I’m trying to type quietly so that I don’t wake TrickyTricot. Knitting camp is awesome. Joyce Williams and I were the last ones out, after agreeing to disagree about the various merits of different methods of shaping the shoulders and sleeves of drop-shouldered sweaters. It ended with us wearing each-others sweaters flailing about grabbing at the fabric of the shoulders in exasperation. Hilarious my friends, hilarious.

I figured out the trick to Armenian knitting, which is this cool way to get large blocks of color in stranded knitting without having to do creepy weird stuff. I think I’ve always known it, but, I share a brain cell with Meg and Joyce, because there’s so much in our approach that’s similar. Joyce, for instance, shares my aversion to turning her work, to the point that she will purl-back-backwords to get garter stitch. I’m not that hardcore, but I will avoid projects if it involves turning. Tringular shawls, for example.

I sat next to Meg, Meg Swansen (!), during show and tell, and it was nifty to see what we responded to, and how frequently it was similar. It was just sort of nifty.

Michael, said this morning something to the effect of “you seem like you know a lot of people,” which is interesting, because I’ve met two of them before, but other than that nada. I guess I mingle well, or something. It’s interesting/nice to get outside validation of your apparent social skills/network, particularly at points where you feel like your social network/skills in the broader scope might be shrinking.

Also, I brought a lace shawl to camp that I knit a few years ago in 100% tencel, that had developed a nasty snag. Another camper and I spent some time on the ground pinning it out again to get the snag under control. The camp room still has a lace carpet.

IN other news, my camp knitting, which is a plain sweater, is coming along nicely. I figure that I should be able to get done with it by lunch time (g-d willing) and then I can get back to knitting color work. Speaking of which, a woman was knitting this amazing color-work sweater in this amazing yarn, that apparently, isn’t really available on the internet, but is SUPER amazing and incredibly cheap. Like… Incredibly cheap. And at least theoretically compatible with jumper weight shetland. She brought down the color card and 6 of us took the number. I fully intend to call during break tomorrow and order a sweaters worth.

I also heard about--or more properly that it sunk in--that the reduction in J&S Shetland colors (and concurrent price hike). This means, that really there’s not a lot of reason to bother to use their shetland, when HD is such high quality and affordable. I’m a college student after all. In terms of swag, with the exception of the aforementioned yarn, there are a couple of great books that I think I’m going to knit and I’m going to get some sock yarn to make stranded socks.

This will entertain my parents/mother as much as anyone, but I met someone today who is friends/knows morris dancing friends from the Twin Cities.

Other than that… OMG people are reading my blog, omg, steven eley commented on my blog, squee, and um, I got some encouragement to work on knitting designs. I’ve been feeling rather uninspired of late, so that was good. I just need to figure out a way to have time to both knit, and be a science fiction writer.

Sorry for the long rambling post…. but I think I need to write something for cast on podcast about going to camps: morris camp, knitting camp, and the idea/possibility of going to clarion or something.

ok, over and out folks, I need to figure out a way to pass out, I’m going to need to be awake again in almost no time.

Cheers, tycho

This posting is nominally in respoonse to section 3.3 of Deleuze and Guatteri’s Anti-Oedipus, but I think, given that this section doesn’t cover particularly new territory, and the fact that I think I need to take a step back and talk about my perspectives and reasons for approaching this book. So there won’t be quotes this week.

But first, for my records as much as anything, 3.3 entitled “The Problem with Oedipus,” and it basically takes a bit of traditional psychonalaitic canon (ish), and explains more or less on it’s own terms, how it doesn’t hold together. Oedipus doesn’t work, because kinship relationships are social constructions; Oedipus doesn’t work because heterosexuality doesn’t work (for anyone,) Oedipus doesn’t work…. We’ve been over parts of this argument before, and while it’s a compleatly necessary part of the book. I’m in favor of taking it and moving on to greener pastures.

Next week’s section (3.4) is entitled “Psychoanalysis and Ethnology,” which sounds greener to me.

Anyway, back to why I like the book, why I think it’s important to read a 30 (!) year old book of, what was surely in its day, trendy philosophy.

