to be a handsome heir. I did prove my point.

Lately, though, strange things have begun to happen.

Thunderclouds gathered out of nowhere. White-hot lightning flashed purple against the greenish grey clouds and struck the old olive tree in the courtyard, my favourite shady spot for resting in the hot afternoons. The dry wood caught flame, and the whole tree burned down in an instant. Nothing else was struck, and the clouds dissipated and blew away, leaving a clear blue sky. As if nothing had happened. Only my olive tree was gone, reduced to ashes dancing on the breeze.

It must be an omen. Something bad is coming for me.

I arranged sacrifices to all of the gods, though I have done nothing wrong. Even Hera, the old hag, must have her due. It will not do to be at odds with the immortals.

There is an old prophecy about me: a man from the country, wearing only one sandal, will bring me down. It was uttered long ago, before I had anything worth bringing down, and for many years, I have paid it no heed. But suddenly, it comes to my mind.

I have to watch those around me. But it is ridiculous: nobody walks around wearing a single sandal – those who are too poor simply go barefoot.

Next, a shepherd came back alone from the pasture, claiming that a lion had attacked the flock. Highly unusual for this time of year. Several sheep were indeed found dead or injured so badly that they had to be put down; and the shepherd’s boy had been mauled and killed, too. The shepherd was of course interrogated, but found to have done nothing wrong.

And he was wearing both his sandals.

I find myself waking in the nights, plagued by thoughts that have no meaning. Strange ideas come to me. What if my brother’s son, Jason, was not killed all those years ago? What if he was whisked away, like a boy in the stories, to grow up anonymously and return to avenge his father’s ignominious fate? To claim his inheritance and ruin all that I have worked for?

But no, this is ridiculous.

I can tell no-one about these thoughts. They would think I was going mad, would find me weak and vulnerable. Not even Akastos can be trusted with the secret: he was too young when it all happened, and knows nothing of his cousin. His dead cousin.

...

I have arranged a feast, a great sacrifice. A hundred heifers are to be slaughtered. This will show my generosity to all, gods and men alike.

For some reason, the great fire for the burn-offerings won’t catch. While the attendants struggle with the kindling, a murmur ripples through the crowd, and it parts. Everybody falls silent, as a young man approaches, dripping wet and wearing only one sandal.

The sky blackens, and the ocean roars in my ears.

The young man walks calmly through the crowd, straight towards me.

‘Greetings, uncle,’ he says.

...

The next day, I summoned Jason. I knew how to get rid of him without seeming to: I reminded him of the fleece of the golden ram, brought to faraway Aia by our uncle Frixos. This fleece, and its power to bring prosperity to the land, rightly belongs here, and the recent row of misfortunes plainly shows how we need it.

‘I am too old now for heroic journeys,’ I said. ‘Your country needs you.’

‘You are young and as yet unknown to the people,’ I told him. ‘But if you bring back the Fleece, you will have proved your worth, and they will welcome you as king.’

He acquiesced and immediately set about procuring a ship and gathering a crew.

This morning, they went away. My relief flowed into hearty emulations of wishes for their journey and safe return, as I watched them embark and set sail.

He will never return: the journey to the ends of the world is perilous, and the king of Aia has no love for strangers. If they make it there alive, he will see to it that they never leave.

I am safe, my position is once more secure. I call for Akastos; he is old enough now to be taken further into my confidence, to learn the intricacies of ruling.

But there is no answer – where is he?

© 2013 Dorthe Møller Christensen

The Knitting

Knitting for babies is always a bit of a gamble, size-wise: you want the garment to fit within the foreseeable future, but not be outgrown too quickly, either. And, say, a lacy cotton cardigan should preferably be useful while the weather is still warm enough.

So, the parents have been waiting for just the right moment to put little Kajsa into the Elanor cardigan, and this is what happened:

Adorable, isn't she?

This weekend, the big annual craft fair, Husflidsmessen, takes place in Viborg. They don’t allow photography, so imagine two big sports or concert arenas sitting across from one another, each filled to the brim with stands from a range of shops and clubs showing and selling yarns for knitting and crochet, buttons, tatting, weaving, felting, woodwork, amber, beads and jewellery making, paper cutting, patchwork sewing and quilting, glass blowing, Christmas decorations (including mead and mustard in stone jars), and more.

