Second Attempt at Video

The Maybe Islands

The Stone Gods
by Jeanette Winterson
London: Hamish Hamilton, 2007
(to be published in the US by Houghton on April Fools Day 2008)

I first encountered Jeanette Winterson through her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a fairly naturalistic account of growing up lesbian in a working-class Pentecostal family in northern England. After that I read her novels more or less as they appeared in the US. (So far I haven’t gotten to Boating For Beginners, her retelling of the story of Noah’s ark, which Winterson dismisses as a potboiler, and one or two others.) After Written on the Body, which dazzled me, I began to notice what seemed to me a loss of energy in her writing. This was confirmed for me by her collection of stories, The World and Other Places. The stories were arranged in order of writing, and the earlier ones gave me as much pleasure as I’d remembered her earlier fiction doing; like her later novels, the later stories became more distanced and abstracted. Her writing was as skillful as ever, but something was missing.

Then a comment on Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For blog linked to Ursula K. LeGuin’s review of Winterson’s new novel, The Stone Gods. As the commenter said, LeGuin was “critically enthusiastic” about the novel, though I can’t recall the novel’s “characters … repeatedly announcing that they hate science fiction.” (Looking over the text, I found one such announcement, but I’m not sure it should be taken literally. If you read the book, you’ll see why.) LeGuin also complained that “to me, both the love stories in the book are distressingly sentimental”, though she conceded that sentimentality “is very much a matter of the reader's sensibility.” I disagree about the love stories in The Stone Gods, which I enjoyed, especially since similar criticisms could be (and have been) raised about the love stories in LeGuin’s fiction, as in science fiction generally. Ditto for the novel’s didacticism; SF has always had a didactic streak, as LeGuin knows, but I never found Winterson’s commentary intrusive. She’s sharp and witty, and her ideas are interesting. One word that never occurs in LeGuin’s review is satire, and like so much SF The Stone Gods is satire, the love child of Stranger in a Strange Land and The Female Man. The question about satire is not whether it’s subtle, or whether it’s didactic, or even whether it’s sentimental, but whether it hits its mark.

The Stone Gods begins with the announcement of the discovery of Planet Blue, which except for a few dinosaurs is pristine and hospitable to human life. Since it is universally agreed that human beings have ruined the planet we have, Planet Blue looks like a great place to start over, learning from our mistakes and doing it right this time. (Are you done laughing? One reason I love Winterson is her disdain for this evergreen daydream.) Billie Crusoe, the narrator, works for Enhancement Services of the Central Power, one of three major power blocs on her planet of Orbus. "Enhancement" refers to the appearance modification that is practiced universally in the Central Power:

All men are hung like whales. All women are tight as clams below and inflated like lifebuoys above. Jaws are square, skin is tanned, muscles are toned, and no one gets turned on. It’s a global crisis. At least, it’s a crisis among the cities of the Central Power. The Eastern Caliphate has banned Genetic Fixing, and the SinoMosco pact does not make it available to all its citizens, only to members of the ruling party and their favourites. That way the leaders look like star-gods and the rest look like shit-shovellers. They never claimed to be a democracy.

The Central Power is a democracy. We look alike, except for rich people and celebrities, who look better. That’s what you’d expect in a democracy [19].

Somehow Billie is assigned to interview a Robo sapiens named Spike, a cosmetically female robot that has just returned from a survey mission to Planet Blue, and then is forced onto a spaceship taking the first human colonists to the new world.

Of course, Spike and Billie fall in love, and things go drastically wrong. There’s a brief interlude about Billy, a young English sailor left behind on Easter Island by Captain Cook’s expedition in 1774. He falls in love with Spikkers, a half-Dutch, half-Islander, “a man of forty years, yet wonderfully preserved, lean and strong, and with a cheerful, inquisitive face that reminded me of a good dog that never had a bad master” (105). Then we’re back with Billie, only on Earth this time, in a near-future Tech City after World War III. Spike is here too, “the world’s first Robo sapiens. She looks amazing – clear skin, green eyes, dark hair. She has no body because she won’t need one. She is a perfect head on a titanium plate” (132). Billie is her tutor, assigned to “teach a robot what it means to be human” (135); she smuggles Spike to Wreck City, the “No Zone” beyond the end of the tramlines, basically like the slums that circle today’s great cities except with residual radiation from the nuclear weapons that flattened the West in the war. In Wreck City they encounter a man Friday and a motley batch of post-punk dykes, mutants, and subversives, and things again get strange.

More than that I won’t say, because you should read it for yourself. The Stone Gods is more fun than any book of Winterson’s I can remember. Admittedly she’s not for all tastes – at her wildest she’s a bit dry – but she seems to have let loose here. If she hasn’t quite regained the energy of her earlier work, she’s acquired a new verve that is very encouraging to see. The satire is sharp and, I think, hits the mark. And oddly, The Stone Gods was published at about the same time as Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld book, Making Money, which is also satirical and also features a female (though heterosexual) love interest named Spike.

The Maybe Islands

The Stone Gods
by Jeanette Winterson
London: Hamish Hamilton, 2007
(to be published in the US by Houghton on April Fools Day 2008)

I first encountered Jeanette Winterson through her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a fairly naturalistic account of growing up lesbian in a working-class Pentecostal family in northern England. After that I read her novels more or less as they appeared in the US. (So far I haven’t gotten to Boating For Beginners, her retelling of the story of Noah’s ark, which Winterson dismisses as a potboiler, and one or two others.) After Written on the Body, which dazzled me, I began to notice what seemed to me a loss of energy in her writing. This was confirmed for me by her collection of stories, The World and Other Places. The stories were arranged in order of writing, and the earlier ones gave me as much pleasure as I’d remembered her earlier fiction doing; like her later novels, the later stories became more distanced and abstracted. Her writing was as skillful as ever, but something was missing.