• I think it’s difficult to say “reality is socially constructed,” without having a framework. Judith Butler is a good start (did’ya know that she opens her oft-reprinted essay “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” with a Delueze quote?) but I think it’s important to go further. And though it all started with queer theory for me, the truth is that those arguments aren’t tactically a good place to start for the kinds of questions and arguments I’m interested in building on.
• I enjoy the possibility and opportunity to look at psychoanalysis and say “rubbish!” outside of empiricism, and still say “you know these ideas are still useful.” It’s not apologizing for Freud, I mean I think even when you extract the 19th century from Freud, it’s not all that good; but it creates the possibility for me (and others I hope) to say “look what people working in a psychoanalytical framework have done” and it’s pretty nifty. Think about attachment theory, think about Levi-Struss and structuralism, and one can’t help but admit that “interpolation” (Althusar) is pretty nifty. I’m still throwing out ideas by the bale , but at some point that just has to happen, I suppose.
• It’s a book about psychoanalysis that is unabashedly materialist, and that’s an incredibly helpful position to have a grasp of.
• It’s funny. I tried reading Derrida about a year ago. Dear g-d. I think Derrida gets taken a little more seriously than Deleuze and Guatteri, but it’s harder to read, and I think less broadly applicable.

And then the background. Now lets remember, I’m no specialist in this stuff, so what I’ve been able to piece together is just that: a mishmash.

• AO is a synthetic project. Like a lot of so called radical philosophy (usually french, usually from the late 60s and 70s), it’s a melding of Freud and Marx. I’ve heard also (and agree) that it uses Nietzsche synthesizes Freud and Marx.
• Deleuze and Guatteri are, at least as I read them, post-structuralists, which is basically an epistemological position. That to understand our culture/society, one need to under stand the underlying systems and “structures”¹. Structuralists assume that structures are basically transcendent/ahistorical/etc. Post-structuralists, say no, that they’re contextually/historically/culturally constructed.
• I’ve often thought, though I don’t have a lot of textual evidence to back this up on (but hey, blog) that post-structualism pivots on linguistics/semiotics, in the tradition of Saussure. That is: the break the bonds between words (signs) and the idea what they represent (signifiers) and refer to, ripples out to affect other representations and knowing(s).

That’s rough, of course. I guess this is the notebook edition of the Delueze theory, but I hope that exposing my thinking is useful for you all.

Have a good weekend and think good thoughts.

cheers, tycho

I have arrived in Wisconsin, again. I think I made pretty reasonable time, there was more traffic than you’d think for a thursday, but who knows. Day after the 4th maybe?

Anyway, I listened to a lot of The Voice of Free Planet X during the drive (in addition to other stuff) and I have to say that I’m in absolute love with the podcast. I only have one more episode to listen to because I think I didn’t download 25-30ish of the episodes. Addiction. It’s great you should listen to. The holiday specials were particularly good. Check it out. I’m in that “fuzzy headed” space because of the drive, where you’re not quite tired and not quite awake… I think I’d make a great truck driver if this academia thing craps out on me.

I also listened to Steven Eley’s EscapePod rendition of Issac Asimov’s “Nightfall” short story. I hadn’t heard/read the story as such, (I think) but it was familiar, and it reminded me why I like SF. Great stuff, I mean not at all like what I’d write, but masterfully done and just great writing.

The knitting camaraderie was pretty darn swell. A friend said “I think I’ve found my peoples” tonight, and that’s probably right. It was good times. Though I put a lot of time trying to get my knitting to be at the right point for the weekend, I’m starting to feel like I don’t quite have the projects in the right place. I also am starting to think that I packed my knitting very oddly. I didn’t bring the yarn for the stranded socks (guess I can buy some heh,) but I brought more yarn for the project that I’m currently working on that I probably won’t need for months. Sigh. I also forgot to pack Mr/Sir Henry, and a cardigan that I think might have made for good show and tell. I also realized that I brought a trunk of sweaters for show and tell (and even a couple of shawls) because I had the room and I have no clue what I want to show off.

Other news. I thought about writing a lot during the drive. I wish I were better/more interested in writing short fiction.

Ok, I’m out for the day, I think. posts will come later in the day tomorrow when I have some time to reflect. Until then, keep the internet safe.

cheers!

I hope you had a good 4th, for those of you who were in a place to/that celebrate(d) it. The house didn’t explode on the account of the neighbor’s fireworks, which I think meets criteria for a good holiday.

I hope you also enjoyed the holiday edition (ha!) of Station Keeping. It was a fun one, so please do enjoy. Sorry about the wacky schedule this week.

Anyway. As you’re reading this I’m probably about to be or getting in the car to drive to knitting camp. So there’s not a good blog for today. Alas.