The ‘streets’ between the stands are thronged with people, the majority of whom are mature ladies – though the shoppers come in all ages, sizes, and shapes. You don’t see many children, which is a blessing for both the children and everybody else: the couple of kids I saw looked as if they had been dragged there by their mother and grandmother and couldn’t wait to escape.

My sister and I left our children at home, to browse in peace – or as much peace as you can get in the crowds. Each of us had plans, something we wanted to look for; I had more luck with mine, but we both managed to buy stuff.

My sister got connectors for the KnitPro interchangeable circular needle wires – those things make life so much easier when you need to try something on: instead of having to transfer all the stitches to a piece of yarn, try on your thing, and then put all the stitches back before knitting on, you can screw on another length of wire, and Bob’s your uncle. (I am feeling the lack of this option right now for the Leaf cardigan that still hasn’t got a better name and is worked on 2.5 mm needles, that don’t come as interchangeables.)

We both got beads for stitch markers – the elephants didn’t want to be stitch markers, though, so they became earrings instead.

And yarn, of course. I only bought yarn for planned projects, no questionable spur-of-the-moment spree-shopping.

So, variegated Kauni for a dress – and yes, they are all the same colourway, the EZ:

Gloriously soft cashmere alpaca from Sandnes for little warm things:

And something else that is a secret for now - I’ll show you later.

(Sorry about the pics, I don't know why they have tilted.) 

So much for this year’s craft outings: we did Saltum in May, and now this one in September.

As mentioned above, I am working diligently on my Leaf cardigan – all this running about, though, and going off to Aarhus several times a week, is cutting into my knitting time. Quite annoying. I’m still figuring out a new equilibrium on that front, as well as trying to work out how to fit in pattern writing at times when my brain isn’t threatening to go on strike.

Anyway, I am below the sleeve/body divide now and just ploughing on down towards the lace border; so it is a bit boring at times. It works for watching Lost, though, and even reading (I suppose so, at least, haven’t had a chance to try it out).

The Books

I have almost finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, the August group read in the Ravelry group on Goodreads. This is one of those books where you want to read on to see what happens – and at the same time, you don’t want to reach the end of the book, because then, well, it ends. The beauty of consuming books, though, is that they stay with you, once you’ve read them. So in that sense, a book never really ends, but becomes part of your inner landscape – and this particular feature of the landscape is one to be treasured.

At some point in the book, a shawl shows up – well, several shawls, actually, at several points, but there is one in particular that caught my attention. It is described as ‘a length of ivory lace’ and belongs to one of the protagonists, Miss Celia Bowen.

You have guessed it already, haven’t you: I am going to have to make this shawl. I don’t know when it will be, but the thought is simmering quietly in my mind ...

And, if you know the book, you can also guess why I was drawn to the red cashmere alpaca and not, say, purple, as I would usually be.

So watch this space :o)

All this driving gives me ample time to listen to books, and I have been compiling audio books via the Audible app on my Android smart phone. Too much detail? Well, I’ve been listening to From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know about the Internet by John Naughton. The book pretty much does what it says on the tin: it presents a history of the Internet, the Web (which are not the same), and a bunch of technologies relating to the Internet, as well as comparing the possible, as yet unknown, impact of all these new modes of communication with the advent of the printing press in the 15^th century.

I had one quibble: when presenting one of the consequences of printing, the personal authorship as opposed to the scribal times’ copy-and-comment mode, Naughton gives the French essayist Montaigne the credit for inventing the personal essay – thereby completely ignoring Seneca and the whole antique epistula tradition.

That may be a minor point, though, and on the whole, I found the book both informative and useful.

My next and current listening adventure is the September group read in the Goodreads Ravelry group: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, read by Hugh Lee. (There is a point to mentioning this, as one US listener was unhappy with a female reader, and Audible.com offers both versions. I haven’t heard the other one, so I can’t comment on it.)

This is a classic whodunit in the style of Agatha Christie – only with sheep as the main characters. The mystery opens with the discovery of the murdered shepherd, and the sheep, prompted by the cleverest of them, Miss Maple (sic), attempt to solve the murder.