Then a comment on Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For blog linked to Ursula K. LeGuin’s review of Winterson’s new novel, The Stone Gods. As the commenter said, LeGuin was “critically enthusiastic” about the novel, though I can’t recall the novel’s “characters … repeatedly announcing that they hate science fiction.” (Looking over the text, I found one such announcement, but I’m not sure it should be taken literally. If you read the book, you’ll see why.) LeGuin also complained that “to me, both the love stories in the book are distressingly sentimental”, though she conceded that sentimentality “is very much a matter of the reader's sensibility.” I disagree about the love stories in The Stone Gods, which I enjoyed, especially since similar criticisms could be (and have been) raised about the love stories in LeGuin’s fiction, as in science fiction generally. Ditto for the novel’s didacticism; SF has always had a didactic streak, as LeGuin knows, but I never found Winterson’s commentary intrusive. She’s sharp and witty, and her ideas are interesting. One word that never occurs in LeGuin’s review is satire, and like so much SF The Stone Gods is satire, the love child of Stranger in a Strange Land and The Female Man. The question about satire is not whether it’s subtle, or whether it’s didactic, or even whether it’s sentimental, but whether it hits its mark.

The Stone Gods begins with the announcement of the discovery of Planet Blue, which except for a few dinosaurs is pristine and hospitable to human life. Since it is universally agreed that human beings have ruined the planet we have, Planet Blue looks like a great place to start over, learning from our mistakes and doing it right this time. (Are you done laughing? One reason I love Winterson is her disdain for this evergreen daydream.) Billie Crusoe, the narrator, works for Enhancement Services of the Central Power, one of three major power blocs on her planet of Orbus. "Enhancement" refers to the appearance modification that is practiced universally in the Central Power:

All men are hung like whales. All women are tight as clams below and inflated like lifebuoys above. Jaws are square, skin is tanned, muscles are toned, and no one gets turned on. It’s a global crisis. At least, it’s a crisis among the cities of the Central Power. The Eastern Caliphate has banned Genetic Fixing, and the SinoMosco pact does not make it available to all its citizens, only to members of the ruling party and their favourites. That way the leaders look like star-gods and the rest look like shit-shovellers. They never claimed to be a democracy.

The Central Power is a democracy. We look alike, except for rich people and celebrities, who look better. That’s what you’d expect in a democracy [19].

Somehow Billie is assigned to interview a Robo sapiens named Spike, a cosmetically female robot that has just returned from a survey mission to Planet Blue, and then is forced onto a spaceship taking the first human colonists to the new world.

Of course, Spike and Billie fall in love, and things go drastically wrong. There’s a brief interlude about Billy, a young English sailor left behind on Easter Island by Captain Cook’s expedition in 1774. He falls in love with Spikkers, a half-Dutch, half-Islander, “a man of forty years, yet wonderfully preserved, lean and strong, and with a cheerful, inquisitive face that reminded me of a good dog that never had a bad master” (105). Then we’re back with Billie, only on Earth this time, in a near-future Tech City after World War III. Spike is here too, “the world’s first Robo sapiens. She looks amazing – clear skin, green eyes, dark hair. She has no body because she won’t need one. She is a perfect head on a titanium plate” (132). Billie is her tutor, assigned to “teach a robot what it means to be human” (135); she smuggles Spike to Wreck City, the “No Zone” beyond the end of the tramlines, basically like the slums that circle today’s great cities except with residual radiation from the nuclear weapons that flattened the West in the war. In Wreck City they encounter a man Friday and a motley batch of post-punk dykes, mutants, and subversives, and things again get strange.

More than that I won’t say, because you should read it for yourself. The Stone Gods is more fun than any book of Winterson’s I can remember. Admittedly she’s not for all tastes – at her wildest she’s a bit dry – but she seems to have let loose here. If she hasn’t quite regained the energy of her earlier work, she’s acquired a new verve that is very encouraging to see. The satire is sharp and, I think, hits the mark. And oddly, The Stone Gods was published at about the same time as Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld book, Making Money, which is also satirical and also features a female (though heterosexual) love interest named Spike.

Day 050 Rug hooking all weekend

This weekend my husband and I rented videos and stayed home. I was able to hook for hours and hours. I got a lot done, but I am determined to get to the half-way point (of the center) before I take it off the frame.The rug is now large enough to drape on the ground as I hook. The cats, Georgia and Gracie, now have enough room to share. Georgia is almost two years old and was a good companion

Incase of Emergency

Penting untuk di ketahui oleh setiap perempuan, sebab banyak kejadian penculikan terhadap perempuan sekarang makin sering terjadi bahkan di siang hari.
Oleh sebab itu kita harus mengetahui hal2 di bawah ini untuk menghadapi situasi berbahaya yang mungkin bahkan bisa mengancam nyawa kita.

Setelah membaca 9 tips penting di bawah ini, foward tips ini kepada seseorang yang kamu sayangi. Tidak ada salahnya untuk berhati2 di dunia yang gila ini.


Tips # 1. Taekwondo
Siku adalah titik bagian tubuh kita yang terkuat. Jika kamu cukup dekat dengan orang yang menyergapmu, jangan ragu untuk menggunakannya dengan kekuatan penuh !

Tips # 2 Dari buku panduan turis
Jika ada perampok yang meminta dompet atau tas. JANGAN SERAHKAN LANGSUNG KE TANGANNYA. Lemparkan saja... kemungkinan ia hanya tertarik pada dompet atau tas itu saja, dan ia akan melepaskan mu. LARI SECEPATNYA KE ARAH YANG BERLAWANAN/KE TEMPAT YANG RAMAI.

Tips # 3 Tips ini sudah banyak menyelamatkan nyawa korban penculikan.
Jika kalian di lemparkan dan di kunci ke dalam bagasi sebuah mobil, tendang sekuatnya lampu belakang mobil yang biasanya tersambung dengan bagasi tersebut sampai lampui itu terlepas keluar. Ulurkan tangan mu keluar lobang lampu tersebut dan mulailah melambaikan tanganmu sesering dan selama mungkin. Penculik tersebut tidak akanmelihatmu karena ia sedan mengendarai mobil, tapi kendaraan lain dibelakang yang akan melihat tangan mu.

