Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings 

Tax the Rich

Miss M. praying?

Movie Monday

I'm amazed to read all the clinically depressed despair coming from the American electorate which did not vote for Barack Obama. It doesn't surprise me to hear this from our economic 1% since they rail out at anything, real or imaginary, which might shave the teeniest bit from their wealth (All made by the sweat of their brow and richly deserved of course.) But to hear the despair (and I'm talking just despair now, not a hidden racist agenda) from the 99% makes me wonder if they are living in a parallel universe where Republicans are the savior of the "common man."

For them, in case in their grief they blindly stumble to my blog, I found a very early picture of Miss M to cheer them. We never could figure out if she was praying to the god of dogs for her good luck at coming to us or for deliverance from these awful, godless people with whom she had to live. Truth be told, Miss M is now a seeing eye dog in Oklahoma which stayed red and voted for Romney this year so she was probably praying for the latter. We all still miss Miss M and in a few months Miss L will be leaving us for her second tier of training. There won't be a dry eye in the place!

I had a wacky week of movies this week. First, TCM showed The Exterminating Angel by Luis Bunuel. If you remember, Gil in Midnight in Paris meets Bunuel and suggests the idea for this film to him only to have Bunuel say something like: People not being able to leave a dinner party? I don't get it. That will be my pick for next week since I got to record it but not see it yet.

This week again at TCM, I got to see The Story of Temple Drake (1934) which supposedly has the distinction of being the "straw which broke the camel's back." It brought in the decades of censorship of Hollywood films by self-righteous prigs since after this movie the Motion Picture Production Code aka Hays Code -1930 was finally enforced vigorously. (Note: this censorship still exists in another form as movie ratings.) 

I won't go into the background on this movie since there's a great TCM site to read, among others:

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=504375|508221&name=The-Story-of-Temple-Drake 

but I do want to say that TSOTD is based on Sanctuary (1931) by William Faulkner and I think the strong "moral" reaction to this movie was based on knowledge of the plot of this book. (Which I'll get to later.)

The Story of Temple Drake tells the story of a free-living society bad girl who gets kidnapped by a gangsters. Her beau is killed and she is raped by the gang leader. Unlike movies today, the closest thing you get to see of the rape is the face of Jack La Rue, cigarette dangling from his lips, filling the camera space as he approaches her. After that, there's only one line by La Rue ("When I'm away from you I think you may not care about me." implying when he's there, she's appreciative) when you might think she is enjoying her captivity. Other than that, only the silent look she gives the judge in the end when he asks: You were held prisoner, of course? implies what started as captivity and degradation did not end that way.

Except for La Rue who doesn't get much character stretch, Miriam Hopkins as the bad girl and Florence Eldridge as the down-trodden gangster's wife are among the actors who add verve to this rather racy theme/tame scenes pre-code drama. In fact, as I read the reviews of this movie I wondered if the TCM copy had been edited since I didn't get the impression that Hopkins became a prostitute. OK, I do watch these movies in the middle of the night so I doze but I'm thinking a lot of verbiage about TSOTD has its origins in the plot of Sanctuary.

Now, Sanctuary is a horse of a different color. Supposedly, Faulkner had just married a woman with two young children so he wrote this novel to make money poring in all the naughty bits he could find. We have real kinky stuff in Sanctuary. Stuff which isn't even hinted at in the movie and would not get a pass even in the more liberal times today. I think the coming of the Hollywood Code has its origins not so much in the movie, The Story of Temple Drake, but in the fact that this movie was based on Faulkner's salacious novel. (Though I do think the fact that Temple is allowed to reenter her privileged world in the end must have grated the misogynistic do-gooders of that day.)

Last night, I found my copy of that dirty book, Sanctuary. I use the term "dirty book" because my paperback copy is so physically dirty. I picked it up as I was throwing out unsold books from a sale my organization was running. (I always hated to dump books but no charity group will take books in bad condition; in fact, they pass on most large book donations.) It was dirty to the feel then and it's stayed that way.

So last night, I start to read Sanctuary and I didn't get too far before falling asleep. I awakened, holding a torn page from the book in my hand. (Yes, it's also a ratty book but then, I can't be choosy; I don't own a lot of Faulkner.)  However, Sanctuary is a great read. It's richly written in a linear clear style which I find unusual in Faulkner. He called the book a pot-boiler but it reads like great literature. He's using narrative not dialogue to move the plot along and I had forgotten how rich that can be. In only a few pages, I can "see" Popeye and already I know neither Jack LaRue or Yves Montand in the 1961 Sanctuary is Popeye. (Their names were Trigger and Candy Man since Popeye was already the sailor man before the first picture came out.)

