Category / Bunberry

by Sixer

Which puts me in mind of a book……

Of the last three Saturdays it has rained, to some extent, on two of them, which definitely makes me think of this story I once read. I can’t quite remember if it was a L.M. Montgomery story or a Kate Douglas Wiggin story, but I suspect the latter. At least, I seem to remember it was the latter. At any rate, the fact that it usually rains on a Saturday, when added to the belief on the side of the weather men that it would rain whether it was a weekend or not, makes that one bright, if chilly, Saturday all that much more amazing – especially since there was a parade.

I might as well tell you now that I was in it, and that the float I helped out with belonged to the Victorian Society, and having said that there is nothing really left to add but that I was colder than I wished but warmer than I expected. I was in costume, of course, and my family surly will remember how much effort my dear mother put into the dream dress that I wore. A decidedly summer dress, for a most uncannily fall-like day. But all in all the parade was fun, I loved being in it: throwing candy at children, watching the looks on the girls’ faces as they were presented with carnations, listening to the fiddle being played right beside me. And it was just as much fun preparing, with paints and papers, hot chocolate and tea, and wonderful examples of creativity springing forth from every quarter. I never knew so many crafty people to gather in one place, but there we were.
Maybe I will one day look back on this time and wonder at myself for passing over these monumental events with such a careless form of acknowledgment, but really, if I was to be every day journalizing the occurrences that leave a deep impression on my mind I would never leave off writing. Last night one of the girls in our little apartment chased a spider out of her room. It was the largest spider I have ever seen outside of a pet shop. It’s body must’ve been bigger than a quarter, and it was so furry and quick. Ugh! I hate feeling squeamish a over a little thing like a bug, but this was no little bug. It was monstrous. A mutant, equally likely either to give us extraordinary powers or kill us with it’s venom. It was too disgusting to capture on film, and too sneaky to let out of my sight while I looked for my camera. But believe this fish tale of mine, it was a whopper.
by Sixer

Hello,

It was one of those nights when the sins of the city seemed to have blacked out the sun, reminding us that we humans really were brothers, with more in common than is often remembered. The low, warm lights of the club soaked over us as we drank at the bar, but they weren’t able to penetrate the smoke that drifted from the ladies long cigarettes, or discover the color of eyes from behind allusive black veils. So the lights glistened off the brass instruments of the band as it played on undaunted by the gloomy faces of it’s listeners, or the deadness of the world outside. Caroming off the piano, and glancing off the sax, the lights threw their dying beams on the soft, yellow equipment behind the bar. The enamel surfaces seemed to be beckoning alluringly as they caught the light on their curves, throwing blemish into shadow and adding mystery to an otherwise clear cut form. As the bar maid turned away from one such appliance, bearing once more a round of drinks to keep the night at bay, the band struck up another tune to mingle with our sighs and so turn misery into music.

 

 

 
 
 
I have wanted to post this for a long time, but then I was busy with a work that was too delicious to complain about, and then – after a crazy three weeks of Fielding’s Tom Jones, Mansfield Park, Richard II, and Hamlet – when I finally got a break – nothing. I took part in Perfect, Peaceful, Blissful Nothing. And now, Tom Jones finished, break over, and new book begun, it is finally time to let you see the beauty that has come into my life.

 
It makes me think of sunshine, or butter, or jazz music. I could fill this whole page with pictures of it, but sadly, even here, I have business. First up, and it’s been bugging me for a while, when I mentioned Pamela I had forgotten the word for a book written as a series of letters. That words is, of course, epistle. But that’s old news, you want updates, you want story. Well, how’s this?

 
 
They’re my second pair of Jaywalkers, the first being still in progress. I finished them during The Return of the King, which I watched, marathon style, last Friday. Like I said, on my break I did nothing. These sock were fun to knit, very cheerful, very full of whimsy, and giggles, and precious things. I had fun trying out different kinds of edgings for the cuffs. Which one do you like better?


