Oh, Henry

I'm getting ready to write a chapter about the popular reception of James by the folks who lived a generation after his popular heyday--if you could call it that. James was kind of like, oh, Thomas Pynchon is today. He was a highbrow critical darling, but (particularly by the time he was writing his "late phase" novels, like The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl) most people found his writing too obscure. I know it makes me a philistine, but I can certainly see their point.


(Henry James, by John Singer Sargent (1913--just after the Late Phase))

I'm also getting ready to teach a class that talks about Henry and his relationship to Edith Wharton. She spent a long time wishing he would notice her or her writing (there are a couple of funny anecdotes in her autobiography about buying new outfits and hats for dinners to which she knew James had also been invited, only to have him look straight through her. She of course didn't buy the clothes in an attempt to attract him physically, just in hopes that she'd get his attention.), but she ended up being a much more "popular" writer than he ever was, and a wealthier one too. They eventually ended up being great friends, but this difference in their popularity tended to be a sore point. One of my favorite images of all time is this one of Henry and Edith in Edith's car--when Henry heard that Edith had bought a car with her recent royalties (I think from The House of Mirth, he commented that he'd bought a wooden wagon with his--and with the royalties from his next book, he planned to have the wagon painted.


(Henry James (in backseat) joins Edith and Teddy Wharton and their chauffeur for a motoring tour through the Berkshires, Oct. 1904. Wharton mss, Lilly Library, Indiana University.)

I love the period in which James and Wharton did most of their writing (1880s-1910s) because it was a time when people were really trying to get a grip on mass-production of consumer items and widespread availablility of a huge variety of reading materials. In other words, it was a time when our modern consumer society was "quickening" a bit. Lots of people will make lots of arguments that push these tendencies back earlier in history, but I'm with Marx...mass production was a watershed.

This is when huge numbers of people started to use knowledge as a thing to wear to show your status and to perform in the pursuit of filthy lucre (smile). Oh, sure, Ben Franklin did too, but he was a little ahead of his time, in this as in so many other things. In Howard's End, E. M. Forster will immortalize this reader in Leonard Bast...and will kill him by having a shelf of books fall on him. And that's the sticky social situation in the midst of which Henry was writing, and the kind of reader who tried, but hated, to read his books, and the kind of reader he frequently said he hated and yet wanted to attract in the interest of income.

And now, in the headlong pursuit of tenure, I am going to try to write about all of it...with any luck, much more articulately than I just did!

Peace and Love

I celebrate the single sock. And though she be but little (too short in all dimensions, alas), she is fierce.

I am thinking about this as a "starter" sock. So, it may be a mismatched member of a triplet of socks instead of a pair. I'd like to try the next one using a pattern and some of the helpful hints from this book, and I think I have nearly enough of the same yarn (I may have to hunt down another skein!). It's "Bamboo" by Regia in Papillon...I call it my "Peace and Love" sock, both for the Fountains of Wayne song that I haven't been able to get out of my head lately and because the colors...well, they just look like something I imagine one might have seen in the Haight in the late '60s. I sent some of the same colorway to a close crafty friend for Christmas...she's a much faster knitter than I am, and will probably have a pair done long before this one has buddies.

I'm having some sort of overcaffeination problem and my hands keep shaking whenever I try to photograph my one completed Christmas project (sigh)--so I'll have to try again later...I'll try not to make it two months before my next post! I don't know that that's New Years resolution-level try...but close...!

All treats, all the time

I really don't know what to do with myself now that I no longer have a costume to piece together at night...



Halloween is the most fun holiday of all...



Or maybe that's just the pixie dust talking.

Oh, right...

...I have a blog!

It's actually been pretty productive around here for the past month and a half...ok, two months. So much so I haven't been able to catch my breath to post anything. Or to take pictures of anything. The last project picture I took was shortly after my last post when I started this new one, tastefully draped over a bit of ancient history.



which is now halfway done. [edit: on looking at it, again, it actually looks a bit like a tapeworm at this stage. perhaps just because the picture is so fuzzy. ah well. and i was so proud of the bumpy garter stitch.]

And in the meantime I finished the 2-y-o's sweater, and she has already yanked two buttons off it (not maliciously...she's just learning to button, and loves practicing with this sweater. which, hey, is why I made it, right?)

I am also trying to get my sewing machine in gear to create the Most Wonderful Fairy Costume Ever, but I am having a heck of a time adjusting the tension for filmy fabric (remember, I got a lovely old machine, but an old machine). The needle thread keeps getting caught around the bobbin case (sigh)...I'm thinking my Friday job will be to take it in for a tune up. But it sewed cotton beautifully. I was almost a convert. But no, knitting. Definitely knitting. For now.

Oh, and I'm almost done with the Most Knitted Item in the World. When I do my dance of finishing, I'll write again. No, really, I promise this time.

Something Old, Something New

...and a considerably less-than-professional-quality photo with dim artificial lighting and a bad shiny background to boot, but updating will make me feel as if there has been some progress on the crafting front. The egg cup was a thrifting score from earlier in the summer. It makes me happy, though anything less than a fully 15-minute egg makes me feel a little queasy, and it is my understanding that the egg cup is truly only useful for the soft-boiled egg. True?

Some folks thought 'twas a dream they dreamed

It's been a long, hot, sleepless week, but tonight, there is some respite.
More soon, including finished projects!

Until then, a lullaby.


Maxfield Parrish, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, 1905.

There's Got To Be A Morning After

This song kept going through my head last night as I dozed on the floor of the 2-yo's room, in between her hourly wakings to check and see if I was still there. Ideally, I would not have been on the floor to begin with, but if you had been in my shoes last night, you probably would have made the same decision.

Did not realize until this morning that the song was a hit parade choice from my birth year (!) and that it was the "love theme" from the Poseidon Adventure. How appropriate.

This morning, at 6:45 AM, my daughter woke for the day. After the diaper change, she went in to wake up her father with this:

"Daddy, I had a good nap!"

After all the potential damage of the evening, she's still looking at the glass as half full. Good for you, pumpkin pie.

Rosemary's Mother

Well, it's been a terrible week around here, with the 2-y-old not sleeping and the mother going insane to match her crazed wailings. Not a lot getting done on any front. I had to frog a new hat I was knitting for a new baby (a friend's--probably already sleeping more than mine!) because I shattered the needle in a fit of pique. Really, really not in a happy space right now.

Earlier today when I thought things might be looking up I took the following picture of some happy things and hoped I'd post about them...now, I'm just hoping looking at the picture will serve as some sort of anodyne.



Of course, right now I can only think about how I really should have ironed the dishtowel. Ultimately I think this will be an apron. That is, when my daughter is 10 and I'm no longer responsible for her bedtime. (ideally we'd still have a bedtime around here, but basically, I currently figure if she lives to the ripe old age of 10 after years of sleep deprivation, we will have given up.)

I realized too in looking over this blog that there really are few pictures of her happy--and anyone just happening upon this would think that she's a truly miserable creature. But there are occasional happy moments. I swear. Let me find one to post...



There. See? Not just happy--stylish too.