Bottom line: While The Story of Temple Drake should fall far short of being labeled the death knell for pre-code films, after 70+ years it's still worth a viewing.  It shows us memes from a long gone time before the the nudity and the graphic sex movies of today. I wonder if those puritanical time could have been tweaked to create more realistic movies so that today we would have a thriving industry for adult-themed movies?  It's one of those "what if."

See you next Monday. 

 
 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Knitting Friday

Let me start with knitting and end with dieting.

#1 The baby blanket

This baby blanket had to be done by the end of November and I hit a snag from the get-go because I only had small skeins of Peter Pan acrylic on hand which would be mean a lot of knots or Russian joins. I scurried to Michael's, coupon in my sweaty palms, but I didn't use it because the Lion Brand, Pound of Love was the most superior baby yarn there and that was already on sale. I like the color and the feel of the yarn but I'm unhappy that it had two knots since the whole idea was no knots. I just wasted the five yards between the knots so I only joined the yarn once - not happy about that either. Additionally, it was impossible to find and easy yarn end to use from the inside of the skein. (From reviews of this yarn, these are common, frustrating problems.)

But there were a lot of pluses to this knit, the main one being it only took me two days to complete and I had more than enough yarn to make this 35" x 40" including a slight ruffle border.

I used a slanted shell stitch (1sc, ch1, 2dc) in every ch1-space across. (It's a Lion Brand pattern which I can't find but I'll post when I do.) As I remember it: ch 3, *1sc, ch1, 2dc* in each ch1-sp across, and end with a dc in the ch3 from the row below. You start with the typical foundation chain, working the shell into the 5th chain from the hook and then every third chain across. I don't know if you know this but I just learned not to worry about having two many chains for your foundation row. Just pick out the ending chains you don't need. The directions called for working a shell in each space around the blanket for the border. I went up one hook size (J to K) and did that but I also worked a single crochet in the 2nd double crochet after each space. That gave it the slight ruffle.

I started the blanket experimenting with *1 sc, ch2, 2 hdc* but stopped because I had a time crunch. But I do think it would be fun to tweak the stitches on this fast, pretty knit. A book of Barnes and Noble and this blanket will be ready to be wrapped and given.

#2 Modified Birch Vest

At right, is the modified Birch Vest. Remember I had trouble linking to this pattern, (see 11/2/12)? So google Birch Vest and then click on: Pdf Birch Vest Kristin Omdahl - Knitting Daily. I love this pattern for it's yoke. You can see the cable needle I'm using to close the top and the body is one row of K and one row of *YO, K2tog.* So easy and making the cast on underarm stitches with a foundation single crochet eliminates any need to fix the gaps (no gaps at all) in these stitches later.

#3 Birch in cotton

At the left is another modified Birch in heavy cotton. Not the easiest knit but I'm using Chiaogoo needles so that helps. This body is 5 knit rows and 7 rows of: 1 row *YO, K2tog* 1 row *K*, ending with the YO row.

As I said before, I'm going to tackle the Birch pattern again. This time, I'll work the top in the round so there will be no need for that cable needle.

#Matches a lot of tees

And finally in Paton wool, another top. This time with 5 rows of stockinette and 9 rows of lace. This started life as a different bigger top so I tinked back to the neckband, eliminated about 15 stitches in the body and worked the bands of stockinette. I think these bands help to pull the top in and help to make you look slimmer.

Speaking about slimmer, I've been promising a posting about my dieting (started at the end of August) so this would be a good segue.  First of all, for anyone reading this with a weight problem, I don't mean this as an "Oh, look at me, I lost weight." I know what a difficult problem it is to lose weight and the physical and psychological toll it takes on you. All I can offer is some of the things which helped me this time; and there have been so many times before also.

