finished!

As I mentioned, this headscarf I knitted started off way too big. In an attempt to shrink it, I stuck it in the wash, and then in the dryer.... it shrunk a bit. Not nearly as much as I wanted, but enough to make it wearable. It's still a bit huge for my taste, and you can see it's still a bit gapey at the top/back, and there's a lot of crossover where the ends should just join, but then the pattern does suggest it's designed to be worn as a hat in the cold weather when you don't want hat hair, and I guess it will work quite well for that. I suspect it will be too hot for Womad though. I love the grey fabric covered button I found in my Auntie Stell's button box!

This week's handy hint: if you're trying to take a picture of the back of your head, it is better to hold your arm out to the side, visually judge if you are aiming well, and then turn your head, than to try to hold the camera behind you. I'm not saying how long how long it took me to figure this out. That would be embarassing.

cheating.

Okay, so I kind of cheated already. One of my New Year's resolutions was to this year only read books I hadn't read before. I'm a terrible re-reader. As much as I know that discovering a great new book or author is better than reading a book I already know, a lot of the time the risk that a new book is going to be rubbish kind of outweighs that balance, and I end up going for something I already know I'm going to enjoy. Also, I read every night before bed, and if I've finished the last book but haven't hunted out a new one, chances are I'll reach for something already in my bookshelf. And that's what happened this time. Although it wasn't such a bad slip, because I'd only read this one once before, rather than countless times like most of my other books. Also, after Nausea, I think I deserved something predictably enjoyable. Actually you can see that for yourself, based on how long Nausea took me to hack through compared to this one.

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by T.E. Carhart is just such a beautiful, elegant book. It's kind of novelised non-ish-fiction, and follows the author in his rediscovery of his love of the piano. It's partly about the history of piano making, partly about the personal meaning we imbue these big machines with, partly about the process of playing and enjoying music, and partly a story about Paris and the people the author meets as he rediscovers the piano.

Carhart's journey begins when he discovers a piano atelier near his home - an idiosyncratic workshop and salesroom where one needs an introduction to even get past the front door - and meets Luc, a piano repairer and the owner of the shop. Chapters of the author's experiences in the atelier, discovering all about different kinds of second hand pianos and about Luc's approach to his life and work, provide structure for the book, and are interspersed with chapters about various other matters: moving his new piano into his tiny first floor apartment, having his piano tuned, beginning piano lessons again after a 20 year hiatus, taking his daughter to her first lessons, travelling to a new piano factory, nostalgic reminiscences of his childhood.

In a sense, this book could've been about almost anything, because in a way the piano is just the focal point for the characters the author meets, the idosyncracies of Paris, the history of people and music. A similar book could be written about anything sufficiently old and widespread and revolutionary - books themselves, for example. But in another sense, the piano is completely inextricable from this book, as the author shows us how crucial the piano has been in the history of the last few hundred years, and how many different roles it plays. The piano is at once a piece of furniture, a sign of social status, a musical instrument, an invention made possible by the industrial revolution, a tool of entertainment, all made out of pieces of wood that could be up to half a millenium old.

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is beautifully written. It's not really plot driven but it flows along gently and you will want to know what happens next. Carhart strikes a fine balance between the nostalgic and romantic aspects of these instruments, and the practicalities of the business. Although those who have played the piano or even music in general would identify more strongly with various aspects of the book, I think almost anyone would enjoy this book, because it's at once an insight into an aspect of our culture as well as a beautifully told story of people and Paris. It's just such a beautiful, elegant book, and one of my firm favourites.

I've been putting off seeing Finding Neverland for quite a while now. I kind of had the impression that it was some weird merging of story and storyteller and that Peter Pan would be totally ruined by it. I think I was also a little scared that Johnny Depp was going to do his usual slightly creepy thing and firmly burn his weird interpretation of a well-loved childhood classic onto my brain (the same reason I'm afraid to see the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Thankfully my fears were totally unfounded and I actually really enjoyed it: Finding Neverland is the (basically true but dramatised) story of how J.M. Barrie came to write Peter Pan - through his close friendship with the Llewelyn-Davies boys.

