I made this wrist distaff by crocheting single-ply yarn spun on a top-whorl drop spindle.
(click on thumbnail for larger image)
Tropical Storm KENNETH
At the National Weather Service Hurricane Center: Tropical Storm KENNETH is in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Who knew I was on the list!
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
Kage Baker’s Company series is one of my favorites. (Time travel, cyborgs, mysterious mysteries with hints and revelations doled out book-by-book. Not for everyone, but then that’s why they make chocolate and vanilla.)
My friend Barbara also likes the Company novels, and didn’t like The Anvil of the World, a fantasy number. On that poor recommendation, I put off reading it for a long time, even though I owned it. I recently did read it (I forget now when–probably after we returned from Canada.) I liked it ok, but it’s definitely on the juvenile side. (It’s not for juveniles, because it’s quite salacious in parts, but the humor is pretty juvenile.)
Baker has a knack for the bizarre, and she gives it free rein here. I’d say try her Company novels
Soul at Work by Margaret Benefiel
A member of my meeting has a new book out. Today is “Amazon day”, when she’s encouraging people to buy the book from Amazon (to boost rank). Margaret will donate $1 for each book purchased today to Grayston Family Support Services, one of the organizations profiled in the book.
As some of you know, the book features stories of people and organizations (businesses, health care, and non-profits) who integrate soul into their work (where soul at work is not a theological abstraction, but a way of being and doing). The stories are interwoven with principles of spiritual discernment and spiritual growth, with the aim of giving practical help to all who want their workplaces to be more life-giving. The principles and practices apply broadly (to Meetings and families and schools, for example, as well as to the types of organizations featured in the book).
The bull in the china shop
Here’s what the Guardian has to say about the upcoming UN summit: World summit on UN’s future heads for chaos.
The British government is mounting a huge diplomatic effort this weekend to prevent the biggest-ever summit of world leaders, designed to tackle poverty and overhaul the United Nations, ending in chaos. . . .
Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban parliament, whose hopes of attending the summit along with President Fidel Castro were dashed when he was denied a visa by the US, said in Havana the summit “has been totally devalued, its original purpose kidnapped”. . . .
Mr Bolton has so far made only one significant concession, dropping his demand for the term “millennium development goals” to be deleted.
But Mr Bolton said the US will not renew a promise to pay 0.7% of gross domestic product towards aid, regarded as necessary for meeting the millennium development goals.
Controls on arms is likely to be dropped. But agreement is almost certain on creation of the human rights council. A deal could be reached on the peace-building commission, in spite of disagreements over who should run it.
There is a divide over the definition of terrorism, with pro-Palestinian states objecting that the proposed terminology be amended to exclude Palestinian fighters.
The most significant reform, expansion of the 15-member security council to about 25 members, has been shelved until at least December.
What really got me was the part about the US denying a visa to the speaker of the Cuban parliament. This summer at least two Cuban Friends were denied visas to attend Quaker gatherings. What a foolish and shortsighted situation.
Montréal to Boston
On our drive home we decided on the spur of the moment to visit the Bread and Puppet Museum in Glover, Vermont. It was time for us to have lunch, so we stopped at the general store in Glover. Generous deli sandwiches. And stuffed animals. Lots of them. One aisle has freezer cases on one side, shelves of chips on the other, and a row of deer down the middle. One of the deer is being attacked by a small bobcat. In another room is a moose. Sorry, no photos.
The Bread and Puppet Museum is in an old barn. It is a surreal space, packed to the rafters (literally) with puppets of all sorts.
the WHY CHEAP ART? manifesto
PEOPLE have been THINKING too long that
ART is a PRIVILEGE of the MUSEUMS & the
RICH. ART IS NOT BUSINESS!
It does not belong to banks & fancy investors
ART IS FOOD. You cant EAT it BUT it FEEDS
you. ART has to be CHEAP & available to
EVERYBODY. It needs to be EVERYWHERE
because it is the INSIDE of the
WORLD.
ART SOOTHES PAIN!
Art wakes up sleepers!
ART FIGHTS AGAINST WAR & STUPIDITY!
ART SINGS HALLELUJA!
ART IS FOR KITCHENS!
ART IS LIKE GOOD BREAD!
Art is like green trees!
Art is like white clouds in blue sky!
ART IS CHEAP!
HURRAH!
Bread & Puppet Glover, Vermont, 1984
Bonsai and penjing
Bonsai is the Japanese word, penjing the Chinese. I decided to try the photo album capacity of typepad, so there the link is to photos over on the right.