Here are some of the things I did:
1. For the first week, I didn't change my eating habits but exercised every day whether by  walking or using that disc on ropes thingie to reduce my upper arms. I didn't get on the scale, I didn't take my measurements, I just added some exercise to my routine.
2. In the second week, I eliminated all sweets since that was the easiest thing for me to forgo. (I like salty snacks.) So while I started some dieting in the second week, I didn't
"feel any pain" yet.
3. All the time, I told myself: You're going to slip. Don't beat yourself up over it.
4. During the two months (and I'm still dieting), I always had a go-to snack. For me, it was popcorn which I made from 1/4 cup of plain kernels and a packet of Splenda microwaved for about 2 minutes in a small brown bag closed by one staple. (Google this method, it's out there.) Whenever I felt hungry, I would make two bags and just munch. Once and a while I "cheated" with Jolly Time Kettle Corn where the salt rather than any fat is a problem with me.
5. By the fourth week, I was in a rhythm. I started using the treadmill at the clubhouse 20 minutes a day (up to 50 minutes now) and I had a food regimen I used every day. (Though at a party, I did eat moderately.) For me, knowing what my diet was going to be day in and day out helped; others might find this deadly.
6. My daily diet: Breakfast: fruit and coffee; Lunch: a lot of greens, a good protein source, cheese, baked potato chips (sometimes); Dinner: 6 ozs of Greek yogurt topped with slivered almonds. And of course, the daily vitamins I've always taken. My main meal was lunch and sometimes I used Healthy Choice (no more than 13% salt) and added a lot of vegetables to it.
7. I also practiced saying "No" to food since food is a comfort and too often in the past I justified "only one truffle" eating which always led to "only x number of truffles" eating.
8. It hasn't been easy and while I did wear a straight black skirt for the first time in two years I didn't start this diet only because of vanity; I was feeling lousy. Weight just drags you down. I was feeling a tightness in my chest and getting out of bed was more of a roll than the usual "jump up." Those feelings are gone and I know that's got to be more healthy.

I guess the bottom line of advice from me would be: Get onto a healthy diet and healthy exercise. Try to remember a diet should be a blueprint for good lifetime eating. It's going to be a slow haul ("on by the tablespoon, off by the teaspoon") and there will be disappointment. And finally, you should try to get to a healthy weight, not a fashion model weight. (Oh, and always consult an MD first, though I've never found my MDs to know much about good eating but they can monitor you for any problems.)

Good luck and tell me how you're doing.

Next week: I just found the rattiest skein of used burnished gold wool which consisted of about 15 separate strands. After splicing it, I crocheted a scarf. I'm about ready to wash it in conditioner and if this beauty comes out OK after blocking, I'll give you a less-than-one-skein-ratty-wool pattern. Bet you can't wait! Happy knitting.    
 
  

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich 

Website Wednesday 

A fast post because I'm beat having gotten to sleep around 4 am and now having to get out of the house by 8 am.

As you know, I'm an atheist so I wouldn't presume to pray to any gods for an Obama victory (or rather a decisive Romney defeat) but I'm a great believer in the magical powers of Chinese foods. OK, so everyone has to have a talisman. I schlepped to our highway, go-to, take out Chinese food place yesterday noon and had this delicious lunch of shrimp and chicken with Chinese vegetables and fried rice. Salty as hell, but delicious.

And then Barack Obama was elected President of the USA for a second term last night. Coincidence? I think not!  Of course, while I watched the returns I also watched TLOTR: The Return of the King as I knitted. For over five hours. Must I now add this to my good luck charms? Oh, the horror!

It was Chris Hayes who finally said, in the wee hours of the night, what I had always felt was an Obama advantage. That is, Obama was much younger than Romney. I had always felt the country would choose the younger man; but Chris explained it so much better than I had thought it through.

He said that presidential elections, unlike just congressional ones,  bring out much younger voters who tend to skew more progressive and more in line with Democratic Party thinking. That's the reason just two years ago when it was only a congressional election, angry, older, white voters were able to put Tea Baggers in Congress. However yesterday, just two years later, the presidential voting pool included a much different demographic as the younger voters reappeared and we now have Barack Obama at 51, not Baby Boomer, Mitt Romney at 65, as the next president.

Chris felt this may be the last presidential campaign with a baby boomer candidate which does not bode well for Hillary Clinton. I don't think being a woman will help her in 2016 since she is also going to be, to younger voters, an old woman at 69.

Well, with the election of Obama we have taken one step back from the precipice. It's a beginning; a good sign, but there is so, so much more work to get done.

A quick pick this week:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/49434968/displaymode/1247?wbSlideShowId=49434968&wbSection=today 

Such a simple pick: pictures of all sorts of animals. Nothing to think about (if you don't want to) just cute, happy pictures.

