Freckles & Doubt

I am coming to Scotland in August! To give a conference paper on Neil Gaiman and Tanith Lee and weird inverted vampire Snow Whites, which I have still to write, but pshaw, details! This is all being paid for by the faculty, who are thus currently high on my list of Favourite People, at least until they dream up another set of horrible jobs for me. But the important thing is, I'm coming through Heathrow and have booked my tickets to stay two nights in London before heading Up North. I'll arrive on the morning of the 9th August, and leave for Glasgow on the morning of the 11th. Far-flung exiled London crowd, who's around then? Can we Gather in a Pub or adequate substitute in the usual ritual fashion? There are too many of you I don't see often enough, or at all (bumpycat, I'm looking at you here!). Also, I've had offers of accommodation from starmadeshadow and Scroob - whose doorstep will it be most convenient for me to turn up on? do you want to arm-wrestle for it?

Gosh, I'm all excited about this. *fans self*.

I am on leave today and tomorrow, allowing the lingering vestiges of glandular wossname to exit my system by means of determined lounging about. Despite this I have managed to re-watch Iron Man 2 (still grin-inducing second time round), have the car serviced (clutch much smoother! it's like magic, I can take off without ripping involuntary wheelies), and read an awful lot of hot cyber elf-sex (Justina Robson, who is kinda fun and not nearly as schlocky as it sounds, and who I shall probably review in detail sometime). And, of course, entirely ignore the World Cup (other than about 10 mins of amazing Bafana butterfootedness in between episodes last night) in favour of watching large amounts of STNG while knitting, which means I'm onto the stripy bit of this scarf, which is kinda cool.

And which leads me to the next vital question. Do they let you take rosewood knitting needles on planes these days?? Because it's SAA, and the inflight movies are non-personalised and always unbelievably bad, and I have to do something to prevent myself from losing it completely and feasting on the flesh of the living somewhere over Tamanrasset. Last time it was Rush Hour 2 and an earnest, syrupy, American rugby film which I followed with involuntary horror and perfect comprehension despite refusing to wear the headphones. Honestly, we should get danger pay.

Today's amusing billboard: LEE-ANN SNOGS A BOYTJIE!! I don't know who the hell Lee-Ann is, but I'm very amused by the language choice of the headline. For a start, "snog" is unabashed Brit slang while "boytjie" is very much a South-Africanism; the wide lexical range creates a sort of airy, unresolved bounce between contexts. The use of the diminutive (often an endearment) is playful, denoting an affectionate intimacy with Lee-Ann, but it also diminishes the significance of the partner, clearly a negligible quantity, to allow the focus to remain firmly on Lee-Ann herself (whoever the hell she is). More than this, the language (and multiple exclamation points) contributes to the mere fact of the billboard to suggest, on the "man bites dog" principle, that it's somehow outrageous for Lee-Ann (whoever the hell she is) to snog a boy: I was left with a vague suspicion that she's actually a lesbian. Alternatively, the "boytjie" bit could also imply that she's an older woman shamelessly grabbing a much younger man.

A quick google, of course, absolutely deflates this lovely tension and implication: Lee-Ann is presumably Lee-Ann Liebenberg, a fairly minor South African model/celebrity, and she's found a new boyfriend indecently quickly after a break-up. This is one of those stories where the subject matter is infinitely less interesting than the linguistic play in its headline. Sigh.

In other news, have found the solution to Supernatural freaking me the hell out. Knitting. Another twelve rows on the Ravenclaw scarf while flinching away from ghosts, demons and hellhounds. Still a Sam girl, but Dean is growing on me.

Monday's dawn saw a sort of sea-foggy thing rolling in, which from my office window exhibited the most amazing giant, soft, billowy wave effect, which I then almost completely failed to actually catch in this photo. On the upside: bonus geese.

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In other news, while not wibbling financially I am managing to distract myself very nicely, thank you, with a combination of reading and knitting. (Ravenclaw scarf in bamboo. 20 rows in and still haven't screwed up the rib. On the downside, am conscious of mild desire for a wand (willow, unicorn hair) and the relevant incantation to make the knitting do its own automatic thing, at least until I get to the interesting bit with the bronze stripe. One of my colleagues in my Late Lamented Department persists in referring to me as "Hermione", I figure I may as well make it work for me).

