I got this yarn for some awesome scarves, that I’ve wanted for a long time. It’s kind of a pain to knit with (it’s over-spun and it’s not set, so I have to take out some part of the twist every two or three rows.) But they’re 13 stitches across and look really awesome. One’s a gift, for sure, the other’s I think I can totally sell for fifty bucks, which will cover the expenses, and allow me to (a) recoup losses and not feel guilty, (b) buy yarn enough for a sweater and another scarf, or (c) buy enough for three or four more scarves.

I’ve been making a sweater with this hemp and wool blend, and I’m at the underarm point, and I’m realizing that I’m probably going to run out of yarn, if I get the body and the sleeves done, which I kind of doubt at this point, I’m not going to have enough for the trim I’m fairly convinced. sigh I’m hoping to finish the body this week (shouldn’t be hard, the yoke always goes fast, in part because I’m going to be decreasing like mad for the neck and chest cut, and there are a lot of mile markers, as opposed to the body which is 17 inches of Kansas (to blend metaphors). Safe to say, it’s too close for comfort.

So I’m trudging along on this one. My semester is wrapping up, but I have been doing a fair amount of TealArt writing (as a way of beating back a icky writer’s block.) I haven’t been posting because we’re don’t a slow server move which I have a distinct feeling is going to end sometime around christmas day. (I’m going to give my gifts out on the solstice, or as I finish making them.) Anyway. There’s more to come.

Love it is an awful thing and beauty is a blossom, and if you want your finger bit, just poke it at a possum.

Glory to the meetinghouse, and glory to the stable, and glory to the little girl, the one that they call Mabel.

The above are lines from a Old Time-ish song/tune that I’m generally fond of. If you were wondering, but you probably won’t.

Just for the purpose of meta-talk, I’d like to note for the record that I always write blog entries in an MS Word document, and then copy and paste them into the blog script. This is because I fear for posts that don’t have the benefit of my spell check, and because I like to write blog entries in a few sessions. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don’t write that much: because I add another step. One of these days I’m going to be really daring and post without doing the word file step.

For those of you who are worrying about the progress of the stalled redesign, I’ve got a file which should help a lot from a dear friend, actually I don’t think he’s a dear friend, but he’s a swell guy (Matt). Soon, I promise.

Because this ended up as a really long post, which is really more of archival interest and because of the new bloging program that I’m using, I’m going to use an extended entry text cut thing. Anyway if you click on the (more) link that should follow this paragraph (or go to the permalink) then you’ll be able to read the rest of this post, which talks about computers and gear lust/purchasing plans, my housing situation for next semester, and knitting updates.)

In a dorky kind of way here’s what I’m thinking about technology at the moment. Anna (my ibook, as in Anna Madrigal), needs more ram which I’ll probably order sooner rather than later which is totally ok, because I’ve been procrastinating it too long, and Anna deserves it. Also, I’m planning to get some external storage, because my fast growing Music collection is stretching the ends of my hard drive, and there’s a bunch of stuff that I really don’t need to carry around with me day in and day out. Given my rooming situation next semester (which I’ll get to in a moment,) I’ll probably buy myself a wireless access point as a Christmas gift (ie have it shipped to home, rather than Beloit). After that, I might get a wireless keyboard if I see a really good deal one, and I think I’m going to bring my old monitor to Beloit next year (which doesn’t really relate, except I thought of that and I knew/know that there’s something else I wanted to talk about in this section, but that wasn’t it.) Oh, right. iPod, I’ve been using a borrowed iPod for the past couple of months, and I really really like it, so I think I’m going to have to have one at some point. Maybe that’s what I ask people for Christmas. Hmm. (that was my mother’s idea, and to be truthful it‚Äôs a wonderful gift idea, because it’s something I’d totally never buy for myself, but it’s an amenity and I feel terribly guilty and non-practical asking for that.) On a connected but dissimilar point, I think I’m going to need to reclaim my speakers from my father at semester.

Anyway, that housing situation.