Click, enjoy, relax. We all deserve it today. See you next Wednesday.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Movie Monday - Lola

 

Tomorrow, I will be voting for a flawed US presidential candidate, Barack Obama, because  I will not vote for an amoral US presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

 

As I've said before, Obama has been a disappointment to the liberal/progressive community but a Romney presidency would be a catastrophe to this country and the world.

 

I'm also afraid that a Romney win will spell victory only for the ignorant, the bigoted and/or the greedy since I can't see one reason, other than those I listed, for anyone to vote for this man. As you watch interviews with people at a Romney rally telling why they are voting for him, their replies make no sense. They can't list his economic or foreign policy; they just know he would be better for the country. Truth be told, remove the camera and the mike from these interviews and you might get the honest answer: Romney is a white man. (And I cleaned that up.)

 

This time, I can't soothe my soul and make a Pyrrhic statement by voting for a third party candidate. Time is running out for this country and the stakes are too high. Our brand of capitalism and consumerism has brought us to the cliff. I don't know if we can turn back. But I do know if we elect Romney and Ryan, we will be taking the leap into oblivion.

 

However if you can believe it, I'm still an optimist. So much so that I didn't want to watch the end of Lola by Rainer Werner Fassbinder because I wanted to believe that good could triumph over evil; that the status quo of corruption and greed in the post-WWII German society, which is the backdrop of this movie, could be changed and that protagonist, von Bohm, would maintain his incorruptible value system.

 

Of course, that might have happened with another director but Fassbinder's vision was to hold a mirror to a corrupt society and Lola (1981) is the third movie chronologically in his trilogy (The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss) to do just that.

 

Taking the basic plot from The Blue Angel (1930) which has a "cabaret singer" seduce and ruin a stuffy professor, Rainer honestly presently the singer this time as the prostitute she really is and spends less time on the personal ruin of the professor character (building inspector, von Bohm) and more time on the theme of what happens to a moral man in a corrupt society.

 

The plot in brief: The town hires an honest building inspector who begins to question the corrupt practices of his department. Unknown to him, his housekeeper's daughter (with whom he becomes enamored) is not a "chaste" woman with a young daughter but a singer/prostitute in a club run by one of the biggest crooks in the town. Von Bohm's downward spiral, unlike TBA, is not a social/economic one. His spiral is rather a fall from grace, a moral descent and a corrupt society is there to stop his fall and welcome him in.

 

Unlike TBA, where Emil Jannings as the professor is reduced to a washroom attendant, Rainer is more equivocal with his ending. Armin Mueller-Stahl, in the role of building inspector, marries the whore who then precedes to cuckold him before their honeymoon. But Rainer does not leave you with the disturbing notion that von Bohm has been ruined. In fact, you're left to assume that he has just learned to "go along to get along" since his wedding to Lola (a very well-connected prostitute) is attended by all the town's upper class and just before this event he and town big wigs are seen at the ground breaking ceremony on a project he had vehemently opposed.

Rainer is less interested in individual corruption and more interested in the endemic corruption of society which he believes cannot be erased.

Ever so subtlety and disturbingly, he ends the film with a shot of Lola's very young daughter, lying provocatively in a hayloft. It happens so fast you might miss it but Rainer is saying: It continues.

I've left out so much like the use of color, the superb acting, the nuances of situations, the moral equivocation which permeates everything. No one comes out of this movie "alive" yet even the traditional villain (this time with beard, not moustache) is not without charm and humanity. 

For me, watching this movie just a few hours ago in the middle of the night on Turner Classic Movies is the perfect coda for this US election season. I wanted to believe von Bohm would be redeemed by the final reel and I also knew this couldn't happen. As I know, and von Bohm learned, the world is as it is. But perhaps, against everything Rainer was trying to convey with this trilogy, I found a trace of hope at Lola's ending. Things change for the bad; they can also change for the good.

On that note, I'll be back on Wednesday when, barring polling snafus, the world will know if the US electorate decided to set the doomsday clock back or forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday

 

I can't figure out why blogging is a bear today. We were very, very lucky in that we only lost electricity and a tree during the hurricane Sandy. I've been through enough floods to know the enervation you feel with all the clean-up and loss involved there and I can't even imagine how all those people facing flood damage combined with partial or total loss of their homes are coping. 

 

So, I should be upbeat today but I'm not, and I'm not proud of myself for sharing this down feeling with millions of people on the east coast right now who are living in such misery. It's like saying: I feel your pain. Of course I do, but on an empathetic level and that doesn't count. But it is what it is.

