Turn that TV off now baby
I'm so low I don't even sing
Tell me something about my country
Tell me one good thing
King and Malcolm, lamb and lion
Setting Alabama free
Thirty thousand angels flying
From Montgomery
Put that paper down now, baby
I'm so low I don't even sing
Tell me something about my country
Tell me one good thing
- one good thing, by anais mitchell
The full moon is beautiful in the sky, bringing a bitter cold front with it. It seems like winter has already been too long, and I'm dreaming of beaches. It's hard to believe that December is here, and the next full moon -- a Blue Moon and the Wolf Moon -- will be at year's end. I don't really know what to think about this year. It's been full of disappointments for me, yet I'm not sure the whole story has unfolded yet. It's been full of progress, too, though it feels too slow. And it's been full of hope; on some days that feels foolish, and on other days, powerful.
I drove to work today behind a van with this bumper sticker: I'll keep my freedom & money & guns, and you can keep "the Change." That's their bad punctuation, not mine. I've been behind this vehicle before; we seem to be on the same schedule. It's pretty much a guarantee, if I see it, that it's going to be a bad day. And now I've just listened to the president that this woman hates announce escalation of a murky war, and I wonder if this pigheaded moron in the van is happy now. Of course not.
It doesn't seem as if humans will ever transcend hatred, war, and violence. But fortunately, we'll also never stop creating, envisioning, loving, and happily, stitching.
A few links I've had bookmarked:
- The wonderful Tai Gallery in Santa Fe has revamped their Web site and it's full of beautiful textiles and bamboo baskets, with many of their gallery publications viewable online. There are dozens of amazing ancient and modern textiles, and the photos can be sent as e-postcards to your friends. Here's one:
Mantle, Chimu Culture
Peru, North Coast?
Late Intermediate Period, 1000 - 1476
Design: Bold blocks of pelicans and tuna fish motifs in a bright palette of red, yellow, blue, white and brown.
Technique: Slit tapestry, warp and weft camelid fibers
And another:
Heirloom textile
Made in Gujarat, India
Collected in Sulawesi, 17th century
Technique: Resist and mordant dyed handspun cotton
- I think Jude scooped me on this one, but the new community Hand Embroidery Network has launched Needle, a new online magazine for traditional and contemporary hand-stitched embroidery. It's beautiful; go see.
- Britex Fabrics, the legendary brick-and-mortar store in Union Square in San Francisco, finally has a blog and online shopping for some of its ribbons, trims, and buttons. I lived near the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Street back in 1986 with Dave the Drummer, and worked in downtown San Francisco, not far from Britex. I used to walk there on my lunch hour. I'd rarely buy anything because the choice was so magnificently vast that I couldn't ever pick just one thing. On the weekends I'd paint silk fabrics for a designer named Connie Romweber and shop closer to home at the much funkier Mendel's on Haight Street and Satin Moon. What a luxury it was to have so many great fabric stores.