Book Pile for January 20

This month's pile seems to have a healthy appetite. Next month maybe I'll slim down with nothing but novellas and chapbooks. From top to bottom:

1. Recently Completed Novel: Nowhere Man, Aleksandar Hemon
2. Novel that Makes Me Feel Bad I Totally Blow at Chess: The Queen's Gambit, Walter Tevis
3. Highbrow Cred Novel: Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
4. Keeping My New Year's Resolution Non Fiction: That Infernal Little Cuban Republic, Lars Schoultz
5. Graphic Novel/Brick for Beating: Habibi, Craig Thompson (seriously, this thing is thick)

Domestic Thursday: Short 'n Sweet 'n Lagered

 

Pattern: Short and Sweet by Angela Best, in Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, "Musk"  
Hook size: 5 mm

 

Here it is, my Short and Sweet, all finished. I was worried that this bumpy, rustic cotton yarn would create a stiff piece of fabric, and that every time I slipped it over a sundress I would feel like an extra in a Lady Gaga video. But it blocked out nicely, with just enough drape to avoid the dreaded "power shoulders." Sigh. Now I'll have to send that laserdisc player back.

 

Also, my mom found this awesome vintage Mary Maxim pattern. It's got a Cowichan thing going on with that shawl collar, but that diamond pattern, maybe in brightly dyed yarn, would hopefully avoid any accusations of cultural appropriation. Should I knit it? I think I should!

 

And, finally, beer. This is Beau's Lug Tread Lagered Ale. Beau's comes from Vankleek Hill, Ontario, and is noted for doing all sorts of endearing and/or socially-conscious things like getting home brewers to plan beers for Beau's to brew, and partnering with Operation Come Home to bring Beau's to Ottawa-area doors. The difference between ales and lagers is mostly in the yeast. Ales feed at the top, and lagers at the bottom. But lagers are also usually aged at colder temperatures and conditioned for longer. Lug Tread bridges the gap by using ale yeasts, but finishing it off like a lager. It's their figurehead product, and what you're most likely to see in bars and LCBOs. But they also make stranger brews - beers spiced with peppermint and orange peel, beers made in bourbon barrels, and beers that use bog myrtle instead of hops. Lug Tread's taste isn't quite so bizarre as those concoctions. But it's a lovely, bready-tasting ale if you're looking to bring your lite beer-loving friends over to the side of taste and decency.

Try Not to Analyze the Hype

SOPA would be a terrible, terrible thing. My friend Max thinks so, and I believe him. If you're Canadian, you can sign this call to action. If you're American, sign this petition or contact your congressperson directly. The pressure seems to be working, so keep it up. Plus, it's always fun to make Rupert Murdoch angry.

The past week has been a bad one for two people. If, in fact, they are people, and not just constructs built by the online commentary-critical complex to suits its needs. In the sporting world: Tim Tebow, mediocre quarterback, Jockey spokesman, litmus test for your thoughts on religion/the universe at large. From the music sphere: Lana Del Rey. One got spanked 45-10 by Tom Brady and the Patriots, ending the playoff run of the Denver Broncos, while the other mumbled her way through an SNL appearance. I can't say that I bear any personal ill will to either of these fine young Americans - well, maybe Tebow, a little, based mostly on that Super Bowl anti-choice ad - but I was glad as the implosions played out.

In a few months, Lana del Rey generated the kind of media studies analysis Madonna writhed around for years to make possible, and Tebow hit that sweet, sweet intersection of sports, religion and the American news cycle. Klosterman wrote about him, the New Yorker wrote about him, even Canada discovered him and wrote about him, but the article was kind of awful, so let's ignore it. With both of these kids, I resented the constant churning of the explaining machine. My response to them is not a mirror of my feelings on larger issues. And why concentrate on religion, or "authenticity," when the question of whether Tim or Lana are decent at what they do should be tackled first. Actually, in Del Rey's case, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THOSE LIPS ought to be issue number one. At the height of Tebowmania, the NFL produced photos of what Tim Tebow's babies would look like with various celebrities. Using the same cutting-edge technology the NFL has at its disposal - that is, a free site - I have created Lana Tel Bow. Because clearly, they belong together.

I majored in cultural studies, I have my license to analyze, but there's a difference between that which illuminates, and that which strives for profundity but only gets page views. Here's to getting a break from the latter.

Domestic Thursday: Mugs and Steam Whistle Pilsner

It's long been a dream of mine to see the beaches of Cyprus. A less cherished, but more achievable wish had been to own a mug with an octopus on it. As they say, shoot for the moon, because if you miss, you'll land among the stars. But, as I say, aim for the octopus mug and you'll at least have something to drink from.