It's actually a pretty sweet story - Barrie's creative spark is rekindled when he teaches the boys to imagine, and in turn he becomes a kind of father figure and helps the boys deal with the loss of their father, and other traumas (I don't want to give away the ending). It's really just a nice story of kids and adults interacting and learning about both about the joys of childhood and the cold hard reality of life. It's well done, Johnny Depp seems pretty much like a normal person, and the kids are great. It's a wonderful little story, and, ok....it made me cry. I don't know if that says anything, because I seem to cry at lot in movies these days, but I guess it proves it wasn't complete rubbish. The one thing that did annoy me about this one though, was that afterwards I went and looked up the 'real' story, and of course there were a few details that Hollywood left out in its search for a sentimental happy ending. I don't think they necessarily apply to the timeframe described by this film, but if you enjoy it and don't want it ruined by reality, then don't go looking for it like I did. Der.

robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Ok, so I knitted my headscarf in just under 30 hours (yay me!) and what a total disaster it is. The difficulty I had getting the wool should've been a predictor. Actually when I got to about half way and it seemed about the size I wanted, that probably should've tipped me off. But no, I though, the pattern knows what it's doing. OH NO IT DOESN'T. I really started to wonder when I got to the last couple of rows and I didn't think I'd have enough wool to finish. And I didn't! And I'm a tight little knitter. I had to steal some of the multicoloured bits out of one of my other filatura balls of wool to finish casting off. And the conclusion? This thing is huge. It's like the designer tried to make the biggest randomly shaped thing she could from one ball of wool and then figured out what to use it for. The girl in the picture must have a watermelon up there or something, because I would need to blow up my head like a balloon, plus grow an afro or something for this thing to fit. Seriously. When the front is just above my eyebrows, there is still excess flopping around at the back, and I won't need to sew a button on to secure it, because at this point I can just tie a knot.

I'm thinking I'm going to felt it. It's the only thing I can think of that might resurrect it. That or giving it to the hippie with the dreds down the street. If anyone vehemently objects, you'd better send me a 'hell no!' pretty soon, because at this point, it's going in the washing machine tomorrow after work.

sad.

Usually I don't watch Foreign Correspondent because it makes me angry. It's the same reason I don't watch the news - so many horrible things happen in the world, and it always seems to me that there are more people trying to profit from that, than there are people actually trying to make the world a better place. I. just. don't. get. it.

Anyway, I watched FC last week by chance, and there was this amazing short documentary made by an Iraqi doctor in his Baghdad hospital. It kind of made me angry, but mostly it just made me cry. A lot. It was an amazing thing to watch though. Not that I've really made an effort to keep up to date with the situtation in the Middle East, but it was the best thing I've seen. It really seemed to give a good insight of how terrible things are getting for ordinary people over there, and how really most people are just ordinary people, just trying to get by, trying to get along with everyone else, who have been caught in terrible indiscriminate violence perpetuated, not by ordinary people, but by small groups of extremists. Seeing doctors doing their best to drain a child's lungs with adult equipment and no anaesthetic kind of puts things into perspective. And it was good to see something made by an Iraqi person, not a foreign journalist, and something which did not appear to be influenced for or by the media. This doco was not about politics, but just about real people. Refreshing.

I wanted to post a link to the video here, FC usually makes their videos available on their website but this one hasn't popped up, but you can read the transcript here which I know is not as good, but it's still pretty powerful stuff. It seems like it's been shown around the world - in the US and Britain as far as I can tell, which I suppose is a good thing.