On the upside, have discovered Ysabeau S. Wilce, courtesy of (a) a recommendation from, IIRC, sarahtales, and (b) the book title: Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. For YA fantasy this is some high quality worldbuilding, characterised not only by a sharp, vivid, economical writing style but by some truly lovely games with gender identity, family obligation and the nature of "evil" (if you think it's evil you probably haven't heard its side of the story). Her giant, animus-inhabited houses are also pleasingly demented, and she has a nice line in capitalisation. I thoroughly enjoyed this: in intelligence, originality and wit it's a cut above the usual YA fantasy fare. And she's written a sequel! So I'm going to cheat like hell, and assume that that's my Ginormous Fantasy Epic for the day, although strictly it probably isn't. But at least you're spared me wittering on about Sheri S. Tepper¹.

In a nutshell: Victorian cultural nods, kick-butt female soldiers, giant shapeshifty houses, stupid dogs. Very cool magic, including Strange Symbols to the power of n. Blue supernatural entities with talons and droopy spaniel ears. Huitzl, humming-bird gods, housework, human sacrifice. Rangers, a new and original formula. Effeminate pirates. Couture. Kilts. Confusion. Roman cultural bits.

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¹ I should generally be prevented from wittering on about Sheri S. Tepper. Feminism results. Also, postmodernism. Also, fangirly drool.

I've had a copy of The Shadow lurking on my DVD shelf for a while, now, having acquired it randomly on the grounds that (a) it's a superhero movie, (b) it was ridiculously cheap, and (c) someone I read once on the internets somewhere said that the set design was brilliant. Other than that, I had every expectation that it would be a dreadful little movie.

I am completely unashamed to say that I loved every campy, pulpy, badly scripted minute of it - I lay on the sofa sipping rosé and wriggling my toes in girlish glee. It's a direct throwback to the pulp sensibility of its radio and crime magazine roots, having incredibly quantities of period feel¹, glamorous women (her wardrobe is stunning), absent-minded scientists, hypnotic powers, secret networks, giant bombs threatening Manhattan and inscrutable evil orientals in full-on Mongol outfits. The special effects are unlikely but charming - the Shadow bounces around with smoke dissolves, glowing eyes and a rather cool morph from suave Alec Baldwin to a hook-nosed, piercing-eyed face behind a muffler and a hat. There's lots of the classic wavering shadow of the Shadow, and lingering manic laughter over portentous reference to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. And the sets are, indeed, stunning, a sort of love poem to Art Deco, with meticulous attention to detail and some truly beautiful façades.

It also has a cast way, way in excess of its script - not just Alec Baldwin, but Tim Curry and Ian bloody McKellan, hopelessly underused as a hypnotised scientist. The disconnect between the quality of the cast and the quality of the script is a mite disorienting, but it's rather fun to watch them ham it up. If nothing else there's a slightly sadistic satisfaction in Alec Baldwin with long greasy hair living it up as a Tibetan warlord with a harem.

In other news, this weekend I will damned well start knitting again. Knitting acquaintances, please stand by the phones to rescue me when I've once more tied myself to the piano.

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¹ It is my contention that human civilisation would be immeasurably improved if everyone still wore hats all the time.

Gawsh. I sent the edit commentary back to my Nice Proof-reader on Thursday, and am consequently drifting around at a bit of a loss. You mean there's no actual desperately important project which should be requiring all my attention right now this instant? Radical!

One of the upshots of this has been to make me recollect the existence of Purl-Handled Revolver, the blog wherein I indulge my bizarre knitting outbreaks in decent privacy. Fellow knitters may want to wander over there, I have a whole series of posts planned. She says seductively, and not at all in a self-pimping manner, oh no!