So I’m going to move next semester pending my acceptance (which I think at this point is fairly certain) at the Women’s Centre (official spelling of both words is different, but no matter). It’ll mean I have a roommate, which I’ve totally made peace with given that said double might be three times as big as my current room (a single). It’ll be cool. There was a meeting today, where the most senior house member, was like “we were thinking of changing the name of the club to be more inclusive, and we think that having guys in the house might add a useful new dimension to the club,” and we were like, “we agree with the second part, but it’s totally cool to keep the name as it is.” My first brilliant idea for a WC meeting will be titled. “Feminism is about Change, the WC is about Feminism. Come to the WC to talk about change.” I had communication with a professor whose class I really want to take, and he didn’t tell me he’d let me in, and I really want to take that class. Eek I really hope I get into the class. I’ll know after thanksgiving, maybe earlier.

I ran out of yarn on the sweater I’ve been knitting. Luckily the dye lots are really too close for words (more so than usual,) and there’s a really good chance that I’ll over dye it in the end anyway. It’s really awesome, and I’m so close to finishing. In the interim I’m knitting on the endless shawl. There’s another sweater that I’m going to start knitting. I ribbed pullover, using some hemp wool. It’s probably a longer project, maybe something like… two or three weeks.

In addition to that, I have two sweaters worth of yarn in my stash. I have a lot of tapestry yarn that I’m going to make into a very simple (oversized) zippered cardigan/coat with a couple of cables. I had planned to make a garter stitch coat with it, but I’ve decided that I really hate garter stitch, enough to not want to do that project. The other yarn is destined to be a garter stitch cabled pullover of my own design. I started to do a swatch, but I didn’t like it, so I’m going to try again, a little closer to when I’m going to make it.

Sometime fairly soon, I’m going to buy wool to do an awesome color work cardigan/jacket, which I’ll do after I do the other two projects mentioned above. There’s also 19 pounds of yarn with my name on it, which will probably turn into a sweater or 15. Some of it will go into my weaving class (more in a moment) and some of it will turn into sweaters. Then I’ll get to do St. Moritz maybe.

Weaving class. I’m going to take a weaving class next semester, which I think will be a lot of fun, in part because it’s weaving, and in part because there are going to be a bunch of other awesome people in the class. I learned today that we have to buy some of our own yarn, but I don’t see this as a really big problem, because I already have a lot of skills in getting cool yarn for not much, and because I have a lot of yarn, including thousands of yards of cotton lace yarn that I’d really like to use in some way that isn’t lace knitting. Also because I have stores and skills of yarn obtaining, I might be deal yarn and be able to reinvest. Muwahahaha.

Ok, so that’s the short and (mostly) long of it. I hope to be able to check in more in the coming days/weeks. There are some developments in the realm of WWOTB, which I’d like to document in an open forum, but I think that needs more a serious and dedicated post, so I’ll wait on that for later in the week.

I think its fair to say that I’ve been in a knitting funk of late. I’ve made a few hats, which have been nice to, but not terribly fulfilling, given that I have all the hats I could possibly want, and while I do plan to give a few away, I need a “finished hat” box (like my mom’s sock box) where you let finished projects sit for a while, so you can let go and give them away. This is ironic, given that one of the things I want to make (that I don’t currently have yarn for) is a sweater for someone else, but that’s different, because you’re making it specifically for someone else, in a style/fiber that you don’t particularly like (or feel suited to you).

No matter, so I made a few hats, started a 52 stitch garter stitch rectangle (why oh why?), knitted some more on the plain shawl that will never end, and just yesterday I started another sweater. It’s going to be a wool drop-shoulder pull over, with a cut neck a high collar. As is usual I’m debating how exactly to execute the neck. Steek for sure, clasps (rather than a zipper), and I think I’m going to put 1 inch of ribbing (1x1; to match the other edges) on either side of the cut steek. The other option is to put like 2 garter ridges (much narrower) on either side, which is about half as wide, and could be adapted to accommodate a zipper if I changed my mind. The one problem is that, without a zipper, the garter ridges probably wouldn’t counteract the inherent curl of the steek, and would therefore look crappy.

The wool I’m using is a grab bag of worsted weight wool, gathered from various sources. The bottom is this black yarn. From the vintage when Red Heart still made 100% virgin wool, obtained at a rummage sale, and from the same vintage, some more vintage yarn: Sears brand medium-light grey. Finally, I have some left over sheep colored fisherman’s wool (Lion Brand) this stuff is still available so if I run out and need to augment my supply, it’d be eight bucks at just about any craft store. I think it’s going to get a trip through my blue dye pot. I have a lot of stuff that’s going to get died blue: two hats, a shawl, this sweater, plus the never-ending shawl.

