I Walked With A Zombie

Attention few and loyal readers- from this day forward I am free from the shackles of LiveJournal! You can check me out over at A Rarer Borealis.

Forget Beta testing, any and all visitors shall be Alpha testers! That is to say, the site may have a few bugs and quirks; stop on over, poke around and let me know all about it. I just fixed up the RSS feed and whatnot so you can browse in the comfort of your own reader window. Oh, joy of joys at loosing the confines of this imposed-ad space!



CLICK ON THROUGH AND GO BEYOND!

I believe I've found a store that out-Puerto-Ricos the actual island of Puerto Rico:



aaand a closer view:



Anything you can conceive of, they have with a combination of a coqui, Puerto Rican flag, the phrase 'boricua', or a small child wearing any of the above in conjunction with the aforementioned, available and waiting.

At a nearby bakery these two cakewrecks beckoned from the window-




Both seem to be....missing something vital to understanding the cake's purpose.

I also attended a fun show with visuals by Your Friend Matthew, but left early because I am a party pooper. Look how pretty!











For the full effect, here's a video:

This is mostly visual goodness- while in Iowa I outbid a gaggle of ladies on some gorgeous vintage buttonry. Click onward if you want to oggle vintage buttons on cards. Also, soon, soon, so very soon, shall I flee the boundaries of Livejournal. Seriously!




( Buttons! )

Apologies for the lack of posting, but I'm getting my new website all zazzed up and ready for visitors. I must take a break from this though to share an upcoming rally from Westboro Baptist Church, aka the ultrahypocrites behind 'God Hates Fags'. Remember them? Yeaaaah, they've widened their agenda to so much more than mindlessly hating people because some random passages in a book hobbled together and edited by numerous human sources over the years 'told' them to via their narrow interpretation of 5 generations of translation. They've expanded to picketing various high schools for teaching Abortion is Cool and How To Be Gay 101-I'm guessing this from the run-on rambles accompanying each date and time, including such gems as "Serve Obama -in his army full of fags Try to make a living - you'll end up in rags Rebel child, God hates you..." and "John Marshall High School - Teaching Kids to be fags!"

Normally I would ignore such ridiculousness, as one ignores someone saying 'Dinosaurs didn't exist'- to engage them in conversation is not only futile, but gives their point of view a measure of validity by your attempting to argue it. Just like creationists trying to 'engage' scientists in a 'dialogue' about their 'theory' through haranguing debate and gaining 'credibility' because some poor fellows attempted to take them on. But this time...this time it's personal (formatting by me because I know the internet better than the haterz):

0/28/2009 07:30 AM - 08:00 AM
New Brunswick High School
God Hates New Joisee, U Heard?
1125 Livingston Avef
Here is the goofy stuff that New Jersey stands for, and you stupid, simpletons are proud of it. I got this straight out of urbandictionary.com: "I am from NJ. I curse... a lot. I say "yo", and I say it often. I never had school on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. I sure as hell don't pump my own gas. I know what real pizza tastes like, and I know that a bagel is much more than a fuckin' roll with a hole in the middle. I judge people by what exit they get off the parkway. I can navigate a circle--with attitude. All good nights must end at a diner--preferably with cheese fries. It's a sub, not a hoagie or, worse yet, a hero, and I wash it down with soda, not pop. Two words... "mother fucker." I don't go to the beach, I go down the shore. And boardwalk brawls are just a part of the atmosphere. Yes, I drink cawfee. I know that 65mph really means 80. I've always lived within 10 minutes of a mall. When someone cuts me off, they get the horn AND the finger. And they expect it. I am from New Jersey, and damn proud of it." Yes, and that fitly describes God's curse upon you all. Deuteronomy 11:26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; 27 A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: 28 And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known. 29 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. 30 Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh? 31 For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. 32 And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day. Praise God for bringing this little church along so we can shine a bright spotlight on the filth that IS New Jersey! AMEN!

WHAT THE HELL?! Everyone ELSE gets a rally because they're gay or have a gay agenda or are aborting babies or are Jewish....WE get a rally in New Jersey BECAUSE WE'RE IN NEW JERSEY?! Seriously?!? That's it? Your entire beef with the Garden State is its continued existence and the stereotypes therein? I will grant there are plenty of begelled folk in tank tops and cars with spoilers on them who are way too proud of their orange skin, but that is NOT just our slice of the East Coast! Also, can someone more scholarly in Bible stuff translate what the hell ancient turf wars have to do with New Jersey circa 2009? If'n I recall my Sunday schooling one was the mountain where half the Israelite tribe went to 'pronounce blessings' and the other half went to 'pronounce curses'. Sooo....are we getting the curses? Is the 'good' mountain Connecticut? What?

In any event my sister suggested we and some of our pals go down and counter-protest. I was all for it, but how the hell do you counter protest something as dumb as this? Throw bagels at them? Perhaps I can follow the example of these fine gentlemen:





God hates it when you laugh at His followers.