An upshot of rediscovering the knitblog has been the realisation that I never followed Robynn's link to the Mervyn Peake nonsense poetry, lo these many geological ages ago when I last actually posted. Why have I hitherto been blissfully oblivious to the existence of Mervyn Peake nonsense poetry? It seems a tragic oversight. Fortunately, Amazon UK has a plethora of 1p copies and librsa trundles back here in the next week or so, and he's traditionally something of a Peake-courier. *plot, scheme*

In other news: this bloody MSNBC.com "breaking news" phishing scam is setting the prevailing spam level ridiculously high. I must be killing fifty a day, which is a huge jump from the usual five. Let's hope to FSM somebody zorches it soon, bored now.

My Evil Landlord ¹ is severely in the dogbox at the moment - not because I'm fulminating domestically against him (although I am led to believe that our exchanges about loading the dishwasher are worthy of an Old Married Couple) - but because he underwent a rare moment of unGermanic inefficiency over the weekend and missed his mother's birthday party. He was convinced it was on Saturday night when it was actually on Friday; various frantic relatives phoned all conceivable friends-of-Evil-Landlord² with increasing desperation as Friday night wore on, but no-one's cellphone ring was loud enough to overcome the ambient noise at the steak restaurant where we were doing our usual end-of-month payday restaurant celebration with jo&stv. His mother is apparently severely narked.

The problem I have - and I'm surveying this anthropologically, from the point of view of someone with deeply civilised parents who I think would resort to ridicule rather than guilt-trip if I screwed up thusly - is that her level of infuriation seems to indicate that he is in the particular dogbox reserved for Offspring Who Forget Parental Birthdays, with a side-order of Offspring Who Forget Important Family Gatherings. This seems unfair, since he clearly remembered it and planned to attend - in fact, he's guilty of no more than momentary mental aberration, disorganisation and planning snafu, which happens to all of us, be we never so German. I suspect the guilt-trip response is partly because they were seriously worried he'd had an accident or something, and swung to the relieved/annoyed pole when they finally made contact. Which is understandable, but still a tad unfair.

Then again, the victim is my Evil Landlord, who has Shrug And Ignore It down to a fine art.

I have to say: Nelson's Eye? Seriously good steak. They proudly trumpet their basic disinterest in such frou-frou as starters and side-dishes, which they provide in more or less token form, and which are in consequence seriously behind those of the Hussar, my usual steak-house benchmark. This is problematical while you're actually eating the starter, because Nelson's Eye's prices are ... pricey. One and a half times Hussar, on average. You feel gypped for the duration of the starter. Then you wade into the steak, and All Becomes Clear. Those prices? Totally valid.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was trying to knit socks. This was a sad, frantic experience during which I became bogged down in morasses of multiple double-pointed needles in hundreds of sizes, circular needles like coiled springs and art deco representations of Shub Niggurath, and rope-like, writhing yarn in nauseating pastels. I think my subconscious is seriously threatened by my current vague leaning towards trying to knit a woolly hat for my niece. It seems a valid use for a skein of purple wool, but if normal needles warp space-time, imagine what I could do with circulars.

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¹ Who finally gets his own tag. Words cannot describe how little this would mean to him, given his professed and vindictive ignorance of all things bloggity.

² If the EL had a blog, or thought about these things, he would presumably be apologising e'en now to all the people who had their Friday nights disturbed by frantic EL relatives, but he doesn't and doesn't, so this is about as good as it's going to get. I'm personally rather interested to see how far they threw the net.

Invigilated an exam yesterday, what might turn out to be my last invigilation at my Cherished Institution. I feel... fairly neutral about it, actually. Meh. On the other hand, I was impelled to philosophise about the T-shirt slogans students choose to wear to a final exam. One has to give points for lateral decontextualisation to "I LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCE FLOOR", which might also have a certain wistful subtext. Mad props for retro grunge to the Pearl Jam shirt, and to the very gothy shirt which educated the invigilator about the existence of Opeth - heavy metal, it transpires, gothy vibe notwithstanding.

I honestly cannot feel, however, that it constitutes good exam superstition to write an English exam wearing a shirt sporting the slogan "JUNK", or "ZERO", or "GUESS".

The whisper flies around the 'net: TV has spoken! it says, "Come back, Joss Whedon, all is forgiven!" Not only is there the possibility of a new Joss TV series of a sf nature, it's with Eliza Dushku. While I am happy about this, I am also alert to the dangerous precedents of the Joss/Fox combination. Pajiba agrees.

