Enchanting Juno

Book Tour!

Adrienne Martini has just published her second book, Sweater Quest and was kind enough to ask me to be part of her virtual book tour. 

It seems to me that the book isn't a really a Sweater Quest - your motivations for knitting are something you seem quite at peace with - but it is possibly a quest for understanding – Alice Starmore in particular, your community in general, self-knowledge as well, maybe.  

I hadn't viewed the idea of the "quest" that way, as a "quest for understanding." The title initially came about because the original title I wanted was deemed legally actionable and so we had to come up with something else. And, no, I can't tell you what the first title was, at least not in a public forum. Ask me in person and I'll whisper it to you under penalty of a closet full of Red Heart yarn.

The quest was really about trying to get to the crux of why knitters knit. There are so many other ways to spend time. Very, very few people knit because they don't have access to places that sell clothes. The craft itself is slow - both in terms of mastery and production. So why do we do it? My hope was that the narrative could fill in some of those gaps.  

Why do people golf? Or collect dolls?  Or model trains? Knitting to me makes more innate sense than golf, for example, because it has the maker's spirit in it; I think human beings have an innate need to make things - one that is impoverished in 21st century life. Unless you like to cook. And even then it not really something that leaves you with a thing you can hang on the wall or from your shoulders.  We like to line our dens?  

I think the reason knitting makes more innate sense to you and I than golf or dolls or trains do is that we are knitters. My husband, a golfer, doesn't get the appeal of knitting. He's a collector of experiences, of time spent playing, rather than of tangible things. His job, however, does involve the making of things - so that might be where the analogy breaks down.    I still don't know why people collect dolls. I find them creepy and useless. But to each his or her own.   

I'm not sure the desire to knit springs from needing to make things. How many times have you sat down with the end goal of making a scarf rather than the urge to simply put your hands through the knitting motions just to have done so? And why do we knit rather than sew or crochet? Both of those will get you to a finished product much faster than knitting will.  

I used to collect dolls, ha!  But I know why people find them creepy. There was a creative aspect to it, but it was mostly a grief thing for me - occupying a very precise space between my father's death and the day we invaded Afghanistan.  I think for me FIBER is a collection of experiences (particularly communal ones) but knitting is more end resultish.  If I just want to feel up the wool, I'd spin or knit with handspun, which is far more tactile-y satisfying. I like swatching if I like knitting with the yarn - I'm having a terrible time right now getting through a felted tweed swatch, it's breaking my heart that I hate to knit with it. I love textiles and clothing and always have, but a good part of it for me is ending up with something useful and beautiful.  

Fiber as a collection of experiences works for me. I have a tendency to buy souvenir yarn. I know I'm not alone. :)  

I loved the bit about Om Yoga and Cindy - one of my yoga teachers trained there and there was such resonance in what she said about learning the form and surrendering to it first, before it becomes a part of your practice. That's creativity right there - mastering form so that you can transform it later. Be transformed by it. Did you ever make up your mind if what you were doing was art or craft, or if it really WAS a Starmore once it had been meddled with?  

I still haven't figured if it was art or craft or a Starmore. I lean toward craft, frankly, since I didn't put much of me into it and stayed fairly close to her original specs. I'm not sure it's a Starmore, tho, since I didn't use her yarn. I could easily be talked out of either position, however.  

The thing that struck me when you talk about Alice Starmore is that I have never heard one person say that she has a right to protect her name as it related to her creativity and livelihood. She may have gone too far or been irrational, I don't really have a perspective on those knitting days, it was before my time on the kniternet. But she is a compelling figure - both for her exceptional skill with color and design and for her sheer obstinacy. I think I want to ask you if you think this is because it's such a female community and she was female but playing by other rules?  

As for Alice S. and her need to protect her name - I don't know that many folks argued that she didn't have a right to it in certain circumstances. She (and her name) did get taken advantage of, in my opinion, by at least one business partner who saw what he had and tried to cut her out. But, again, my opinion, the whole protection idea got a little out of control and alienated a lot of knitters who were on her side, which doesn't seem like a great idea when you're running a business. It also all gets tied up in the growth of blogs and eBay. The boundaries were pretty fuzzy during the frontier days and there were land grabs.     Still, I love what she has come to represent in my mind, which is all I have to go on. She stuck to her guns, in a way that a lot of other women would not have. She has designed some amazing sweaters that, yes, exploded what we thought about Fair Isle rather than copying what had come before. And the Hebridean yarn is beyond compare. We should thank her for it alone, if nothing else.  