I'm hoping due to the early hour this will be a small event, but those canny asswipes at WBC had to choose the home of Rutgers for this bunk, guaranteeing a small army of angry, pajama-bottomed, bike-riding youths out for blood. I think WBC is severely underestimating how little there is to legitimately protest in New Brunswick and how big the hardcore scene is there. Most likely this will be me:

Occasionally I am gripped by some inexplicable madness leading me to seek knowledge and experiences no man should dare speak of, never mind know. Such is what led me to eat more than 5 different types of fried food in a row on the boardwalks of Wildwood, see a Weston/Less Than Jake show, and watch 'National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets' and 'Doom' in theaters THE DAY THEY CAME OUT. Tonight, I wondered to myself- what could the worst fanfiction out there possibly be?

See, this presumes that a) there is good fanfiction and b) that the fanfiction community has some sort of value setting attached to its works. I don't know about the first, since if anything's really that good you should either be writing for the show or creating your own characters, and while my 'good' hinges on solid storytelling and character development, for many in the fanfic world 'good' hinges on the amount of detail in describing beloved characters shirtless and/or as centaurs. However, fanfiction writers DO have a qualitative sense of 'good' and 'bad' relative to their hermetic obsessions, and it is to their judgement I defer in presenting the WORST fanfiction. 'Bad' fanfiction, from what I can see, falls into three major categories: Crossovers That Shouldn't Be, Things That Shouldn't Be Erotic, and Writing Without Grasp of the English Language. Here we go.

Crossovers That Shouldn't Be

Anne Frank meets Goku from DragonForce Z



Goku smirked, then said “It’s come down to this. You and me. Fighting like men. If you admit defeat now, I’ll kill you rather painlessly.” Goku had the definite advantage. Or so it seemed. Hitler burst into a laugh, as Goku looked on quizzically. The mustachioed man slowly rose into the air, as his brown hair and pencil moustache turned a blonde color, and his brown eyes turned blue. Goku reeled in horror. Hitler continued laughing, then finally said “Goku! You came here expecting to find a madman, but instead, you found a GOD!”

Hitler had become a Super Saiyan."

This one delivers on the promise inherent in the title. Hitler. Super Saiyan. Man, I hate DragonBall Z.


Bowser's Mexico Adventure
"Bowser was about to grumble a response when he heard a friendly, familiar voice on the line.

Joel: Hello? Who am I speaking with?

Bowser: Hey Bro! It’s Wet Bowser!

Joel: Hey! How long’s it been, man?!

Bowser: Too long, too long… What’ve you been up to?

Joel: Oh, you know, just watching some movies with the Bots and getting ready for our next invention exchange, how about you?

Bowser: Well, I was just finishing up my gardening today and I got a letter in the mail… I’m goin’ on a free vacation! And you’re coming along! Bring the Bots, too!"

Who...why....MST3K and Bowser....sigh.

Things That Shouldn't Be Erotic
There's an entire community dedicated to Jurassic Park erotic fanfiction, The International Jurassic Park Erotic Fan-Fiction Writer's Association. The site has a midi version of the themesong and even a cute lil' icon:



There we are! I'm fairly sure this one HAS to be a joke, as few of the stories are finished, the spelling and grammar are decent, and I'd like to believe this stuff doesn't actually exist as someone's idea of 'erotica':

"With each thrust now harder, rougher and faster, resulting in a damp thudding sound from the beast’s throat, Malcolm’s grip tightened, as he rushed towards the endgame. Blood was just beginning to drip from the creature’s jaw as Malcolm exploded his unspliced, Mosquito free DNA down its throat and screamed “CHAOS THEORY!!!” at the top of his lungs."


The line 'must go faster' has an unfortunate new meaning. DAMN YOU INTERNET!

WHYYYYYY. Even if it's a joke, someone still wrote it and someone in the world's probably going to be turned on by it. Oh, internet.

It's All Too Much
Aaaaand this is why I can't dismiss anything outright. Here is an absolutely serious fanfic about the author (Jen) getting Paul McCartney pregnant. Yep. Macca's pregnant and yet he and Jen still get it on plenty up until the very painful cesarean birth. Also they get married at the end <3 ^-^. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HUMANITY?

Writing Without Grasp of the English Language

legolas by laura
If it weren't for the occasional 'FEW HOURS LATER', this entire story would be one long run-on sentence.

"Mean while Strider and Gandalf was rideing towards where Legolas lived and then Strider said"Gandalf I did not know Legolas had a sister"and then Gandalf said"I did not know aswell".Mean While at Mondor the dark lord was planing to kidnap the princess but not Legolas.Then the boss of the Orcs came and said"I'll get her for you sir"and then the Dark lord said"yes you can".

I like the upbeat tone the Dark Lord sets for his pinions. Unfortunately the story takes a weird turn into 'Law & Order: SVU' territory in one long, rambling paragraph:

Mean while Legolas got to the cell where Laura is.Legolas said"Laura are you in there"and then Laura said"Oh Legolas you finally came"and then Legolas said"are you alright"and then Laura said"no I am not alright"and then Legolas said"they bet you up and raped you also the Dark lord gave you the posion"and then Laura said"how did you know that".Then Legolas said"when I was your age they did the samething to me".Then Laura said"can you get me out of here"and then Legolas said"ok stand back"and then he ran back and ran towards the door and knock it down.

Laura said"wow"and then Legolas looked and saw she was coved in Blood and scars also she was naked"and then Legolas said"why they did it to you not me"and then the Orcs came and said"because she got a power and she can distoy us all the bad guys".