After this sweater, I have yarn enough for two more sweaters: an aran and plain (I think) pullover of some fun design, and countless shawls. I’m sort of turned off of shawls for a while. I think I thought that I could knit one shawl for every sweater I made, but I think I need to institute a 2 for 1 policy, other wise, the shawls just wont work out.

I have two knitting lusts at the moment. The first is to knit the Rams Horn cardigan from Meg Swanson’s Knitting. I might get some sort of plain worsted wool, but I think I should just come to terms with the fact that it’s going to be done in Icelandic Wool. It’s not that expensive, and I think my knitting deserves the right kind of yarn. This is an old crush, but I’ve done some color stranding work, just for grins, and I’m really pleased with it (and my abilities) so I have a renewed interest.

The second crush is on This Sweater. I’d want to do it with the cut neck, probably in the blue (second link) colorway. Melt. On the up side their so generously sized, that I could make the extra small and still have like eight inches of ease. The kits are ungodly expensive. There’s no other way to put it. Mind you, if you buy a Dale sweater from their US distributor, it’ll cost 3 times the cost of a kit. I’m going to see how long this crush lasts, and I don’t think it’ll take very much to keep me from buying the kit (because of the price), but at some point I’ll probably break down and get it as a reward for something. Lets say, right here, if I live through next semester and more or less run out of yarn, and have some sort of summer income, and have the money, I’ll do it.

Ok, so there’s your knitting update for the week. I’ll catch you all soon. I’ll keep you posted on the developments of my sweater as they have a habit of progressing pretty fast.

In my feminisms class a few weeks ago we read an article by Chandra Talpade Mohanty concerning the ways that the western feminist discourse address and comments on the “third world.” Basically it commented on the Hegemony of western feminism as it determines who and what is oppressive for third world women, and thus constructs third world women, as uneducated, unaware, and ignorant of feminism. This is problematic and oppressive in of itself as western feminists use these perceptions as a way of reasserting imperialistic attitudes on the third world.

Connected to Mohanty’s argument is a discussion of the veil as worn by Islamic women. Many western feminists view the veil as an oppressive tool. And there are Islamic feminists who want to wear the hijab, who feel victimized by those western women who wish to abolish the veiling customs.

I went to a speech by one of classmates yesterday which talked about the hijab and other forms of female veiling in the Islamic world. The speaker made the point that the hijab represented tradition, faith, and invoked a kind of reverence that was very cultural. One of the audience members (from Cairo) who wore the hijab, said that her mother had gone back and forth on the veil and had worn it for a time, and then not worn it. While another audience member brought up the idea that there wasn’t always the choice to wear the veil, the argument that most women have some sort of choice in many Islamic countries was very present.

Which leaves me with an almost icky feeling in my stomach. I like cultural traditions, and the modernist in me has found a lot of really appealing things about Islam as I’ve learned a bit about it this semester (which I think is because it’s so jewish like). As a result of this, and just on general principal, I’m inclined to think that non-western feminists should be able to practice their cultures how ever they wish to. If this means wearing the hijab, so be it, and as westerners we need to listen to, and respect feminists from the so-called third world even if they wear a veil.

At the same time it’s an artifact of religion. R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N. I tend to think that the major so called monotheisms (Islam is way closer to monotheism than just about anything I can think of, but it’s of no matter). I’m wary of any religion that takes power away from people rather than empowers the people that follow it. Islam is all about submission to god. This isn’t an anti-Islam sentiment, it’s an unabashed anti-religion sentiment.

On a theoretical level I think the veil (as a product of Islam) should not be used as a method for liberation, at the same time on a practical level I can completely recognize the way in which a veil could be used as a way of maintaining a cultural identity. But I think this issue is complex and we can’t easily define in terms of a good bad dualism.

Ok, so the TealArt, is if nothing else, functionally established with it’s new set up. In retrospect I’m not really sure what we accomplished in the long run, or in the short run. Everything works as it should or more or less as it did. The administrative components are perhaps a bit more efficient, the way the categories are organized are a bit more logical. I think it’ll also be easier to manage in the long run.

