There's no snow on the ground, but here's Snowdancer anyway

Knee-deep, dancing in the snow (except there's no snow out there)

I'm quite late in submitting my testknit of Snowdancer, but I'm finally done! I had a couple of false starts, using a different yarn, which turned out to be much too transparent for my liking; changing the pattern to include picot edging (to go with the scallop pattern, of course); etc.; none of which really panned out. So in the end, I pretty much followed the pattern, with a couple of mods:

1. Because of differences in gauge, I CO one size larger, as well as adding a couple of increase rows to the raglan shaping.
2. I lengthened the entire thing into a dress and changed the position where I started the chart, postponing it to the very bottom, right before the "ribbing". I also added four sets of body increases, but I'm wondering whether I should have done that at all at this point or kept it slimmer. Oh well. It's also a bit longer than I planned, but I really don't want to have to rip back a fourth or fifth time, whichever iteration of this garment it would be!
3. Instead of ribbing, I ended up doing a 1x1 faux stranded ribbing, ending everything with an attached i-cord edging to prevent the hems from flipping.
4. Changed up the sleeves by cutting them short at half sleeves, as well as changing up the part where we switch colours.

I haven't blocked the i-cord edging for the bottom hem yet, so the sleeve is the best detail I've got.

I have a couple of misgivings about the length of it, like I mentioned above, as well as the edging that I chose, but honestly, I wanted it done. I've ripped it out enough times - the cone yarn withstood all of it so well that I'm actually quite surprised! Both yarns are singles, too! - that I really just don't want to have to tinker with it anymore. (I suppose that's what I get for tinkering with the pattern to begin with...) And the end product is definitely wearable, not to mention really light and warm (and surprisingly comfortable in that it's not itchy), so I think I can stop.

It's really a great pattern to build off of, for making a basic sweater, complete with really simple colourwork for those of us who are terrified of the idea of doing huge swathes of stranded knitting! I would definitely make this again, though probably just stick to the pattern and make a basic sweater next time.

All You Need is Love

I highly doubt I'm going to finish another book by tomorrow, so here's February's list of reads (and the one movie).

