I noticed these Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes the other day at Bloomingdale’s:
They have these little rodent faces on them—I think they’re supposed to be mice? Kind of cute, but also kind of creepy with the haircalf uppers. This vegetarian has nothing against wearing leather, but the cute animal faces made out of calf skin and hair is a little too morbid for me.
Kind of like those cat figurines made of rabbit fur, which have the distinction of being both icky and tacky.
I thought I was living in a decent apartment building, but upon receiving an e-memo from management today, I discovered that I’m actually living in my old freshman dorm.
Dear Residents:
Please take some time to acknowledge your surroundings, it may seem unusual that this memo needs to be distributed however we do find it necessary to do so.
We live in a building with a large community of residents living in the same structure. Please be sensitive to the fact that we are responsible for our actions and how our actions may affect others.
Please lets be considerate of the other families living here.
PLEASE DO NOT THROW OR DISCARD ANY OBJECTS OUT OF YOUR WINDOWS!
PLEASE DO NOT THROW OR DISCARD ANY OBJECTS OFF THE ROOF DECK OR TERRACES
PLEASE DO NOT DISCARD ANY OBJECTS OR TRASH IN FRONT OF OR BY THE ELEVATORS
PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY OBJECTS OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR FOR OTHERS TO TRIP OVER
PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY OBJECTS IN STAIRWELLS OR HALLWAYS FOR OTHERS TO TRIP OVER
PLEASE NO MINORS ALLOWED UNSUPERVISED ON ROOF DECKS OR TERRACES
PLEASE NO MINORS ALLOWED UNSUPERVISED IN HEALTH CLUB OR LOUNGES
PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE OF THE VOLUME OF YOUR ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
IF YOU HAVE A PET PLEASE CURB YOUR PET AND PICK UP AFTER YOUR PET
PLEASE NO PETS ALLOWED ON ROOF DECKS OR TERRACES
PLEASE NO PETS IN HEALTH CLUB OR LOUNGES
THESE ARE JUST BASICS
Thank you for your cooperation and consideration
These are just basics? I’d hate to learn what else my seemingly polite neighbors have been up to when I’m not looking. Or, rather, I’d love to learn.
I got the cutest email yesterday. It was from a woman named Rebecca, who had a most amusing story to share about how she came to knit a Bob for her daughter:
So here is the background to this story…. at the beginning of this week we picked up at a thrift store for a quarter a magnetic checker board for the car. All week my younger daughter (she is 7 1/2) has been in the car playing checkers with herself (when her older sister doesn’t want to play) and an imaginary friend named “Bob”. Bob is new to the family and apparentley Bob is only around when the checkers are out. It has been really cute and funny… so fast forwarding…. last night I found your blog and your pattern for BOB!!! So I stayed up late and knitted a Bob for her. Needless to say she is beside herself with joy! Bob and her have been busy playing checkers in the backyard all afternoon. :)
Rebecca also took some very cute and funny photos of her daughter Emi and Bob playing checkers:
Bob getting his game on.
Bob and Emi playing checkers together.
Bob can be a bit of a sore winner.
But Bob and Emi are still good friends.
You can see the entire hilarious play-by-play of Emi and Bob’s checkers game at the Mochimochi Friends Flicker group. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for sharing your darling story and photos!!!
I am so excited to announce that I now have a pattern published in the Fall 07 issue of Knitty! It’s for the mysterious forest creatures known as Woodins, who live in fallen trees in the thickets of Central Park. It features a knitted hollow log with spooky eyes for the Woodins to hide in. I hope you enjoy the pattern!
A big thank you to Amy for encouraging me to submit a pattern to her fabulous Knitty. And big thank yous to my mother-in-law Bonney for testing and my good friend Makiko for taking the gorgeous photo above. And one more thank you to Amy for sneaking the Woodins into the banner of the issue (take a good look at the right side)!
Metacritic is a bit too meta, and the Pitchfork reviewers are a bit too caught up in their own cleverness. So for music recommendations, I am lately all about All Songs Considered, the unfortunately titled weekly music show on NPR.
ASC is just indie-nerdy enough and just mainstream enough to avoid being annoying most of the time. Host Bob Boilen is obviously aware that most of his listeners are a little older, a little whiter, a little less hip than the general population, but he’s not afraid to push his demographic with some music that is new and exciting.
Thus, I must give ASC much credit for my most recent music binge. The following are my first and generally superficial impressions of what came for me in the mail today:
Sound of Silver – LCD Soundsystem
This is my first album by LCD Soundsystem. No objections here—it’s New Wave-funky and chill at once. If I owned a boutique of some kind, I would play this album over the speakers on Thursdays.
