Reading, Watching, Knitting, Thinking.

I'm currently reading Colm Toíbín's Brooklyn. I am reading it slowly, taking it in line by line. I always do this with Toíbín's books; they deserve attention and care. Also, Brooklyn cuts very close to the bone with its story about a woman leaving one country to seek a better life in another country. Sometimes a bit too close. Some decisions are not made easily and the outcome is messier that anyone might expect. I'm thinking about what we as readers bring to books and what books bring out in us. Mainly, though, I have been trying to finish my little red cardigan. I have had a couple of DVD marathons (verdict: Oh, I love Gregory Peck, the smallest gestures can be completely devastating, and Neil Finn should ditch the falsetto & Johnny Marr) and I'm now one tiny frill and a buttonband away from completion. I am thinking Synecdoche, New York might work for that. Then, it's upwards and onwards. New things to knit, new projects to fret about.

Oh, because I have certain weaknesses, these blog posts were really amusing: Create Your Own Regency Romance and Call In The Angry Villagers: 10 Clichés We Can Live Without. I swear I haven't touched any such reads in months.

And finally, I just loved this little throwaway line by John Cameron Mitchell: "There's no question (..) that Lady Gaga and Hedwig are from the same clan." So true and now I don't know why I didn't twig this earlier.

(Ain't) Misbehavin'

I like late nights. I like staying up till the world around us grow quiet and I can hear myself thinking. I like caffeinated drinks: coffee, tea and various soft drinks. And I like working away until I finish things and then have a long, meandering chat with the Boyfriend. Unfortunately my body does not agree with me and so today I am incredibly shattered to the point that I began crying in public today for no apparent reason. Embarrassing, yes, and also worrying.

Pledge to myself: I'll quit misbehaving and begin listening to my body again. Everything else is just plain silliness and I'm too old to be silly.

A few random links:

• Les Garcons de Glasgow. A Glasgow street style blog. I'm slightly unsettled by how many of these people I know (sort of) and how many photos have been taken in our neighbourhood. Also: looking like a drunk East German hairdresser circa 1983 is really not cute (or go the whole way and get yourself a Trabi)
• Caring for Your Intro-Vert: I spent years and years thinking I was a quiet extro-vert. Yeah, I know. Link via Anna.
• Interior Design from Scandinavia. My old Copenhagen flat looked like a cluttered version of this photo. You can take a girl out of Scandinavia..
• And if you are in London, make sure to catch the V&A exhibition on quilting. It looks fabulous and I wish I lived close enough to actually make my merry way there. So catch it on my behalf, mm?

Lost Boy? Lost Girl.

Pop culture and I have an on-off relationship. I mostly attribute this to growing up in Nowheresville, Denmark, in a family obsessed by 1940s and 1950s American popular entertainment (think Frank Sinatra, Vincente Minnelli films and the Great American Songbook), so when I went to school and was surrounded by kids immersed in current music, I was woefully lost. It took me about three months to figure out what song the kids were singing in the playground and, as my family rarely went to see current films, most 1980s teen films completely passed me by. I'm reminded of my 1980s pop culture black hole as most of my peers are reminiscing about The Lost Boys and License to Drive in the wake of Corey Haim's death. I finally saw The Lost Boys some six or seven years ago. It is undeniably an entertaining slice of comedic vampire horror, but I was obviously way too old to connect with it. So, in an odd way, Haim's death does sadden me but my sadness is reserved for that young girl who failed so miserably at fitting in at school and not a shared piece of pop culture fading away reflecting our mortality etc. But watch this space once people like Ewan McGregor (oh, Trainspotting, the film that defined my generation and demographic segment), Jarvis Cocker (playground singing? No, massive dance-floor singalong) or even Douglas Coupland (whose early novels spawned a mild obsession mid-1990s) start 'shuffleing off this mortall coile'. I'll be right here bawling my eyes out and wondering what happened to that bright-eyed lit student girl with the funky charity shop clothes.

A few random links:

• How to Grown Book-Worms: This is a delightful read. "There are some things I know about fostering book-love in kids.  I bet there are some things you know too.  Here are my book worm fostering things.." (via)
• Trampoline Dog. Because we all need a trampoline-hopping dog in our lives. Well, I do.
• If Wes Anderson had done Lord of the Rings... (but you know that Bill Murray would have played Gandalf)
• What Is Modern Luxury? A great thought-provoking blog post from Sarai of Colette Patterns.