1. Mafia Prince by Phil Leonetti, Scott Burnstein, and Christopher Graziano
• While in the beginning there is a lot of trying to build up a certain type of mood (emphasizing stuff like this being a book about murder, disillusionment, and finally redemption, which isn't wrong) that was pretty off-putting to me personally - it made me feel as though if this is what the book is making itself out to be, then I already know where this is going, and it does kind of just follow that formula - I enjoyed the increasingly larger chunks of text written by Leonetti himself as I made my way through the book. It also highlights what appears to be a stark difference to how the Sicilian mafia was described in Cosa Nostra, for example the talkativeness (though that might be because Phil Leonetti was a trusted member), though the Nick Scarfo described at the beginning did resemble (or at least appeared to aspire to) descriptions of the (myth of the) Sicilian mafia.
• Also, there was this kind of narrative of Leonetti being instrumental in bringing down the American mafia, and I'm wondering if the American mafia is actually at this point decimated beyond reconstruction, or if it's simply a matter of restructuring going on. In addition to which, if it has been destroyed, it would be interesting to know whether they left a gaping hole in terms of business opportunity that other groups have since filled in, or if it was taken over completely by another organization. How has this damage against the American mafia affected the Sicilian mafia, if at all, at this point?
• Lots of mistakes in the text though as far as writing goes (e.g. then instead of than, site instead of sight, words missing from sentences, etc.), and there's a lot of repetition. I'm glad for some of it, because I didn't keep all the details in mind as I was going through the book, but a couple of passages sounded like they were copy-pasted, then paraphrased from chapter to chapter.
2. Snow White: A Graphic Novel by Matt Phelan
• A modern interpretation of Snow White, with seven little boy dwarfs who refuse to give up their names until tragedy had already befallen Snow and should thus already have been too late to undo their reticence. But when she wakes up, she does know them - "Linus" - and the detective that rescued her with a kiss weds her and rescues her from her stepmother (or perhaps not, because the stepmother appears to have died when the electricity went through and put the lights on at the theater house) and an uncertain life all alone. The illustrations were quite nice, and I enjoyed the pace and the drama. In general, I prefer Snow White (and other fairy tales) adaptations that riff off the idea and continue to run with it, changing the story to suit their own purposes, but this retelling, set in the 20s, was quite well done.
3. As Red as Blood by Salla Simukka
• This was surprisingly good! And I say surprisingly because I'm not usually one for novels aimed at young adults/teens. While there was a smattering of the self-conscious trying to be mysterious description that I don't like at all about YA novels throughout, in reference both to what it was Lumikki was running away from and to her past relationship, the plot and the writing helped make this a pleasant read. I wanted to know what would happen, how Lumikki was going to get involved and what she would do. By the end of the book, we still have no idea who the ex-lover was and what happened, exactly, and there's a lot that's left unanswered: why twins for Polar Bear? why are they Polar Bear? did Lumikki used to have a sibling? So I'm hoping for a sequel.
• Maybe try more YA in the future.
4. I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis & Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Gillian Newland
• When my coworker mentioned this book as one of the many diversity books talked about in a panel at OLA, and even when I saw the cover, my first thought was that it was about concentration camps. This is a very powerful story, aided by equally strong illustrations, and we need more of these stories told by people who experienced them, aimed both at children in particular and all ages in general. While Irene and her brothers were able to escape the residential schooling system after their parents stood up to the officer, I think the reader is confronted with the image of all the other children that did have to return to the schools. The interaction in the canteen with Irene and the hungry girl across from her forces us to consider the entire system rather than focus only on Irene's story.
• It's also difficult to find books that feature First Nations characters as protagonists doing regular, everyday things (the same issue applies to black characters, where a lot of books featuring black characters talk about civil rights, slavery, the Underground Railroad), which is a pity.
5. Workwear exhibition at the Harbourfront Centre
• Of all the exhibitions I've been to, this is probably the one I got most into: you can feel from the accompanying text in the guide describing each of the uniforms how much fun each of the artists and designers were having with these! They're whimsical, totally bizarre, and dream-like at every turn. Some look exactly like what they're meant to be, to an extent where you think that it can't possibly be that (e.g. "a dress for a carrot-picking girl", where there are literally fabric carrots already stuck in carrot-shaped pockets, on a dress), whereas others are completely inscrutable to me (that gentleman's club one? if anyone can explain that to me, I would greatly appreciate it). Some I can even see myself actually wearing (there was that one suit that was absolutely dreamy).
6. On Fishes, Horses, and Man exhibition at the Power Plant
• We ran out of time, so I could only see the film and not the rest of the exhibitions, but it was pretty intense: you watch as the men catch their fish (and I do mean their fish, as it seems to me), cradle them in place as they suffocate against their chests, thrashing. And then the scene repeats. The men look at the camera directly immediately before death occurs. And repeat. I haven't done any research into it, but I'm interested to know whether this is in any way related to that tribe mentioned in Wilcox's Venomous that stays with the prey that they shoot down using a slow-acting venom, crying when their prey cries, dying with them in spirit if not in body. Then there's also the issue of whether these acts of what appear to be compassion, the tenderness they proffer the fish, might be unwanted kindness - for all we know, their actions put more stress on the fish dying in their arms.
7. Chi-Raq (2015)
• There are times when the rhyming gets a bit forced, and to be honest, I'm not too sure what to think of the sex battle (what are the rules? how were they going to determine who wins? what does it say of Lysistrata that she participates?), or why Cyclops was given a much shallower character than Demetrius, but on the whole, I enjoyed it. After about halfway into the movie I started wondering how long it was and when it was going to end, but I think that's to do more with the interruptions (is it the chorus, comprised of one person?).
• I do think that that the propagation of the myth of the chivalrous or honourable gangster, though integral to the plot (because otherwise there wouldn't have been much to guilt Demetrius into confessing that hadn't already been done), is slightly problematic, if only because, in the end, it's a myth. Just like the myth of the honourable mafia. Some individuals may have held that standard to themselves, but most likely it was never the whole truth of the matter. That being said, I realize that it was used to ultimately condemn the thug life, so perhaps the message is more that if you're going to want to be in that life because of this story that gets told, that it's full of honourable gangsters, then you better live up to it even when things go awry - better yet, realize that it's not what it's hyped up to be and put your efforts towards more fulfilling aspirations.
• There's also the insertion of Oedipus, which I'm not sure occurs in the original Aristophanes since I haven't read Lysistrata just yet, who although I get the feeling is there for comedic relief - because hey audience! Oedipus loves his mother and she loves him back, wink wink nudge nudge! - also highlights the inexorable hand of (the) Fate(s).
• I'm not too sure why Lysistrata is given the powerful female role of leading the strike and rising up to the occasion to become such a large figure who commands so much respect from all those around her, yet is not allowed the ability to help Demetrius directly. I suppose it's because he has to come to terms on his own with what he has done, be consumed by his guilt, rather than do it for the sake of someone else, though. Like I said, I haven't read the play.
8. The Merry Widow (Toronto City Opera)
• I definitely needed the surtitles, even though it was all in English. They had some technical difficulties with the projector during the second act, which led to the complete disappearance of the surtitles (along with some visible mishaps), but all in all, it went smoothly enough. This is my first opera, so I wasn't too sure what to expect, or what makes a good opera, but just a couple of things that I noticed:
• The range of variation in technique was quite broad, I think. I'm not sure if voices are generally supposed to be clear and resound, or if there's no such standard, but it did bother me when I couldn't make out words because of the voice + word combo that made it hard to tell what was being sung, as well as when the singing was too quiet. There were a couple of times where the lead woman overpowered the rest of the group when singing together, and I'm not sure if this is because she has a more powerful voice, or if it's because she was supposed to do so (perhaps a mix of both).
• The troupe is not auditioned, and accepts all interested parties, so the range is perfectly understandable though.
• I couldn't really get into the plot. I get the feeling it would've been a different story had I gone to see Carmen instead. Or perhaps not. The characters weren't very lovable, nor very relatable. Perhaps it's the nature of opera that they were caricatures? I'm not sure - I'd have to see more operas to know.
• Edited: I did enjoy the contemporary references (e.g. "you're sounding a lot like a mutual fund", "that's fake news!").
9. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Hidden Figures reads almost like a novel, and Shetterly's style is easy to follow. She delivers the events with lively prose, bringing each of the personages to life by fleshing out the details of their lives, not just focusing on their contributions to science and technology or social change, but giving the reader information about their children as well as how technological advances (e.g. the USSR launching Sputnik before the USA could launch anything into space) affected their social lives. She leads you through the involvement of black women at Langley during the war, through to their contributions towards launching astronauts into space.
• It's pretty amazing how the work of so many black women could be completely tucked away and forgotten about - or if not forgotten, then simply not remembered (which seems to be not too different in this case from a willed forgetting), and I'm very glad that Shetterly has written this book, and in such an accessible format. However, I feel as though there's a lot more information that was got during research for writing this that didn't make the cut, and Shetterly addresses this in the epilogue as well. I suppose that simply means she's passing the torch to other writers to bring to light more of the achievements of black people, and/or black women in particular. At a quick glance, it appears that the issue of not being written into history is not just within the black community, so much as within any community outside of the white one, or at least insofar as Western, or perhaps (North) American history is concerned.
• Just a couple of notes:
• Katherine Goble-turned-Johnson's marriage proposal being more enticing than her being allowed to attend those editorial meetings: was it actually more enticing, or was it written this way more for story aspect of the book? This line of questioning makes me question how much of the reconstruction of some of the personal life details were recorded directly from the people themselves, but I'm probably being a little too wary here.
• Those FORTRAN punch cards sound a lot like jacquard looms! Exciting stuff.

Currently reading:

1. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
• I'm reading this on recommendation, and it's actually really good! I'm trying to get into the YA scene a little bit so that at the very least I'll have a couple of titles to recommend as reader's advisory if I'm even asked. This was also on one of LitHub's lists (15 Books by Contemporary Mexican Writers that Make America Greater), so I decided to give it a go.
• Sáenz captures the confusion of the teenage years in terms of navigating social situations and relationships with people quite well, I think, while also putting a focus on being Mexican-American in America (all the more relevant now) when negotiating Aristotle & Dante's identities.