Although I had been stalking cephalopod-related Etsy listings for a while, they were out of my price range. So, a few months ago, I went to Play with Clay with some of the folks from the All Strung Out knitting group and painted the mug on left. But the Octomug was lonely. And I had painted him on the far side, so while others could gaze upon his tentacular greatness, I could not. Thus, the Squmug was born.

The Squmug has a submarine on its backside. I repeat, a submarine and not a fish.

This week's Ontario beer is one of my favourite choices when it comes to - MOM STOP READING - all-night drinking. As much as I like bitter IPAs and robust stouts, I can't handle a whole night of them without praying for antacids from heaven. So, when I have to make it through a whole football game, I reach for the Steam Whistle. The company only makes one beer, and that's a pilsner. Pilsners, along with their parent class of lagers, are tough to make, and I respect anyone who can make one that's well-balanced and flavourful while remaining crisp and clear. Steam Whistle is just that, with an interesting roasted grain flavour, almost like cornflakes without the corn. So, calm down, craft ale people. They're also a beer company that's pretty jacked into local culture, hosting art shows at their brewery, concerts for unsigned musicians, and so on, image-making that's extended to their excellent package design. Check out that red bottle cap. Ain't it adorable? If you want to learn more about how some Ontario lagers are made, by the way, The Grid has a handy flow chart.

Haywire and a Real Female Action Star

I'm happy to hear that Haywire, Steven Soderbergh's coming attraction, will star Gina Carano, a retired mixed martial arts fighter. Supposedly. I can't verify that she was a fighter, since I'm not a big MMA fan - every time I see it in bars I hope that it's really energetic gay porn and then I'm disappointed when it's not. But I like the idea of having a female action star whose ass-kicking credentials are legit. I'm a lady who loves action movies, but that is a love nurtured despite the fact that most of their women are either damsels in distress or practitioners of what TV Tropes calls "waif fu." That is, the trope of having painfully thin starlet using her perfectly toned leg to kick a guy in the face, all while wearing heels some strippers would find impractically high. Gina Carano is clearly still a conventionally attractive, thin, white woman, but at least she's one with muscles and a winning bout record. Plus, although she takes down Michael Fassbender in a formal dress, at least it seems that she's kicked off the heels to do so. I'll buy a ticket to the movie, two if Soderbergh can guarantee that it's better than The Girlfriend Experience.

Getting Over Dykes to Watch Out For

For the past few years, I've been carrying a torch for a few things: Alison Bechdel, Dykes to Watch Out For, and the notion that one day the former would go back to creating the latter. Bechdel started DTWOF in the early '80s, and continued expanding the cast and their increasingly tangled relations right until 2008. In 2006, she also published Fun Home, which was Time's book of the year and enjoyed a run as the acceptable graphic literature of the bookish set. There isn't an award for that, but if there was I think it should be called the Mausie for Spiegelman's enduring legacy to the genre. Anyway, as much as I enjoyed Fun Home, I feel that DTWOF should receive an equal amount of attention and even more critical praise. Though published in serial form - first as comic strips in alt-weeklies, then mostly on Bechdel's blog - it's more of a graphic novel than half the stuff filed as such on bookstore shelves.

I'm talking novel in the sense of those 19th century novels, where a large cast and complex interwoven plots take up a brick's worth of paper. Think Middlemarch, but with the American Midwest instead of the British Midlands, and more on lentils, tempeh and the Iran-Contra affair. Bechdel wrangles a huge number of characters over nearly three decades. They're mostly lesbian, largely queer, but diverse in race and earning potential, each one developed sympathetically. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For collects most of the strips, so you can see the characters grow and Bechdel's art evolve, all in one convenient volume. A note about the switch: according to The Indelible Alison Bechdel, her linework thickened after she collaborated on a project for the Village Voice with Howard Cruse, whose Stuck Rubber Baby is also worth reading. She found that her drawings disappeared next to his.

Then 2008 hits, and they all stop, before Obama could even be inaugurated. I've been waiting since then for Alison Bechdel to write more, though I know she's working on a sequel to Fun Home. What did the characters think of the Obama presidency? The death of Osama Bin Laden? The extended recession? Somehow, I care more about Mo would think than what real-life columnists do think. But, almost four years later, I've decided it's time to let go. I keep on hoping Bechdel will come back and give readers a big epilogue so we know if Clarice and Toni got back together, if Mo and Sydney ever broke up, if Sparrow ever made Stuart get a real job. But I suppose it's more in keeping with DTWOF for it to end without a finish, just like a visit with friends. Read it!