Then the fright began"

Really? Mine began with the thought a middle-aged mom wrote this between yelling at her brood somewhere in Indiana. Oh, and just in case you weren't completely scarred:



I love that the person included their cat in the torture dungeon.

Actually typing in 'worst fanfiction ever' yields one general answer across all fanfiction boards- the vaguely Harry Potter-ish 'My Immortal'. Less about Harry Potter and more about what this particular goth girl, excuse me, vampire, is wearing, the story veers wildly between completely illegible nonsense and some of the most hilariously bad writing since I was signed up to a Christopher Pike fanfic email ring back in 1997 (yep, again, reread the first sentence of this post.)

The story is here in its entirety- My Immortal, but if you just want a taste, here's a sample of the text:

“Do you like Draco?” she asked as we went out of the Slytherin common room and into the Great Hall.

“No I so fucking don’t!” I shouted.

“Yeah right!” she exclaimed. Just then, Draco walked up to me.

“Hi.” he said.

“Hi.” I replied flirtily."

I am heretofore using the word 'flirtily' as an adverb. Uh, actually this is so bad, a few more examples are warranted (trust me, taking them in or out of context is equally bad):

“They were having sexual intercourse in the Forbidden Forest!” he yelled in a furious voice."


"He had a manly stubble on his chin. He had a sexy English accent. He looked exactly like Joel Madden. He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko."


"“Ebony, it’s not what you think!” Draco screamed sadly."

I'm sure if you're a middle school creative writing teacher you probably want to commit hara-kiri over how badly adverbs get mangled but for me this is pure gold.

“How did you know?” I asked in a surprised way.

Voldemort got a dude-ur-so-retarded look on his face. “I hath telekinesis.” he answered cruelly. “And if you doth not kill Vampire, then thou know what will happen to Draco!” he shouted. Then he flew away angrily on his broomstick."

Voldemort suddenly speaks Ren Faire and rides a broomstick. Huh. Oh also, Harry Potter goes by the name 'Vampire' in this story. To clarify, he is NOT a vampire, but has merely taken the name of such, while Ebony, or Enoby (it's spelled either way throughout) IS actually a vampire/student at Hogwarts.

"“What have you done!” He started to cry wisely. (c dats basically nut swering and dis time he wuz relly upset n u wil c y) “Ebony Draco has been found in his room. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists.""

Remember that book 'C D B', where you'd sound out the letters and they'd form a sentence? Yeah, reading that really prepped me for this person's way of communicating that which her friend did not spell check.

"“What do you know, Hargrid? You’re just a little Hogwarts student!”

“I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT….” Hargirid paused angrily. “BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!”

“This cannot be.” Snap said in a crisp voice as blood dripped from his hand where Dumblydore’s wand had shot him. “There must be other factors.”"

Oh, snap, Snap! Though, how is being a Satanist mutually exclusive from being a Hogwarts student? Why am I even asking this deep into something where logic has no place? After chapter 5 the author's spellchecking friend took a hike and half the hilarity comes from malapropisms flying fast and furious, such as the intro to Chapter 14:

"WARNING: SUM OF DIS CHAPTA IS XTREMLY SCRAY. VIOWER EXCRETION ADVISD."

I do wonder if this is perhaps the work of someone well versed in teen girl angst fanfiction, as some of this is almost too over the top to be real:

"Later we all went in the skull. Draco was crying in da common room. “Draco are u okay?” I asked in a gothic voice.

“No I’m not u fuking bitch!” he shouted angrily. He stated to run out of the place in a suicidal way. I stated to cry cuz I was afraid he would commit suicide."

See, it toes the line between 'making fun' stupid and 'no, this is really the future of the country' stupid. Also, a later name drop of 'Shark Attack 3' hints towards a particularly tenacious joker.

"“OMFG Draco Draco!” I screamed having an orgism. We stated frenching passively. Suddenly………… I fell asleep. I started having a dream. In it a black guy was shooting two goffik men with long black hair.

“No! Please don’t fucking kill us!1” they pleaded but he just kept shooting them. He ran away in a red car."

aaaand, one more malapropism:

"“So what the fuck happened 2 Snipe and Loopin?” I asked Sorious flirtily.

“I fucking tortured them.” he answered in a statistic way. “They r in Abkhazian now, lol.”

Ahh, I'm going to go weep and laugh hysterically for the next hour or so.

Perhaps it's the laziness, or perhaps it's the laziness, but I'm quite content just tossing up random photos this week.



This was taken the day Michael Jackson died; I'm guessing they'd already made the sign up when they heard the news. Either that or this specific type of ramen somehow represents Michael Jackson.




Remember that day when the APOCALYPSE HAPPENED?! It was really pretty, and everyone on the street shot a million photos of themselves bathed in its menacing blood red light.




Yeaaaah!




I enjoy the thought some kid running with a crew choked on the first tag run, came up with this moniker, and now is stuck with the elegance and annoyance of spelling it out all over buildings.




These twin houses stand out, with their Spanish-tiled roofs and brickwork.




Yes, Cleansiness is Godliness. I say this to myself several times a day.

Soo, is the dog named 'Bad Boy Mike', and also a bad dog, or is 'Bad Boy Mike' the owner of the bad dog...?