I find it fascinating that you say you didn't put much of yourself into it - do you mean just in terms of design and color input, or emotionally?
Maybe the fact that your position on whether it meets the criteria to be a starmore isn't fixed means that's not the right question to ask? How do you feel about the FO now that some time has passed?  Do you LIKE it?

I didn't put much of myself into the sweater in terms of design and color. My goal was to follow where ever Alice went. Emotionally, there is a lot of me in the sweater, I think. It was a solace and source of irritation by turns. Mostly, tho, I was simply amused by watching the design unfold.    It's interesting that you should ask about how I feel about the FO now that time has passed. I don't feel compelled to keep it or display it or wear it. And on that last one - I can't wear it as it stands now without losing 40 pounds and shrinking 4 inches, both of which seem unlikely. Or, if I were more sensible about it, doing the math and reknitting it, which is also unlikely because other designers keep coming up with other items that I want to make. I'm am proud of having knitted it and having written about having knitted it but don't need the sweater itself to remind me of the journey.   Does that make sense?  

So I went to this place, and there was this thing, and then my head exploded. Kinda.

It's hard to explain. 

Let me tell you about my weekend.  For one thing, I went to California.  For one day.  Two days of travel, two nights, one day and 17 cups of peppermint tea.  Which really is my favorite.  Though the Moroccan Mint (a gunpowder black/mint bled) from this place on St. Mark's is really awesome.  That's another story though.

If I'd thought about it I would have stayed a bit longer and seen three or four entirely fabulous people who live within a 100 miles of where I was, but I did NOT think about it and now I know that maybe my mind was protecting me.  Because it was one of those things you can only process if it stays discrete.  

So I know I have mentioned The Fluent Self before, because Havi has a way of looking at things that stops me dead in my bullshit-generating tracks and makes me go - well ok Undeniable Truth, how nice to see you. 

I bought a yoga package from her a while ago and felt compelled to write her an email explaining that I was acting under irresistible compulsion, despite the fact that she was a total stranger to me and I had only been reading her blog for 2 days.  It seems reasonable to show her your tender underbelly, is what I am saying.  She is safety personified.

So I read her blog and I think it is mostly really interesting and sometimes just a little bit too hippy for me, because I am in denial abut how big a hippy I really am and I would sort of vaguely like to participate in one of her things, but you know, money.  And also, you know, weird.   I did a free teleclass but had to drop out halfway through when a customer called.   I bought a procrastination-o-matic but never opened it.  I know someone who participates in one of Havi's programs and has been successfully revising her life at a high rate of speed and that TOTALLY looks good to me.

But though I WANT I am also grumpy and scared and feel totally humorless a lot this year and it all (and by all I mean anything I want or need that's good) seems impossible, out of reach, illogical, unjustifiable.  Change is barreling down on me like the meteor in a Michael Bay movie - certain death - no, annihilation - inevitable, and I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.  I have no deep core drilling skills and I am neither NASA nor Bruce Willis.

I'm too cool to run in circles scream and shout of course.  I have dignity to protect, dammit, and people are looking.  But inside, there is screaming.

So a few months ago I am looking at Havi's blog and for once I am not catching up three days later and she has announced a one day thing on biggification.  And one day is SO MUCH LESS terrifying than like, a retreat.  And it is only half full. And it's almost affordable cause it's only one day.  And I have all these fucking miles sitting around collecting dust for a rainy day and well, if 2009 is not a rainy day I do not know what a rainy day looks like and hey award travel is really easy to book and look, there's still space and in some kind of fugue state I sign up for everything including a room at the B&B where the program is taking place.  And I HATE B&Bs*.

(I took out travel insurance though.  In case I chickened out.)

It feels like my free will was hijacked by the intuitive part of me that puts up with a LOT of bullshit from my rational mind, but occasionally sticks her nose out and says "oh my god will you stop already, do THIS" when its really important.

And then I put it on the calendar and otherwise blocked it out.  Until I got home from Thanksgiving and only had three days to go.

My battery is at 49% and I'm going to go make some soup now and find my power cord.  I'll tell you more later. 

