There was no post Monday because I was busy rocking an interview and didn't plan ahead . . . next week will be better, I promise.
I was going to continue shamelessly stealing from Sarah's idea of monthly book reviews, but I only read one last month worth talking about - The Dream of Perpetual Motion.
I cannot emphasize how much I loved this book. It's sheer lyrical poetry. I finished it and sat there on the plane, just trying to absorb exactly what it was about the book that spoke to me. This is a book that begs to be read aloud.
Passages like this:
"This is the time of night just before sunrise, that time that no one owns, and if you have found yourself awake and alone during this time, out in the city, outside the safety of the walls you call your own, then you know me, and you have felt what I felt. This is the hour of the night it's best to sleep through, for if it catches you awake then it will force you to face what is true. This is when you look into the half-dead eyes of those who are either wishing for sleep or shaking off its final remnants, and you see the signs of the twilight in which your own mind is suspended.
At any other time it's better. You can do the things you feel you should; you're an expert at going through the motions. Your handshakes with strangers are firm and your gaze never wavers; you think of steel and diamonds when you stare. In a monotone you repeat the legendary words of long-dead lovers to those you claim to love; you take them into bed with you, and you mimic the rhythmic motions you've read of in manuals. When protocol demands it you dutifully drop to your knees and pray to a god who no longer exists. But in this hour you must admit to yourself that this is not enough, that you are not good enough. And when you knock your fist against your chest and you hear a hollow ringing echo, and all your thoughts are accompanied by the ticks of clockwork spinning behind your eyes, and everything you eat and drink has the aftertaste of rust."
Anyone who has unwillingly been awake at this hour, who walks at night, alone, knows this feeling.
The book is a scrambled steampunk world of imperfect machinery, with a smattering of themes from the Tempest. Everyone and everything is flawed, and the protagonist probably shouldn't even have the term anti-hero applied. This is not a character driven novel, but more a meditation on the world they inhabit and the consequences of unbridled technology existing just because it can.
Here's another of my favorite sentences, largely because I love this description of something I look at daily.
"They are made from materials engineered by Prospero, invented substances with names made of nothing but rootless suffixes and prefixes, that designate long molecules that bite their own tails and wind around each other like the links of a chain."
I've seen some reviews criticizing the book for being 'deeply misogynistic', but I disagree. The sections pointed out in those reviews depict misogynistic ideas taken to complete extremes, and it, to me, serves as a way to lampoon those ideas. Some are made absurd, some horrifying, but I did not come away feeling as though Dexter Palmer wrote this book to hate on women. Prospero's obsession with Miranda feels off from the start and it's very clearly shown to be a negative thing with negative consequences.
A quick perusal of the author bio reveals that his dissertation was on Joyce, Pynchon, and Gaddis. It shows, in the best possible way.
And here's my first photo of the photo a day challenge! Today was "your view today". This is the view from my apartment balcony (okay, this is the view from leaning way out over the balcony and almost falling into the bushes two stories below). The tall building on the left is one of the wings of the hospital I've been rotating in! The one on the right is a casino . . .
In which I am downtrodden, overly dramatic, and am probably going to die old, alone, and a retail pharmacist. Yes, it's directly related to my inability to make a sweater that fits.
It's taken me a few months to come to terms with the horrible, horrible drama that enfolded after I finished the doom sweater. This doom sweater.
After months and months of moss stitch hell, I discovered that though I had checked my gauge time and time again and measured each piece as carefully as possible, the sweater was still big enough to be an overcoat instead of a lovely fitted jacket.
I desperately turned to more experienced knitters, hoping there was some way to beat this damned sweater.
I got two answers.
"Well, you could probably surge this and try to make it fit, but every time I've done that the whole thing warped and was pretty much ruined."
Or, the much, much worse:
"I'd put it in a closet until you gain enough weight to wear it the way you want. Because as soon as you hit 30, you will."
As true as that second statement may yet prove to be, I didn't spent close to two years on this monster to hide it in a closet until it fits. Against the advice of pretty much every knitter I know, I ripped the bastard out.
And now it waits, lurking in the depths of my cedar chest until I have the courage to face its horrors again. I'm half convinced that every time I open it I'll get sucked through a portal to a hellish alternate dimension, filled with black cotton yarn and moss stitch. Trapped in a nightmare of never-ending sleeves. I'm well aware that it wasn't the fault of the sleeves that the sweater didn't fit, but they're the part that broke my needle and my soul.
After this life-ruining event, I swore a pact against sleeves. Fie on sweaters with sleeves, I thought, as I gleefully ran my fingers over my balls of Noro for two tunic sweaters. I'll defeat the goddamn things by never knitting one again!
This plan proved no more effective. The first sweater I worked on stabbed me in the back just as I was finishing it. The pattern lied. Brutally - I was three balls of yarn short, and had to go on a horrific internet hunt for the right dye lot.