This may be the best use of Photoshop I've ever seen. Who the hell needs a BUCKET of these monstro-wings?



This was on a bench inside a Jersey ShopRite advertising the wonders that could be done with your photos. They start with a wall-eyed kitten and....improve....it by putting it in a conch-shell planter! On a beach! The kitten still looks wall-eyed, and sort of sad! My own mother had to drag me away after I stood there laughing for 5 minutes, scaring people entering the store.

Also, I should probably wait until I actually set the thing up to announce this, but I hate Livejournal so much I can't wait- as soon as my website's up and running I am OUT OF HERE!!! Oh man, I despise LJ SO MUCH, from having to sign in next to the world's dumbest questions (today's was 'On a scorching day, do you prefer the beach or an air-conditioned movie theater?' If this actually cures writer's block I hereby declare the cure worse than the disease) to the endless flamewars from myriad Russian posters over an image whose controversy I don't know/care about (you are keeping me from reading hilariously sexist/racist advertising from the past, people!)

Yes, the day of cleansing will soon be upon us, whence I shall throw off the shackles of this particular blogging site and reorganize stuff so those who don't give a deuce about knitting shan't have to read it, and those who just want the free goods can easily get them without slogging through rants about Baby Boomers (ooh, don't even get me started). And on that glorious day I shall post here triumphantly for the last time a LINK to the promised page. Woo.

While visiting Iowa, we went to the 99th annual Meskwaki Pow-wow, an event that happens once a year and reunites members of the tribe on their settlement. They were very particular to note their tribe lives on a settlement, NOT a reservation. in the mid-1800's, noticing the trend of shuffling tribes around as suited others, the tribe pooled their resources and purchased the land they still own to this day (they recently opened a casino on it). You can read more about the Meskwaki here. It had rained the night before, turning the meeting grounds into a muddy mess. It was also apparently 'senior day' explaining the numerous busloads dropping elderly passangers off. Strangely, all wore superclean white athletic shoes and all were superclean when I passed them on my way out. Elderly magic!



Don't let the tipi fool you; the traditional Meskwaki hut was in full effect, though with more modern coverings:

The dome shape of the tent structures built by visiting tribe members was identical to the historic example set up towards the back, but where that one used reeds, these used the more practical, and I certainly hope waterproof, tarp.



Yep, that's Meskwaki kids playing with cheap plastic bows and arrows. Sigh.


I didn't realize he was posing for me standing in a half foot of water until I saw it again here.

There was a medium-sized tent full of historical items and facts:

This is a decorative axe,


a gold French 'trading ring',


examples of decor and tools,



and they had an entire book of tribe members in the armed services. The Meskwaki have participated in every war from WWI onward in one branch or another.

Really though, most visitors skipped the history. There were 3 things they came to the pow-wow for-

Foodstuffs

Ok, if they aren't going to be PC I don't see why I should try.


Ultimate pregnancy combo!


Yes, Saucy is an orderable dish; it's pulled pork smothered in BBQ sauce.



This is the most ethnic food in one spot I saw in Iowa.


I ordered an Indian Taco, which consists of fry bread and the veggie makings of a taco dumped on top, with a generous portion of salsa (El Paso brand, if my taste buds are correct). Fry bread, in texture and taste, is very similar to the Italian fried dough treat zeppole, but less sweet. Also similar to zeppole, treating it like normal bread feels wrong and makes your meal 10x heavier.

Tchochkies
If they weren't selling foodstuffs, the booths were selling Native American goods and trinkets. Not Meskwaki stuff, 'Native American' in the most general sense of the words stuff. Lots of dreamcatchers, beads, feathers, and airbrushed women fading into wolves.




Dancing
The big draw for most were the various ceremonial dances. Unfortunately the muddiness and rain put off the scheduled start time by an hour. The announcer charmingly filled in, musing about hot dogs, querying the audience on their favorite teams, and good-naturedly ribbing the dancers, all in a low-key voice.



Here's the dancers getting ready for the opening ceremony:





The narrator continued his commentary through the dancing:



Here they have the elders, dressed in the traditional Meskwaki style (they were a northern tribe, located in modern-day Canada, hence the mostly fur outfit).




The next day we went to an 'estate sale', a phrase that gives inaccurate aura to the casual proceedings of the day. Essentially someone's entire house of stuff, similar to what it might look like if your or my grandparent's house was emptied out, was put on tables in a small warehouse. We walked around and looked at the items, sat down and watched them brought up, and bit by bit all was sold to the highest bidder. With rare exception, none of the items went over $10. Exceedingly annoying was the practice of, should an item not sell, grabbing the next nearest item and lumping it in. This is how, bidding on some vintage buttons, I ended up with vintage buttons, a creepy 4-going-on-40 doll, old thread, a box of clips, and darning needles. Between this and the fact nothing was announced, not even a 'here's a lamp' or 'lookit this pan', you had to pay sharp attention and remember what table the stuff you wanted was as it was shuffled around to the front. Below are some examples of items lumped together in sale:






I didn't realize 'Suzy Homemaker' was a toy; I thought it was a descriptive phrase my mom used to describe a person like Martha Stewart. Go figure.

