Mike and Tara took me to see Bruce Molsky as an early birthday present last night.  It was amazing.  I’ve blathered before  about the musicianship to be found in Old-Time.  I think Bruce leads the bunch.  Since he was playing solo last night, he really had a chance to show his range.  Fiddle, banjo, guitar, singing–and all of it so good.  As usual, I feel a bit cruel gushing about a show that the vast majority of people had no access to.  And, as usual, I’ll encourage you to go see Bruce play live if he comes to your town, and to buy his CDs, and to support live music, dammmmit.  I’m betting Tara will post her excellent photos soon, and maybe even a snippet or two of Bruce’s excellent playing and singing.  Fingers crossed.

As promised, I picked up the mystery loom this weekend from the wonderful Yorkses.  It’s a Leclerc Inca (scroll down), and therefore French Canadian.  I want to celebrate with excellent cheeses, and, er, tell me what else I should do to celebrate the loom in a French-Canadian manner . . . I’m far more prepared to celebrate things Nova Scotian. 

It’s still in pieces, but I have the manual, so I should be able to get it put together soon.  A bit of TLC will be required–there’s some rust on the reed.  And then I’ll have to get my friend Carol to teach me how larger looms function. 

I figured that I should bring a bit of wool entertainment with me to the Yorkses’, so I brought the goods to make felted soap and pincushions with the kidlets.  What a hit!  Chip and AnnaMarie had spent much of the day painting their house (she’s becoming a painted lady, Mathom’s End is), and they had to call it quits and get their hands into the wool too, of course.  I brought piles of Peace Fleece rovings and some nice handmade soaps I picked up at Maryland Sheep and Wool.  Many soaps were covered, pincushions were made, everyone ended up with very clean hands, and then we had no choice but to celebrate our creativity by jumping on the trampoline.  And as if they hadn’t done enough for me already, AnnaMarie presented me with a book on plants in Scots-Gaelic she’d picked up in Portland.  My language geeking went off the scale.  As usual, I had more than my share of fun and it was very hard to leave.    Sigh. 

And finally, the emerald green mohair cabled cardigan is very close to completion, so I should be able to wear it on Saturday to Rhinebeck.  I need to knit a few more inches of the last sleeve, block, assemble, and add the neck and button bands.  And choose buttons.  I think I can get there. 

My progress was impeded significantly after the show last night when a freaking madman started talking to me on the Metro and Would.  Not.  Stop.  <long sigh / > I let my freak flag fly, as a rule, so I’m used to people noticing things about my clothes or jewelry that single me out as "anti-establishment" or whatever.  I was wearing a lunikeit, like I do, and an Irish handmade spirally felt coat, like I do, and knitting, like I do.  So when the seemingly-sane man asked politely what I was making,  I answered politely that I was knitting a sleeve.  He seemed nice enough, and wasn’t drooling or trying to touch me, but I could kinda tell, you know?  He was trying a bit too hard to dress like Johnny Depp and couldn’t decide between the Edward Scissorhands look and the Jack Sparrow look.  So he asked if I was tied into the local Celtic community, and I said yes.  And he mentioned a friend of a friend of a friend we had in common and I luckily retained a bit of my natural aloof stance and didn’t volunteer too much info. . .  small talk small talk, "I’m happily married" "Oh, your husband is such a lucky man" yes-yes-but-you’re-creeping-me-out-stranger-I-am-going-over-here-now-without-you-been-a-long-day  small talk. 

And then . . . and then he started explaining that it’s really good that he is such a high level warlock so he can deal with his pregnant 3,000 year-old witch girlfriend.  Because she is very angry.  Because she was once burned at the stake.  And it’s his fault, see, because he’s part Italian, and thus (not my logic–his) responsible for the Spanish Inquisition.  And the real danger is that she is having a girl, and mother and child together are likely to burn him alive once they don’t need him anymore.  Yada yada yada.

I see.  I was a deer in headlights, lemmetellya.  It was fascinating, his crazy-as-a-shithouse-bat monologue.  Fascniating in its insanity.  To compound the oddity of his statements, he said it all with no sense of irony, doubt, or concern in his voice.  He had no doubt I would believe every word of it, and seemed truly shocked when I said I’d heard quite enough and needed to knit in peace.  If I hadn’t heard the words he was saying, I could have assumed he was talking about a rather boring football game.  The flat affect–it was strange.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s all true, and would-be-Depp is locked in a heroic magical battle with his deranged but loving gal.  I’m not going to visit their happy home to find out.   And I’m not taking whatever he took, man.  Sheesh. It’s Monday night, man.  Gotta go to work in the morning, you know, lay off the pills.  And pick–Edward or Jack.  Not both.   True style requires decisiveness.

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