*not this one though, this one I want to move to. 

one man's meat. so to speak.

So I am reading twitter this morning.  Instead of working, tra la.

And there is a writer I much admire and follow.  He puts up links to many things, most of which I have found worth a click through, and this morning he linked to a site full of excellent and erotic photos.

Hey, I like excellent.  I like erotic.  Let's go see.

Um.  Leaving aside ALL discussions of pornography and women's issues - I did after all, freely go look at something labeled erotic - please to explain these.  Because I would describe these as being as erotic as an American Apparel ad, and as interesting.  They are naked, but not nude.  There is no charge to the provocation.  They are full of full-lipped, ennui-drenched youth.  They drench me with nothing more than bewilderment.

So this idea of how men and women see sensuality interests me and I want so badly to tweet back, can you explain the eroticism here?  Because there is a very interesting conversation to be had. 

But I don't know this person. 

But he published this opinion. 

But it seems so intrusive to say - really, dude?

And in the end what I am really saying is "how can you be such an original and wonderful writer and think this is arousing?"  

Which is none of my business in the biggest way possible.  The heart wants what the heart wants and as long as all relevant laws are respected, that's between you and you and NOBODY else, I beleive that is true right down to the tiniest corner of my soul.

But it's killing me not to ask.  Killing me.

What would you do? 

(If you were the sort of person to want to engage a stranger in a critical discussion of the nature of eroticism based on a random internet link) 

(Oh, look, I AM crazy)

Hi! I'm a progressive.

I like that better than Democrat -which, as we have discussed, I am not really - or liberal which I am, but which is primarily, I think, social & intellectual in its application rather than political.  

I think government is useful to regulate and support human endeavor and human society and while I am not at all anti-business, I am opposed to unchecked free markets because people are greedy and short-sighted in fairly predictable ways over the long term and free markets are a pretty accurate reflection of this.

I'm not good at arguing though - I haven't enough historical fact at my finger tips and I tend to get mad and froth at the mouth and frown stubbornly over the underlying ethics of policy, without necessarily having an ability to turn my thoughts and feelings into words (I know the difference between single payer and socialized health-care, but I can't always express it under pressure, for example).

I had dinner with friends Saturday, spent the evening arguing - in a friendly way - with M.  While he says he is a Republican, I would say he is in fact a free market conservative of the old school, rather than a modern Republican (I keep waiting for him to notice his party has abandoned him).  We agree about nothing, but I think in a respectful way.  It was fun.

I thought I would share some of the things I have been reading that left me saying - Dammit, THAT'S what I MEANT - since then. 

Jon Carroll on Rachel Maddow:  My love is not quite so true, but I do appreciate her for saying things with humor and impeccable calm and well informed decency. 

Obsidian Wings (a fantastic site) on the role of progressive politics in creating a society we can enjoy living in.  

Shakesville on misogyny and the Pennsylvania gym murders:  If I read one more thing that paints the shooter as having been victimized by sexual rejection I will spit upon who said it.  I expect he had trouble getting dates because he was exactly the kind of psychiatrically ill person who would say, commit murder to make a point, and was creepy as fuck.  Blaming the 30 million women (right) who turned him down is just another way of avoiding taking responsibility for his own life and actions; women are not to blame any more than the Easter Bunny was.  Feministing on the same.

Shakesville on the media complicity in breeding poorly informed hysteria about health care change:  WORD

Lance Mannion on civility and disagreement:  follow the links if you have time.

FiveThirtyEight.com on the conservative/liberal political distribution in the US, kind of fascinating.

I am noticing that Paul Krugman is a recurring theme in all of this.  Excuse me while I go follow his blog.

Shakesville on the potential for fascism in the US.  For the record, I find this extreme, but it's very interesting, and an idea worth incorporating into your mental filter.

Ta-Nahesi Coates - who may just be my favorite blogger of all time - on the intersection of fear/racism/misogyny that drives explosions of violent resistance to change.

We do live in interesting times.

Scenes from a life, electronic edition

(edited for spelling, slightly abbreviated - 'cause we go on and on and on.....)

            Marin: For you, of course. I'm still in the brunch zone.

11:47     me: feidl trip for a bagel? (OK, that IS a typo)

            Marin: I did just have a bagel. We get free donuts, bagels and fruit on Fridays at the office.

