Have I mentioned that secrets are not my forte?  Yeah, they’re not.  When I buy Scott a cool present, I immediately come home and say "I bought you the coolest present" over and over again until he flees the room.  I am impatient, and I put my impatience on other people’s shoulders.  This time, though, I managed to wait out my impatience until the gift got where it was going.

I made this for my mother-in-law Karen.  It’s the Wave and Shell Shawl  (clicky for free pattern) made in Mountain Colors Mountain Goat, in the colorway Thunderhead.  I used US size nine needles and just shy of two skeins of yarn. 

This is a really fun pattern.  It’s a variation of feather and fan, as you can tell, and a section of the repeat is done in modified stockinette, to form those shells and show off the coloration in handpainted yarns.  Loverly.

The blanket is also a lot bigger now, as you can tell. 

And felting is happening, in preparation for Maryland Sheep and Wool and Tuatha’s demands for felt.  Rather inventive felting.  With spirals.  And free dog-hair accents.

Wow, we excel at slack these days.

April is national poetry month.  I’ve been spending so much time hiding from my writing that I haven’t been much of a poetry reader lately.  But let’s forget about that for a moment and think about words.

Lots of people quote the opening of The Wasteland  right about now.  Or, you know, a couple of weeks ago when National Poetry/Cruelest Month actually began.  Me, I’m going with a poet, and I’m quoting some of her prose, and I don’t care who knows it.  Go read some Janet Frame.  I purposely saved a novel of hers for April.  I’m reading Owls Do Cry, which is rich in wool imagery and thus a wool poem. 

And Francie’s father would pick at something else, the way someone who is knitting will pull at the threads to make  a hole, but their father tried to pick and unpick something inside himself that every year of being alive had knitted, with the pattern, the purl and plain of time gone muddled and different from the dream neatness.

Damn that’s good.  I love Janet Frame. So yeah, I’m focusing on prose that’s poetic. Got any?

Into the West directed by Mike Newell and written by Jim Sheridan

This is the movie about travellers I do recommend.  It’s a kids’ film, in theory, but it’s a well-written, evocative, entertaining film.  Few American kids’ movies will go to the lengths it does, with a drunken widowed father, impoverished, uppity kids, and a grandfather who encourages nomadism over settled life.  The cast is great, the kids in the lead rolls do very well, and the Irish heavyweight actors do what they do.  Watch it.  It will cheer you up.

Unless by Carol Shields

Shields is one of my favorite authors, and a rather influential Austen scholar as well.  Originally from from Oak Park, IL (like some of my favorite people), she chose Canada for her home after spending some time in Scotland.  I was burning through Shields’ novels a while back, but decided to slow down after she died.  I want to savor her writing, rather than gulping it down.

Unless was her last novel, and it tracks the mysterious breakdown of a young woman who suddenly leaves university, abandons her boyfriend and home, breaks ties with her family, and chooses to sit on a Toronto corner with a sign around her neck that says "Goodness."  The novel comes to us in the voice of the girl’s mother, who is bewildered by her daughter’s disassociation. 

I don’t want to say much more about the plot of the book, except that things do eventually turn out ok, that the plot of the book is timely, and that Shields was incredibly talented, sensitive, insightful writer.  I really wish she had been able to give us another few books.

Quite literally: a clue.

There’s the end of the yarn from the secret knitting. 

Also, this has been happening:

Kilt hose in the offing.  I’m using Trekking XXL in a blue and teal colorway, which isn’t showing well in the gloom today.  I’ve just designed the pattern as I work.  It tapers to hug the ankle and then expands out again for the heel–my hope is that these will be great for winter hikes–long, warm, and well-fitted to cut down on blisters and such.  They’d better be–I could make three pairs of socks in the amount of time this is taking.

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and House of Mirth directed by Terence Davies

This is where I normally explain that there was some hole in my education, through which some of the great masters slipped.  You know what?  Forget that.  Dear reader, I openly admit that I haven’t read everything yet.  Hence, you know, the still reading. 