The one thing I’m a bit disappointed in Wordpress for is the fact that they’ve dumbed it down a lot. Used to be, that this program was efficient, feature filled and really customizable. Now, the scripts add a lot of formatting related code that you have no control over, unless you go in to hack the core of the application. This isn’t cool. I want my data to be present in a pure manner, and if I want to format it, well then I’ll add the formatting code myself. Their approach probably makes the vast majority of websites more functional, standards compliant, and easier to manage, but it also breaks the holy content/display divide that needs to be a defined as possible. But it works. We’re going to get trackbacks and ping backs to work, and I have an email out about how to integrate the links/quotes and other sites with the main log. But for now it’s good. There’s a little more work that I’ll get to in a couple of weeks.

I need to do a little bit of this really analytical work every now and then to stay sane, the bad part is that it draws a lot of attention for the time that I’m enthralled. I’m free of it for now, but I’ll get back to it soon enough.

Moving on.

I think I have my schedule nailed out for next semester, I haven’t heard back from a couple of professors, and I think there are a couple of things that relate back to my 3 year plan that I want to have a little more nailed down, but I‚Äôm in a very good place I think. I’m going to take a natural history class (my last required science class) a weaving class, an upper level English/Gender studies class called (Writing Race and Sexuality), Statistics (for psych majors) and probably a Cross-Cultural Psychology class. It’ll be neat. Almost all of my transfer credit has come in, and I’m 3 hours away from sophmore standing (without the classes I’m taking now), and I should be able to make junior standing after next semester.

There aren’t classes today because of a really poorly organized symposium, which is a good break in the rhythm. The beginning of the week is always really killer, in one way or another. Either I’m insanely busy, or I’m insanely in a weird mood (this week), and usually by Wednesday everything irons itself out. It better.

I’m going to post this and go to lunch, in a moment, but before I go, let me leave you with this.

Everyday I see a situation that I think would make an insanely good vignette, or I see someone who would make a perfect character, or I get some sort of story idea that would just be amazing if I remembered it and wrote it down. Usually I don’t have my ibook with me to record such things (or even an index card,) so usually I just forget them and complain about how I have so little to write about. Well, ok, I’m sitting here, watching a guy who just needs to be written about.

He’s tall--6'3" or something. He as this excruciatingly fashionable and suave air about him, except when he starts talking you kind of feel like he’s about 14. I think he went to an all boys boarding school, which could explain some of the social awkwardness. Right now he’s curled up into a little ball in a chair, across from me reading a book. We’re kind of sharing a foot rest, so I’m acutely aware of his nervous movements. He has an intermittent vacant look on his face, and the book he’s reading is a collection of case studies that I’m reading as well (for a different section of the class and clearly not at this very moment. Every now and then he looks at the door as if he’s waiting for someone and then looks out the window in this sort of dissocialize sort of way.

Before he left, he paged through the next four or five pages of the book, clearly checking to see how much he had left to read, and then left. He said good-bye to me, perhaps not as awkward as usual, but whatever. He’s a weird kid, interesting I suppose, how the presence he exudes by his appearance is so different from what he exudes both vocally and through his behavior.

Just notes and observations; I’m sure there’ll be other notes like this one every now and then.

Ok, So even though I said we wouldn’t do it. Even though I really didn’t want to do it. I did. We’ve compleatly changed databases, and CMS. This time you probably can notice the difference.

Eventually you probably won’t notice, but for now things are a little ruff and most of the functions don’t work or have been disabled while we get the other pages to work.

For a number of weeks, all the old pages will work, and all your old links should continue to function. Eventually they won’t but for now I’m leaving things up.

Just So you know.

Cheers, Sam

Ok, so here’s an update on my reading: I’m half way through the third wave book, and I’m done with the first section of the second wave book. The third wave book is pretty cool, it addresses a little bit of everything, and as my last entry expresses I’m not wild about the “ideal” capitalist inspired globalism. But conflict makes the discourse interesting and it happens. Anyway, as I was reading about the independent media websites, which these folks are pressing as being majorly important to the development of the third wave.

Big Yawn.

Basically they described MetaFilter which is at least in my mind the original collaborative news type site. They’re really easy to run through open source software, and there’s some sort of filter/longer news related website for everything, and there are a lot of more centralized collaborative type news sites like QueerDay that fit some sort of independent media model. But then maybe that’s just me. I’m a friend of Noah Grey, and I’ve been watching this weblog thing for years, so the proliferation of independent media on the Internet is something I’ve watched intently.