11:48     And I have an apple waiting for mid-afternoon crash time. What I don't have is cookies.

            me: (I am NOT singing the cookie song. Or maybe I AM)

            Marin: And doing the cookie dance to go along with it.

                    I can hear you from here.

            me: actually, am drinking fruit smoothie.

11:50    Marin: That sounds pretty good too. I should do more smoothies. I think I'd enjoy                         them.

                        Can you put oatmeal in fruit smoothies?

            me: its a commercial one - Naked Mighty Mango - its got 4 and a 1/3 serving of                     fruit in it

                    if you want you can

                    i wouldn't

            Marin: I wonder if you can get powdered oatmeal for that purpose. I'm thinking                     of the fibre and cholestorol-lowering benefits.

            me: i would maybe start with one of the soluble fiber mixes first

                    i mean I see the point, but i dunno...

            Marin: I was hoping you had some experience. It sounds like a bad texture idea                         to me, but surely I'm not the only one who wants a complete, delicious                         breakfast in a glass.

            me: well, what about citrucal or whatever it's called?

            Marin: That's a possibility. I don't know if it's as magic as oatmeal, but it might                         be an admirable and less gross substitute in a smoothy.

            me: the bobybuilders put all that crazy protein powder in - it tastes like chalk to                         me

            Marin: Total departure: Nathan Branch informs me that No. 4 of the Six Scents                         line comes in a bottle with a skull on it.

            me: well, i see you will be buying one then

            Marin: Most of the protein powder leaves me gagging. My brother turned me on                         to some good stuff, so if I ever get to a place where having protein                             powder on hand makes sense, I know what to get.

            Marin: Yeah... I had a, "Do I even care about the juice?" moment when I found                         out about the skull.

            me: I know :)

                        huh: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Strawberry-Oatmeal-Breakfast-Smoothie/Detail.aspx

12:06                 the reader comments say put the oatmeal in first and make it a fine                             powder then add everything else

            Marin: Now, that makes a ton of sense.

                        Oh, the magic of the Internet.

            me: i know!

            Marin: And, once again, somebody else was my guinea pig. It's a good day

12:08     me: it looks good, except for being suspicious of the oatmeal.

                        but hey - you go first

            Marin: I guess I could guinea pig for you on this one, since you took the Jean                             Nate bullet for me.

            me: totes

                        are you ready for the cookie?

            Marin: I didn't see you eat the broccoli.

                        I don't think you can have a cookie until I'm sure you ate the broccoli.

            me: what's your phone number

            Marin: Wow... extreme measures to get to the cookie.

            me: number?

            Marin: *** *** ****

                    A girl in the office that just changed a bunch of codes in the data system                     said, "Just let me know if you need anything else!" I said, "A cookie would                     be nice."

                    Oh. Cookie porn on my phone.

            me: did you get my picture?

            Marin: Oh, yes. And I sent you a picture of my snack. Only it took me about                         fifteen minutes to get all the picture and all that worked out.

            me: heh

                    that's a handsome apple, but the cookie was better<

            Marin: I know. Mine is but a pale attempt to taunt you. The apple dance? Not as                     compelling as the cookie dance.

            me: well, MAYBE in a NY State orchard in October

                    a free apple makes you understand about Eve and the snake

            Marin: That's kinda deep.

            me: that's me

                    it should be fresh not free though

            Marin: I would venture that a free apple is nothing to sneeze at, but maybe not                     worth pissing off God.

12:24    me: true

                    nothing like a 1200 dollar sale to round out lunch

12:25    Marin: Woo-hoo!

            me: which makes this month...almost not shitty

            Marin: Now there's a rousing endorsement.

            me: i have my own particular KIND of optimism

            Marin: I get that.

                    There's a whole range of optimism that goes, "That didn't suck quite as                         hard as I thought it would."

            me: heh

12:27            ok i have laughed out loud.

            Marin: It's another successful day.

I have a sense of humor again

and I'm wearing perfume for the first time in 10 days.  By these signs I declare myself healed, more or less.  Let the games begin!

Thank you for all your good wishes and affection and wild extravagant compliments and such.  And for telling me some of your own stories - that's my favorite thing.

I have only been receiving about 1/2 my comments and I hold my email host responsible.  something about the code on comments and replies to comments flags their spam filter, they can't fix it, 50% of everything bounces and it makes me homicidal.  What is the point of an email host that cannot adapt to one of the most common blog platforms around? 