 

The kids are happy since it has been a week without school though making up the time lost (and lost state/federal aid) may include Saturday sessions.

 

We did learn some important preparedness lessons from this disaster. DH has finally said Yes to a generator. He was always worried about gasoline storage for it and the fumes it creates but we will run it from the back patio straight in to the fridge. I realized during the power outage that the only thing I was really worried about (once there was no chance of flooding) was all the food I would be losing. A small generator should fix that. (Sump pump has a battery backup.)

 

Also, we need some better lighting at night. You can't read or knit with just candles though they are good for walking around without falling and breaking your nose. I'd like to get a small three-section mirror for the small table by the couch. I would put it behind some candles and I'm hoping I can knit that way. 

 

By the bed, I won't use candles but I do have a miner's lantern type battery operated light with which I knitted and read large print books. We need more of these - both the lamps and large print books. (Under bad lighting you notice how small and light in shade so many fonts are in so many books today.)

 

We weren't cold during the power outage. First, because the outside weather was still fairly comfortable and we were able to use the stove and start the gas fireplace manually. While you should only leave these fireplaces on for short periods (the electric circulating fan doesn't work), it did help.

 

So my holiday list will consist of a generator, a mirror(s), more lanterns and more sturdy candles. Oh, and a really good radio. We did have a battery radio which barely worked so we did learn of the world outside but it wasn't until we were able to get on the internet and the TV that we got to see the unbelievable destruction.

 

I know I promised some diet news today but I think I'll just leave you with some free patterns because the only thing which calmed me down during our minor inconveniences was knitting/crocheting. 

 

First, I finished the crocheted Adelaide Circle Vest:

http://www.naturallycaron.com/projects/adelaide/adelaide_1.html

 

I wanted this for a light summer sweater and made a sample in heavy cotton. Big mistake. I made it, I tried it on and I promptly frogged it because it looked horrible; made me look big and dumpy. I think this would work in a very drapey yarn. It is a very easy and fast pattern to follow. I didn't work the linked double crochet stitch of the pattern since it's a "closed" stitch and I wanted a more open look. I used half double crochet instead. (If you decide to use the recommended stitch, it's very easy to learn.)

 

Then, I took that frogged heavy cotton and used it on the Birch Vest:

 

Pdf Birch Vest Kristin Omdahl - Knitting Daily

 

As I said last Friday, this is a difficult pattern to link to. I'm hoping the link above is active. (It looks active in draft mode but not in preview mode.) If it isn't: Google Birch Vest, scroll down to the link above and you'll be sent to the free copy of this pattern from Knitting Daily's TV show.

 

Last Friday, I posted a picture of my variation of this Birch Vest. It's in brown and I joined the body under the yoke and worked a simple lace pattern in knit for the body. 

 

That vest is finished now. I bound off the bottom after a lace row using an elastic bind off: In pattern, Knit the first stitch on the LN [left needle], then *bring this first stitch back from the RN (right needle) to the LN and K it together with the first stitch on the LN.* Continue *...* until all stitches are bound off. Then I added a row of crocheted crab stitch to the hem. Also, I worked a row of single crochet around the neck opening, though I don't think you have to. What really makes this top "pop" is that I joined the neck opening with a colorful Harmony cable needle from Knit Picks. ($4.99 for a package of three.) 

 

Working this crocheted/knitted combination has me intrigued. Next time, I want to make this top and join the crocheted yoke much higher.

 

And finally, this week I learned a far away friend is having a baby, like in less than a month. (Talk about not keeping in touch!)

 

I knew I had to work fast so I decided to crochet a blanket. I wanted to make Peggy Sue's baby blanket:

 

http://needleworkersroom.blogspot.com/2008/11/peggy-sues-baby-blanket.html 

 

This is a very lovely blanket but after 5" I realized it was going to take me too long (but I know I'll be back to this pattern in the future.)

 

So, I went to the Crocheted V Stitch Blanket:

 

http://amray1976.blogspot.com/2011/09/crochet-v-stitch-blanket-pattern.html 

 

I'm not using the K hook recommended but a G hook. However, this is a one row V stitch pattern. Since last night, I've worked 5". I'm using Wendy's Peter Pan yarn in yellow (it's a girl.)

 

OK, I'm done for today. Not a bad blog for someone who is feeling the blahs. Next week, pictures, I promise. Happy knitting.