There’ll be a Deleuze piece tomorrow: this one’s rough and rambly, and less about the text. I’m thinking about reading the next couple of sections and then putting it aside to work on Difference and Repetition, which is ironically seeeming more timely at the moment. Maybe. I dunno, I’ll talk more about that in a bit.

The real reason I’m writing this post is because over on the other blog I’ve posted about a nifty sweater I knit, and thought that you might be interested in that.

Next time I have a saturday afternoon to blow on coding, I’ll set something up so that the knitting blog pulls content from tychoish and tealart. Until then let this serve as a notice to direct your attention over there for knitting content this weekend.

Here’s a sneek peak:

Cheers, tychoish

Here folks. Look at me, I’m being a knitting blogger. ain’t I being hip ahem anyway…

There’s not much to say about this sweater. It’s a derivation of Alice Starmore’s “Henry VIII” sweater from Tudor Roses. I basically knit it to the pattern, changing the sleeves to be a bit longer because I apparently come from a different racial stock than A.S., and we my friends have longer arms. I made a mistake with regards to the bottom horizontal pattern band, but I think it looks ok all things considered. Her version of course has bunches of colors, and is quite impressive. Mine doesn’t. The yarn is Knit-Picks Gloss, a silk and wool, fingering weight, sock yarn, which is delightful but doesn’t come in many colors. Also, I think the contrast is works pretty well for me, so I’m not arguing.

I make the joke that this garment, isn’t so much a cheep knock off, as it is a representation of the way fashion trickles down from the nobility to the peasants. This is a stop along the way, of course, and why I sometimes call the sweater Sir or Mr. Henry.

Here’s the sweater laid out on a chair:

Here’s a detail on the chair. Ok crapy shot, I’m really not one of those photographing knit bloggers you know. I do better--marginally at least--with words. Never the less, for your edification:

And finally a close up of the neck, because I took the picture, and I think it’s probably worth showing off.

While I like the neck of this sweater, this has proven to me that I really don’t do well with crew necks. They’re hard to wear and I always feel like I’m over dressed with crewneck sweaters. If I had to do this again, I’d open the neck somehow. Maybe that could be part of version 3 (because I do want to knit the sweater over again). Also, I think if I were going to knit it again, I’d put underarm gussets in the sweater, because I feel like it’s a bit tight there sometimes.

Stay tuned, more reports when I arrive and get settled in. There’ll be more knit camp blogging here.

See you on the flipside.

as the firecrackers and other assorted explosive rain celebratorily down on the neighborhood, I remembered that it’s a holiday today. I’m off work till next tuesday because of knitting camp, so that’s good stuff. I have to drive 8 hour tomorrow, so I need to finish packing/preping (well, arguably start packing/preping) before I do tomorrows blogging.

I haven’t yet decided where the knitting pictures should get posted. I think I’m making the decision now to post knitting contnet (pictures, reports from camp) here, on /tychoish. At least for the foreseable, that’s how it’ll be.

ok, pack first, blog second.

cheers

Empirical Questions:

A book of philosophy should be in part a very particular species of detective novel, in part a kind of science fiction. By detective novel we mean that concepts, with their zones of presence, should intervene to resolve local situations. They themselves change along with the problems. They have spheres of influence where, as we shall see, they operate in relation to ‘dramas’ and by means of ‘cruelty’. They must have a coherence among themselves, but that coherence must not come from themselves. They must receive their coherence from elsewhere.

(from Roughtheory.org.)

This is a passage, from Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, and I think part of why I like him so much. Maybe I’m focusing too much on Anti-Oedipus, when really DR is where it’s at. Hrmm.

Cheers!

tribbles first person to make a LOLimage of that wins my undying affection.

Welcome to this week’s somewhat late edition of Station Keeping I’m sorry about the confusion this time. We’ll return to our usual schedule next week. This episode was fun for me, it gave me a chance to explore story telling from an historical perspective, which is something that I think is pretty nifty. With luck this won’t be the last you see of Prof. Tiltsten, and I hope that this essay will help explain some of the questions that you might have about the station and our story.

The Necessity of Hanmist Studies, Part I

by Professor Jonathan Tiltsten

Unlike some other pivotal moments in the development of human colonial efforts on other worlds, many documents survive from the period just before and during the occupation of a space station in-orbit of the rim-world “Hanm.” Though in retrospect it is widely accepted, and obvious to many scholars of post-League political organization that the events on Hanm Centre were very important, if not key in determining the organization of human government for the next hundred years; at the time, the key actors in this milieux were not only unaware of their coming role in history, but also the importance of their moment. First a letter from the papers of Commander Eli Banner, the first commander of Hanm Centre, written shortly before he departed for Hanm:

Sometimes I think I’m getting too old for field assignments, but it’s better than getting fat and old behind a desk core-side, a lowly commander would never get chosen for a relativity cruise cycle¹. But I’m basically unattached, and I have some experience in the field, but who knows anyway. This time period never did suit me, and it’ll be interesting to see how the world looks on the other side. A of a long flight; not that the core will matter very much out there I trust. I just hope I get a chance to come back someday.

