Last week I set the stage for the next section of the Impossible Read by reading the forward and preface of Carole Satyamurti’s “modern retelling” of the Mahabharata. This evening I read the Prologue, which included this gem:
He himself was both author and actor in his story — as we are in our own lives and, besides, all is permitted to the storyteller.
By “all is permitted to the storyteller” do we we really mean “all”? Asking for a friend who is trying to tell a story.
This weekend I did a tiny chunk of research on my big project, by trying to look up ship passenger lists for three critical journeys my subject took in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For some reason I have details on all three arrivals, but nothing on the departures. Without knowing the places or dates of the other ends of the trips, it’s hard to have a complete picture of what the journeys where like. I don’t want to go down a separate rabbit-hole about transatlantic crossings unless I really have to, so if you know someone for whom this is a special interest, please please please hook us up.
The funny thing is that I spent less than an hour at the library looking up lists and sending images home. It probably took me two ours to download, rename, file, print, and organize the documents that I found. One hour forward and two hours back? Everything I discover inspires at least one more question about what was going on.
And hey! It was my subject’s birthday this weekend. On Saturday he would have turned 143. I should probably phrase that differently.
Also, I have identified a contemporary for my research subject. I’d like to compare (and contrast) their literary careers, and this weekend I was able to snag three more of his novels while I was out shopping with Youngest. When will I actually get to read these books? Outlook is hazy.
Knitwise, over the course of the past weekend I finished all of the knitting, weaving-in, and braiding on my first resistance hat. Based on how it turned out I should probably knit the ribbed portion of the next hat with a smaller needle.
If you zoom in on the last image, you may be able to [correctly] guess that I didn’t grow up with a sister whose hair I could braid. Perhaps I should knot the groups of stands before starting the braiding? I also wonder if I should work the whole braid-and-tassel bit again; one of the pieces of yarn wasn’t centered across the top of the hat, so you can see one very short end on the tassel. I also didn’t decide to weigh down the hat until I was partway through the braid, so it doesn’t start out well.
I realize that perfection isn’t the purpose of this hat, and that whoever ends up wearing it might not notice or care about the quality of the braiding and the relative lengths of the yarn-strands in the tassel. But particularly when you’re knitting for someone else, you do want to provide your best work. If someone would like version 1.0, let me know in the comments and we’ll work something out. Version 2.0 (or even version 1.1) will probably look a little more polished. Let us hope that current events don’t necessitate a great number of hats.
Chocolate Sheep 