The Sicilian Mafia & Human Cadavers

Then add in the yakuza, except not really because see below. I didn't really see the connection till after I put everything down in a list like this. Huh.

1. Moonlight (2016)
• One of the things I especially enjoyed here was that although I went in thinking it was going to discuss blackness in Miami, which it did, it did in a way where being black was not the focus: it was part of the setting and accepted as such, so that we could then focus on Chiron coming to terms with his sexuality and figuring out how to live in the world.
2. Tales from Earthsea (2006)
• I wasn't particularly impressed with this one: they virtually hit you over the head with the message of "life is precious, all the more so that it's fleeting" as well as the other one being "this is what happens when you try to play God and cheat death", and it was awfully convenient that Tehru happened to be a dragon; deus ex machina has never been something I've been a great fan of. Also, a lot of things don't get explained, which I'm sure has something to do with the fact that this movie tried to compile several novels of a series: we never do find out why Arren killed his father, why are there 5 hawks at the end if the 1 hawk Tehru sings about represents Haitaka? (so there's Haitaka, Arren, Tehru, and Tenar, right? Unless the hawk is also just the hawk instead of a stand-in for Haitaka to begin with? Maybe I'm just thinking too much here), and the first scene where the King tells his wizard to find out the cause of the fever, though we don't actually ever see any manifestation of the fever itself across the land, in addition to which we never see the court ever again; also, Arren tells Tehru he's going to go back and atone, but immediately after that, we see a scene where they're all tilling the land together, so is he putting it off? (I mean, he's been gone all that while, so maybe it doesn't even matter anymore? His kingdom might actually just be a mess because he killed the figurehead and then ran off? Also assuming he's the crown prince, then the kingdom also lost its immediate successor? Uggggghhhhhhh)... and that's just to name a couple of things. While I haven't read the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin, I'm almost positive this film adaptation does not do the series justice.
3. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
• I was forewarned multiple times that I would either a)cry, or, barring that, b)be ripped apart into two (or more) pieces by this movie. Grave of the Fireflies delivered: it would probably have been great to have watched the first screening on New Year's day, as bleak as it was. I was tempted at first to push blame onto the older brother for not swallowing his pride and staying with the aunt, but that's probably the wrong way to go about it. It's a portrayal of just some of the victims of the war, and while on the whole it condemns the war (because the entire movie), there aren't any particular individuals that you could single out as "the bad guy".
4. Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia by John Dickie
• This is a very well organized introduction into what the Sicilian mafia is, in terms of its structure, its history, its resilience, leading all the way up to 2006. I've been interested for a while in doing a bit of research into what exactly the differences are between the mafia, the yakuza, triads, cartels, and other such organizations or groups (including regular ol' gangs), so I figured it would probably be easiest to start with the mafia.
• Dickie provides a chapter by chapter bibliography so that the reader can go to his sources to read up more on each specific period in time, as well as outlining pretty well the timeline. He also makes sure that most, if not all, of the names mentioned do get referenced later on, giving short descriptions if too many pages have passed, which makes it a lot easier to follow along for the reader: it can get confusing when you have to keep a bunch of names in mind and remember who did what when, and Dickie has done a really good job keeping everything relatively straightforward. He is also at pains to make clear that some information may simply be lost to time, as key witnesses may either be dead or refuse to talk, and crucially, even when dealing with pentiti, and even if they are high up the system, it doesn't mean that they have a full grasp on the reasoning behind every event, or even that they would be willing to divulge everything.
• I'm not sure if there's a more up-to-date version of this book, or if there are other such books written by others about the history of the Sicilian mafia up to present day, though. I'm sure a lot has changed, if even just because Bernardo Provenzano died in 2016 (I remember seeing a snippet on CP24). In addition to which, for all the years he had been imprisoned, the mafia must have been running without his immediate direction.
• Now if only there were simple chronologies of every organized crime group, readily available from my public library...
5. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
• Roach makes the subject of human cadavers and the fascinating things that happen to them highly approachable for the average reader who may not have much interest in reading too much about the gory technicalities of death. While there were times when I found that Roach's snarky comments were a bit overkill, I enjoyed it for the most part, and it was only towards the end that I started to get a bit tired of it; for the most part though, I did enjoy her tangents in the footnotes. Overall, a great gateway into the world of the (human) dead (though she does also provide information about animals whenever relevant, which is quite often) that I would recommend!
• I also, unexpectedly, got an answer to a question I've had floating around in my head for a while: how much can the human rib cage compress before something actually gets damaged? (Albeit not in quite as well-articulated or coherent a form as that. It went something more along the lines of "how hard can I hug someone before I break something, and can I actually even do it?") The answer, as it turns out, is 2 3/4" (p.88 if you're interested in reading more about that figure, though Roach doesn't much expand on it, the actual subject being the use of human cadavers in driving simulations and safety tests), which I think I can safely assume is outside of my own physical ability to compress a fully grown human's rib cage: in other words, I can hug people with full abandon and not worry too much.
6. Yakuza Moon by Shoko Tendo
• I was more looking for something that would discuss the yakuza, but since there's a dearth of that at my local library, I had to settle for this memoir, which might have had an impact on my impressions (although I knew going in that it wasn't going to be what I was looking for, exactly).
• The writing, which Tendo from the start acknowledges as being of poor quality, is I think supposed to strike a cord with the reader in terms of authenticity, and while I have no doubt of the truth behind her account of her life, the issue is more that I couldn't get into it. Tendo's depiction of her life is rather dry and shallow, describing everything quite simply and without describing too much the emotions - only touching on them, really - that came with what was happening. There was also no buildup whatsoever to her decision to get tattooed, or to any of her other decisions: perhaps this matches well with her portrayal of herself as someone who did what she wanted, but this was supposed to be a momentous event for her, was it not? Everything that occurs presents more as a list of events rather than a fully fledged narrative, and I'm of the opinion it doesn't quite work in Tendo's favour in this case.
• The book also ends before her child is born, which I found a bit odd considering that she mentions her child in the introduction and Tendo mentions her miscarriage and abortion. I suppose it makes sense if it's because that information might jeopardize her privacy and her current life, but it was a rather unexpected cutoff point.
7. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
• To an extent, I cannot but feel that Morrison is simply pointing out the obvious, but at the same time, I realize that I'm coming at this from a position of having had the issue of othering presented to me throughout my education (to some degree). That being said, it's not as though I noticed the role played by black characters in whatever I read, so sometimes, it does take someone stating the obvious to make the connection clear.
• Without black characters and the general concept of "blackness" to provide a backdrop against which to produce a definition of "whiteness", I wonder what that notion might have become? Of course, as Morrison states, it would be an impossible feat for the masters in the master-slave equation to not be affected by their dominance over the black slaves in terms of their own understanding of their identity. If society or literature could really truly be free of racial interpretation and influence, there would from the outset have been no issue in trying to define "whiteness" or "blackness", because none of that would matter at all - that being the way things would stand in an unracialized state of affairs.
• One quote I wanted to keep on me: "Expensively kept, economically unsound, a spurious and useless political asset in election campaigns, racism is as healthy today as it was during the Enlightenment" (p.63)
• In relation to Cosa Nostra (above) though, there was a line in Cosa Nostra, I think spoken by the pope at the time on the topic of the Sicilian mafia, that it does no good to simply try to remove the mafia with an "anti-mafia" campaign; unless the issue that allowed and continues to allow the mafia to prosper is fixed, either the mafia will rise once more from the ashes, or something else will take their place. In similar fashion (and another example would be in the case of defining mental health: sometimes it's easier to define it by negatives, in terms of what it is not rather than what it is), in an unescapably racialized literature, if "whiteness" could only be founded on the juxtaposition against what it is not, i.e. blackness, then where does that leave the concept of whiteness?
8. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
• I keep thinking this author's name is Wollebaum (because cotton is baumwolle).
• It's absolutely incredible all the different things trees do that I had never really even considered in full (though at the same time never rejected outright - the issue is more that I never truly thought about trees all that much at all)! They have social networks, are able to communicate through the air and underground (oh dear, giraffe alert! Giraffe alert! Put out your poisons!), have different personalities (do I keep my leaves since it's a pretty warm fall, or should I jettison them - better safe than sorry!), raise their young under their own shady authority (wait a couple hundred more years before you even think about surpassing me, you young stripling!), and self-regulate (no surprise) way better than all our efforts to regulate them.
• While every chapter was charming in its own way, and each of the following chapters helped reinforce whatever was said before, every aspect introduced was dealt with in pretty quick succession: in about 6-7 pages, the immediate topic would be done and Wohlleben would move onto the next related topic. For the purposes of this book and the flow, it worked out pretty well, although I would also have appreciated a more in-depth coverage of some topics (e.g. re: the red wood ant and other non-native species in the context of how they affect the trees). As an appetizer, The Hidden Life of Trees serves to whet your appetite for more, and as increasing awareness of trees is the aim of the book, I would say that Wohlleben has done a great job in making this information lighthearted (e.g. Spruce & Co.) and accessible.
9. The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
• Harding tried a bit too hard here (or perhaps not quite hard enough) to go off on related but also ridiculous and tenuous tangents, which were the point, of course (and to simply ignore them sometimes and live in the moment to face up to what exactly it is you want to do), but at the same time, the idea could have been carried out in a much smoother way. As it is, the thoughts seem forced to meander off rather than naturally doing so of their own accord - as thoughts do - because of all the helping words that guide the reading, along the lines of (and these are not direct quotes): "and this of course led him to think about this other thing", or "but this is related to this, and this new thought so gripped him he could not but continue down that path". You get the sense of it. Too much hand-holding and too little actual stream of consciousness going on.
• OH. There were also some really nonchalant stereotyping types of thoughts dropped by Henry Quantum, which I will not equate with that of the author because that way lies madness and simply wouldn't be fair on Harding, but the fact that these thought tangents led around in such a shallow manner, and in such a way, turned me quite against the novel as a whole. The casual racism simply doesn't work towards anything in this novel: it doesn't further character development, it doesn't further plot, nothing. In addition to which the stigmatization of mental illness made another huge dent in my impression of the novel.
• As for the plot itself... it's nonexistent at best? Boring in all honesty. (And possibly offensive at worst.) If you're reading this novel, I'd say you're probably going to be reading it for the supposed quirkiness of Henry Quantum - and I say quirkiness only because the tangents are so forced, whereas if they were handled better and presented more naturally, it would probably be much more captivating in the sense that the reader would be able to identify more fully with Henry as a fully fledged character - but my comments on that are as above. To sum up: it was a good try, but it had so much more potential. Most likely a better plot coupled with more natural liaising of thought digressions would lead to a better novel; then again, it might just be something completely different rather than another version of this one, so make of that what you will.
10. On the Dot: The Speck that Changed the World by Alexander Humez & Nicholas Humez
• Harding, this is how it's done (see above on The Heart of Henry Quantum). The somewhat unfortunate thing is that Humez & Humez were not attempting a tangential novel (to my knowledge).
• Tangents upon digressions upon tangents upon digressions. Of course, this means that about a third of the book - possibly more - does not actually discuss the dot in all its manifestations within the realm of writing. The authors have no qualm going off on tenuously related topics before returning (if at all returning) to the written dot. If you're looking for an in-depth history of all the uses of the dot in written form, this is probably not going to be your jam: there is simply too much meandering around the subject for this to be that sort of book. It almost reads more as a stream of consciousness, only so very loosely guided by the chapter headings that I'm seeing it as a more well wrought version of what I'm sure Harding (above) was trying to do. The style of writing is incredibly informal, and if you step away from your expectations of what you wanted from the book and enjoy it as a conversation of sorts, then it will most likely be time well spent. Never mind that another third of the book contains the endnotes, appendix, and whatever else, or that the book itself is only 256 pages. I'm sure a lot more dry fact could have been imparted upon the reader about the history of the dot and how it has changed in use and in appearance throughout the ages of written communication, but I'm of the opinion that was probably not the Humez's goal here; rather, it appears to me they sought to delight the reader in unrelated topics they otherwise would not have connected to the dot at all, all the while touching gently upon the actual proposed topic of the dot.
• However. All the above praise can't change the fact that I could have gotten a much more in-depth history of the dot with the same research that the authors must have done. I can only hope that such a thing exists, i.e. a comprehensive history of the dot as it exists in writing.
11. The Miner by Natsume Soseki
• I want to say I enjoyed it and couldn't help turning the pages, because I really liked several of Soseki's other works (Kokoro, Wagahai wa Neko de Aru, among others), but - and my saying this actually proves a point to a degree, I think, about this - I didn't like it as a novel. Even as a stream of consciousness, the narrator appeared to be trying too hard to analyze himself and his motivations, giving off the impression with some of his writing that he wants to impress the reader with his philosophical conclusions re: the fluidity of identity, certain feelings, etc. It's not so much that I disagree with the fluidity of identity, though the narrator's stance is more that there is no such thing as a personality at all, it's the way in which he tries to convey that, imitating an academic tone of writing (perhaps he has some parts of his upbringing so ingrained he cannot possibly escape from it, no matter that he is so unattached and such a blank page as far as a character goes). However, as an experimental piece of writing, I can appreciate it: the foreshadowing when the narrator notes that he did not yet know he was sick led up to rather an anticlimax when he receives his diagnosis of bronchitis, though it did undo the positive influence of Yasu on his view of the world; there is no plot in particular - you just follow the narrator through his writing, not even his actual thoughts as they occurred to him at the time, rather a reflection upon what must have been his thoughts and motivations; the narrator's self-conscious reflections made in an attempt to make himself appear in a certain light (a degenerate, perhaps?); all of it works together, but I can see why it failed miserably - in the sense that it was reviewed negatively, pretty universally - in the format that it was originally published in.
• I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the Soseki novels I have, especially having read the introduction & afterword for The Miner. It'll be interesting to see how the other novels written before & after The Miner play out in relation to it, as far as the distinction between good and bad goes, if nothing else.
12. The Red Turtle (2015)
• Somehow I recognized the waves from the trailer as being a Studio Ghibli production, before this actually came out at TIFF (on now!).
• It's amazing what the producers have managed to create without using words! I know that the same was said of Shaun the Sheep, which I have yet to watch (and quite honestly will probably not be watching anytime in the near future), but in The Red Turtle, there's no overarching goal or conflict that needed to be resolved - I mean, there sort of is and there sort of isn't. I really like some of Ghibli's quicker paced goal-oriented movies (e.g. The Cat Returns, Howl's Moving Castle), but this definitely belongs in the category of the quiet and slow films I've come to love from them, which leave you with a bunch of questions afterwards: Why does the turtle want to keep him on the island? Is she the same turtle he picked up? (But then the timeline doesn't really work out.) Why does she turn into a human being? (Does that have anything to do with myths & folk tales that I imagine abound around the world concerning animals that become humans? e.g. selkies, tsuru no ongaeshi, and I'm sure there are more that I don't know about.) Is there any relation to creation stories related to turtles (e.g. Turtle Island)? Am I just thinking too much?
• All in all, this is a beautiful film with stunning animation and incredible accompanying music. Once it comes out on DVD, I would be more than happy to watch it again.