I took a brief road trip to Iowa a few weeks back- brief in that we crammed it into one long 16-hour drive so we'd only have to rent the car for one day(economizing!). I took the night shift, since flooring it on mostly empty highways makes me feel more badass than shuffling past RVs and minivans in the daytime.

For those who are addicted to hoity-toity coffee, road journeys have been made slightly more bearable thanks to McCafe. Ordering anything, particularly espresso drinks, from McDonald's feels weird but the beverages taste EXACTLY the same as Starbucks. Now, I despise Starbucks beverages and more than once have had to request more espresso be added to the glass of coffee-flavored milk they handed me. but on the road Starbucks-esque McCafe drinks homogenized at nearly every rest area are levels up from the take-your-chances coffee at gas stations.

If you're thinking of scooting across the country in one go, I recommend a solid night's sleep ahead of time and adding a day to decompress after, since you will feel like you're coming off a weekend bender waking up from a brief nap after that much driving. We lucked out; rushing to return the car on time, a two hour bonus appeared in the form of a time-zone change and having to return the car at 11 instead of 10. So, when the World's Largest Truck Stop loomed on the horizon, we had to stop in.



Clearly we were sleep-deprived; we thought this picture the height of comedy.


Of course, we just added the pennies. 'Cuddles' was already sitting there with a bunch of other discount crap on a folding table in the middle of a giant truck stop. Creepier with or without the coinage? You be the judge.



It wouldn't be a proper truck stop without stuff to trick your truck out with (try saying that one fast), and this place delivered in a ridiculous way:






You could even climb into one of two sample trucks, chromed out to the max and larger on the inside than some apartments I've had.

Alright, I've seen a lot of people knitting up the so-called '3 Hour Sweater', complaining about how NO, it does NOT take 3 hours to knit, it takes a day or two, blah blah blah. I say these people are modern whiners. Perhaps in ye olden days it really did only take 3 hours to work up this sweater; perhaps women sitting near their radios were so scandalized by a saucy soap opera they gained knitting uber-prowess and by the time that and an episode of Fibber McGee and Molly'd passed by they had a sweater in their lap. In any event it's true that modern knitters lack this ability; we've been so over-scandalized it would take...actually I can't even make anything up for us to be scandalized by, if I type it up here it'll appear on VH1's schedule to fill in for the shows they pulled after their reality star suspected of murdering his wife went on the lam.

In any event, I hereby throw down the gauntlet. I present to you....THE TWO HOUR SWEATER! That's right, this claims to take a whole hour less to work up than the previous 'quickie' vintage sweater everyone's tried a hand at, so translated into modern times that would probably be one long train ride of knittin'. Boy oh boy.



It also makes nice use of the superchunky yarn most knitters have on hand- I myself couldn't resist buying some (so large...so textural!) but had no idea what to apply it to. Most of the Vogue Knitting stuff that utilizes large yarns is so patently ridiculous it's just DARING you to spend time and energy making it, forget wearing it out in public. So, here's a quaint lil' charmer with some nice neck detail. I hope to see myriad examples of it in the near future.



UPDATE!
At the behest of readers who don't wish to go blind just yet, I've typed the pattern into a legible, readable, copy & paste-able version for your printing joy. No no, don't thank me, thank the person who preserved these lovely books (but you can thank me too).

Glengarry & Yorkshire Two-Hour Sweater
Style No. 117

List of Necessary Materials With Instructions for Knitting

SIZE 14

Glengarry, 3 balls, No. 1601
Yorkshire, 2 balls, No. 1406
One pair Wooden needles No. 16 or 3/8 inch
GAUGE: 2 3/4 stitches = 1 inch, 4 rows = 1 inch

BACK: With one thread of each yarn working double cast on 28 stitches, knit 2, purl 2, for 5 inches. Knit next row increasing 5 stitches at equal intervals across row (33 stitches). Continue in Stockinette Stitch until work measures 14 inchs from start. Bind off 2 stitches each side then decrease 1 stitch at both ends on the next knitted row. Work even for 5 inches. On the next purled row *purl 6, knit 15, purl 6. Next row knit. Repeat from * twice. On the last row, knit 9 stitches. Bind off 9 stitches for back of neck. On remaining 9 stitches make shoulder as follows: *knit to shoulder. Next row purl 6, knit 3 stitches at neck edge, repeat from * until shoulder measures 5 inches. Break yarn. Make other shoulder to match, add 12 stitches for front of neck, work across otehr side. Next purled row, purl 7, knit 16, purl 7. Knit next row. Next purled row purl 8, knit 14, purl 8. Knit next row. Continue to purl 1 more stitch eah side of center knit stitches on purled rows until 2 knit stitches remain. Also add 1 stitch at each side 2 1/2 inches from front of neck. Then add 3 stitches each side for underarm (38 stitches). Continue straight for 9 more inches then decrease 6 stitches at equal intervals across row (32 stitches). Purl 2, knit 2 for 5 inches.

SLEEVES: Pick up and knit 35 stitches, decrease 1 stitch at each end every other knit row until 25 stitches remain. Knit 6 rows in Garter Stitch for cuffs.

Neck Trimming: Cut 10 strands of Yorkshire 40 inches long. Start at back leaving 4-inch end. Couch with 1 strand of Glengarry 1 inch apart. Tie ends of Yorkshire at back.