In searching for this video, I came across a couple of blogs written by Iraqis both still living in Iraq and those who've fled. Of course there are blogs. I didn't really think about that. You always hear about how blogging is providing an alternative to mainstream media, and giving a real insight into people's lives, but I never really thought about what that meant, until I read bits of these blogs where real people discuss what is happening in their neighbourboods in the middle of war-torn countries. Whew. Heavy. Anyway. Here are links to a couple of the blogs that I came across. These two are brothers - the former is student pharmacist living in Baghdad but soon leaving for New Zealand, and the latter is a dentist studying journalism in New York. Both of them have long lists of other Iraqi blogs that I haven't had a chance to look through.

FYI: this article from the NY Times estimates that current US spending in Iraq is 300million A DAY, and that total expenditure could top 1.2 TRILLION. Oh. My. God. How is it even possible to spend that much money and not be doing more good?

broke.

Today has been a funny old day. The bad bit is that I have a mega headache (although the cocktail of codeine, asprin and coca-cola seems to be slowly working its magic), but the good bits are these:

Ispent my last $13 on beads today. There's got to be a country song in that somewhere. I thought I would be tricky and make a necklace by stringing these teardrop shaped beads alternately up and down, and then put a crimp at each end to stop them moving. But it seems physics is not my strong point, and it didn't quite work as well in reality as in my imagination (that's a bit of a metahor for my life at the moment). So I lost the crimps and let them just do their thing. It turned out ok - they mostly point downwards, with some sitting more to the back and some sitting more to the front, with the odd one doing it's own thing and sticking out in a totally different direction. I think I will call them my Elaine-dance beads. In any case it's crazy colourful enough for diorganised beads to work. Excuse the non-matching cardie. I'm trying to break the internet with too many lary colours at once. Also, you can't see it here, but I've discovered that if you put crimp then little bead little bead little bead crimp next to the clasp, you can thread the little bit of excess wire in under the beads and then it's not scratchy. Jeez, didn't take me long enough to figure that out! I should probably go and fix all my other homemade necklaces, but.......eh, I can't be bothered.

Also, here's a picture of the three balls of wool I bought on Wednesday:
the red colour isn't quite true to life (it's not so orange) but the others are quite good. You can see I like my magenta! I've cast on and knat the first row: waiting on instructions from my knitting guru as to how to proceed from there.

The other good thing that happened today is that my French teacher told me that I've covered in my 3 lessons what would normally take 10 weeks in class to do. And I thought we were still going a bit slow! This is good news because a. yay! and b. it probably means I'm getting my money's worth in a roundabout way, because a 10 week course probably costs more than 3 private lessons. I still doubt I'll be fluent enough for Geneva, but it's gee it is nice to be powering through it and using my brain again!

honestly? A bit ooky. I think I have a funny tummy...

Not much is happening here today. The maintenance stuff on my floor seems to have halted, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. There's not so much banging and crashing happening, or stinky painting, or coin-slots littering the hall way. This is the good part. The bad part is that everything's been left incomplete. There's still chunky white dust all over the floor, which is a bit of a worry for three reasons: 1. the builders are clearly not taking much pride in their work, and they're still a long way from finished; 2. the cleaners do not consider vacuuming within their sphere of responsibility; and last but not least, 3. my building is full of asbestos. If I develop respiratory problems in a few years, y'all will know why.

They've also replaced my office door. They decided to paint it after they installed it, but again, it's incomplete, so at the moment it's got undercoat and spackle all over it. It's also got a big hole in it, where the vent (to let the noise in when they start banging again I imagine) will presumably go once they've finished painting. The problem with this is that you can actually reach through from the outside and open the door, even if it's locked. Excellent!

The other problem with this door is that it's a glass filled admin office door. I am not admin. I do not like it when snotty teenagers come and demand their graded essays back. I guess the builders looked in, saw my beloved counter, and decided I was an office lady. That I would love an admin door, to reinforce the idea that anyone wandering by with a question should ask me. That I would tell them where to go. Even though there are now no numbers or names on the doors of my floor. After a few walk-ins today, I'm thinking of telling them exactly where to go. Answers on the back of a postcard.

(Actually, I don't mind helping the multitude of people who come knocking on my door. I mind how rude 95% of them are about it).

