ktm's Open Salon Blog

My brilliant 2nd career: I am a knitter

Wed, 7 Dec 2011 07:12:38 -0500

Mostly, I make felted bags, but lately I am working on an afghan for my daughter's family. It's made of alpaca and bamboo. Alpaca is very warm and bamboo has some antibacterial properties.

Here's a picture of the afghan...

I still have to weave in the loose ends and block it... meaning I have to wash it first in cold water and then block it.

The salon I go to is interested in my felted bags... I'm going to make some for them.

I'm out of here!

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 04:07:54 -0400

...but it has nothing to do with the ads. Nor am I flouncing.

Briefly, I have a birthday coming up and have been re-evaluating how I spend my time... costs/benefits, that sort of thing. Who knows how many more birthdays I'm going to have... passing the mid-fifties makes that issue more significant.

I also realized that I still miss the old Salon blog community, and trying to find a substitute for it here has not worked... my own rude epiphany.

Comments are closed, but I left up some recent posts, a few because they seemed more or less representative, one because someone else linked to it, and the hats at Royal Ascot, because Joan has been on vacation and may not have seen it yet.

It's been an interesting year... Best wishes to you all!

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A change of pace & temperament: a bit of comedy, ala Austen

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:06:29 -0400

A few months ago, I posted some poems-- works in progress-- that were inspired by watching repeatedly some of the much older versions of films and mini-series based on Jane Austen's novels. I have since removed those versions of the poems, but have now re-posted them again... here [because I'm still struggling to understand OS's copyright rules]. These are new versions, some including new material... and I have more in the works even now.

Please understand that poems are nearly always works in progress... never finished, only abandoned. These are not yet abandoned.

The films I watched during the past Christmas break while I was recuperating are all available on NetFlix, via InstantView... and these are the ones I like best...

Pride and Prejudice (in fact, the casting, over all, is better in this version; please note in particular, Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, and Lydia Bennet. Fay Weldon dramatised it, and was, with a few exceptions, mostly faithful to the novel.)

Mansfield Park (the more recent theatrical version was a travesty; it should have born a different name... loosely based, indeed!)

Sense and Sensibility (the sisters are of more appropriate ages in this version, although Margaret is missing!, and Irene Richard who plays Charlotte in the P&P above, is Elinor here. I do quibble, however, with the liberties taken with the weather.)

Emma (I confess, I was never really convinced by Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma. However, Doran Godwin seems born for the part.)

Yes, these much older versions are even better than that marathon series on PBS last year, and yes, this P&P is even better than the A&E version of P&P with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul as Elizabeth and Darcy really do set an independent standard).

Persuasion (not quite as old as the others, but still an excellent film, with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hind. The version of Persuasion from around that earlier time period was pretty awful; I could not watch even the first episode... I had to turn it off.)

If you prefer what Hollywood does to literature, you might not like these recommendations as well-- since they are certainly less sexy-- but if you care about the books at all, you might learn to like them even better.

After all, Austen was not writing bodice-rippers, nor even romances, but comedies of manners. In fact, in Northanger Abbey she parodied such works.

* * * * *

Be forewarned... by no means should you watch the version of P&P with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. Regency England?! Hah! Try Tara, pre-Civil War. An even worse travesty, if possible, than that other version of Mansfield Park! Nothing there is remotely recognizable as even being loosely based on a work by Austen.

Something for Joan Walsh... The Hats at Royal Ascot

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:06:21 -0400

Please click on the picture and take yourself to a fashionable slide show at the Christian Science Monitor, featuring fourteen colourful and fascinating feats of hatdom.

Surely, something that has been worn at Ascot may be splendid enough to please our beloved Joan... as well as her many readers?

In the comments, please feel free to suggest your preference from those in the slide show, or to link to another hat, if you would prefer.

Dan Froomkin: Fired! Guess he wrote about Torture too much?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:12 -0400

Well, I did have some other things in the works, but I guess on June 26th, I'll be posting something about Dan Froomkin. I've been a fan of his for quite awhile now.

The best blogger at what metro DC could once properly call a newspaper has been let go. Terminated. So says Andrew Sullivan, and he's usually on top of his sources.

Guess this is how the legacy media gets back at you when you decide to cover "verboten" topics. Like Torture. Or, when you make a case for what journalism used to be, i.e., knowing when to call bullsh*t.

In other words, my June 26th post will not be just about Torture, though that topic is certainly big enough, but now I will have to go "meta" with it, and "cover" how the legacy media likes to "cover" for their sources, rather than report about them.

Oh, and if TPTB try to say it was something about his numbers or traffic, well, we know that simply isn't true. Froomkin has always been a destination blogger.