At the same time, the leaders of the civilian government on the colony world Hanm knew that change in the status quo, at least for their people, was imminent--and strictly speaking, it was--their opposition was to the league presence on Hanm Centre, not, in their mind, to the entire League, as it would later become.² Or the interstellar political status quo of the previous thousand years. Indeed it we now think that it would have been at least a generation on Hanm from the time that Eli Banner departed the core-side world until he and his convoy would arrive on Hanm.

This is an excerpt from an editorial circulated by early “Hanmist”³ shortly the Navy confirmed that it was sending a high level operations convoy after Commander Eli Banner left the core for Hanm Centre.

Above all, I would like to express my objection to the fact that the outpost currently under-construction in high orbit of the planet will be operated and governed by the League’s Navy. While an easily accessible space outpost in this part of the galaxy is not inherently objectionable, I would like to locate my resistance to Hanm Centre not in terms of resistance to the League at large, but rather in acknowledgment of the fact that the Civil authority on Hanm was not--according to the public record--consulted by the League authorities, and furthermore, the fact that the station is not to be administered or overseen by Hanmish authorities. Indeed, there is no reason that it can be directed and administered by the civil authorities on Hanm, who would surely be the best suited given their experience with the region.

As we can see, the seeds of the “Hanmist Separation” movement were significantly more modest than the militant movement that would follow in their name. In an age where the technology of space travel had paradoxically brought time and history to a virtual stand still, it took by the standards of the day, only a paltry handful of years for the Hanmist movement to sour. Though from our contemporary perspective this may not seem particularly remarkable, it must have been--particularly to the then unknowing Eli Banner.

“Historical Moment” was written by, `tycho <http://tychoish.com/tycho>`_, the creator of `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_. He is a student and knitter by day and a science fiction writer by night, you can read his work elsewhere on `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and at `~/tychoish <http://tychoish.com>`_. ~/tychoish.*

Title: Listing Instead of Blogging

Ok, so with TealArt broken for the present interval, (they say it should be working soon, but who knows,)¹ I’m going to turn back to blogging here. It’s interesting, the lack of the blog, or at least the possibility of having a blog around drove me kind of batty. And frankly sucked some of the wind out of the launch, such as it was, of tychoish.com.

In lieu of a proper blog entry I present to you a list.

• I continue to be quite enamored of TextMate. It’s like the app to beat/use. Someday I’d like to have a firmer grasp of vim, but for now. TM all the way.
• I sort of jury-rigged a script thing for work using a Macro (which suprisingly enough I’d never done) a (very simple) regular expression and TextMate that saved me probably hours of my time. So I’m pretty happy.
• I need/want to find some way to set up and start using an off site subversion repository for all of my most important text files and what not. I have some learning to do on the subject, but this kind of things needs to happen.
• I’m running off to knitting camp on thursday, it’s going to be awesome, and I’ll try to blog about it. Here, if not on TealArt.²
• I’m going to have a post on Zimmermania tomorrow morning.
• I had a really encouraging conversation with the editor of another group blog. I might be able to blather somewhere else soon!
• I’m starting to get into the zen of my job, and while I think its still a deeply weird experience that I suspect will provide plenty of writing material for the rest of my life. But that’s how I tend to think of summer activities.

At this point in my writing of this list, TealArt has returned. I think my plain is: put up my monday post with an adendum tonight, station keeping tomorrow, knitting pictures on thursday, and Deleuze on friday, and we’ll return to our regularly scheduled program next week.

• I still want to write that Gatsby take off that I was thinking about last summer.
• My knitting for this weekend is almost done. The bottom part of a sleeve (the faster part), another 2 rounds on the body of a sweater, and some work on an all new sweater just for fun.
• I’ve realized that very shortly I’m going to have a lot of sleeves to knit. I hate knitting sleeves in the summer.
• I remain pretty freaked out about next year, and what with it being july, I think that I need to focus more on this. Sigh. Denial is kicking out.
• We’ll be in touch, I’ll be blogging throughout tomorrow.