Several readers in the group are unimpressed by talking sheep – but I love it: they are silly and yet wise, forming their own views of the world, of humans, and the events that unfold around them, all from a sheepy perspective. Is it morally defendable, for instance, for an Irish shepherd to choose Norwegian wool for his sweaters?

And the reader makes voices for the sheep and a convincing – to my ears, at least – Irish brogue for the humans. So, a completely different book from the August offering, but fun.

Well, that’s it for this week – thank you for stopping by!

I will be back next week; until then: take care, have a lovely week, and have fun!

Publish or perish

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket!

This week, I plan to be completely insufferable, bragging about my accomplishments in various fields. So, consider yourself warned.

Would you believe it, it is still summer here – though what was threatening to become the driest July ever (or something) was cancelled in the nick of time, on the 30^th, with thunder, rain, hail and sunshine all at once.

So, the popular saying about the weather on someone’s birthday reflecting that person’s behaviour, good or bad, during the previous year, came into effect, as Victor turned 15 that day. We agreed, though, that the bad part of it was caused by the leader of the right-wing Danish People’s Party ...

And it was still warm enough that we could sit outdoors at the restaurant in the evening, with my parents, my sister & brother-in-law, and the niblings running around.

The next day offered more rain (let’s not blame J. K. Rowling for that!) – and then Friday turned out to be the hottest day of the summer, with temperatures over 30° C in several places, and followed by what is termed a ‘tropical night’, during which the temperature does not drop below 20°. And true enough, it was 21° at 7.30 Saturday morning.

All in all, I have been practising my hot weather running – in theory, I should probably get my, um, self out of bed much earlier to run, but ... not really happening. So the Saturday morning run was tough: 22°, luckily with a stiff breeze, but still, I went in search of the shade.

I am beginning to look forward to the crisp September air – though when it comes, autumn and rain and darkness won’t be far off, so I’ll probably be grumbling about that. So it goes.

Last week, I told you about the July Short Story contest in the Fiction Writers’ Guild on LinkedIn – well, the votes have been counted, and my story came in 3^rd out of the thirty stories!

That was surprising, and gratifying, and somewhat worrying; I have to ignore all that when writing next month’s story and not expect anything.

 Anyway, here it is, so you can judge for yourself:

All In A Day’s Work

I wake up soaked in sweat. The light filtering in speaks of morning, though the alarm clock by my bed insists that it is only 4:18. Nothing unusual in that: this is summer, the white nights when the sun sets for only a few hours and it never gets really dark. I struggle out of the damp, clinging sheet and push the window further open, hoping for a cool dawn breeze. But no, the air is as still and arid as it has been for several weeks now, and even the birds, normally so annoyingly bright and cheerful at this hour, seem mugged.

I decide to get in my morning run before the temperature rises any higher, so I get into the smallest possible running gear that is still decent, drink as much water as I can stomach, and set out.

I run every day; in my line of work, running is not a fashionable leisure activity, but a survival skill. I would rather not begin to count the number of times I have been saved by my ability to run away from someone or something nasty that wanted to do unspeakable things to me – and I am not being Victorian here, I really do mean unspeakable.

Quite a few other runners are out and about this early, working around the altered weather conditions.

We are all trying to adapt, Vikings getting used to a tropical life – well, not tropical, exactly, the last few winters have been exceptionally cold, with frost and masses of snow lasting well into April. Then a sudden, short spring sets in, and summer right on its heels. The meteorologists have had to come up with a new definition of ‘heat wave’; the old one consisting of three days in a row over 28° C has become a joke, when we have temperatures well into the thirties for weeks on end, months even. And droughts to rival the Australian outback.

And today is The Day, Friday the 13^th of July, when everything has to be resolved or the world go to hell in a handbasket.

It is going to be a long day.

When I return, a black cat is sitting on the garden fence glaring at me. ‘Hello, Shadow,’ I say. No reply. He is understandably put out by my blatant selfishness in not feeding him before going out. I point out that he wasn’t around, but he refuses to speak to me until I have given him a whole tin of tuna.

Yes, I know, I’m a cliché: a witch with a talking black cat. So sue me.

After a cool shower and a big mug of coffee, I set about gathering the appropriate spells and ingredients for today’s work. Shadow, with the sense of occasion so peculiar to cats, paws at my knitting, but gives it up when I ignore him. I cannot be bothered about losing a woollen sock right now. The circle at the bottom of my garden needs to be fortified, so that’s where I’ll begin.