Kala – M.I.A.
The international vibe of the album is pretty inspiring, but the huge ad for ringtones and cell phone wallpapers that fell out when I opened the jewel case wasn’t particularly inspiring. Maybe it’s just way postmodern like that.
Famous Blue Raincoat – Jennifer Warnes / Leonard Cohen
The 20th Anniversary edition of this album was recently released, so I figured it was time for me to purchase the original recording, which is slightly more expensive from Amazon, for some reason.
Being Leonard Cohen songs, they are great, of course, but you have to be entirely not squeamish about the mid-’80s sound (i.e. echoey drums and synth) to really enjoy it.
Strawberry Jam – Animal Collective
Lovely. It’s so happy and listenable, I don’t know if it can really qualify as experimental. The first track, “Peacebone,” is my new favorite song.
And the album packaging is a not-to-be-missed experience of ultra-glossiness.
D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat – Junior Senior
Again I find myself late to the early ’90s retro party. But getting this infectious CD is good enough reason to hold your own party.
In other non-toy-related craft news, I noticed that Amy Karol is causing a stir with her sewn bonnet pattern. If bonnets are the new big thing, now seems like the time to share the knitted bonnet I made about a year ago.
This was the very very first thing that I ever designed, when I suddenly got the urge to make a snugly-fitting bonnet. It was so warm and lightweight that I ended up wearing it all winter long.
The close fit makes my hair flare out a little from underneath, but the back is also high enough to accommodate a low bun or ponytail below.
Completing a project that I designed myself and wearing it for months was the best feeling! And I honestly didn’t know the first thing about designing when I started; it was just a matter of measuring and guessing and hoping and redoing. I encourage anyone to give it a try if you have an idea and an ounce of spare time.
Fall is the season for trying something new. For me, new beginnings this fall will be finally mastering crochet (or at least amigurumi), finally getting a New York driver’s license (just a matter of paperwork and waiting in line, but a challenge to get up the energy to do it, nontheless), and finally learning how to use my sewing machine.
My lovely mother-in-law and giver of said sewing machine came down for a visit this weekend, armed with little squares of fabric (which she had purchased in a cute little kit on Etsy) and an entire roll of batting. It was time to face the machine, unlike that last time, when it was only time to think about facing the machine.
“C’mon, kids in China use these things all day long,” she assured me. Well, I can show those precocious child-laborers what’s what, I thought, and so I hunkered down and churned out this little number in two days:
This was before ironing the front flat and adding the back, but I was rather pleased by my progress by this afternoon, when the light was good for picture taking. (Not all the squares perfectly lined up, but I’ve decided not to care about that.) I now have it almost entirely done, and I’m sure it will make a good gift for somebody’s baby someday. At the moment, I don’t know any babies.
I was actually so excited about my now-remedial sewing machine abilities that I ran out and got yards and yards of yummy fabric at Purl Patchwork today too. The next one will be grownup size, and just for me!
One new beginning down, two to go.
I’m currently reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and it’s seriously freaking me out. Here’s why.
I picked up Atonement at Borders a couple of weeks ago because I’d been meaning to read it for a while and because it was on their “3 for 2” table, which I have a hard time resisting. (But it’s always that third book that’s trouble, isn’t it? After finding two you know you want, mysteriously, all the rest seem to turn into middling food-themed chick lit.)
Halfway through the second chapter, I get this odd feeling of deja vu, as if I’ve read this part of the book before. It occurs to me that it was probably published as an excerpt in The New Yorker some time ago, and that’s why it seems vaguely familiar. Anyway, it’s enjoyable.
Then I reach the third or forth chapter, and I get the same feeling about another scene in the novel, as if I read it a long time ago, but didn’t really read it. It’s more like I dreamed it. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but once it happens, I’m thinking “oh yeah, that’s what was going to happen.”
Once I approached the middle of the book, it really started to get to me. I tried to explain the mystifying feeling to my husband, and he suggested that I probably read the book before and then forgot about it. I often read a book and then forget what it was about, and sometimes I start reading a book, and then realize that I had already read it a long time ago. But I’ve never had a such a hazy half-recognition that lasted throughout an entire book. And there’s no way that I could have read it a long time ago, because it was only published five years ago.
So I must conclude that I’m losing it. I must have read the book at some point within the past five years, and then it was zapped from my memory when I hit my head on something. Either that or Mr. McEwan somehow plagiarized my dreams.