Anyway, the novel follows Lily Bart, a New York socialite who is increasingly distressed because she’s unmarried and has limited financial resources.  Lily is essentially bratty and conniving at the opening of the novel, but witty and resourceful as well.  As the story progresses, Lily sabotages a few of her better marriage prospects because she has unintentionally fallen for a man who has to work as a lawyer, and thus lacks the means to support her in the style to which she has become accustomed.  She makes some bad choices, loses the support of her wealthy benefactress aunt, spirals into the working class, and dies.  Of course she does.  Wharton knew what a tough spot a poor gentlewoman of her era was stuck in.    The book is well-written, engaging, heart-breaking, and intensely modern.  Not that many novelists in the period were writing lead women who were, in many ways, unlikeable.

The film lost some of the bite of the novel.  I like Gillian Anderson too much to buy her as the real Lily.  In the same way that the Fanny Price in the recent film adaptation of Mansfield Park was too strong and funny to be the same character in the novel, this Lily is too good to be the Lily from the novel.  The screenwriter did Lily some favors, which allowed Anderson to do Lily some more favors, and the main character in the film actually gets to be more of a heroine.  The film is also a bit too slow–many period films revel in the hard work done by set dressers and costumers a bit too much, sacrificing pacing for good, clear pans through the beauty.  There’s a bit too much of that in the film.  And Anderson’s Lily is a bit too indiscreet–the Lily of the novel, for all of her naughtiness, was not making out with guys on benches outside parties.  She mad mistakes, but she didn’t knowingly sink her reputation in that particular way.

I know I’ve mentioned the bardic thing before, however obliquely.  If you missed the previous allusions, um, I’m a bard.  I translate mythology from Old-Irish and Middle Welsh, and I study history and archeology, and sometimes my Muse wakes me up in the middle of the night with a maelstrom of notes and phrases and I race to record everything she mutters to me before she runs off and/or my head bursts open.  Sometimes I suffer over a piece for ages.  Sometimes it comes whole-cloth.  Either can be gut-wrenching.  The resulting poems and songs and stories, even if and when I can accept that they’re worth sharing, have a very small target audience.  Most people don’t get it, and I am generally ok with that.  Though I do, obviously, have an urge to reach out to people and share what I think and know (hence blogging, and teaching clogging, and the general not-shutting-up).

My friends Etaine and Anubh are also bards.  And while each of us researches, writes, and performs differently, our aims are similar, and we play to the same audiences.  And, of course, we’re quite literally members of the same tribe, we three.  So, a few years ago, with some very gracious needling from Anubh (who said something spot-on like "Um Lanea, don’t you run big parts of this festival?  Why don’t you get us stage time, silly." like she does) the three of us ginned up an act, with a set list and everything, and went on stage.  A bunch of times.  At our lovely local festival.  It was certainly different from performing at living history events, because–woah–friends of mine from work showed up.  And a distant relative.  And some immediate family.  And there were strangers there, sitting between our friends and relatives, listening to us and wondering why so many people in the audience knew the words to these unusual, unpublished stories and songs.  Those folks only heard the most accessible of pieces, of course, but even so seemed surprised by the rawness of the source material.    Many people expect storytellers in funny clothes to kids’ performers.  We’re not so much with the kid-friendly, because the ancient world didn’t worry about age-appropriate art.  Blah blah blather blah. 

Up until now, it’s all been so relaxed and unofficial.  And while I know that there are people who really love what we do, we have a short reach, you know?  No recordings, and no books, and no press kit, and just the half-assed managing I’ve had to do to book us at a festival I’ve had the run of in the past. 