Fridays Are For Five Dollar Hamburgers and Vanilla Porter

So. Bars are dark. The photo of Mill Street's Vanilla Porter, then, is all about the "atmosphere." Or, "artistic blurriness." But I swear there's beer in there! Vanilla beer! Vanilla beer that doesn't like a melted ice cream cone dropped into somebody's spilled PBR. I swear. Instead there's notable vanilla sweetness, backed up by a robust maltiness. It's obviously not for purists, but why would you be ordering a vanilla porter if the purity laws of 1516 mean anything to you, anyway? Lighten up. Embrace the beershake. It goes just as well with hamburgers as the regular kind of shake.

Domestic Thursday: Dry Edition

This Thursday will be a quickie, since I spent most of the day running around Toronto. Here's proof: I took this photo in RSquared on Queen West this afternoon. Pictured is my growing Short and Sweet cardi. Not pictured are the friendliest baristas I've ever encountered. All of them earned their tip, and here's a tip for you, if you've ever thought of crocheting this cardi: Check the errata. The first set of corrections points out the missing chain 2's in the written instructions, but canny folks could catch that either by looking at the chart or using common sense. The second set of clarifications is truly useful though. In one row a short chain needs to be added, and what to do with this little yarn outgrowth and why it's necessary is mystifying without this explanation. Beer will be back tomorrow. Until then I rest my weary legs and cramping crocheting fingers.

Bodies in Motion: Pina and Mission Impossible

I spent hard scratch to see two films in theatres over the holidays, Pina and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. They would seem, at first, to be a pretty odd couple. They're also a pair that cost me about $35 in admission, the price of a cheap pair of pants at Old Navy, but perhaps that is a thought for another time ("Does art ever justify pantslessness???") Together, though, the blockbuster emphasizes the human body as much as the arthouse documentary on the German choreographer, both sharing a fascination with how those bodies interact with architectural space.

I can't take credit for focusing on this theme in Pina. I was too distracted by the clips of a dance featuring a hippo costume. But as my friend Richard pointed out, there was a "connection between human forms and architectural ones" running through the film. Dancers move through an empty glass building, a café with its chairs, up an escalator, and around the spare concrete room of what could be an apartment or a grain elevator. It's hard to tell just what it is, except that it's a man-made space. Sometimes it's easy to impose a traditional narrative on the movement, like, here's a couple falling in and out of love. Other times perhaps it's an abstract idea or an emotion, but trying to make narrative sense of it all feels insulting. But throughout, the body had to interact with the architecture, whether it's moving against the space or in ways the space inspires.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol would seem like an odd choice to continue this theme, as its budget could probably buy ten Pinas, with enough left over to clone Wim Wenders. But the highlight of the movie, and the scene that nearly justifies the absurd Imax ticket price, features the Burj Khalifa. It's the tallest building in the world, and one of its most distinctive-looking, but if you need more proof of its place in the public consciousness: It's one of the 11 buildings that make up the Lego Architecture series*. With all this cultural context, the architecture of the space the IMF team must infiltrate is already primed in the audience. And then Tom Cruise sprints across one side of the Burj, leaps, and swings back into a knocked-out window. For a few moments, it's as graceful as anything seen in Pina, the viewer reminded that collectively we can produce architecture that the individual can interact with and around, rather than push through. I was again reminded of this scene while talking with my friend**, after saying how clumsy MIGP made me feel. She pointed out that Tom Cruise and Co. were always banging into things, and for a few moments here he dangles off the edge, barely making it inside for all of his previous grace. So, in spite of Pina's sterling arthouse credentials, MIGP may just be the more interesting film when it comes to the friction people we can experience with current architectural forms- and the social structures from which they spring.

* A side note for Canadians: they're considering Moshe Safdie's Montréal landmark Habitat 67 as a future set. You can vote for it here.
** Jo, a lovely person who was at Pina too. For a sense of why she makes such a good movie watching buddy, check out her feminist critique of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.

Oh, hey there, 2012

With two exceptions, I've decided not to do New Year's Resolutions for 2012. First, the world is ending, so who the fuck cares if I lose 20 pounds? I want to die the way I lived... with a donut in each hand. Also, although I've usually kept away from doomed resolutions like financial responsibility, I still end up missing some and then feeling all sad in January. Even if the resolution was as ridiculous as "see an octopus underwater," I still feel as though I've failed myself. And the cephalopods.

Exceptions:
1. Learn more about Cuban history. I refer to my recent tweet:

"New year's resolutions? Maybe to learn more about Cuban history, 'cause right now all I know comes from Dirty Dancing II: Havana Nights."

2. Sew more often. Because, otherwise, how will I have adorable dresses for the summer? Without a daring theft at an Anthropologie store, of course.

Also, on a more personal note, 2011 was rough. Not awful. It was completely survivable, and there were some great moments, but there was also a months-long slog from about June to, oh, last week I could have done without. So I'm setting very reasonable, cautious expectations for 2012, while furtively nurturing the hope that they'll be exceeded.