A circle of smallish granite menhirs sits unobtrusively inside a copse of oak trees, planted in concentric circles. Oaks are the strongest and most powerful of trees, drawing ancient powers from the soil and storing them in their massive boles. It is no coincidence that the Druids of Gaul and Britannia revered the oak above all other trees.

And I am going to need those powers to bind and hold the force that is causing this havoc to our climate. For I know now what it is: a Khaos being, an incorporeal will using its temporary liberty only to disrupt and destroy – not from any active malevolence or ill will towards mankind, mind you, just for the kicks.

Wearing nothing but a loose-flowing silk robe – even that feels like a fur coat today – I trace the inner circumference of the menhirs with salt, leaving a small opening. Next, I trace the outer circumference in the same manner, weaving binding spells into the lines. I place a silver bowl in the centre of the multiple circles and with my silver athame cut open my left palm. I let my blood drip into the bowl and then wrap a cloth around my hand: no drop must be allowed to fall on the ground inside or outside of the circle. I step out carefully, closing first the inner and then the outer salt circles with locking spells.

Only blood will summon the Khaos creature; salt and stone and oak will hold it.

I hope.

When I begin the summoning chant, smoke rises from the bowl of blood; wispy at first, but gradually, it grows into a thick, spiralling column, reeking darkly of gore and rot. The Khaos being resists the summoning, fights against the binding. My muscles ache, my joints feel like they are on fire. Still, I chant. The spell must not be broken before the binding is complete.

After what feels like days, the howling of the smoke subsides, and the column itself dwindles down to a puddle inside the bowl. I feel the grip on me relax, and I have to work not to sink into a puddle myself.

I tremble and then realise that it is the ground beneath me: the granite menhirs are shaken, begin to sway and then topple inwards, crumbling. All around me, the massive oaks are swaying and groaning. I manage to pick myself up and run, away from the circle, before the innermost ring of oaks creaking and cracking fall on top of the stone debris.

When the rumbling stops, a dust cloud hovers over a jumbled pile of stone and wood, slowly settling in the still, dry midday air.

Exhausted, I have another cool shower and a nap.

I wake up covered in goosebumps. A cool afternoon breeze carries the scent of rain into my room.

© 2013 Dorthe Møller Christensen

The Knitting

First, the patterns – I managed to finish Victor’s jumper in time for his birthday, and even got the pattern up on Ravelry.

 

Too hot for wool, but he performed nicely :o)

And just to continue the self-promotion: the pattern for the Elanor cardigan is finally done and published; I threw in the little hat pattern for free. Not surprisingly, the free pattern had 64 downloads after less than a day, while the paid-for cardigan had several ‘faves’ (little pink hearts), but no sales as yet.

The obvious part here is, of course, that the free stuff is downloaded more than the paid-for, not that I take the popularity of my stuff for granted.
Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned the provenance of the name: Elanor the Fair is the first-born daughter of Master Samwise Gamgee.

As far as knitting goes, I am working happily on the lace shawl I mentioned last week, while checking the written pattern and its translation for typos and correcting errors found by my sister.

It’s odd, the difference between improvising something and working from a pattern, even your own pattern: while I was making it up, it flowed organically, and I had to remember writing notes once in a while before I forgot what I had been doing. Now, I read a line in the pattern, follow that, and have to think about what is going on. Weird. But it is a pleasant knit, if I may say so myself, and soon done.

My other project right now is something for Laura, who will be 4 years old in two weeks exactly. More on this later, as always.

So, I still have a wish to decrease my number of wips; so far, I finished one thing and cast on another. And I will be casting on more things in the foreseeable future, as I will need some new nice jumpers and/or cardigans for work – that’s my excuse, anyway.

The Books

On the Forgotten Classics podcast, I am listening to The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis; this is my first encounter with the crime-fighting duo Doan & Carstairs – or whatever their agenda may actually be. The story takes place in Mexico in the 1940’s, during a sight-seeing trip to a picturesque village in the mountains; murders ensue, and it remains to be seen how the fat detective and his huge Great Dane will come out of it all.

If you like Agatha Christie mysteries and dogs, this may be something for you; Carstairs is no Scooby-Doo, though he does have a distinct personality.