Of course, the yarn color had been discontinued for years. I ended up on the seedy underbelly of the online knitting community, clandestine trench-coated meetings in dark alleyways and all. I'm honestly shocked I don't have hepatitis. And still have both kidneys.
I ended up getting the yarn, and am nearly done with the hood. I've been waylaid, however, by the need for armwarmers now that Reno's temperature has finally dropped into a reasonable level of cold for winter. I made a pair three years ago and somehow in my many apartment changes have misplaced one. I was nambying about, avoiding making another to match, when I saw these.
Adorable, no? As I don't have $39 and know how to knit, I'm going to try making them myself. Probably before I tackle any more soul-sucking sweater nonsense.
Don't you dare point out that armwarmers are a lot like sleeves, because I will have to end you.
This has been the summer of craftiness for me. I've had a lot of unaccustomed free time, and when I'm not reading outside I'm working on something indoors. The first thing I wanted to do was get something up on the bare, soulless white walls of our apartment.
Then I stumbled on this.
It seemed an easy enough project, so with judicious application of some birthday money, I obtained the supplies. On this expedition, I also found these. For only $1 each.
I may have felt like a horrible person when I ripped the first one apart. I've never destroyed a book before and it was a very traumatic experience for me. After I recovered from the shock of ruining literature, I followed the guide and came out with a fairly satisfactory product.
Yes, I shamelessly copied the design of the example. I have no art skills.
They're now hanging above the mantle. I'm planning on making another, across three canvases, with a giant octopus attacking a boat. I'm not sure how well this will turn out.
That was the most successful of my crafty endeavors.
Next we have the cross stitch from hell. Remember this? From a year ago? Yeaaah. Still not done. I've made progress though!
The doom sweater has been knitted and now needs to be put together. It's currently lurking in the depths of my knitting bag - I haven't had the courage to confront it.
And now we come to what is currently the bane of my existence. My mother gave me her old sewing machine last year, and after making an eight foot squid pillow and a disastrous attempt at a shirt, I put it away and refused to think about it.
Until now, when I have tons of free time and nothing to do with it.
I'm trying to make a dress. This dress. And, like the cursed shirt, the pattern claims to be easy. It's not. It's ridiculous. (Or, more likely, I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing and am blundering along in the dark).
This is a week's worth of work.
I've become intimate friends with my seam ripper.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to look awful when it's finished, but even if that's the case I am going to wear the hell out of this dress.
I'm not stumbling, lost in this dank forest of confusing instructions and mindless re-sewing for nothing.
Why do the people on Project Runway make this look so easy?
Or, what I read when I'm not forced to pour over guidelines and studies.
In an absolutely shameless theft of idea and execution from the lovely Sarah, I'm going to do a quick review of the books I read during July. The amount of free time I have right now is shocking, really.
Salt, by Maurice Gee. Dystopian YA. Hari's father is press-ganged into working in Deep Salt, a mine harvesting mysterious materials that no one returns from. He sets off to rescue him. The writing in this was . . . odd, but the world building was interesting. First in a trilogy.
A Murderous Procession, by Ariana Franklin. Historical Mystery. Adelia returns as the forensic specialist in Henry II's England, this time sent as a physician on a political mission back to her home country. I'm usually not a fan of mysteries, but this series is entertaining and the setting well chosen. There's a satisfying lack of anachronisms and while the attitudes of certain characters seem suspiciously progressive, overall it's believable.
Death and the Librarian and Other Stories, by Esther Friesner. Short Story Collection. I was not a fan of this one. 'A Birthday' and 'A Pig's Tale' were interesting, but did not make up for the rest of it. The writing was awkward and filled with characters with heavy accents. A frustrating read.
Uglies, by Scott Westerfield. Dystopian YA. Tally is waiting until the day she can have plastic surgery to become a Pretty, like everyone else in society, but ends up tangled with a group of people living outside the city and control of the government. This was an interesting premise, but the main character was frustrating. First in a trilogy.
Pretties, by Scott Westerfield. Dystopian YA. Having given herself over to the officials at the end of the first book, Tally is now a Pretty. She's forgotten most of the events of the first book and is content to live a life of endless entertainment - until she's reminded of the reason she returned. The slang in this book was *obnoxious*. The society continues to be an interesting idea, but the main character is not much more likeable here than in the first one. Second in a trilogy.
Wizards at War, by Diane Duane. Fantasy YA. Older wizards are losing their powers and memories, and it's up to the younger generation to find out why and confront the Lone Power yet again. This is 8th in a series, one I've liked for a long time. The magic is systematic and scientific, a refreshing change from most books dealing with the subject. The writing is engaging and the world building, as usual, is well done.
My brilliant plan is to emulate Sarah's fabulous blog and do one of these posts every month. A fabulous aunt of mine decided to start a book club on facebook, so hopefully I'll get some good reads from that.
Now I should probably go study. Bleh.