Jika kau di culik dan disekap di dalam sebuah mobil, dan penculik tersebut meninggalkanmu di dalam mobil, jika kau melihat kunci mobil tersebut masih di tempatnya, segera larikan mobil tersebut. Atau jika ternyata tidak ada kunci di stop kontak mobil tersebut, masukkan permen karet, kertas, atau apapun ke dalam stop kontak/lubang kunci mobil tersebut, kalau perlu, dan ada, masukkan jepit rambut dan patahkan didalam lubang kunci stop kontak mobil itu. Jika penculik tersebut tidak bisa menyalakan mobil, ia akan mengalami kesulitan untuk memindahkan mu !

Ingat, meninggalkan tempat kejadian penculikan adalah situasi yang akan mengarah kesesuatu yang lebih buruk !!!

Tips # 4 Segera kunci kendaraan/pintu mobil setelah naik ke dalamnya dan segera mungkin pergi dari tempat parkir
Perempuan punya kecenderungan untuk masuk ke dalam mobil setelah berbelanja, makan atau kerja dll, dan hanya duduk di dalamnya (menulis buku agenda, mencatat, memeriksa nota belanja, dll). JANGAN PERNAH LAKUKAN INI !!
Para penculik akan memperhatikan mu, dan ini adalah kesempatan sempurna mereka untuk masuk ke tempat duduk penumpang dan menodongkan senjata ke padamu, dan memerintahmu untuk pergi ketempat yang mereka inginkan.

Dan jika seseorang telah berada di dalam mobilmu, dan menodongkan senjata kekepalamu, JANGAN PERNAH IKUTI PERINTAHNYA UNTUK PERGI KETEMPAT YANG IA INGINKAN.
Masukkan gigi satu dengan perlahan sebelum menyalakan mesin, jangan injak kopling ketika akan menyalakan mesin, injaklah pedal gas dalam2. Atau, nyalakan mesin mobil seperti biasa, dan injaklah gas dalam2, tabrakkan mobil dengan apapun yang ada di depanmu !!
Air bag akan menyelamatkanmu. Jika orang yang menyerangmu ada di tempat duduk belakang, maka ia akan terkena dampak benturan yang paling parah !
Segera setelah mobil di tabrakkan, cepatlah keluar dari mobil dan meminta pertolongan !

INI LEBIH BAIK DARI PADA ORANG LAIN AKAN MENEMUKAN MAYATMU DI TEMPAT YANG TERPENCIL !!

Tips # 5 Beberapa catatan tentang bagaimana masuk kedalam mobilmu di sebuah tempat parkir (biasanya lantai dasar yang tertutup dan gelap)
A) Selalu waspada. Lihat di sekeliling mu, lihat ke dalam mobil mu, di lantai kursi penumpang depan, dan di kursi belakang.
B) Jika kamu memarkirkan mobil di samping sebuah mobil van besar, yang terlihat agak mencurigakan, masuklah dari sebelah sisi penumpang. Sebagian besar pelaku pembunuhan berantai menyerang korbannya dengan menarik mereka kedalam mobil van sewaktu perempuan tersebut akan masuk kedalam mobil mereka.
C) Lihat mobil yang parkir di sebelah mobilmu pada sisi pengemudi, jika di mobil sebelah mu tersebut ada seorang laki2 duduk sendirian di kursi penumpang, sisi yang terdekat dengan kendaraanmu, serta terlihat mencurigakan, segeralah berbalik arah kembali masuk ke mall/kantor dan mintalah seorang satpam atau polisi untuk menemanimu kembali ke kendaraanmu.

IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY !! (lebih baik bersikap paranoid dari pada mati sia2 !!)


Tips # 6 Selalu menggunakan lift daripada tangga. Tangga adalah tempat yang sangat buruk untuk berjalan sendiri, dan merupakan tempat kriminal terbaik khususnya pada saat malam hari !

Tips # 7 Jika penculik memiliki senjata api dan kau memiliki kesempatan untuk melarikan diri, JANGAN TAKUT ! ambil kesempatan tersebut untuk melarikan diri ! Kesempatan penculik untuk menembak korbannya yang melarikan diri adalah 4 berbanding 100 kali. Dan jika ia menembak, ia TIDAK AKAN mengenai organ vitalmu. LARI SEKUAT TENAGA dan jika memungkinkan lakukan dengan berzig-zag/tidak beraturan.

Tips # 8
Sebagai seorang perempuan, adalah hal yang wajar jika kita memiliki rasa simpati yang sangat besar. HENTIKAN !
Hal ini bisa membuatmu menjadi korban pemerkosaan atau bahkan pembunuhan !!
Ted Bundy adalah seorang pembunuh berantai, ia sangat tampan dan berpendidikan, dan ia SELALU menggunakan sifat simpati seorang perempuan.
Ia pura2 berjalan dengan menggunakan tongkat, atau pura2 timpang, dan seringkali “meminta pertolongan” untuk membantunya masuk kedalam mobilnya, yang kemudian terjadi adalah, perempuan yang menolongnya akan di tariknya masuk kedalam mobilnya dan di culiknya.

Tips # 9
Selalu ingat uang yang ada di dompet yang kita bawa waktu berpergian keluar sendirian. Ini adalah trend terbaru bagi para penculik, ketika mereka melihat calon korban yang baru masuk kedalam kendaraan mereka, penculik akan menunjukkan uang ke jendela korban dan mengatakan bahwa korban telah menjatuh kan uang tersebut dalam perjalanan menuju mobil. Dan ketika korban membuka pintu mobil/kaca dan berterima kasih, penculik itu akan membekap mereka.
Hal ini hampir terjadi pada seorang perempuan di sebuah tempat pengisian bensin. Penculik menunjukkan sejumlah uang, tapi perempuan tersebut ingat bahwa ia hanya membawa uang yang pas, dan kemudian ia mengatakan bahwa uang itu bukan miliknya. Seorang perempuan lain setelah perempuan yang pertama pergi menjadi korban pemerkosaan oleh pria tersebut.




Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this. It may save your life or a oved one's life.

Crucial
Because of recent abductions i daylight hours,refresh yourself of these things to do in an emergency situation...
This is for you, and for you to share with your wife, your children, everyone you know.

After reading these 9 crucial tips , forward them to someone you care about.
It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

Tip #1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do :
The elbow is the strongest point on your body.
If you are close enough to use it, do!!

Tip # 2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans
If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse,
DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM
Toss it away from you....
chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse.
RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

Tip # 3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy.
The driver won't see you, but everybody else will.
This has saved lives.

Tip # 4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc.)DON'T DO THIS!!
The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go.
AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR , LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.

and... If someone is in the car with a gun to your head
DO NOT DRIVE OFF,
repeat:
DO NOT DRIVE OFF!!
Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car.
Your Air Bag will save you.
If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it .
As soon as the car crashes bail out and run.
It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

Tip # 5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:
A..) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor ,and in the back seat
B..) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door .
Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.
C..) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle,and the passenger side.
If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman
to walk you back out.
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

Another tip i was resently given concerning cars, if you are ever locked into a car and the keys are in the ignition obviously drive that van away from there... fast! BUT if no keys are in the ignition jam it with something like a boby pin (break it in there) or even a wad of chewing gum... remember, leaving the primary location is the worst situation possible, if he cant start his van... he is going to have a much harder time transporting you.

Tip #6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs.
(Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

Tip # 7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN!
The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times;
And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably, in a zig -zag pattern! (This was confirmed in the K.C. Star)

Tip # 8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP !
It may get you raped, or killed.
Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women.
He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.
************* Here it is *******


Tip # 9. Another Safety Point:
Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late
and she thought it was weird.
The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door."
The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over.
The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door."
He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby
He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night.

Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby ----
This e-mail should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America 's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled
the serial killer in Louisiana

another tip i was sent earlier:
Know how much money you take into stores/gas stations.
It is a new trend that preditors will see somone get into their car, and knock on their window. Then they will show them a $5 or $10 bill and tell them they dropped it on the way back to their car. After the woman thanks the kind man, and opens her door, he will grab her. It almost happened to one woman, but she knew she only too $5 with her into the gas station, so the change was not hers, another woman got raped by that man though.

also, if you are ever pulled over and arnt sure if the "cop" pulling you over is really a cop you can call 911, do not roll down your window untill other poliece men arrive at the scene... the poliece man who pulled you over should understand this as it is part of their training.

I'd like you to forward this to all the women you know.
It may save a life.
A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle.


Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this. It may save your life or a loved one's life.

Day 44 Georgia loves my hooked rugs

Here's a full shot of the progress on the rug. Whenever it is on the floor, the cats are willing to keep it company.

Day 44 of rug hooking: Rose improvement

Rose - beforeI did not want to hook the rose the same way I hooked in the stair riser, Queen Anne Rose. I did hook it differently, but I did not like it at all. I let it go and continued to hook. I hooked another one with more pronounced lights and darks, but it still did not work. Once I had a quarter of the center of the rug finished, I realized the problem was that the rose was too

A Day Off

Yesterday I traveled to Columbus with my daughter, Jenny. We went to the From our Hands show. It was great to see everyone.On the way home, we made an impulse decision to go to Home Goods. This store is not in NW Ohio and we had passed it up many times on our way to Easton. Well, quite some time later, we were ready to head back home. We found many great treasures, including a white ceramic

I'm So Confused! The Whole World Is Spinning!

Oopsie! Tom Tomorrow is P.O.'d about the right-wing radio claim that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign neglected to leave a tip to the Iowa waitress who served her at a Maid-Rite diner. "Well, big effing surprise," Tom huffs: "like pretty much everything else you might hear on right wing talk radio, it was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue." Of course I agree about the reliability of right wing talk radio, so I followed Tom's link to Steve Benen's The Carpetbagger Report, which huffed and puffed some more, and followed its link to this New York Times story, which included some information that neither Tom (maybe because he didn't click through to the Times story) nor Benen mentioned.

Clinton's people claimed that "the candidate and her aides had in fact left a tip: $100 on a $157 check at the diner. The restaurant manager, Brad Crawford, confirmed in interviews, including with The New York Times, that Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and her retinue had indeed left a tip, though he did not say how much." Interesting, but even more interesting was what the waitress herself had to say:

Reached at her home in Iowa, the waitress, Anita Esterday, said that neither she nor a colleague who helped serve Mrs. Clinton recalled seeing any tip.

She said a local staff member of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was in the restaurant on Thursday to tell them that the campaign had left a tip.

She said that when she and her colleague said they had not seen a tip, the staff member gave each of them $20.

Myself, I believe the waitress over her manager or the Clinton campaign. Especially since she had more to say:

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

Tom Tomorrow quoted that line, as did Jonathan Schwarz in a nice posting about the misuse of terms like "lunatic" in mainstream political discourse. It's a good'un. But suppose that the same story were to circulate about George W. Bush; the liberal blogosphere would have been up in arms over the Rethugs' attempt to rewrite Mrs. Esterday's memory with that paltry $20 bill. (More likely they'd have sent her to Guantanamo until she remembered better.) What I like is that Mrs. Esterday refused to be bought.

I must say I'm surprised that a well-oiled (and funded) machine like HRC's campaign would have forgotten to tip her waitress. And of course, the right-wing pundits don't care about waitresses any more than Clinton does. But "demonstrably untrue"? It doesn't sound like it to me.