Over on CraftLit, Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is running, and I managed to get the first five episodes in at one go – I was catching up on podcasts generally after Canterbury Tales and Bleak House. The story is set in New York in the 1870’s, dealing with the rigid social structure in the upper class and the narrow circles consisting of the ‘right’ families, in which it is difficult to manoeuvre and nearly impossible to be accepted.

Wharton of course satirises over the shallow, but stern dictates of the fashion – much like Dickens does in Bleak House – and at the same time keeps a watchful and caring eye on the victims of these constraints.

By the laws of synchronicity, I have been reading about the upper spheres of another society where name, family, and fortune were all-important: ancient Rome.

One of the arguably oldest families, the Iulii, traced their ancestry back to Iulus, the son of Aeneas and Lavinia, Aeneas being himself the son of the goddess Venus. Quite a pedigree.

And the most famous of all Iulii was, of course, Gaius Iulius Caesar, who in 44 BCE was murdered for – maybe – wanting to be king. He did draw a worrying large number of offices and thus a large amount of power into his one person, political, administrative, military, and religious power; the senate and the people bestowed honours on him that befitted a god, and even though he – in a possibly staged display – refused the crown, he did wield all of the might of a monarch. So they killed him, to save the res publica, and what they got was chaos, civil war, and an emperor. So it goes.

Anyway, I have been reading Caesar by Peter Ørsted. Caesar is, of course, always hugely interesting, whether you like him or not; he must have been a fascinating person, charming and scary at the same time.

But this book, not so much. No doubt a lot of research has gone into it: we get the history, the wars and politics, the system, and lots of quotes from ancient historians and philosophers, including Cicero and Caesar himself.

I found the tone too familiar; biography writing is always personal, of course, since the biographer needs must find the subject interesting, whether in a positive or a negative way. In this case, though, the writer is too present; mostly so in the prologue that takes place in a small town in Spain to which the writer has travelled in Caesar’s footsteps. Scattered throughout the narrative are a lot of personal reflections, too many I thinks – if you want to do that much conjecture, write a novel. Really. And it seems somehow at least one round of editing was forgotten.

So: great man, not so great book.

Nevertheless, I felt inspired to re-read Colleen McCullough’s series Masters of Rome, beginning with The First Man in Rome – who is not Caesar, but his uncle Gaius Marius. (Note the absence of a third name, a cognomen: Marius was a nobody, a homo novus, and one of the very, very few of the kind to achieve the highest post in the Roman magistracy and become consul. So, not really a nobody, only in the sense of not belonging to one of the ancient families.)

I have recommended this series before; here, we do have the novel writer’s approach and freedom to imagine thoughts, feelings, and motivations. I ought to mention that McCullough is pro-Caesar: the nasty rumours about his sexual proclivities – which were probably true – and his attitude to world domination are all explained in a positive light.

I finished also The Gallows Curse by Karen Maitland; the narrator is a female mandrake, which already gives you an inkling of what to expect. The story, set in mediaeval England – Norwich in 1210 – is a whodunit, a spy thriller, and a love story, with elements of the grotesque and the supernatural. Great fun.

The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger is a graphic novel, or rather novella, based on a short story about a young woman who by chance encounters a bookmobile in the night streets of Chicago. I gave it to my sister for her birthday, having found it on her amazon wishlist and knowing how she loved Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler’s Wife; and she kindly let me read it, too.

The young woman in the story, Alexandra, finds that the books in this particular bookmobile are all the books she has ever read, including her own diary; and after being shooed out at dawn (it is a night bookmobile, after all), she searches for the bookmobile again to return and preferably stay there, among the shelves of books, the familiar smell of paper and dust – and a bit of wet dog.

I won’t spoil the story by telling you anymore, but I will recommend it.

Embarking on this book, as with every other book, I went to goodreads to place it on my virtual book shelf, among all the other books that I have read; for that is the function of these virtual libraries, isn’t it, to let us imagine walking between rows of shelves of books, smelling the paper and the dust, and the whiff of wet dog. Now, all we need is a plug-in to this particular corner of the Matrix, and all would be well.

Or not.

Well, that’s it for this week – I do hope you are enjoying your summer (or winter, if you are of the southerly persuasion). I will be back next week, and until then: keep happy, keep healthy, keep crafting!