CUFFS: Cut 10 strands of Yorkshire 14 inches long. Start at center, leaving ends to tie, couch same as neck.

Yes, I've traveled extensively, taken lots of interesting photos, and what am I posting on here? More dusty patterns from the New York Public Library. It's late notice, but this evening they're having a research/resource class on vintage patterns at the Schwarzman Library (aka the Ghostbusters library, the one with the big lions out front). I'm headed back to dig up more stuff, but in the meantime I scanned this guy in from microfilm. It's very strange- at the same time microfilm's very dated and archaic, it's still very convenient and fun to press a button and have exactly what you're seeing in front of you print out. Of course, one of the printouts for reasons inexplicable came out too light (I filled it in as best I could), showing that the tactile pleasures of whipping through pages of something are mitigated by technological annoyances.

The pattern's from Workbasket Magazine, from some point in the mid-40s to early 50's. I'd say late 40's judging by where I was on the reel. I should've payed closer attention but whipping past pages and pages of ads for bras and bust support was making me nauseous. There's also a matching sock pattern at the end, should you want a matching set.

( Behold- the Arrowhead Sweater! )

Today was the Day of Exactly 2 Stars below Houston street. I walked down to Sur Le Table to score another FREE cappuccino, a delightful deal that lasts until this upcoming Saturday as part of their Nespresso promotion. The espresso's good, but it's one of those 'pod' machines where you spend a lot of money on the individual 'flavors' to pop in, wasteful in both materials and money. Fortunately I'm not buying the machine, just getting FREE cappuccinos from someone else using it. The name also bothers me. It makes me think NesCafe branched out to espresso. Maybe they did; I'm not about to 'experience' the web site. And anyway, any and all questionable factors were blocked out by that one magical word FREE (picture William Wallace shouting it, minus the 'dom').



I'd learned about the promotion yesterday when a phalanx of hypercheery bicyclists in shirts that due to unfortunate typography looked like they said 'Clitz' (it wasn't just me, the people with me on both occasions did a double-take and went 'WHAT DOES THAT SAY?!') wheeled past and tossed a shirt in my direction. I reflexively grabbed it and one fellow, the cheeriest of them all, said 'You should TOTALLY go to Sur La Table! The coffee's deeeeeliiicious! Yaaay!' He then honked his horn and wheeled off. Again, I am totally serious, there were about 10 people at a go riding bikes down Broadway, honking horns and being aggressively cheerful wearing shirts that appeared to bear slang for lady bits.

We went in and sure enough, free free free caffeine. I almost dropped mine when Mr. Walking On Sunshine right outside the door leaned in and shouted "ISN'T IT GOOOOOD??!?!!" I went back for another taste today, this time walking down one of the cobbled alley-streets. As I explained to the person with me why MST3K movies weren't released by season due to movie-rights issues, some dude sitting on the steps eating a sandwich makes eye contact with me and waves his hand like 'no no, I'd prefer not to be bothered. Not now'. I keep walking, finish my sentence, and my brain processes 10 seconds later it was Shia LeBouef. I'd seen Paramount trucks shooting something at Bowery Ballroom yesterday and thought it might be related, but more importantly, I was pissed about the hand-wave.

A), I was walking down the street talking to someone else about something totally non-Shia LeBouef-related. B) I was not staring at him, I was actually checking out the sandwich out of the corner of my eye (as those who visit I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Thing know, we like sandwiches). C), had I realized it was Mr. LeBouef (oh man, I am already so sick of typing that last name out), IT WOULD NOT MATTER because I am CLASSY enough to NOT INTERRUPT A MAN EATING HIS SANDWICH. Clearly, if a person is having some outdoor time with a sandwich it is just common courtesy to let them enjoy it, like letting people off the train before getting on or holding the door. How dare he assume I was gauche enough to interrupt sandwich time?!



I fumed about this as we walked into the store trying to look like we were interested in expensive European cooking accessories. We queued up behind a gaggle of young ladies gabbing; one of the sweet ladies working the machines said to the other they were all from Marc Jacobs, and added you had to attach a headshot or photo to your job application there. Ew. The gaggle weren't supermodels but more pleasant-looking girly types. A woman with her daughter said 'excuse me', and I got out of their way. The gaggle started freaking out and sure enough, the lady who'd politely walked by was Kelly Ripa. Not too surprising; she lives in the area and as the person with me pointed out, she's definitely the target audience for a store of fancy kitchen doodads. As we left we were thanked by the nattiest security fellow I've ever seen. An older fellow, he was in a three-piece lavender/gray suit which sounds ridiculous but looked amazing on him.

We walked back up the street and I swore if Mr. LeBouef was still sitting there eating on his sandwich I was going to tell him 'I am NOT the type of person to interrupt a dude enjoying a sandwich but since you ASSUMED I AM that's what's going to happen now' followed by a litany of annoying questions. Fortunately for him he'd disappeared and been replaced by a French family also enjoying sandwiches. It was a good day for sandwich-enjoying out-of-doors. I walked by and did not pester them, as is good breeding.