I'm So Confused! The Whole World Is Spinning!

Oopsie! Tom Tomorrow is P.O.'d about the right-wing radio claim that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign neglected to leave a tip to the Iowa waitress who served her at a Maid-Rite diner. "Well, big effing surprise," Tom huffs: "like pretty much everything else you might hear on right wing talk radio, it was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue." Of course I agree about the reliability of right wing talk radio, so I followed Tom's link to Steve Benen's The Carpetbagger Report, which huffed and puffed some more, and followed its link to this New York Times story, which included some information that neither Tom (maybe because he didn't click through to the Times story) nor Benen mentioned.

Clinton's people claimed that "the candidate and her aides had in fact left a tip: $100 on a $157 check at the diner. The restaurant manager, Brad Crawford, confirmed in interviews, including with The New York Times, that Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and her retinue had indeed left a tip, though he did not say how much." Interesting, but even more interesting was what the waitress herself had to say:

Reached at her home in Iowa, the waitress, Anita Esterday, said that neither she nor a colleague who helped serve Mrs. Clinton recalled seeing any tip.

She said a local staff member of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was in the restaurant on Thursday to tell them that the campaign had left a tip.

She said that when she and her colleague said they had not seen a tip, the staff member gave each of them $20.

Myself, I believe the waitress over her manager or the Clinton campaign. Especially since she had more to say:

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

Tom Tomorrow quoted that line, as did Jonathan Schwarz in a nice posting about the misuse of terms like "lunatic" in mainstream political discourse. It's a good'un. But suppose that the same story were to circulate about George W. Bush; the liberal blogosphere would have been up in arms over the Rethugs' attempt to rewrite Mrs. Esterday's memory with that paltry $20 bill. (More likely they'd have sent her to Guantanamo until she remembered better.) What I like is that Mrs. Esterday refused to be bought.

I must say I'm surprised that a well-oiled (and funded) machine like HRC's campaign would have forgotten to tip her waitress. And of course, the right-wing pundits don't care about waitresses any more than Clinton does. But "demonstrably untrue"? It doesn't sound like it to me.

Travelling for girls 101

Memang ini bukan pertama kali gue berangkat ke luar negri (cieee ! gaya banget ngomongnya !).
Gue gak bakalan melupakan milis indobackpacker yang telah membantu banyak dalam hal informasi terkini tentang backpacking.
Nahh.. gue mau share beberapa tips yang gue pake kalo berangkat ke luar negri.

1. A Good Planned travel/itinerary. Artinya, semua harus sudah terencana, mulai dari budget, akomodasi, dll. Meskipun natinya gak bakalan sama persis, setidaknya kita sudah punya outline, dan gak bakalan buta soal tempat yang akan kita kunjungi. Minimal modal arah dengan peta deh... kalo bisa kumpulin sebanyak mungkin info via internet. Mulai dari tempat penginapan sampai dengan harga makanan (kalo bisa). Dari situ kita bisa punya bayangan soal perjalanan kita. Bila perlu di print segala sampe detailnya. Remember.. contact person disana kadang2 sangat membantu (gak musti, tapi kalo ada bagus juga). Contact person contohnya sesama teman backpackers yang kebetulan ke tempat yang sama, gak ketemuan juga gak apa2 tapi.. well its good to know someone when you're in a strange place.

2. Scan PASSPORT, KTP, SIM A/C, pas foto warna (kalo ada yang digital okkkee) dan upload ke http://briefcase.yahoo.com (kudu punya login yahoo) kalo ada dokumen yang hilang/tas hilang kita masih bisa nge print warna dari internet, gak perlu bawa copy kemana2 (copinya juga perlu sih buat jaga2). Electronic tiket yang biasanya dikirim via mail, tolong mailnya di kasih "flag" biar nanti kalo ada apa2 dalam situasi panik kita bisa dengan gampang menemukan mail tersebut.. lebih bagus lagi semua dokumen yang dikirim via mail seperti konfirmasi booking hotel dimasukin di satu folder.

3. Punya tas/dompet kecil buat ngumpulin semua tiket/boarding pass dan dipisah mana yang udah di pake mana yang belum (di kelipin aja) jadi waktu di perlukan gak perlu ngubek2 tas. Tas kecil ini di simpan di tempat yang aman (backpack).

4. Tas pinggang (kalo gak pake juga gak apa2) buat nyimpan passport, permen, pena, copy passport, kunci tas, dompet sama hape dan obat2 yang penting banget (obat maag girls???). Harus dari bahan yang kuat, dan banyak kantongnya. Uang mungkin dipisah dikit disini, dompet jangan terlalu banyak isinya.. biar gak ngundang niat jahat orang). Eiger bisa jadi rekomendasi (gue punya yang merek export, gak perlu branded lah yang penting yakin tali/penahannya kuat) butuh yang kuat biar gak gampang putus/lepas/di jambret orang. Nih tas pinggang jangan pernah2 di lepas kecuali waktu mandi (dibawa juga ke kamar mandi kali yeee).

5. Tali sling (dari besi) sama gembok tas cadangan. Buat yang ngerencanain jalan ke pantai. Tas backpack yang guede tentu ditinggal di penginapan, dan kita pastinya cuma bawa ransel lebih kecil. Nah guna sling (kabel kayak buat rante sepeda) sama gembok kecil, buat "ngamanin" tas kita kalo kita nyemplung di aer. Kan kasian kalo kita seneng2 sementara seorang temen dikorbanin buat jaga tas... udah jauh2 pergi kok jaga tas ????? Sling ama gembok cadangan juga amat berguna dalam perjalanan dengan bus/kereta api, kalo perjalanannya "overnight" alias lebih dari 12 jam.. kalo ketiduran kan aman berhubung tas di ikat dengan tali sling, jadi gak gampang "dilariin".