And while I like idealized anarchistic designed communities that end up working, I think there are ultimately problems with this. First of all, if there are thousands or even hundreds of sites built on a model (mefi, photologs, warblogs, punditblogs, etc.) then they loose their intensity, everyone sprouts the same shit, nothing new gets said, and I think ultimately the only people who read those types of blogs after a while are the other bloggers, under which conditions all you have a is a very disorganized and hard to follow discussion board which would probably be more efficiently accomplished with a single large discussion board. Or better yet, a Usenet group (but that’s just cause I’m a traditionalist).

While the situations described in the essay weren’t extreme, I’ve seen extremes (in terms of over proliferation). In terms of photoblogs, in terms of war blogs. I wasn’t around like some people I correspond with, to remember when there were only a very few web logs, but I do remember when movements at the forefront of the blogging world, were just a small number of malcontents. So maybe I’m jaded. Ha. Ok, So I’m jaded. At the same time, I have the feeling that if everyone is writing the same things, it gets condensed and retold too much, and the jems are too far and inbetween, unless you’re a communications researcher, or interested in this kind of thing (which I’ll admit to be from time to time) there’s too much to absorb at a raw level and you don’t gain anything by reading the super-condensed versions.

That I think is enough for now.

After finishing the first Mars book, that I spoke about yesterday, I’ve ritually (twice makes a ritual) returned to my habit of coming to the basement of the library and sitting in front of the window until the battery on my iPod dies, whilst doing some of the reading for this week. This entry represents my study break. I’m almost sad that I finished Red Mars, which means I get to tear through two feminist volumes. Today (thus far) is this rather awesome collection of third wave essays for my feminisms class; I have another two thirds to go, and plenty of time to get it done. Then the second wave book, which is shorter, and for Sociology Class; thanks to modernism, it’ll inevitably easier to understand and absorb.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the course guide will be out very soon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, so I hope that it’ll all work out right; though I have a triage plans if things don’t work out well.

Anyway, the topic at hand…

In 1979 Andre Lorde wrote an essay called “The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House.” Basically she says that if you want to affect change , you can’t work within the system. The tools of oppression cannot be reversed in order to create positive change. I don’t know, the title embodies the entire concept for me: feminists must approach the struggle for justice using fresh and unique approaches and methods to deconstruct patriarchy (and reconstruct social reality/theory). Lorde’s more specific point was one of solidarity (as I remember). That one could not advocate for female liberation without arguing for gay and lesbian liberation; that one could not argue for racial equality without arguing for class equality, and that racial and class equality is very much a part of female liberation and feminism. I’d also add that transgender rights are integral in this struggle.

I would argue that we need, from the beginning, to integrate and resolve the contradictions between coalition/solidarity work and affinity work. But balance of disparate but necessarily interrelated struggles is often lost between the cracks, so I’ll forgive it in this case.

Half of the post subject addressed, here’s the meat of the issue.

One of the big issues of the third wave is the transnationalization of feminism. And everyone goes a long with this and keeps saying “what we need to work on is accepting all different kinds of feminisms and feminists. That feminism isn’t about abortion, equal rights, economic freedom, and political parity, but it’s about female empowerment in whatever issues are important to the individual feminist.

Ok, I can buy that. My issues aren’t your issues, and your issues aren’t mine; but because we’re both working for the same thing, we should support each other and collaborate when our issues overlap. It works, again it’s more affinity-esque and less coalition (but then I think affinity works better on a smaller scale, and the coalition works better for the large scale, but that’s me. My feminism isn’t your feminism; so maybe our struggle isn’t one.) This will take some time to make sure it jives, because it doesn’t fit completely, but I don’t think that’s the issue at the moment.

The form that this decentralized transnational feminism takes most often is the proliferation of non-governmental organizations providing services to the third world. The movement of money across borders as part of a global economy.

I don’t know about you, but this seems a lot like the master’s tools. In this context NGOs are empowering women yes, but mainly in terms of a western definition of power, which brings them into the global economy. What next? Bam! Right back where we started, because the cottage industry is just a new kind of dependence.

I think we need to find something a lot better before we dive head first into it.

There, one down. Next time (perhaps later tonight), as everyone is talking about the election that doesn’t matter, I might just write something up about independent media and TealArt, as some of the other essays sort of relate to this subject that I’ve been pondering forever it seems. Anyway, cheers!