Finally, I have promised to mention that Lucky 7 Canteen on Glasgow's Bath Street is super-keen to host knitting groups. They'll keep lighting up and be very happy to serve delicious food/drinks to discerning knitters. Ask for Mel if your knitting group needs a new hang-out.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

I finished my Ravelympics project on Monday night, but had to wait until Wednesday morning to photograph the result. I'm rather happy with my first pair of socks: they are pretty, the pattern was fun to knit and the finished object has already been used as bed socks (it gets cold in old Victorian tenements). I am not sure I will ever be a confirmed sock knitter, but I will admit that socks do make for a nice portable project. And that having a pile of handknitted socks will be very useful for someone who is always cold. So there is that. I began my next project on Tuesday night - my Summer Tweed jumper from Rowan 47 - and the weather gods turned against me immediately. We have had snow the past couple of days. I am so tempted to cast on for a big, woolly jumper but I know I will cherish the Summer Tweed jumper in the months to come. Sometimes I am being too pragmatic for my own good.

Some random links from my "blogging" bookmark file:

+ Very, very, very pretty dustjackets for Jules Verne books. I doubt they will be put into production due to costs, but they are very charming and, dare I say it, toy with liminal aspects of paratextuality (that's my big, pretentious phrase of the week, then).

+ I met Ms Dirty Martini late last year here in Glasgow. She was affable, lovely and cheerful. I had no idea she was collaborating with Karl Lagerfeld (NSFW link). Six degrees of separation, my my.

+ Kathryn Grayson has passed away. She starred in some of my favourite Hollywood musicals - Anchors Aweigh and Show Boat. Here's a YouTube video of her with Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawson. Sniffle.

+ "Nobody Knows What the (BEEP) They Are Doing" - or how clever people feel like imposters and wonder why they are doing well. I wish I had seen this ages ago when I was a graduate student. The piece is admittedly a bit pop psychology-ish, but I found it an interesting read.

Monday Linkage

Just a quick little link dump today as I have managed to pull a muscle in my back/shoulder region which makes typing a tad uncomfortable.

• I bought Elephants On Acid & Other Bizarre Experiments as a Christmas present for a good friend of mine. I based my purchase entirely on this line from an Amazon review: "Personally, I feel that the first chapter is ill-placed as it's heavy on the animal decapitation and I think that might put some people off". Not that my friend is into animal decapitation, but he would find it interesting, if you know what I mean.
• Oh, stereotyping! Stereotyping People By Their Favourite Indie Bands and Stereotyping People By Their Favourite Author try to pigeon-hole people (in a humorous way, it should be said). So I'm a gay man living in Brooklyn who likes wearing hunter green (or I'm everyone).
• The Hype Machine has collated data on the fifty bands/artists most frequently blogged about in 2009. It's not that interesting, except the list is accompanied by stunning artwork commissioned especially for this list. My favourite is Jamie McKelvie's artwork for the La Roux entry. McKelvie's one of the creative brains behind the wonderful Phonogram comics which I strongly recommend if you are an ageing Britpop relic like myself.
• The Geeky Tattoos Blog is showcasing a knitting tattoo (for knitting is geeky, apparently). The entire blog is worth a browse, although I'm slightly scared by the amount of bad anime tats I see. Thanks, Z. for sending me the link.
• And, finally, I'm halfway in love with this dress though I struggle to explain why.

Swings & Roundabouts

Maybe it is the festive season, maybe it is the constant news coverage of the climate conference, but I am homesick. I have lived in Glasgow well over three years now and I have settled reasonably well, but even so this is Not Quite Home. I miss my Danish friends. I miss meeting up with them for coffee and croissant. I miss the easy chatter which comes with fifteen years (and then some) of friendship. I miss getting on my bike and making my way home together with thousands of other cyclists. I miss the recycling system, my favourite cinema and buying proper pastries. I miss the cobbled streets, the public fountains, the neon signs and watching the New Year's fireworks displays.

Thank heavens I'm off to Denmark soon. That usually cures any amount of homesickness. And I am not fooling myself, anyway. If I were to return to Denmark, I would miss Scotland. I would miss having easy access to any book I wanted, the BBC, dramatic landscapes, the easy-going attitude, my lovely neighbourhood and a certain sense of freedom. Swings and roundabouts, dear reader, swings and roundabouts.

Yesterday we went craft fair hopping. First, we visited the Glasgow Craft Fair Mafia at Mono, then we headed back to our own neighbourhood where The De Courcy Arcade has undergone a facelift and a slew of new quirky boutiques have opened showcasing handmade gifts and vintage fashion. It felt like I spent the entire afternoon living in Etsy-land: little owls, ironic embroidery and felted flowers ..

.. and I realised I wasn't enchanted. I can partly blame the old "I could make that myself" attitude and partly that I am a crafter myself and know what well-finished items should look like. The stern Scandinavian in me was particularly blind to the virtues of an ironic embroidered portrait of Dolly Parton or Burt Reynolds.  I fear I am too old to be a irony-embracing hipster or maybe I have just started living by William Morris' creed: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful".

I'm homesick and I'm grumpy.