6. Pashamina/kain pantai yang bagus (agak tebal) multi fungsi tentunya. Bisa buat tempat dingin, jadiin selimut, bisa buat di pesawat juga kalo gak tahan sama AC-nya (air asia dingin bo !! sampe asepan ac nya)sama buat ke pantai jadiin tempat duduk (buat dililitin di pinggang/jadi kain pantai).

7. Termos. Believe it or not. Termos ini memperhemat gue selama di singapore !! 1 botol air mineral 600ml harganya 5 singapore dollar atau lebih dari 25 ribu rupiah !! sementara gue kayak onta yang haus terus. Setiap ketemu keran gue isi dah tuh termos sampe penuh, air di singapore bisa langsung diminum dari keran (keren !!!) dan gratis pastinya. Kalo kita jalan dari pagi dari hostel kita bawa aja air agak hangat, mumpung free. Lumayan, kalo sakit perut di jalan minum air rada angat bisa ngilangin sakitnya (cewek gitu loohhh). Lumayan hematnya ! Gak usah bawa yang besar.. sekarang kan banyak yang ukuran kecil.

Memang kayaknya ribet banget.. tapi gue ngerasa "aman" dengan semua barang di atas. Sebab bagi kita berdua barang yang di atas sangat membantu.

Day 38 of rug hooking: Resolving the Large Leaves

The large leaf motif is one that I have not hooked in my study pieces so this was new territory. I hooked the two shown first. I added two different wools around the veins just to break up the area. The fill area of the leaf was so large. I did not like either solution.Next I hooked the veins with the vein color only, no secondary color. The vein was a bit harsh. Then I decided to try just

Why God ?!! why??

Planning a vacation is hard enough.. especially if you're on a tight budget. Everything have to be on details.
It is seemed harder if you're planning to traveling in Indonesia.. I know some of you will disagree with this. But with 3 million rupiah i am sure could go to Singapore and stay for a week ! 3 million to Bali ??? less than 3 days for sure.
Not mentioned the accommodation.


Browsing..browsing dan browsing.

Cuma itu yang bisa gue buat sama cari literatur buat the next destionation. Tujuan berikutnya.
Kita niatnya sih ke Bunaken sama Bali. Kita cinnnnnnntaaaaaa pantai dengan semua aktivitas nya.
Ada beberapa destinasi lain yang masuk dalam "perencanaan" gue. Bangka-Belitung salah satunya. Ada teman gue yang asalnya dari sana, dan mereka terus ngomongin soal pantai2 di sana yang bisa bikin gue ngiler.. hehehehe...
Tapi.. terbujuk oleh tipi sama iklan2.. gue niat banget ke Bunaken sama Bali.
Bisik-bisik sama Maria; "bu, kita pergi ke bunaken sama bali aja yokk.." dia langsung cekikikan, and suruh gue cari info2 terkait, berhubung gue kerja di dalam ruangan dan punya akses terus ke komputer (dia kerja lapangan).
Shock !!
Wow.. wew ! wow !
Tiket pesawat aja mahal banget bo !
Dari Singapur ke Krabi kemaren tiket kita cuma 3 ratusan ribu one way ! dari Jakarta ke Manado ?? 700 ribuan one way !!!!!!! ngeri gak ???
Gue mikir ulang.. worthed gak ya??
Setelah di kalkulasi sama biaya akomodasi, dan transportasi liburan 10 hari less than 5 million rupiahs bisa aja sih.. tapi gak yakin... apalagi dengan niat yang pingin snorkeling.
Iya.. iya.. tau.. pasti seharusnya bisa lebih murah lagi... tapi gue coba untuk lebih logis. Jarak dari Jambi ke Manado di peta aja udah lebih jauh dari jarak Jambi ke Singapore.. wajar lah..kali..
Kita memang cari yang murah, tapi gak pengen sampe menderita banget gara2 nyari yang termurah. Ntar pengen cari senang malah susah di kota orang..luntang lantung..hiyy..

Hilang sudah bayangan bunaken dengan laut yang biru.. dan ketenangan di kala tersesat di kota orang (gak perlu mikirin bahasa !)

Browsing lagi...

WHAT ??!!!! tiket murah dari Singapore ke Phuket cuma 3 ratusan ribu.. olalaaahhhh.. (liat situs tigerairways.com) cuma dari bulan February sampe Maret !

Yang gue sesalin waktu ke Thailand (the "sins" list):1. Gak bisa datang ke catuchak weekend market di bangkok 2. Gak bisa datang ke full moon party di Koh Pangan island 3. Gak bisa nginap 1 minggu full di phi2 island buat lenjeh2 males2an

ohh.. godaan untuk balik lagi ke sana begitu besar...
Padahal kulit kita yang belang bonteng belum balik ke asal (waktu pergi sempat dikira orang cina....pulang ? hehehe mirip dakocan nan hitam..hehehe)

Jadi kongkritnya.. ??

Ada niat, tapi belum ada kesempatan.

Waspadalah ! Waspada lahhhhh !!!!!

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another!

Another of my GCN book reviews, from 1981 or 1982.

A Smile in His Lifetime
by Joseph Hansen
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $13.95 hardcover
292 pp.

Last summer Mike Peters of the Dayton News published an editorial cartoon of a woman who, though “underpaid, sexually harassed, passed over for promotion and stuck in a stereotyped role,” opposes the ERA. Why? “She likes being treated special.” Someday I intend to draw a cartoon of one of those neo-butch gay men who haunt the johns, the dirty-book stores, the backroom bars, but won’t have anything to do with the gay movement. Why? Because they believe in being discreet about their gayness.

Joseph Hansen is the author of a series of mystery novels starring a middle-aged gay male insurance investigator named Dave Brandstetter. Brandstetter has his crotchets, but he’s a reasonably likable, competently functioning human being. Like many gay men of our parents’ generation, he has learned not to let hostile Society cramp his style much – a task made easier, no doubt, by the fact that he lives in Southern California. When gay activists do appear in The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of, the most recent book in the series, they are depicted as crazy fairies completely out of touch with reality. This is a bit odd since Mr. Hansen himself, according to the dust jacket of his newest novel, “was a founder in 1965 of the pioneering homosexual journal Tangents.” Surely he knows better.