Yesterday I went to the Yarn Barn and bought my beautiful Filatura di Crosa wool for my headband. Between comfort shopping, genuinely being indecisive, and not wanting to make a return trip anytime soon, I walked away with three different balls. I restrained myself from the fourth ball in the bargain bin. It's ok. I will use them up. Eventually. I bought the red and the brown that I was considering, and I also bought a beautiful magenta colour. My favourite. Although the internet tells me that there's a maroon colour out there. My favourite favourite. I'll get you one day, my pretty, one day! I'm quite excited about starting the project - I haven't knitted anything for a while, and I haven't had anything new to wear for a while. Two birds with one stone. Excitement city!

nauseous.

Yes, I am nauseous. The book is nauseous too. It's also nauseating. So actually, it's pretty appropriately named. Jean-Paul Sartre's 'Nausea' is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a scholar who throughout the book suffers the existential angst of Sartre's philosophy - ie. he flips out and realises that his life is meaningless, and eventually decides that he has full responsibility for giving his own life purpose. This takes the form of literal bouts of nausea and dizziness and intense focus on small objects or events. Other characters feature briefly, and form a comparison point for Roquentin's revelations - his ex-girlfiend Anny, the Autodidact who he bumps into frequently, among a few others.

This book I guess was meant to be a novellistic representation of Satre's existential philosophy, and I suppose it kind of does that quite well. It's pretty unpleasant way to learn about it though, and I think I would prefer to read the encyclopaedia account of it. If you really want to take the fiction approach though, you'll probably get the picture from a chapter or two of this book - if you find it as draining as I did, don't bother struggling to the end, because it doesn't really get better. This book felt to me like reading someone's first person experiences of repeated bad trips. It's just wah wah wah wah wah.

One thing I will say about this book, is that there are some quite beautiful passages of prose. If you can get past the fact that you're totally bored off your nut, and let the words wash over you, some of it is quite stunning. But if that's what you want, maybe go and read 'Lolita' instead.

Overall, this book just reinforced that idea that I never seem to be able to put into practice: if you hate the first couple of chapters of a book, you'll probably hate the rest. I can't seem to put a book down until I prove to myself that it doesn't get better. This one didn't. It probably also didn't help that I read this article from the New Yorker about Sartre's and de Beauvoir's relationship, which turns out to be way dodgier than I knew. They both used people pretty badly, and I ended up having a hard time respecting the thoughts of a man who I wouldn't've respected much had I met him in real life. Ick. Maybe that's a bit un-objective, but actually I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that Roquentin is not a very likeable character either (modelled on his author?), and it's pretty hard to enjoy a book whose main character is repelling.

The summary? If you want to know about existentialism, go and look it up. If you want an enjoyable book, try something else.


A couple of weeks ago, Tom and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction. I really loved this film. It's about Harold Crick, a dull accountant who (when a voice in his head starts narrating his every move) suddenly realises that he's the main character in a book, and he's about to get killed off. It's a great idea, and is executed really well - it's not shallow, but neither does it delve so deeply into the idea that it gets bogged down in inconsistencies.

Will Ferrell is excellent (and I never thought I'd say that), as are Maggie Gyllenhall (the anti-IRS love interest), Dustin Hoffmann (the psychologist) and Emma Thompson (the author). It's got some really clever, and funny moments, and I suspect there are enough subtle jokes that if I went to see it again I'd catch a few that I missed the first time around. The cinematography is nice too, with bright happy colours and some appropriate but subtle special effects, and the soundtrack's not bad either.

This movie is exactly the kind of movie I like to see - feel-good but still clever, with enough depth but without getting bogged down in it. As my boss said though, it unfortunatly won't do well, because it's not weird and 'deep' enough to appeal to the 'arty' crowd, but it's not mainstream enough to appeal to the Will Ferrell crowd. The sad thing is, I think it's a movie that almost anyone would enjoy. I liked it enough that I will totally be buying the DVD when it comes out. How would I describe this film in one word? Quirky. No wonder I liked it.