GoDaddy is dead to me now.  Any recommendations?  I need really, really basic domain hosting and email with no known comment/reply compatibility issues.

A generous mistress.

You know what I love about knitting? 

You could be forgiven for thinking not much these days, but really - this blogging thing can create a sense that one must knit ALL the time if one is to be other than a slacker, and I just haven't wanted to for a while.  Even I began to doubt my love.

I am not - forgive me - even reading knitting blogs very much.  The thing about blogging your knitting is that it's SLOW.  The narrative arc develops stitch by stitch by stitch - which is what makes knitting so intrinsically tactile and satisfying and wonderful.  But as a subject for the Internet, you are better off with modest progress pictures and a big reveal and truly, I think Ravelry is better for showcasing the work that way for a useful majority of folks and has sapped some of the vitality away from blogs.   I'm a fan of evolution, this is OK. 

Blogging is still ideal for the emotional narrative of what knitting means in a life - for whatever emotional narrative any passion means in a life. 
Hell, I have an emotional narrative about a bag of roving - it may LOOK like it's sitting in the same chair after 3 months, but there are passions beneath that fluffy surface - that has a 4 year backstory and no known ending yet, but it's connected to things, other people, feelings and friendship and love and hope and disappointment and irony that are just too complex and personal for this forum. 
Not even sorry about that.

The blogs I have been reading are perfume blogs and sewing blogs and arts blogs and political blogs and food blogs.  I started reading blogs after 9/11 - discovered them when I was looking for better news sources and then had this whole world opened to me.  Right now the other stuff - perhaps because the creative arcs tend to be more immediate, perhaps because the world is so urgently with us right now - compels me more.  I've even fallen out of the yarn-savant information gathering cycle: I was in a yarn store last month and the only thing I bought was Knitscene (which was great, except for featuring mostly heavier yarns for faster, on-trend knitting. I understand the choice, but have very strong feelings about the need for dk and finer patterns.  But I AM glad to see Knitscene pick up some of the style slack so regrettably dropped by IK.  Which I would cancel my subscription to if I had more than an issue or two left.).  There was some Felted Tweed made up and it made a gorgeous garment and I wasn't even TEMPTED.  (The Purelife Sheep Breeds stuff is conceptually interesting though - like what it says about market maturity that Rowan is developing this.) (I'm not DEAD.)

But I do love knitting.  Today it is cold and raining and I have no sinus headache for the first time in a month and I am wearing my lone pair of self-made socks and the Dream in Color cardigan I made last winter (I think that is the maximum acceptable handknits:body style ratio) and I am warm.   Last night I finally sewed in a snap and hook and eye to hold the thing in place (almost a year, yeah) and found myself making mental notes about what I would change the next time, which is the unmistakable intellectual stirring of a knitter exiting summer hibernation.  I even began a foolishly simple scarf a week or so ago, to ease myself back into the motions - between books.  Because the other thing I have been doing is reading until my eyes fall out.  And I can't - nor do I want - to do both at once. 

But the thing I LOVE about knitting - back to my original point - is that it is infinite.  Never done if you don't want it to be.  It is as infinite as self knowledge, as infinite as learning itself.  And it waits for you until you are ready to move again.

I coped with my political angst by spending the conventions ripping out the poor unsuccessful Truffle Darling sweater from several years ago (Sidebar if you want details.   But the precis is as follows: heavy yarn + tight gauge + fitted and off the shoulder styling = Flattering Armour.  Unwearable.  Particularly if you drop 30 pounds and the fucker is suddenly a shape you are not, as it more or less stood on its own). 

And last night I found a pair of Fetching mitts that have always been too short.  The pretty picot edge on those has a tendency to roll back and since I followed the pattern without thinking about my hands or needs, I stopped them right at the broadest part of my hand, encouraging flare and giving the rollback maximum scope to irritate me.  I made them out of one skein of Karabella SuperYak (I adore this yarn - content, colors, spin, texture, seductive cushiness, density, everything - if it came in a dk or 4-ply weight I would not be responsible for my actions) and had two little skeinlets left over. 
Gorgeous luxury yarn.  Pattern from wrist to fingers.  Yarn left over!  And yet I left them too short? 
So I unpicked the sewn in end last night, found those two little skeins (in two places no less) and tonight I will please my sense of efficiency by knitting them until the yarn runs out and snugging up the pattern to fit my hand. 