Now Mr. Hansen has moved into “mainstream” fiction with A Smile in His Lifetime, his first non-mystery novel. Whit Miller, the book’s protagonist, is gay but unlike Dave Brandstetter, he is a psychic basket case. Whit is married to Dell Everett, a straight woman. As the novel begins, Whit and Dell are living in near-poverty in the hills back of Los Angeles. He is a struggling and unsuccessful writer, she is a former teacher turned antiwar activist. She takes care of him, since they both agree he can’t take care of himself. It is the mid-1960s. First Whit, who married Dell in full flight from his adolescent homosexuality (at 19 he had already had at least two intense relationships) tumbles ambivalently into bed with a neighbor boy. Then he reels from lover to lover trying to regain his lost balance. He finally publishes a best-selling novel; Dell leaves him; he becomes famous; falls desperately in love with a beautiful hippie youth named Jaime who moves in with him and goes mad after a bad acid trip; Whit’s house is burglarized by one of his subsequent tricks; his novel is turned into a film; he is nearly killed by a gang of queerbeaters. Throughout, Whit marinates in self-loathing seasoned with contemptuous remarks about “faggots,” and I suppose the reader is supposed to conclude that if you hate yourself, bad things will happen to you. By the end of the book Whit seems to have learned little or nothing from his suffering; presumably the reader, having read the cautionary tale, is expected to.

I keep reminding myself that Whit Miller’s distrust of politics (he can’t get interested in his wife’s antiwar activism either) and Dave Brandstetter’s contempt for radical fairies are probably far more common than my ideological commitment to militant gay pride. And I have to admit that there is a lot in Whit Miller that I can identify with: the rage turned inward against oneself, or outward at lovers, rather than at the real enemy, is something that ideology has only partially alleviated for me; Whit’s alienation and his flights from the intimacy he also craves come uncomfortably close to home for me. Yet there is a difference between us that I think is crucial: for me the rise of a militant gay movement in the late 1960s (part of the period the story includes) was exhilarating and liberating, but Whit is unaware or unconcerned that a new attitude toward being a faggot is being born. This might very well be exactly his problem, but if Mr. Hansen thinks so there is no hint in the texts. Nor is there any other positive alternative, it seems. Whit rejects the offer of at least one man to replace Dell as the nursemaid in his life, and I think he’s right, because Whit needs to learn to take care of himself. But it is clear that he can’t, at the close of the novel he seems to be withdrawing into hopelessness, unless the closing sequence (in which he rescues his cat Polk from his crumbling beach house) is meant to symbolize Whit’s new strength and courage. If so, I don’t believe a word of it, having watched Whit snatching defeat from the jaws of victory time after time for the past 290-odd pages. I’m not sure I’m asking for a happy ending; I’m not sure how I think the novel should end; but I’m pretty sure this ending resolves nothing – and if it wasn’t meant to, why bother to write at all?

Contrast, say, Daniel Curzon’s frankly propagandistic Something You Do in the Dark, first published ten years ago. Cole Ruffner, that book’s hero, never comes into contact with the gay movement either, but he does begin to learn to turn his rage outward, even if he does so too late. Or compare James Purdy’s Eustace Chisholm and the Works, first published in 1967, in which the theme of the consequences of turning away love is carried to more baroque extremes – which is the point: A Smile in His Lifetime say nothing, it seems to me, which Purdy didn’t say fourteen years ago. Or consider Dancer from the Dance, in which Sutherland squelches every “slightest sign of complaint, self-pity or sentimentality” by saying something like, “Perhaps what you need is a good facial.” Perhaps what Whit Miller needs is a Sutherland in his life, instead of solicitous friends eager to shelter his sensitive artist’s soul from the stormy realities of life.

Mr. Hansen writes a spare prose that is sometimes beautiful:

Whit likes driving freeways after midnight. It is one of the times when he lets himself feel a little bit romantic. The long trail of red taillights curving away from him is beautiful and mysterious. He wants to know where everyone is going. It is more than wanting. He sickens with yearning to know where they are going and to go with them. … He knows nothing about their lives, but they are all beautiful and terrible to him, boxed up in those dark, hurtling cars. That he can’t be with them makes him ache. (p. 222)

A Smile in His Lifetime reminds me of Woody Allen’s film Interiors, an equally bleak and hopeless “serious” work. Mr. Hansen can do better, I know. Now that he has shown he can write a real novel, maybe he can go back to writing fiction in which the gay characters aren’t relentlessly punished throughout. There is a tendency nowadays (actually it goes back to the beginnings of the gay movement, and probably beyond as well) to claim that we don’t need gay pride any more, that gay guilt is a thing of the past. I’ll believe it when we start getting some gay male fiction where homosexuality is a given, not a problem. Mr. Hansen has already taken steps in this direction with his mystery novels; I hope he will go further in his future novels, whatever the genre. But A Smile in His Lifetime, as far as I can see, is a step backward.

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another!

Another of my GCN book reviews, from 1981 or 1982.

A Smile in His Lifetime
by Joseph Hansen
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $13.95 hardcover
292 pp.

Last summer Mike Peters of the Dayton News published an editorial cartoon of a woman who, though “underpaid, sexually harassed, passed over for promotion and stuck in a stereotyped role,” opposes the ERA. Why? “She likes being treated special.” Someday I intend to draw a cartoon of one of those neo-butch gay men who haunt the johns, the dirty-book stores, the backroom bars, but won’t have anything to do with the gay movement. Why? Because they believe in being discreet about their gayness.