Another great reason for finally posting is Saturday. On Saturday I’m going to be taking part in a parade. It’s a small parade, but it is still something completely out of my sphere of experience, so I’m hoping to cement it into fact by describing the event to you later. Preparations for it started Monday, and are on going. I’m in charge of decorating the cardboard Teacups and I’m having so much fun with them I’m starting to wonder if I could make a living just decorating cardboard shapes. I think that would pretty much be heaven.
In other, actual news, I have started learning the deep mysteries of Dreamweaver. I love to think that, one day, it will be useful to know, but until then I’m just having tons of fun. Photoshop is more entertaining, I could sit and play in it all day long, but Dreamweaver provides a goal, a point, a frame to paint within. My friends are probably tired of me sending them random “postcards” inspired by the default images on my classes’ PCs, but one day, when I’m using those same skill to put together a website of my own, they will understand that all has not been in vain.
 
At least, that’s what I’d like to think.

by Sixer

Dorks and delights….

Something else I love…….

             I‘ve been feeling  quite dorky lately, if I may use that as a serious term and not a childish insult (If I mayn’t then I guess I’ll have to be content with whatever connotations are connected with that word. I don’t think there really is a good synonym for it). First of all I have to tell you that I have managed to stain almost every single shirt I own. Not dusty patches of flour that can just be washed off either, but marks of all sizes and colors, with unknown origins, completely resistant to water and detergent. If anyone knows the best way of getting stains out of clothes I would much appreciate their advise. It has been said before, but one really can endure almost anything as long as they are well dressed.
                        Of course, being well dressed means next to nothing when you find yourself sprawled on the sidewalk with your bike around your ankles. I love my bike, it is beautiful. It is blue. It lets me fly, filling my soul with bubbles of laughter. But sometimes I think it is trying to kill me. Perhaps that’s what it was thinking when it toppled over yesterday, causing my juice bottle to fall out and spill all over the white cement. At the moment I was almost convinced that it was going to get its wish, I was pretty embarrassed. The worst part about where I live is that there are so many nice people. So the moment I fell there were a half a dozen “are you all rights?”At such times, one must pick themselves up and gently right their horrid vehicle, and all while smiling and nodding and shaking their head ruefully and saying “only my pride” and such nonsense. I now have a really pretty patch of pink skin that gradually becomes red before fanning out in a blueish purple mist.

         But enough about me. I promised to give my opinion of Moll Flanders, now that it’s been properly discussed, but I’m afraid my judgement stays the same. She was not reformed enough in my opinion to serve as a proper warning, which is what she was supposed to be. I’ve moved on to Pamela, which I liked exceedingly well until page 251, when the girl lost practically all worth in my eyes. There are still two hundred pages to go in her defense, but I hardly think they will be able to absolve her of this one huge blot of stupidity.
             It’s interesting to be reading these first novels, written in 1722 and 1740 respectively, while also reading Pride and Prejudice, which was published in 1813. The whole feel of them is completely different, as was, no doubt, their intended audience. It’s fun to be able to toss one’s head knowingly and chalk it all up to society’s changing perspective of the novel. Did you know, they were originally coarse in both quality and content and therefore regarded as scandalous? How far we’ve come from that, and yet how many ways it still holds true. At any rate, these 18th century books are doing strange things to my English, as you can probably tell. But even that is fun, in it’s own right.
by Sixer

Doing what I love

“What a foolish thing he was doing, walking like this under an open sky, with a beautiful man child for any evil spirit passing by to see!… and he said in a loud voice, ‘What a pity our child is a female whom no one could want and covered with smallpox as well!..'”

– Pearl Buck, The Good Earth

You know those people who love to work because their work is what they love? That is, what they get to call work happens to be, for them, a passion. I never thought I’d be one of those people, well, not in a while. When I was six I naturally assumed it, I knew without a doubt I’d be a librarian. And now I find myself actually living like this, being required to do what I love. What is it I’m doing? In a word: reading.