February (I just finished this, so I might as well include it here):

1. Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo Maclear
• Just into the intro and already want to dive in completely. It's also plain to me at this point that this book is even more an intersection between her picture book writing and her writing for adults, which works entirely in her favour for this highly segmented format.
• This is a short journey not so much into the world of birding as into Maclear's observations regarding art, life, and how to live. She does not hold your hand throughout, leading you instead to try to view the world through a different lens, from a different perspective, by paying attention to your surroundings, by noticing the birds around you. I'm reminded of the use of canaries in coal mines: they serve as a warning; they serve as a reminder; they are what we should pay attention to in the darkest of times, when appreciation of nature seems too luxurious a thing to waste time on.
• I'm not in love with this book - I don't hold it dear - but there are moments when I connected perfectly with what Maclear wrote, and those are the instances for which I would read the entire documentation of her year all over again.

2016 Roundup

The last book of 2016 (for real this time): Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

• You know exactly where this is going, but you finish it regardless. Some of the back and forth between times, between the people Anna was with, seemed a bit forced, as though it was for the sake of keeping form, but the constant switching between parts of Anna's world, and her evident inability to change, worked together very well to illustrate her downward spiral. Although she finally does take action, throwing away any chance at contact with her world - instead of simply pushing them out of her life - there is still a passiveness inherent in her accepting the inevitable conclusion, as though it were foregone and she were powerless to fight it even as she finally came to terms with herself. Forced to come to the realization of what she had been doing to herself, to others (though she cares considerably less about others, reflecting on them only insofar as they affect her and what she has done to them, less for their own sake), she finally does what her psychoanalyst tells her to do: she actively takes a step forward and interacts fully with the world around her for the first time.

A quick roundup in numbers:

• 84 books (includes picture books)
• Some of these I look back and get the feeling it's been at least a year or two since I've read them, surely! which can't bode well: I must have forgotten so much of them already that I cannot think of them as having been read in 2016.
• Unfortunately, there are a plethora of books I have been bringing home with me and not cracking open at all, which will hopefully change next year. (I doubt it, but one can dream.)
• 12 projects finished (1 weaving)
• I knitted my very first hat and finally started & finished weaving the first scarf of my recipes weaving project, which has since come to a standstill.
• A bunch of stashbusting projects took place, which is always cause for celebration: my hot pink chevron bomber (still terrified it'll come off on my other clothing, so it's not being worn as much as I'd like...), Free Spirit shawl, Hitofude (love it! The yarn, the pattern, everything!), first stab at socks for myself in a while, underwear (top), more underwear (bottoms), mokoshi (I never thought I'd be one for a peplum, but it's flattering and I like it), Silvertweed test, and the aforementioned hat.
• Lots of projects I started & didn't finish:
• Scarlet Billows
• To be fair, I actually *knit, frogged* a number of times before doing a final ripping out and putting it away for now.
• Burgundy Cardigan
• Actually got past the armholes before frogging completely, and before getting to the body, I had probably knit the raglans 4 or 5 times, unsatisfactorily.
• Llama Llama
• I'm probably going to rip this out. It's tried to be a shawl and it's now trying to be a top, but I really have no clue what it wants to be.
• Vintage Lace Top
• I got as far as swatching and doing the ribbing for the back. I'm ready to throw in the towel: it's not a style I'd really actually wear, and now that I have the lace picture, I don't know if I even want to knit the entire thing...
• Existentialist Turtleneck
• I spun up all the Norwegian wool and it's all ready for knitting! That's the good part. I even swatched and everything. The only thing I haven't done is actually get to knitting it up.
• Burnt Brioche Dress
• This one's in the best shape out of all of them! I've had to rip it out (bottom-up) and re-start (a couple times because the cast-on looked too loose, then I didn't have enough stitches, then it was too tight - you get the idea), before having to knit the raglan "sleeves" twice because it just wasn't right the first time around (my calculations were off, so it was my own fault). Now all the shaping is done, I think, and I just have to decide where exactly I want the slit to start! Hurrah!
• As I mentioned above, lots of books I started (or purchased, or borrowed) but didn't finish. I don't even know exactly when I brought which books back, but for sure a couple of math books, along with some books about God (I'm assuming history of Christianity), and Boris Vian's L'Écume des Jours in French that I tried to read but gave up on because my vocabulary is simply not at that level.

In sum, I think I did alright with my reading, which could expand a bit in terms of reading material, could have done better with my knitting (there was a duration of time where I was simply not knitting much at all), definitely need to be doing better with my weaving, and it looks as though I have a lot of issues with finishing things in general. Something to work on this year.

In the Spirit of the Holiday Season

Finally finished Camus' Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays (my holiday reading - very festive).  Unfortunately, this is going to be super short, and not fully satisfying as far as a review might go, in large part because I was reading this and The Rebel alongside one another for a while, and even when I started focusing on this particular collection of essays, it was during 15-minute breaks; as a result, I can't comment as well as I'd like.

• I cannot but be struck by how incredibly naive Camus seems to me. Perhaps naive is not the right word: in the interview towards the end, the interviewer says of him that throughout his work he demonstrates "not optimism but a sort of confidence. Confidence in the spirit rather than in man, in nature rather than in the universe, in action rather than in its results" (246). I suppose that's a nice way of summing up the feeling you get reading his essays: it's an unrelenting optimism. It's not as if he believes humans are inherently good - in fact he states outright otherwise in his essay against the death penalty - but rather there seems to be an unfailing faith that people will be moved (by his words, by his writing?) to act in a humane way (but who is the judge of that?). It almost makes me sad for him, in the sense that I'd like to throw a punch in his direction if it would wake him up, because wouldn't it be swell if it were true? Except if it were true, and people would be moved to action - the action he urges - with his words, there would have been no need for him to speak out as he did to begin with.
• In the essay Create Dangerously, Camus writes, "wisdom has never declined so much as when it involved no risks and belonged exclusively to a few humanists buried in libraries. But today when at last it has to face real dangers, there is a chance that it may again stand up and be respected" (271). Which is to say that, if peace, understanding, and all-encompassing empathy actually abounded as Camus seems to want them to, wisdom would actually likely be in serious jeopardy: it is only in times of need, in times of risk, that truly important realizations come about. Or is it simply that previously attained wisdom living in the libraries cease to be understood by those living in times of peace and safety because they were written under more turbulent conditions (i.e. they are no longer relevant)? Or is it perhaps that the wisdom that has been passed on in books through generations will deteriorate under prolonged periods without risk, without a role in rebellion, in revolution? (Which, I suppose, is how history would repeat itself, since previous knowledge and hard-earned teachings become lost, because they are rendered beyond understanding by those who have not lived it.)
• On the whole, there were essays I enjoyed (the one on the death penalty, Create Dangerously, among a couple others, I think), but I'm pretty on the fence. That being said, I'd still say these essays are pretty timeless and are well worth a read.

Decembereads

I'm pretty certain I won't be completing any more books in between now and the end of December, so here we are. (Though I'm really hoping to catch Moonlight before it leaves theatres possibly this Thursday!) I slacked off a lot as we go down the list in terms of meaningful comments, I'm afraid - I'll blame it on the festivities and it being the end of the year.

1. Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
• I'm sure I've sung more than enough praises for Arsenault, but hear me out at least once more: this graphic novel is absolutely beautifully illustrated, and the choices of the monotone and colour pages in contrast to one another to delineate the differences between what Hélène sees as the reality and the other as her fantasy world (of Jane Eyre), with the fox bridging both, was nothing short of lovely.
• It's never revealed why exactly Hélène was ostracized by her Geneviève & co., and it really doesn't matter; I think the real beauty of the story actually lies in a lot of the vagueness that isn't addressed until towards the end: does Hélène actually weigh 216? Does she actually smell like BO? Is the fox real, or part of her imagination? Does the fox have rabies? This is further thrown into question by the illustrations, which show Hélène as being not too different at all from the rest of the class - as ostracization can be highly arbitrary - and the use of colour all throughout: the fox comes into her world in colour, acting as a bridge between the two worlds. Suzanne scaring away the fox in order to help Hélène could be a reminder that although the fantasy world may be alluring, it can also be quite dangerous, whether the danger is perceived (as is the truth of the cruel remarks) or real (if the fox was actually rabid).
• While I doubt Jane, the Fox, and Me would actually be of much consolation to anyone being bullied, relying on a hero character as it does in the form of Géraldine, who unites all the outcasts and makes friends with Hélène after she speaks out against the bullying, it is a touching look at the world of the bullied in a way that addresses the victimization as well as views Hélène not only as a bullying victim, but also as someone with her own life that is affected in various ways by the bullying, not least of all in her perception of herself.
• See also this Brain Pickings article about Tim Ferriss on blowing things out of proportion & suicidal depression.
2. Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2016)
• I wasn't mindblown, but I enjoyed watching it quite a bit! I love that each of the beasts also has a personality of its own, and there's the interactions between the characters too that was quite lovely. On the other hand, Macusa seemed to exist almost solely for the purpose of being shown up by Newt. Unless it was just me? I wish there was a bit more on their part so that we could actually have a bit of a struggle as to the ambiguity of situations and the right and wrong things to do in any given situation, if there is such a thing at all. You do get that with Credence - by the way, does that little wisp blowing off mean that he's still alive? - but Macusa was too much of a straw man.
• Jacob & Queenie are adorable and should be together forever. Does that little bit at the end mean he remembers? Does he remember, or is it the start of something new that's also a rekindling? Would it ever work if he didn't remember? Arrrggghhh!!!
3. How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell
• It all seems pretty Daoist, in the sense of things are constantly undergoing change and in the way in which Montaigne wrote as uninhibitedly as he could, going with the flow of things as they were - and it served him pretty well, too! Facing problems as they arose and not putting his guard up against other people probably helped him all throughout his life. There's also the way in which Montaigne & his Essays have been interpreted and re-interpreted according to the reader, the interpretation affected by the times. Of course, we all do this to whatever we read (and experience), taking what we want from each of them and interpreting them as we will, but it seems to fit especially well with Montaigne in that his Essays were his take on whatever he was writing about for each essay, even if they took him in completely different directions from what he appears to set out to discuss. Even this book itself is another reinterpretation of Montaigne, as Bakewell sets out to present Montaigne & his Essays to us, the reader, in a certain light.
• Bakewell is as engaging as in At The Existentialist Café, and provides background information on Montaigne's personal life and his times along with his contemporaries and the ways in which he either influenced them or they him, which goes a long way in helping the reader develop a more fleshed out understanding of Montaigne and his essays. Bakewell also covers Montaigne after his death, as his Essays are an entity unto themselves, preserving Montaigne after death but also existing independently of him, allowing him to continue changing perspectives (through others' reading of him) as he did in life.
4. The Eagle Huntress (2016)
• There were so many moments of me being super excited for Aisholpan throughout this entire documentary! I'm sure a lot of the more frustrating parts were cut out, though: the training parts were pretty bare bones in that they showed Aisholpan's father teaching her how to train her eaglet, but of course it would have been incredibly repetitive if they had shown the entire process; there was also the hunt, which, according to this Guardian article, actually took 22 days to complete. Throughout the entire film, Aisholpan expressed zero impatience and frustration, which I think is really the only thing stopping me from loving this film 100%, because it almost seemed a bit too smooth-sailing. Which is actually great, that she didn't run into more overt criticism apart from that one man saying to her father that she could just stay at home and relax, during the lunch break of the eagle hunting festival. (Love her reaction to it when he said that though! That slightly incredulous look on her face was priceless.)
• Beyond being a female empowerment film, the relationship between Aisholpan and her family and friends was also very tender and loving. Her parents' open-mindedness and support were probably some of the biggest factors in her success, beyond her own personal efforts. To sum up: great film, produced many warm fuzzy feelings, and I would recommend watching it if even just for the beautiful visuals!
5. Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox
• So I was on the verge of giving this book a 4/5 rating, but I can't help but feel as though it could have been even better than it is, so it got bumped down. It's something I can't really put a finger on, but if I had to say, I'd say that although Wilcox does a pretty marvelous job detailing what part of which venom is doing what to which part of which of our systems, there's a part of me that wants even more detailed information, covering a wider range of creatures in more detail. How different venoms are delivered by different creatures and why those differences matter (evolutionarily, personally now), more about that blue-ringed octopus! While I respect the nature of the book being a pretty slim and easy read serving as an introduction to venomous creatures, I suppose I'm looking for a slightly more adventurous introduction that actually delves into the subject. The way I see it, if I'm going to pick up this book and invest that time anyway to learning about venomous creatures, beyond a well-written and engaging style complete with anecdotes, of which Wilcox provides throughout, I want to learn more about the technical bits. That being said, it's more of this being not the perfect fit for my personality in terms of how much information I got out of this, but I would still recommend this to anyone who knows precious little about venoms - Wilcox covers the difference between poisons & venoms early on, and does a good job defining terms throughout the book - and is interested in learning more about them.
• Not that I would actually remember all of the different components and what purposes they serve, but it would be good kind of knowing more while reading so that you could make more connections throughout.
• Wilcox does the job pretty well for what I'm pretty sure this book was meant to do and the audience it was meant to serve, so on that account, it's definitely worth a read!
• Ironically, this kind of writing & depth would have been what I wanted from something like Octopus, except devoted entirely to octopuses, but of course, that covers a slightly more specific area than Venomous.
• I really love that Wilcox references Isbell's theory that she posits in The Fruit, The Tree, and The Serpent, which, unfortunately, I only made through about halfway. I will likely pick the book up again in the future, but now is not that time. But it's always nice to see books & people you've read or know about being referenced in other books or articles or whatever else you're reading.
• There is the issue of small graphics, though. The table was fine, but the graphics were pretty tiny, and it seems like the quality of the illustrations (not so much the photos) was compromised in trying to fit them in. As such, I pretty much skipped over them.
6. L'Avenir/Things to Come (2016)
• Something along the lines of "I've divorced my husband, I've lost my kids, my mother is dead: I'm finally free - it's amazing", although she totally wasn't freed of everything just then! Then there's Fabien, who tells her that she's not entirely sincere in her beliefs, in that she won't change her way of living to suit those beliefs. There was a good deal of me wondering if Nathalie was going to end up with Fabien, although I knew from the beginning it wasn't going to be like that (something about French films). And although I found a lot of the things that happened quite strange - the teacher/past student relationship being nothing like what I know of teacher/past student relationships here; getting sexually harassed in a movie theater then followed on her way home & kissed while pressed against a wall, only to gently push him aside and tell him to leave her alone - I'm assuming they're more cultural differences than anything? I can't actually be sure though.
• The lullaby Nathalie sings at the end to the baby was a good rounding up of her feelings and finally facing up to them honestly, I think. A lot of other things were kind of left in the air, e.g. why was Chloé crying? But it works with this film, for the most part. The ending, though it does bring everything to a close, was a little unsatisfactory because so incredibly open-ended, but a couple of other French films I've watched seem to also follow the pattern, so.
7. Stray Love by Kyo Maclear
• I usually don't read the reviews on Goodreads too much after I've finished a book, but I couldn't help but want to see what other people said about this novel, in part because although I think it's wonderfully written and engaging, and Maclear jumps between the timelines quite well, weaving it all into one coherent story, I don't love this novel. And after I read some of the comments about inaccuracies stemming from lack of research or understanding, I kind of understand why (or at least a part of why): I never got the feeling that Marcel was British. Nor Oliver. There was a part where Oliver and Joseph are chatting and Marcel notices how Oliver parodies his own Britishness, but you never really see that throughout the novel - there's nothing noticeably British about either of them, and if you weren't told, you'd never know. So now I'm left wondering why Maclear chose to set this in the background of England (even if a good chunk of the story does not take place there). My own knowledge of history is, sadly, lacking, but I'm pretty sure the issues Maclear tries to tackle with Marcel being bullied at school, along with Marcel in a predominantly white world for the first part of his life and how that affected him, would have applied elsewhere as well (North America, say, as another user commented).
• I will vouch for the writing and the novel in general though! Maclear does a wonderful job, as I've said above, in this novel jumping between generations and exploring identity and how even the best of intentions don't necessarily generate the best of outcomes. There were so many instances where I wondered how old Marcel was in each part of the story, though, because it seemed as though whenever he jumped back to the past, he was pretty much 10 years old throughout (until he learns the truth and he becomes a surly teen, of course). I kept thinking he was growing up as he relived his past, and was constantly having to remind myself that Marcel's still a child, he hasn't grown up at all just yet, that all of this is happening within that year or two.
• There's also the presence of Kiyomi, who is noticeably absent for long periods of time, appearing - from what I can remember, in essence - only to soothe Marcel. This is probably in large part because Marcel is narrating the story, but at the same time, I have to wonder exactly what part of his life Kiyomi herself - and not an ideal of her - might have inhabited or influenced. Without a doubt she's an important character throughout for Marcel, keeping him grounded, but there's very little in terms of development between the two detailed, so the reader sort of has to assume they are spending time together even if Marcel doesn't say it. (And if he's assuming in his turn that these are ordinary enough happenings that don't deserve narration, I have to wonder how well that meeting between the both of them is going to go, in the long run.)
• As a whole, though, the novel does work quite well, and I'd love to give it a 3.5 out of 5, but alas. Goodreads.
8. Still Alice (2014)
• A heartbreaking portrayal of early-onset Alzheimer's in a linguistics professor and the way it affects her family and her place in the world. The confusion when Alice is jogging on campus, at the beginning, is portrayed beautifully, the world as though spinning around her, followed by the subsequent fogginess of everything that is out of focus, in the way that Alice - and everything around her - is to herself, in the later stages.
9. Frozen (2013)
• Yeah, so I never actually watched Frozen until now. I really want to say something along the lines of "I can't believe I waited that long! It's amazing!", but - and I do like it! - it didn't quite live up to the hype, I don't think... though that might also have something to do with my having let the hype build up in my head for 3 years. I think it's great that it's a Disney film about sisterly love rather than about Prince Charming coming to the rescue of Princess/Damsel in Distress, in fact subverting the very idea by introducing a nefarious Prince Charming, who charms away for his own ends rather than by dint of his personality. It's a good start though!
10. Tampopo (1985)
• A ramen western (as opposed to a spaghetti or macaroni western) - I had to watch it. There were funny parts, and I found myself thinking I understood precisely why it was a western, beyond the cowboy hats, at the very end when Goro drives away and leaves Tampopo behind. For the most part though, if I had to be honest, I found it rather disjointed - not sure if all westerns are like that, if that's a characteristic of westerns? - and it seemed to drag on with the alternate scenes/concurrent plot. That being said, I still had a craving for ramen by the end of the film, so... success?
11. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (HAVE YOU SEEN THESE BY POTTER?)
• Another of those childhood tales I never actually read. There's a surprisingly macabre setting here, both in the father having been put into a pie (mentioned real nonchalantly) and Peter himself running for his life, losing all that he owns in the meanwhile. Maybe his losing his shoes - adorable shoes! - and his brand new coat with its copper buttons is indicative of him shedding his old self to become a wiser rabbit? But the ending is pretty weak for that: he's no hero, lying sick in bed while his siblings eat jam and other nice things and he's left to drink chamomile tea (except chamomile tea's good stuff, so...). The end.

