About Me
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Firefly; Jayne's 'Cunning' Hat
I've been selling 'Jayne' hats via ebay during the past few years, and they never fail to sell. There always seems to be a continuing demand.
My hats are top-quality, and they sell for less than most other hats you'll find simply net surfing. They're awesome, affordable, and make great gifts for any 'flan.')
My hats are top-quality, and they sell for less than most other hats you'll find simply net surfing. They're awesome, affordable, and make great gifts for any 'flan.')
Monday, June 01, 2009
Free-Range Knitter
For the record, I'm no loyal fan of the infamous 'Yarn Harlot', I'm no dedicated blog commentor of hers, as for her books, I've previously only read bits and pieces, and I'm certainly no free range knitter.
On Friday, I attended a book signing in Dallas, purchased her latest book, Free-Range Knitter, well, my lovely April did the actual purchasing, and now I've read it.
What strikes me about her writing is her skill to tell a story, and how she captures the true essence of knitting and the knitters responsible for said knitting.
I was rather scepticle, as I always am, but as I read, the more she, and her writing reminded me of myself. Aside my blatant lack of an ungodly love for knitting, of course.
Or perhaps it's that she simply writes in such a way that anyone can relate to, because her stories tend to thoroughly exploit the embarrassing human tendancies we all possess.
Free- Range Knitter is quite readable, as her material generally has the habbit of being. It's the sort of book that you can't put down until it's finished, and a highly entertaining read, in my opinion.
I thoroughly enjoyed being able to witness she and her monologue, which I'd label as more of a 'performance' than anything, was at times, comparable to that of a stand-up comedian. Better, since you don't have to feign laughter at timely intervals.
Ironically, I have the greatest urge to knit. It could just be the vast amount of reading about knitting talking, but I may actually be inspired enough to pick up the needles, and plod my way back into the knitting world. One of these days.
Overall, the moral of my blog is that my personal experience has earned me some amount of respect for the woman that is Stephanie McPhee, and for all that she has accomplished. I know I don't have to go so far as to suggest that you all to go pick up a book, or read her blog, because a great most of the knit bloggers are already familiar with her stylings.
On Friday, I attended a book signing in Dallas, purchased her latest book, Free-Range Knitter, well, my lovely April did the actual purchasing, and now I've read it.
What strikes me about her writing is her skill to tell a story, and how she captures the true essence of knitting and the knitters responsible for said knitting.
I was rather scepticle, as I always am, but as I read, the more she, and her writing reminded me of myself. Aside my blatant lack of an ungodly love for knitting, of course.
Or perhaps it's that she simply writes in such a way that anyone can relate to, because her stories tend to thoroughly exploit the embarrassing human tendancies we all possess.
Free- Range Knitter is quite readable, as her material generally has the habbit of being. It's the sort of book that you can't put down until it's finished, and a highly entertaining read, in my opinion.
I thoroughly enjoyed being able to witness she and her monologue, which I'd label as more of a 'performance' than anything, was at times, comparable to that of a stand-up comedian. Better, since you don't have to feign laughter at timely intervals.
Ironically, I have the greatest urge to knit. It could just be the vast amount of reading about knitting talking, but I may actually be inspired enough to pick up the needles, and plod my way back into the knitting world. One of these days.
Overall, the moral of my blog is that my personal experience has earned me some amount of respect for the woman that is Stephanie McPhee, and for all that she has accomplished. I know I don't have to go so far as to suggest that you all to go pick up a book, or read her blog, because a great most of the knit bloggers are already familiar with her stylings.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
N'er Mind
I managed to adjust the content so that now my blog possesses a musical aspect, so I may not do away with it all together.
That Project Playlist music player is the end result of hours of searching, editing, and revising the muscial content, and Myspace saw fit to do away with supporting it all together. Needless to say, it disappointed me greatly, and Myspacing holds little joy for me now.
In other news, of greater importance, author Tad Williams has turned out the first eight chapters of his fantasy novel, Dragons of Ordinary Farm. Available to read in pdf format for all. How cool? While it's not quite my cup o' tea since I'm a little over the hill for this particular sort of story, I love his work, and it shouldn't go unappreciated.