I am grateful to all the maddened knitwitterers who leaped in to point out my probable errors with mysterious stitch-materialisation. Personally I incline to tngr_spacecadet's theory that it's all because of quantum, but will investigate the suggested possibilities nonetheless. I have not yet ripped back to restart my four mutant rows, on account of how I've spent the last three days completely avoiding a horrendous pile of marking, and thus haven't had time to knit. I have also, in deference to the prejudices of certain readers, set up an entirely separate blog for purposes of knitwittering, to be found at Purl-Handled Revolver, and would be delighted if knitting-inclined readers would join me there. For the record, it's all scroobius's fault. All of it.

Bleah. One of those days. All 'fluey, and had annoying interview with nice man from the academics' association, who doesn't think much of my chances of extracting an actual post from my Cherished Institution. Apparently Things May Change next year with defining temporary posts, if I'd only just held on for just one more year. To which I say "Phooey." End of tether. Out of rope. Bridges burned. Metaphors mixed.

So, I have achieved several balls of wool in an attractively sludgy shade of green-grey, plus nice fat needles. By experimentally placing the needles and wool together in various configurations, I have remembered that I actually know how to cast on. Have cast on, knitted several rows, realised they're too tight, undone them, redone them, realised there are holes all over the show, pulled the whole thing undone, re-cast on, knitted several rows. The activity currently seems to be some kind of mobius strip. No amount of consultation of the nifty little pictures in wolverine_nun's useful book has permitted me to purl. These diagrams make no sense: they describe motions outside the normal physical universe, anti-motions. Actually recreating them will undoubtedly warp the space-time continuum, and I think the space-time continuum works rather well the way it is.

Alternatively, I shall make a further attempt at purling when I'm not quite so blasted on 'flu meds. I am, however, quite enjoying the actual knitting. It's very zen. Apart from the bits where I drop stitches, and swear.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was a member of an embattled royal family, holed up in our country mansion in the middle of a range of granite kopjes, frantically preparing for the onslaughts of the rising peasant masses. Discussions included angles of fire, setting up lookout posts, and who best to conceal in the priest's hole in the fireplace or the false floor of the gazebo out by the tennis courts. The Queen, a somewhat tremendous lady, was being suitably take-charge, particularly during those bits of the dream when I was actually her.

Yesterday was my niece's birthday. She is now two years old. (Today is my sister's birthday: she turns 30mumble. Happy birthday, sis! The mumble is not because she has issues with her age, but because I'm two years older than she is and have just decided to take up knitting. You do the maths).

My birthday gift to Da Niece was this:

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It's a CD of tunes for kiddies by a bunch of indie bands, including Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, Rasputina and Belle & Sebastian. It's incredibly good fun, and causes Da Niece to bounce madly around the living room like a small bouncy thing. Most importantly, however, it allows me to perform my auntly duty in inculcating proper indie/alternative music values good and early.

In celebration of this auspicious brace of years, Da Niece is hosting a birthday party on Sunday, featuring the descent of 30 toddlers. We spent yesterday afternoon preparing for the onslaught thusly:



This resulted in several herds of brightly-coloured biscuits in various animal shapes, and a liberal bedewing of kitchen, self, sister and Da Niece with flour, biscuit mix, virulently-coloured icing and rainbow sprinkles. It's fortunate I took a shower before going out that evening, as Da Niece's enthusiastic goodbye kiss left me with bright green stains all over my face.

The assistance of a toddler detracts materially from the efficiency of the culinary process, but adds quite significantly to the fun. The biscuits are quite cool, too.



On the Knitting Front, progress has been made in that I've borrowed a bunch of random needles from wolverine_nun; yarn or twine or spaghetti or whatever the hell it is you use will be acquired next week, when my heart isn't pounding quite so hard. I still can't account for this sudden impulse: it's as if there's a switch in my head marked "Knitting", and some random force has flipped it from "Never!" to "Immediately!" I'm tending to suspect a deep-seated psychosis of some sort. Stay tuned for further manifestations. Possibly religion.