Yesterday, there was a contract in my in-box for me to sign.  We’ve been booked to perform at the Celtic Fling in PA in June.  And I have nothing to do with the running of that festival, so my brain registers it as huge and new and a different sort of accomplishment.  It’s an official GIG.   They’re paying us to get up in front of strangers and do this thing we do.   I’ve known about the gig for a while, but the contract makes it real.   

I think I’m going to pass out now.  The only thing that is keeping the blood in my head is the knowledge that at least one friend will be in the audience (yay, thank you!).  I thought I had become immune to performance anxiety.  Apparently, I just don’t get nervous when I perform at home.  Pennsylvania, however, is all the way up there.  Are there tigers?  I bet there are tigers.  And mean critics, with sticks.  And hecklers.  And no one will know the choruses, or the stories.  And they will, quite possibly, sacrifice me to some weird Pennsylvanian God of, um, amplification.  Have I mentioned I hate microphones?  Yeah–not so good for anyone with an interest in performing music.  They always squawk and the wind-cover sock-thingies smell bad.  Guh.

We’re going camping this weekend with the Celts.  I’m going to sing with my people and not think about the strangers.  And the Contract.  And the tigers.

I’m soaking up as much spring as I can, and still either knitting in secret or knitting things that aren’t all that exciting yet, like the blanket.  The last few days have been all about soil and old friends.  Some sad things recently happened to a couple of people I know, and it’s nice to focus on simple pleasures.  I priced small floor looms, spent time with my folks and my husband, and puttered.

A passel of us went to roller derby, of course.  Here are about half of the crazy kids.

In the snack-bar at the Roller Derby venue.  I didn’t get any good photos of the bouts themselves–too much fun for steady camera work.  We had a blast at the bout though, and there was some serious discussion about season tickets (likely) and possible roller-derby names (less likely).

I’ve spent the rest of the last few days either outside or wishing I was outside.  The garden needs a lot of tidying up.  But the work is more enjoyable with so many early blooms.

I particularly these hybrid daffodils.

And the hellebores

And these sweeties–I’ve blanked on their names, and searching the web for them is just making me want to buy lots and lots of plants.

The cats were supremely jealous of how much time Kayo and I were spending outside, and took turns watching the feeders out front and those out back.  Speedwell just stared and stared:

Yarrow bargained for assistance with the pesky door.

I’m so glad they don’t have thumbs.  And they’re not any larger.  Or smarter.  I hope the birds in our neighborhood appreciate the cats’ seclusion as much as they appreciate the seed we give them.

Punch Drunk Love

This was neglected in my Netflix queue for a long time.  I guess I had a hard time believing that Adam Sandler could act in something serious, no matter who told me it was good.  You know what?  It’s really good.  And I love Emily Watson.

Brokeback Mountain

The movie is gorgeous.  The scenery is breathtaking.  The acting is great.  It’s all very sad–I feel particularly bad for the two wives in the film.  Really, sad enough for them that I’m extra pissed at their cheating husbands.  I hope that these sort of personal tragedies are significantly less likely as the gay rights movement makes real headway.  Sigh.

Traveller

I watch pretty much every Irish or Irish-themed movie that’s released.  My degree requires it.  This one was a big disappointment.  It should have been better, with that cast.  But it plays really terribly into the worst sort of stereotypes about Travellers, so it gave me the gibblies.  It’s certainly watchable, and the actors do pretty well, but the plot is all wrong, as is the premise.  Double sigh.

Normally, I talk about the Equinoxes (Equinoces?).  This year, I just lived it.  Bare, freshly-pedicured feet standing in cool, awakening soil.  Gorgeous.  Peaceful.  Balanced.  Budding.

And it made me really really excited for smash-em-up insanity.  A friend of ours is reffing, a whole passel of us crow-heads are going, and I’m guessing that several folks from my DC ska-obsessed youth will be there.  What a fantastic excuse for a reunion.

Are you going?  Why aren’t you going?  I was obsessed with Roller Derby as a little kid, much to my mother’s chagrin.  I still want to be a rollergirl when I grow up . . .