Knitting almost always leaves room for you to get it right someday (felting, after all, is forever).  That's what I love.

Data dump.

Can I just say how much August is not amusing me?

Moxie either.

Blogs are slow, paperwork is high.  Business is slow, I'm worried about that. 
I'm breaking out like a thirteen year old.  Every newscaster I've listened to re: the Democratic Convention is annoying the crap out of me with their  making-a-noise-for-the-sake-of-noise-ness.  Not that this is anything new. 
I haven't been to the gym in a month. 
Oh, and my shoes are bothering my feet.  ALL of them. I think my arches are falling, or my feet grew or I just reached some point of (physical only, I assure you) maturity where I can't stand discomfort I used to be unaware of. 

Everyone I've spoken to recently is mildly cross - not depressed, not angry, not upset, not anything serious.  More like a low grade flu.  Or your underpants riding up.  Crabby. 

No, CROTCHETY.

I've been wasting so much time on the unsatisfactory and yet compelling internet (Seriously, would you people blog already?) that I was forced to install a cyber-nanny to police myself, since discipline has slipped badly enough that I cannot be trusted.  At all.  I can't even turn myself in - self employed, you dig?   
It's really fucking sad is what it is.   

I give you....LeechBlock. 

Great name.  I put all my blogs, and facebook and newsgator and wired and youtube and gmail and EVERYTHING on it and lock myself out for most of the work day.
The bones of my desk are emerging.  Shaming. 
Shaming, but FANTASTIC.   

I did read a fabulous article in Wired about this guy who has a plan to eliminate oil dependence and is both connected enough, rich enough and visionary enough that he looks like beginning to make something happen.   In the next year or so you see any stories about Israel (and maybe Hawaii) and electric cars?  READ.
By the time I finished reading I wanted to set my business on fire and throw myself at his feet begging for a job.  Seriously.  Shai Agassi - call me.   English major-type.  Clear prose, good problem solving.   Short on inspiration.  Wants to BELIEVE.

John Kerry just rocked the house.  I wish he'd been that fiery when he was campaigning 4 years ago.

I signed up for FiOS today.  I'm going to save 50 bucks a month combined - maybe more - on my phone/internet/tv.  And the FiOS picture is great and I'll have BBC America which rocks so very hard.  But this means good bye to my beloved TiVo.  And it turns out I am not the only one  - it's a great service but at this point, the integration of everything out weighs the cute little popping noise.   I am strangely sad.

What's up with you?

Pump handles.

So I read this perfectly amazing book the other day, The Ghost Map, which is at basis a completely gripping tale of the detective work that went into understanding the waterborne nature of cholera for the first time, as well as an urban/medical drama about the combination of circumstances leading the London's 1854 epidemic.   
Which then turns into a love letter to cities and a discussion - one I found really provocative - about the nature & role of the urban in the future of the planet, the similarity of all this internet nonsense to the mapping that was crucial to proving the disease theory and the potential of human beings to get some things right.

  Click for more info about map and epidemic.

Thanks to Making Light for the recommendation. 

As I tend to be a bit gloomy about the future of humanity I found it completely compelling, pretty plausible and really something to think about.

Which I have been doing. 

And then Friday my email box went ding! with a notice from Edge - for which there is a link in my sidebar as well.  Edge's stated purpose is to "arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves."
I find it deeply comforting that somewhere in this world, someone is asking abstract & concrete rather than profit-minded questions about anything (outside of pure academia, because while I have no beef with academics and in fact many of these people are academics, it's a world that can be as insular as business or politics, and I really believe that the intersection of knowledge, rather than the isolation of knowledge, is better for us as individuals, as well as a species, and as a planet).

Which is actually how the cholera epidemic came to be tamed.  A doctor with an interdisciplinary approach and a varied experience, from an atypical background, asking non-dogmatic questions, encountering a clergyman with intimate knowledge of a neighborhood, a load of anger and an open mind, both of them with the determination to put some serious shoe leather into figuring out how 700 people died in a week.

You could never plan for that.  Never.  Passion, questions, serendipity & hard, slogging work.