That Project Playlist music player is the end result of hours of searching, editing, and revising the muscial content, and Myspace saw fit to do away with supporting it all together. Needless to say, it disappointed me greatly, and Myspacing holds little joy for me now.
In other news, of greater importance, author Tad Williams has turned out the first eight chapters of his fantasy novel, Dragons of Ordinary Farm. Available to read in pdf format for all. How cool? While it's not quite my cup o' tea since I'm a little over the hill for this particular sort of story, I love his work, and it shouldn't go unappreciated.
This particular work, is actually the colaborated efforts of he and his wife and partner, Deborah Beale. Judging from the blog they keep, which reads like a novel, she has a sharp mind, and just as talented as he. Were I half the author I aspire to be, I would kill for a man type figure that shared my interest. They certainly make quite the pair.
That being said, everyone who happens to have been born with a functioning mind and endowments of the ocular sort really ought to visit his site.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Spur-of-the-Moment Poetry
I am nothing
If there were any beauty in such a thing, I would have you find it
I am the sun
Still, I wish you to fill the emptiness encompassing me.
Would we only lust for things possessed; we would be complete
There would be no beauty in hope
Only in that which is
In that land, I would dwell
Suffering true contentment
Pitied by all creation, until all who live mourn my very existance
Yet, their collective sorrow stays my hand, for I now know beauty
If there were any beauty in such a thing, I would have you find it
I am the sun
Still, I wish you to fill the emptiness encompassing me.
Would we only lust for things possessed; we would be complete
There would be no beauty in hope
Only in that which is
In that land, I would dwell
Suffering true contentment
Pitied by all creation, until all who live mourn my very existance
Yet, their collective sorrow stays my hand, for I now know beauty
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Irony Is Overwhelming.
Okay, so I don't do much plugging, but here's a plug.
Subscribe to Delancy Place, or at the very least check out the site.
You get a handy excerpt, which is chosen from a variety of genres, e-mailed to you ever day. They generally look something like this:
In today's excerpt--organic, as it is used on food labels, while it still means chemical-pesticide-free, doesn't mean quite what it used to. And then there's the so-called free range chicken:
"Shopping at Whole Foods is a literary experience. That's not to take anything away from the food, which is generally of high quality, much of it 'certified organic' or 'humanely raised' or 'free range.' But right there, that's the point: It's the evocative prose as much as anything else that makes this food really special. ...
"With the growth of organics and mounting concerns about the wholesomeness of industrial food, ... it is Whole Foods that consistently offers the most cutting-edge grocery 'lit.' On a recent visit I filled my shopping cart with eggs 'from cage-free vegetarian hens,' milk from cows that live 'free from unnecessary fear and distress,' wild salmon caught by Native Americans in Yakutat, Alaska (population 833), and heirloom tomatoes from Capay Farm (S4.99 a pound), 'one of the early pioneers of the organic movement.' The organic broiler I picked up even had a name: Rosie, who turned out to be a 'sustainably farmed' 'free-range chicken' from Petaluma Poultry. ...
"The organic movement, as it was once called, has come a remarkably long way in the last thirty years, to the point where it now looks considerably less like a movement than a big business. Lining the walls above the sumptuously stocked produce section in my Whole Foods are full-color photographs of local organic farmers accompanied by text blocks setting forth their farming philosophies. A handful of these farms still sell their produce to Whole Foods, but most are long gone from the produce bins, if not yet the walls. That's because Whole Foods in recent years has adopted the grocery industry's standard regional distribution system, which makes supporting small farms impractical. Tremendous warehouses buy produce for dozens of stores at a time, which forces them to deal exclusively with [huge] farms. ...
"The question is, ... just how well does [today's organic] hold up under close reading and journalistic scrutiny? [Not that well]. At least that's what I discovered when I traced a few of the items in my Whole Foods cart back to the farms where they were grown. I learned, for example, that some (certainly not all) organic milk comes from factory farms, where thousands of Holsteins that never encounter a blade of grass spend their days confined to a fenced 'dry lot,' eating (certified organic) grain and tethered to milking machines three times a day. ...