              I finished Moll Flanders on Sunday, I’ll reserve judgement for after the group discussion, but I don’t think Defoe quite managed what he set out to do. It is mean spirited of me, but I’d have rather she died a penitent in Newgate than live to lie another day. I start Pamela on Wednesdayuntil then I’m reading Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I have read it a million times already, but this time I have to read it. Woe is me, I’ve been ordered to read an Austen. I’m also reading Macbeth and various poems (Free Verse, none of which are to my fancy, so I’ll spare you the names). That’s all for mandatory reading.
                  On Thursday a beautiful package arrived at the post office. I picked it up and opened it with restless hands eager to stroke the spine that they knew was enclosed. Ah, the smell of books – especially books with end papers, gilded

 edges, and leather covers – can simply not be surpassed by earth, chocolate, or even bread. The book’s contents are as much worth mentiong as its aroma. It is The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck, on loan to me from my grandfather,  and it is about Wang Lung and his family. Wang Lung is a chinese peasant who works hard for his food, understands the value of land, and worries, when he gets too happy, that the spirits will punsih him. The facts of his life, even the few everyday ones, are so different from anything that I have ever known that the book cannot help to be diverting, though there is no intense plot (of course, Moll Flanders didn’t have much of a plot either).

               To top off my week from paradise, I’ve actually cast-on for the second sock and have already knit to the heel. This is the fastest I’ve ever knit a sock, not to mention the closets cast-off/ cast-on time for a pair. But even this pales to dinner on Friday: quiche and apple pie toped with vanilla ice cream, all made with a friend in the spirit of anything-goes.
        
by Sixer

Last Bit of Reading…..

Before I forget entirely, let me draw your attention to two books that I was thankfully able to read before my summer ended. Both were recommended on different blogs (and no, I can’t remember which ones they were).

The first one I read was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie which was very cleverly written mystery, with a delightfully morbid sense of humor, if you like that sort of thing. In fact, I was a little afraid at first because the opening sentence describes the tweleve year old protagonist’s wall paper by comparing it to dried blood. And the girl herself, Flavia, of all things, is rather scary. Her passion is poisons, and her craft is chemistry. Therefore there are lots of chemical mentionings throughout the novel, (references to herbs, referring to minerals in latin, and that sort of thing). Her family is also a little offsetting. There’s no happy family here, but one complex tangle of solitude and grudges. It made me feel rather sad, though I suppose it made for a more interesting read. All in all the book was perfect for summer, with everything from murder to bicycle rides. I’ll be interested to see if the promised sequels to this book can live up to it.
The second book has a title so long that I’m going to have to look it up, I just call it the Potato Peel Pie book, but that won’t do here. It’s full name is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which will make sense to the reader about ten or fifteen letters in. Yes, that’s right, this is a book of letters. Ever sense I read Daddy Long Legs (by Jane Webster) and Letters From Camp (by Kate Kilse), I have been in love with letter novels*. Is there a term for them? There must be somewhere. Anyway, this book take places right after the end of WWII, but the reader gets the chance to hear many different accounts of what happened during WWII. While most of the recollections are from people who were on the island of Guernsey when it was occupied by the Germans, some of them are from survivors of labor camps. Some of the stories will leave you feeling ever so small. This made an edifying read, if I may use that word in this context. By the last third of the book, though, most of the “history” aspect disappears. If you’ve managed to get that far you won’t mind the lighter turn it takes, you will be so interested in what happens to the characters you won’t be able to put it down anyway.
But there were somethings that I didn’t like about it. The main character struck me as a person I wouldn’t get along with, I can’t really explain why, unless it’s that I’m narrowed minded and stodgy, while she is opened minded and uninhibited. More concretely, there was no end notes that said “yes these things really happened” or “while these exact things didn’t happen, very similar events did occur. ” I really like that in historical fiction, it makes me feel better about using novels as a basis for facts. In the end though, all my words mean very little. The only way to know if a book is really any good is to go out and read it for yourself.
*Also, one of my favorite books as a teen was Ella Enchanted, which had a section of letters between the main characters. Kate Kilse, though, will always be the measure I use to evaluate all such books.