Babble Babel Baa-ble

Do you see the sheep?

So my friend Shirley asked me to knit her the famous Baa-ble Hat. She's not a knitter, so I have no idea where she stumbled across this pattern, but stumble across it she did, and knowing as she did that I'm a knitter, she put forth her request to me. So of course I said yes! I've wanted to knit this hat ever since it came out, though I figured I'd probably never wear it myself, so I refrained from doing it.

Might be a bit short in the crown area?

Now, while in theory I was totally gung-ho about knitting this, a couple of stumbling blocks came my way: 1)I didn't have the pattern. Easy enough to fix. 2) I haven't really done much in the way of colourwork, save for my sheepy vest, which remains unfinished (shhhh...), and 3) I had never knit a hat before. All this to say, it's not perfect.

Just barely covers my ears, folded over!

So I went in order:

1. Got pattern to work off of.
2. Knit this thing inside out and kept floats pretty loose. I actually had to tighten a couple of them while knitting because it was getting ridiculous. Switching between continental and English probably also contributed to tension issues, but practice will most likely solve that.
3. I cast on too few stitches at first (60), and because my floats were a smidge tight, the hat would only just barely squeeze past my ears after I had finished knitting half the sheep. So I frogged and restarted with more stitches (84), adjusting the pattern as I went along and fudging the top snowdrops.
4. I also used DK & worsted weight yarns instead of the aran called for, so that most likely contributed to some gauge issues. That includes the row gauge, which is the reason I'm assuming the crown feels a bit short. Hopefully it'll still go over her hair...
5. Because I only used 3 colours, I probably should've switched to using the charcoal grey for the sheep's faces & horns. Oh well. Next time.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it and hope she likes it too, once I get it to her! The greatest fear is actually fit, to be honest...