First off, thanks to Angry Jim for telling me about this. Somehow the topic of public television came up, and he recalled a show broadcast on the midwest PBS affiliate called 'Star Gazer'. I don't think it was ever broadcast in the tri-state area; as a child nerd I was an ardent fan of our PBS affiliate, Thirteen (Nova, Mystery! various live opera broadcasts, Ghostwriter!), and would've remembered something as strange as 'Star Gazer'. He mostly recalled the effeminate nature of the host, and I said it was probably just the 70's trappings of low-budget public television offerings. Well, no...

You can check it out here for yourself.
The Pussycat And the Scorpion's Tail!'

Other show titles include "The Moon Visits Three Bright Planets In Pre-Dawn Skies Plus An Invisible Goodie", ""Watch The Two Brightest Planets Race Toward Each Other For A Super Close Meeting", "The Seven Sinister Sisters Fly High Across The Sky At Midnight On Halloween", and "Celebrate September With A Triangle Of Planets! And Love And War Meet".





Really you should watch it, as aside from the jarring voice, bizarre greenscreen effects that probably inspired Tim and Eric, and the entrancing theme song (synthy, yes, but two hours later it's still stuck in my head and so soothing), it offers up an immediately useful and entertaining tidbit about the night sky that you can view with your naked eye. It purports to be the only 'naked eye' astronomy show going, and whether that's true or not, I doubt anything else could be this entertaining.



I also recommend visiting the site to check out the history of the show- as Jim pointed out, he looks perfectly normal in the introduction through the 1980's, but something changed dramatically between then and his current appearance (and it's not just the hair). There's also gems like this from the FAQ page:

Question: Why did you change the name of the show from 'JACK HORKHEIMER : STAR HUSTLER' TO 'JACK HORKHEIMER : STAR GAZER' ?

Answer: The name was changed due to our presence on the internet. When people, especially children, were accessing our Star Hustler site by using a search engine, STAR HUSTLER was not the HUSTLER they got to link to...so, after some upset folks wrote to us calling attention to the situation we realized that like it or not, the word Hustler didn't have the same connotation as it did when the show began over two decades ago.


Do Not Watch The Sun.


DO NOT WATCH THE SUN!!!

Jack Horkheimer's chipper tone and clear enthusiasm about stargazing come through strongly. Even if this was shown to a group of bored teens, the overall goofiness would probably help them remember the information more clearly. It's also pleasant to note the show is free to all PBS stations- why not contact your local PBS affiliate and have them show it here? I'll definitely do so myself.

We drove out to a restaurant near the Amana Colonies, a small religious commune founded in the mid-1800s and continuing today in the form of craft stores and historic shops appealing to tourists.



This 'Lodge' was across the restaurant; in the true econo-spirit they took down the full chain name and left the rest.




This nest of baby birds sat in one of the empty light sockets.


A homemade Amana stop sign.

Unless you are particularly jazzed about fibers or purchasing clothing with 'Amana' somewhere on it, I could see how the Amana wool mill would be dull. Unfortunately for everyone else with me I heart fibers, so I gleefully ran in and spent an hour watching the fiber-to-blanket videos and oggling the equipment. The blanket-making machinery was set up but not running, as it was the end of the day. Mill ends were available on cones, and I got three sea-blue cotton ones for $9. $9!





Later we took a trip to Wal-Mart. The Wal-Marts of the Midwest are larger than their coastal counterparts, including sections like 'produce' and 'hunting equipment' along with standards like 'Gardening' and 'Crafts'.



Really?


This is an atrocity. Neither Transformer nor Mr. PotatoHead, it is such a blatant marketing shill it is sick to look at. Also, what child can look upon this and comprehend?



And that's about it, really. Iowa is vast and lovely to look at. This is a pretty good example of what the commute looks like:

Ah, the 4th of July. Showing how much you care about your country by blowing shit up. Next to gun shows and hot-dog eating contests, nothing inspires patriotic fervor more. Unfortunately we did not have fireworks, we had sparklers and snakes. Sparklers, while pretty, lack the 'wow' factor larger explosives carry, and snakes....snakes manage to be wussier than sparklers. Even taking 5 packs of them, stacking them in a neat little pyramid and lighting them all at once isn't wildly exciting, though I'm pretty sure it gave off enough toxic fumes to assure cancer down the road.






Admittedly it did get sort of cool towards the end, when it looked like a hellspider was trying to crawl up from the driveway, but still, you're essentially watching something expand. Ooh. Neighbors threw a small party, which was very pleasant.






Since there were a few hours until dusk, I took a walk:


I was informed people purchase these things to stick into trees, like a larger-scale Mr. PotatoHead. Why? Whywhywhy would you undermine the inherent dignity of a large tree by sticking goofy stuff into it? This tree looks like the recipient of terrible plastic surgery.

This 4th of July weekend I had the good fortune to leave my increasingly noisy block for the vast, rolling green of Iowa. The normal sounds were grating enough but with the 4th nearing something loud exploded outside my window every 5 minutes and every car, boombox and bodega was blasting Michael Jackson in tribute, on top of everything else.