(Which is why I still think a broad education is a great idea.  My dad would be so happy to hear me say that.   Though I mean ACTUALLY broad, as in liberal arts people like me ought to not be allowed to escape from scientific education quite so completely, and vice versa.  I knew some science types in school with a very limited understanding of life outside the lab, as well as a number of literary types *cough* who thought science was BOring.  Bunch of idiots.  Suck it up on both sides, with a little mutual respect.)

I tell you, the best moments in my education were when something I learned in class A and something I read in the paper, and something I saw on a beach somewhere and something else I read in high school all snapped together like magnets the size of tectonic plates, with a terrible, awesome crash of world-expanding neuroplasticity. 

(God, doesn't it seem like everything you hear or see on TV or in the paper is about making the world smaller?    And not in a good, reducing-distances-between-people kind of way, in a narrow, grasping, selfish, hysterical and profit-minded way?)

Where was I?

Oh right.  The Edge.  I love Edge.  It always leaves me going - Hey, I never thought of that.  Because I am definitely not one of the world's great thinkers.  And that's OK, because they have something to teach me, I like to learn, and I don't have to be one of the world's great thinkers to be part of changing the world.  I'm a point on the map.   This post is a point on the map.  And each person who reads it and reads more about it and clicks through and talks about what they think and passes it on, is another.

Today's email was about a speech called "Gin, Television and the Cognitive Surplus" and discussions relating.  The index is here and while it will take a while, I highly recommend it. (The site is poorly organized for the internet.  Imagine it's an actual paper thing and keep scrolling.)

The basic idea is that gin in the industrial revolution functioned as a society-wide numbing agent while human beings got used to an urban society, a numbing agent that was combated and discarded when people could begin to conceptualize the new world and use its resources more effectively, and that TV has performed this role for the 20th century, and now...

Did you know that for the first time since its invention TV watching is declining?  Replaced with interactive media that are non-passive, connections between people and places and information through social networks and the Internet that are now ADDING something to humanity's experience.  There's a video, and I can't figure out how to embed it.  But I really, really, really beg you to go and watch it, or read the transcript (scroll way down, though the introductory articles you will go past are good too).  Or both.  BEG.

The intersection between the book, the Edge and my present brain state feels electrifying in some way - can you tell?

Because I've been thinking about how sitting on my ass watching the Olympics has felt like losing ground on life, and how as bloggers we are connected to this larger world, and Ravelry and Facebook and online dating how much I have learned from the internet and all the mad fools out there talking about books, and cast on techniques and art and home design and dressmaking and raising families and building personalities and politics and feminism and science and gaming and the human experience - using this medium to make creativity and growth and learning parts of their lives, and how great it is, though great is a weak word.    Transformative.  Because no fooling, my life has been transformed by this stuff and I bet yours has too.

And how the excess energy released by not sitting on my ass gives me so much more to give to things I care about.  A few months ago I was talking about perfume with an acquaintance.  And she said - I don't know how you have time.  And I thought, Time?  You are 10 years younger than me, and work 40 hours a week and are married and own a townhouse with your husband, no kids yet.   I have never heard you mention a hobby, a bike ride, a trip, a museum, a book you've read, anything that you have passion for, a home improvement project, a great meal you've cooked or eaten.  Nothing.   How do you NOT have time?

And I'm not slamming her - she's a very nice person and I enjoy chatting with her when I run into her.  She finds me exoticly amusing because I am always talking about something new.  A date, a knitting project, a book I'm reading, something I cooked, a new gadget, shoes, something. 

How do you find the time?

Well, for one thing, some days I don't turn on the TV.  (And I am not patting myself on the back about this, I just told you I spent two weeks watching Olympians and I can't wait for Life to start up again.  The idea is LESS.  To not sink into inactivity, to make, to share, to generate.)

Clay Shirky, speaking on Edge, is calling it cognitive surplus and he thinks it can change the world like the rise and decline of gin drinking transformed the world (I dunno anything about either of the books I link here other than I would like to read them and this way I can find them again).

And I love it.  It feels like a true possibility, it feels like a way to look at what we have and are and see the possibility for positive change in a useful and productive way, to take the chaos and change and use it, rather than being swamped by gloom over our inevitable destruction.  Which is the same way I felt after finishing The Ghost Map.  A friend said to me the other day that the world was incredibly large but so accessible.   And you know, it is.   If you care to look.