an afternoon with Lord Kitchener...

...and Cary Grant (today on Turner Classics in The Bishop's Wife and Room For One More) is not a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday.  It's time to seam the socks with that wonderful Kitchener stitch which I enjoyed so much while finishing Teva Durham"s Lace Leaf Pullover that I did it four times! 

I am happy with the Vine Lace scarf despite some earlier reservations.  The yarn finally agreed to cooperate.  Various versions of this appear on Ravelry, but I just picked this stitch from one of my Barbara Walker books and started knitting.  It was a very simple pattern, but I think the results are quite pretty. 

One last knitted gift to go: the famous Bev Galeskas Felted Clogs. 

a Tea Party tale...

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Keli Carender, the Tea Party activist credited with launching the movement early in 2009.  The event, hosted by Mount Holyoke College's Weissman Center, was notable for how little Ms. Carender actually said about the Tea Party.  Perhaps geography was to blame.   She was, admittedly, treading on unfriendly territory.  Mount Holyoke is located in that part of Western Massachusetts known as the Pioneer Valley, aka the Happy Valley, a region identified by its strong liberal sentiments and progressive politics.  The Valley is familiarly associated with that stereotype of latte drinking, Prius driving lefties who vociferously deny eating processed food and watching television and who are energetically targeted for accusations of elitism by a majority on the right.  
 
It was in this liberal lair that Ms Carender bravely appeared, ostensibly for a "serious discussion of the political positions of the Tea Party movement, which promises to greatly shape the future of conservative politics in this country” according to the description of the event on the college website. 

She failed to address this issue.  She began warily, by complimenting the audience, comprised mainly of MHC students, for being open minded enough to attend the event, then related her experiences as a conservative in Seattle, a place she described as openly hostile to her kind.  The lecture took a bizarre turn as Ms. Carender fought back tears, explaining that she had been the object of frequent abusive personal attacks.  It was painful, she said, being called a "bigot", a "fascist", a "Nazi".  "Tonight is my therapy session".   One wondered, reasonably, why this intrepid founder of the most divisive political movement in the country was suddenly going all teary.

A former Bush supporter, she claimed to eventually feel cruelly betrayed by Bush.  It was then that she had her epiphany.  "Politicians don't care about us, politicians are foul!" "You have a voice!", she told herself.  Inspired to take matters into her own hands, she sponsored a protest, modestly attended, but which nevertheless got the attention of many like-minded conservatives via mention on talk radio and served as a catalyst for that grassroots initiative that evolved into the Tea Party. 

Throughout her lecture, Ms. Carender expressed the need for open dialogue, encouraging the purportedly bloodthirsty liberals in the audience to "befriend a conservative" and "reach out and find issues we can all agree on".   It was a kind of Rodney King moment, but one which failed to encourage any constructive discussion of the Tea Party agenda, which was presumably the reason why everyone showed up to the event in the first place.

Well, maybe not.  Tensions began to erupt during the Q&A session.  Both Ms. Carender and some of those asking questions adopted that sort of brusque cattiness that tries to disguise itself as civility.  Words are weapons, they might as well have been throwing knives. This forced attempt at polite debate required frequent "girls, break it up" interventions from the moderator and organizer of the event.  So much for reaching out. 

In visting the College, Ms. Carender had an opportunity to address serious concerns about her coalition before an ostensibly interested audience but, for whatever reasons, she failed to take up the challenge.  That was a disappointment.  Her wish for constructive debate did not materialize, perhaps it never could here in the Valley, but she might have done something more to encourage it.  Perhaps she does not share the opinions of the extremists who have been drawn to her increasingly fragmented movement.  Perhaps she does not endorse the bear-frightening and caribou-shooting of her Tea Party's most vocal proponent, but she never quite gave us the chance to find out.  Nothing she said created any distance between her and those whose inflammatory rhetoric provokes the kind of anger she faced during question time.  It was naive of her visit an area known for its liberal convictions and then be surprised by the less than generous reaction  Her failure to clarify her own vision as something distinct from that of her movement's most provocative and divisive followers will of course be interpreted as an endorsement of their beliefs.  In neglecting to account for that, she becomes linked, fairly or not, with the ugliness and rancor with which her coalition has become increasingly identified.   

more favorite things...