"I also visited Rosie the organic chicken at her farm in Petaluma, which turns out to be more animal factory than farm. She lives in a shed with twenty thousand other Rosies, who, aside from their certified organic feed, live lives little different from that of any other industrial chicken. Ah, but what about the 'free-range' lifestyle promised on the label? True, there's a little door in the shed leading out to a narrow grassy yard. But the free-range story seems a bit of a stretch when you discover that the door remains firmly shut until the birds are at least five or six weeks old--for fear they'll catch something outside--and the chickens are slaughtered only two weeks later."
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Penguin, Copyright 2006 by Michael Pollan, pp. 134-140.
Subscribe to Delancy Place, or at the very least check out the site.
You get a handy excerpt, which is chosen from a variety of genres, e-mailed to you ever day. They generally look something like this:
In today's excerpt--organic, as it is used on food labels, while it still means chemical-pesticide-free, doesn't mean quite what it used to. And then there's the so-called free range chicken:
"Shopping at Whole Foods is a literary experience. That's not to take anything away from the food, which is generally of high quality, much of it 'certified organic' or 'humanely raised' or 'free range.' But right there, that's the point: It's the evocative prose as much as anything else that makes this food really special. ...
"With the growth of organics and mounting concerns about the wholesomeness of industrial food, ... it is Whole Foods that consistently offers the most cutting-edge grocery 'lit.' On a recent visit I filled my shopping cart with eggs 'from cage-free vegetarian hens,' milk from cows that live 'free from unnecessary fear and distress,' wild salmon caught by Native Americans in Yakutat, Alaska (population 833), and heirloom tomatoes from Capay Farm (S4.99 a pound), 'one of the early pioneers of the organic movement.' The organic broiler I picked up even had a name: Rosie, who turned out to be a 'sustainably farmed' 'free-range chicken' from Petaluma Poultry. ...
"The organic movement, as it was once called, has come a remarkably long way in the last thirty years, to the point where it now looks considerably less like a movement than a big business. Lining the walls above the sumptuously stocked produce section in my Whole Foods are full-color photographs of local organic farmers accompanied by text blocks setting forth their farming philosophies. A handful of these farms still sell their produce to Whole Foods, but most are long gone from the produce bins, if not yet the walls. That's because Whole Foods in recent years has adopted the grocery industry's standard regional distribution system, which makes supporting small farms impractical. Tremendous warehouses buy produce for dozens of stores at a time, which forces them to deal exclusively with [huge] farms. ...
"The question is, ... just how well does [today's organic] hold up under close reading and journalistic scrutiny? [Not that well]. At least that's what I discovered when I traced a few of the items in my Whole Foods cart back to the farms where they were grown. I learned, for example, that some (certainly not all) organic milk comes from factory farms, where thousands of Holsteins that never encounter a blade of grass spend their days confined to a fenced 'dry lot,' eating (certified organic) grain and tethered to milking machines three times a day. ...
"I also visited Rosie the organic chicken at her farm in Petaluma, which turns out to be more animal factory than farm. She lives in a shed with twenty thousand other Rosies, who, aside from their certified organic feed, live lives little different from that of any other industrial chicken. Ah, but what about the 'free-range' lifestyle promised on the label? True, there's a little door in the shed leading out to a narrow grassy yard. But the free-range story seems a bit of a stretch when you discover that the door remains firmly shut until the birds are at least five or six weeks old--for fear they'll catch something outside--and the chickens are slaughtered only two weeks later."
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Penguin, Copyright 2006 by Michael Pollan, pp. 134-140.
Friday, March 13, 2009
And Everyone Realized That the Characteristics of a Human Being Were Simply a Balance of That of Animal and Machine...
Sonnet IV: Of The Machinations of Anthropos
Steady manipulation of the mind-machines
Simply further the ongoing process
Inculcating sight miscalculation
Into the decorum of our conquest
Systematic slight, ungodly marvel
A medaled man, with metal man in hand
Who presumes to bear, alter, maneuver
A biological Automaton?
Endowed with syncretic, unthinking mind
Contemporary little humanoid
Would oblivion, be thy holy name?
Bless your shameful circuitry, Amnestia
Give birth to mankind's malfunctioning curse
Wholly corrupt, each, his earthly concourse
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