Knitting retreat
I’d like everyone who reads my blog to know about this retreat I’m leading in November. It’s open to anyone who wants a knitting retreat. You don’t have to be a Quaker to come.
HANDWORK/HEARTWORK
A Weekend Knitting Retreat
November 4–6, 2005
We’ll have time for uninterrupted periods of knitting, both with conversation and in silence, as well as time for worship, individual retreat, and recreation. The fields and woods of Woolman Hill’s lovely 19th-century farmstead will be open to our use. While not providing knitting instruction, this retreat will provide a setting for sharing stories, techniques, and problem-solving ideas. All skill-levels are welcome. Participants should bring a current project (or projects); journals, sketchbooks, and other devotional materials; books and resources to share. Crochet, spinning, or other handwork that fits in your lap is welcome.
I’m a long-time knitter and crocheter. A member of Beacon Hill Friends Meeting in Boston, I am an experienced workshop and retreat leader. I works as an editor for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
For registration information see this flyer (pdf)
or Woolman Hill New England Quaker Center
Jardin botanique de Montréal/Montreal Botanical Garden
One of our priority destinations in Montreal was Jardin botanique de Montréal/Montreal Botanical Garden , since we didn’t get there last year.
Here are a few photos of greenhouse plants and the nearby Olympic Stadium with and without clouds.
And some photos of the koi in the pond in the Japanese Garden:
Finally, a lotus from the Chinese Garden and Bob in the courtyard:
Up next: bonsai and penjing from the Japanese and Chinese Gardens, respectively.
(And with this post I’m trying out the “publish on” function of Typepad. I’m actually writing this on Wednesday evening but it should post on Thursday mid-day.)
Ottawa and Montreal
Yes, I’m descending into travelogue. I figure, if I use a blog to keep track of books I’ve read (usually with minimal commentary), then I might as well use it as an aide-memoire for trips as well.
Bob and I left for Ottawa on Saturday, August 27. We had a pleasant drive up through Franconia Notch in New Hampshire and across Quebec through Montreal. Our favorite signs (sorry, no photos) were the one that looked like an open dogfood can with the international NO! symbol across it (No Dogfood!), and the one with the diamond dipicting a leaping deer above two smaller rectangular signs: “night danger” and “danger de nuit.” Wouldn’t that make a great drag name, Danger de Nuit?
Sunday was Ottawa’s gay pride parade and festival. It was pretty low-key, but there was a former National Party leader and a group of Crafty Queers carrying enormous knitting needles. I was prone on the grass tending to a very bad backache, and everyone who was passing anything out ran over to dump several on my lap. Bob and I must now have between us a dozen little plastic bags with condoms, lube, and instructions. (Well, if you must know, we tossed the instructions so we wouldn’t be lugging around so much in our pockets.)
I hope to get photos from Bob of the Mackenzie King estate in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa. Mackenzie King was a prime minister of Canada who never married and had sceances to contact his mother. He gardened, designed and built lovely country homes, and collected antiques. Hmmm. As my coworker Kathy said today, “Circumstantial evidence, but he’s clearly a Mama’s boy, so what does it matter anyway?” At any rate, his estate made a good outdoor activity on Monday.
The Musée de beaux-arts du Canada/National Gallery of Canada is in a lovely building designed by the same architect who did the Peabody-Essex in Salem, Massachusetts. Two really delightful discoveries there: the Group of Seven, early twentieth-century Canadian artists who sought to evoke the north of Canada; and Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet, a reworking of “Spem in Alium” by Thomas Tallis, recorded with individual mics for all forty singers and played with individual speakers arranged around the salvaged Rideau Street convent chapel. Sitting in the center of the space and listening to the music was wonderful, but just as wonderful was walking through the Canadian galleries and noticing it just at the edge of hearing.
Our final attraction in Ottawa was Le Musée candien des civilisations/Canadian Museum of Civilization. Building by the same architect as the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., with large organically-shaped spaces inside and out. One of the largest halls houses lots of totem poles and six Native houses from the Pacific coast. Tucked into a seating area on another floor were nine Inuit stone carvings of stylized animals. On part of the main floor is the Canadian Postal Museum/Musée canadien de la poste. So many tiny little pieces of art were just overwhelming. We were lucky to see a temporary exhibition on Pompei. Bob’s been there, but I’ve never seen anything but photos. I thought this exhibit was extraordinarily well done. There were casts of the skeletons and bodies in each area along with some of the artefacts found with them and murals from the rooms in which they were found. Very powerful.
Ottawa dining highlights included an Indian restaurant near our host’s home and a creperie in Gatineau across the river.
Tomorrow: photos from Montreal sites.