My great-grandfather's pastels.  He was offered a scholarship to study art in Rome.  His father disapproved of this, believing that a career making art was unacceptable. My great-grandfather ran away to become a sailor instead.

 
A pin-cushion made from an old woolen cape sewn for me by my grandmother, and a floral cotton dress she made for herself.

A well-loved old British road atlas.  My mother received a Fulbright teaching scholarship and we lived here for one year.  

I collect books.  This is a French children's songbook with the most delicate and beautiful illustrations.

Delicious persimmons. This one is a Hachiya, inedible until it's the consistency of custard.

My modest feather collection.




My OED! 

Done!

...and it only took three days, a few thoughtful modifications, a perfectly justified amount of swearing, a corresponding amount of ripping out stitches, and voila! I felt slightly mortified by the idea of posing while wearing the dress to illustrate my success, but it just seemed wrong to lead on so many with the promise of something wonderful in one post and then not see it through properly with the evidence in another. In order to accurately realize the "contempory Japanese pattern book" aesthetic, which I think I achieved with a few changes to the pattern, it occurred to me that I ought to appear with some wholly irrelevant object. Since numerous catalogs are now exploiting animals as the accessory of the moment, a subject I grumbled about in my "not inherently interesting" post, the choice was simple. Nepalese yak head to the rescue.
Sexless prison garb you say? Oh well. I like it.

Blair vs. Hitchens, Part II

Both the video and transcript of the Christopher Hitchens/Tony Blair Munk debate are now available at Hitchens' blog, Daily Hitchens.

"trippingly on the tongue"...

      Ever since I read yesterday's entertaining Guardian article on the incursion of Americanisms into UK print media, our English language has been much on my mind. The article's central complaint sounded like this: the increasing reliance by British journalists on American English, including the especially vile American slang, is despoiling otherwise engaging articles whose points would be better appreciated if the language used to explain them was British English. The comments, in the main, reflected a hot-headed intolerance for US idiomatic imperialism and linguistic banditry.

      Some examples? "Can I get' vs. "May I have?", the suffix, "ize" vs. "ise', expressions such as "going postal", "my bad", "impacted" as a verb, "dude", "do the math", etc. I generally agree with the argument against the vernacular, although one of my favorite observations noted that the word for describing complaints about Americanisms was the same in British and American English: "petty". Undeniably, English is a rich, dynamic language and its inventive refashioning in the form of slang has had an indelible effect on languages worldwide. The fact that people care passionately about this is good.

     Then, last evening, I saw another example of this passion for our shared language via an interview with MK Asante, an author, filmmaker, and professor of creative writing, and Akala, a hip-hop artist who founded The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, a theater production company in London. They discussed the impact of hip hop on the English language and noted that it served as an means to enliven and enrich rather than compromise our tongue.  Akala recited Shakespeare's 18th sonnet, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day', in a spirited hip hop cadence that was irresistible. What I found so exciting about the interview was the enthusiasm these gentleman feel for the work they do, for the obvious mutual respect they share, and their heartfelt mission to bring language to life with an unconventional approach. They get my vote for "Role Models of the Week".

Postscript: Please investigate the superb blog linked in the Guardian article and now here in my Reading List a droit, courtesy of its author, Lynne Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Sussex.

Blair vs. Hitchens, tonight...

The much publicized and keenly anticipated Munk debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens is being held tonight in Toronto. The event was sold out weeks ago, but, for a small fee, one can watch it via live streaming video. The resolution is stated below in an excerpt from the website:

"In a world of globalization and rapid social change does religion provide the common values and ethical foundations that diverse societies need to thrive in the 21st century? Or, do deeply held religious beliefs promote intolerance, exacerbate ethnic divisions, and impede social progress in developing and developed nations alike? To encourage a far-ranging discussion on one of human kind’s most vexing questions, the 6th semi-annual Munk Debate will tackle the resolution: be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world."

Should be fascinating-wish I could be there!