Normally terrified of planes, I told myself if I didn't freak out completely I could take a hurling metal tube to Europe next time around. Hoping to ameliorate the sheer terror that comes with realizing nothing's between you and the ground but 30,000 feet of air, I asked the woman in my two-seat row if she, currently in the aisle seat, would prefer the window. "Oh, no," she said, "I am definitely going to puke at some point on this flight. The view will only make it worse." Seeing my expression she followed with "...I'm pregnant". Ah, that would explain the nausea, though only partly explain the 3 yoga/pregnancy magazines she read throughout. Three separate publications dedicated to pregnancy yoga? Really?

I have determined that what makes planes fly is not 'lift' or 'air flow' but 'wizards', and the real reason you have to turn off all electronic devices is so as not to anger the mighty who doth lift your flying machine skyward and fling them towards your destination. If you could see inside the control tower it would look sort of like this:



...but with planes.

So upon safely landing, we drove out to a small college town called Grinnell, where a Jazz Fest was in the process of being drizzled upon. This didn't stop the band from playing 'Big Daddy Blues', which if you recently listened to 'Best Show Gems' (June 15th, Bret Haskins and The Clash) as I had, would make you giggle uncontrollably.



Just in case you forgot where you were.





This National Bank was built by Louis Sullivan, famed architect and teacher of Frank Lloyd Wright. You can learn more about its history here.


Grinnell is well covered for esoteric fraternal organizations; not only do they have a lovely Masonic Temple,




They also have an Oddfellows building, which I've never seen in person! It has the IOOF logo and everything! Their female counterparts, the Daughters of Rebeka, meet here as well.




The town looks like Main Street, USA, partly due to the preservation or restoration of so many older buildings, including the recently refurbished movie theater. Being a small town in middle America seems a blessing and a curse for architecture- on the one hand there's probably not too much going up, so the likelihood of an older building being razed is slimmer. On the other hand, there's no impetus to preserve or keep up historical structures, particularly if a town's population diminishes with time, or if they lack funding. Fortunately Grinnell has the college nearby for perpetual turnover, but it's a common site to see spots along the former Lincoln Highway (Rt. 66) or along former Main Streets in severe disrepair.


The radio station's AM and still operational!


Inside the theater they had a small section showing items found when they restored the building, including a ladies' compact from the 30's and an old 'advertisement clock', actually a projector that shone a different round advertisement every hour of the day.







I love the typography on these signs. More Iowa to come.

Well, lookit that, one of my videos was posted to the Mishka blog! You can check it out here or watch the video below:



I want to see the Dragon Warz taken to the STREETS this summer!

Also from the Mishka blog and badass shooting stuff on your arm comes Major Lazer,, either an excellent dancehall tune or an awesome toy commercial, though in modesty it refers to itself as Mad Decent.

Wow, two of my childhood dreams fulfilled:

Admittedly it's more of a step forward than complete fulfillment, but anything that moves us towards hoverboards and/or hoverbikes is cool by me. I kept thinking of 'Look Around You' while watching the video, half-expecting....actually I don't know what I was expecting, a detailed video of a superconducting toy train spouting steam going sideways around a futuristic model is weird enough.

Kill The Dog From Duck Hunt.


FINALLY. Years of playing this at my cousin's house had me waiting for the day I could get this fucker. He just pops up, laughing, laughing at nothing.



My cousin used to play this game holding the gun 'Resevoir Dogs' style right up against the TV. Several years younger, I asked what the fun of playing was if not proving your accuracy at shooting 8-bit ducks from a distance. He said 'it's not about accuracy. It's about shooting'. I'm still not sure what that meant, but as his parents were going through a messy divorce at the time perhaps it was just about channeling rage.

On a completely unrelated note: the guy blasting the radio through his shitty tinny car stereo system RIGHT outside my window, full volume, ONLY gets a pass because the station's playing 'Don't Stop Til' You Get Enough', which I will never get enough of. If you skip to 2:43, you'll see the high point of technology at the time, tied with the computer scenes in TRON.

In recently organizing the vast piles of vintage patterns I acquired (a taste of the scale- I purchased one of those 100-packs of plastic sleeves to hold the books and already ran out with a stack left unorganized), I came across some more photocopies from the depths of the New York Public Library. Unfortunately I did not copy the book cover or any sort of identifying information, but I recall it was one of the books bound together with many others from the 1930's, some sort of Home Knitting book with general advice and basic patterns to modify. Based on the mention of Knit-Cro-Sheen I'm suspecting it may be a J&P Coats publication.

The patterns below all encourage modification- the basic lace patterns are given first, followed by references to 'charts' for resizing the patterns to different sizes. Please read through carefully as these aren't the clearest of patterns I've come across; on the plus side the needles are given in millimeters, making it much easier to decipher the scale and whatnot.






















(I believe that covered number is a 24.)

Having accidentally taken the Greenpoint bus past it several times and been intrigued, I decided to purposely walk over to Calvary Cemetery in Queens. Apparently it's one of the largest cemeteries out there, something I only began to grasp on hour two of walking and not reaching an edge of any sort amidst the gravestones. While the many tall columns are beautiful from a distance, up close and personal after slogging through smaller mausoleums forming their own suburb it's a bit much. Still, it's a lovely spot worth visiting, especially if you want to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of deceased one place can hold. Even judiciously choosing the picturesque and odd, there's still too many images, so I've placed most behind a cut.






Behold the creeeepy meeeellllted faaaaace of the Aaaangel of Deeeaaattth.

( Check out more of Calvary. )