Joseph Hansen is the author of a series of mystery novels starring a middle-aged gay male insurance investigator named Dave Brandstetter. Brandstetter has his crotchets, but he’s a reasonably likable, competently functioning human being. Like many gay men of our parents’ generation, he has learned not to let hostile Society cramp his style much – a task made easier, no doubt, by the fact that he lives in Southern California. When gay activists do appear in The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of, the most recent book in the series, they are depicted as crazy fairies completely out of touch with reality. This is a bit odd since Mr. Hansen himself, according to the dust jacket of his newest novel, “was a founder in 1965 of the pioneering homosexual journal Tangents.” Surely he knows better.

Now Mr. Hansen has moved into “mainstream” fiction with A Smile in His Lifetime, his first non-mystery novel. Whit Miller, the book’s protagonist, is gay but unlike Dave Brandstetter, he is a psychic basket case. Whit is married to Dell Everett, a straight woman. As the novel begins, Whit and Dell are living in near-poverty in the hills back of Los Angeles. He is a struggling and unsuccessful writer, she is a former teacher turned antiwar activist. She takes care of him, since they both agree he can’t take care of himself. It is the mid-1960s. First Whit, who married Dell in full flight from his adolescent homosexuality (at 19 he had already had at least two intense relationships) tumbles ambivalently into bed with a neighbor boy. Then he reels from lover to lover trying to regain his lost balance. He finally publishes a best-selling novel; Dell leaves him; he becomes famous; falls desperately in love with a beautiful hippie youth named Jaime who moves in with him and goes mad after a bad acid trip; Whit’s house is burglarized by one of his subsequent tricks; his novel is turned into a film; he is nearly killed by a gang of queerbeaters. Throughout, Whit marinates in self-loathing seasoned with contemptuous remarks about “faggots,” and I suppose the reader is supposed to conclude that if you hate yourself, bad things will happen to you. By the end of the book Whit seems to have learned little or nothing from his suffering; presumably the reader, having read the cautionary tale, is expected to.

I keep reminding myself that Whit Miller’s distrust of politics (he can’t get interested in his wife’s antiwar activism either) and Dave Brandstetter’s contempt for radical fairies are probably far more common than my ideological commitment to militant gay pride. And I have to admit that there is a lot in Whit Miller that I can identify with: the rage turned inward against oneself, or outward at lovers, rather than at the real enemy, is something that ideology has only partially alleviated for me; Whit’s alienation and his flights from the intimacy he also craves come uncomfortably close to home for me. Yet there is a difference between us that I think is crucial: for me the rise of a militant gay movement in the late 1960s (part of the period the story includes) was exhilarating and liberating, but Whit is unaware or unconcerned that a new attitude toward being a faggot is being born. This might very well be exactly his problem, but if Mr. Hansen thinks so there is no hint in the texts. Nor is there any other positive alternative, it seems. Whit rejects the offer of at least one man to replace Dell as the nursemaid in his life, and I think he’s right, because Whit needs to learn to take care of himself. But it is clear that he can’t, at the close of the novel he seems to be withdrawing into hopelessness, unless the closing sequence (in which he rescues his cat Polk from his crumbling beach house) is meant to symbolize Whit’s new strength and courage. If so, I don’t believe a word of it, having watched Whit snatching defeat from the jaws of victory time after time for the past 290-odd pages. I’m not sure I’m asking for a happy ending; I’m not sure how I think the novel should end; but I’m pretty sure this ending resolves nothing – and if it wasn’t meant to, why bother to write at all?

Contrast, say, Daniel Curzon’s frankly propagandistic Something You Do in the Dark, first published ten years ago. Cole Ruffner, that book’s hero, never comes into contact with the gay movement either, but he does begin to learn to turn his rage outward, even if he does so too late. Or compare James Purdy’s Eustace Chisholm and the Works, first published in 1967, in which the theme of the consequences of turning away love is carried to more baroque extremes – which is the point: A Smile in His Lifetime say nothing, it seems to me, which Purdy didn’t say fourteen years ago. Or consider Dancer from the Dance, in which Sutherland squelches every “slightest sign of complaint, self-pity or sentimentality” by saying something like, “Perhaps what you need is a good facial.” Perhaps what Whit Miller needs is a Sutherland in his life, instead of solicitous friends eager to shelter his sensitive artist’s soul from the stormy realities of life.

Mr. Hansen writes a spare prose that is sometimes beautiful:

Whit likes driving freeways after midnight. It is one of the times when he lets himself feel a little bit romantic. The long trail of red taillights curving away from him is beautiful and mysterious. He wants to know where everyone is going. It is more than wanting. He sickens with yearning to know where they are going and to go with them. … He knows nothing about their lives, but they are all beautiful and terrible to him, boxed up in those dark, hurtling cars. That he can’t be with them makes him ache. (p. 222)

A Smile in His Lifetime reminds me of Woody Allen’s film Interiors, an equally bleak and hopeless “serious” work. Mr. Hansen can do better, I know. Now that he has shown he can write a real novel, maybe he can go back to writing fiction in which the gay characters aren’t relentlessly punished throughout. There is a tendency nowadays (actually it goes back to the beginnings of the gay movement, and probably beyond as well) to claim that we don’t need gay pride any more, that gay guilt is a thing of the past. I’ll believe it when we start getting some gay male fiction where homosexuality is a given, not a problem. Mr. Hansen has already taken steps in this direction with his mystery novels; I hope he will go further in his future novels, whatever the genre. But A Smile in His Lifetime, as far as I can see, is a step backward.

Day 36 My temporary rug hooking set up

I actually rearranged this corner of the living room. This way I can hook whenever I have a few spare moments. They really add up. The wire shelving is the same shelving I use in the studio. It can be set up and torn down in just moments. See my website for more details. Click on the rug eSchool and take a look at the pictorial tour of my studio. They are old pictures. I have actually added

Day 35 Still rug hooking the scrolls

The design of this scroll is based on the porch supports at the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, NJ. I fell in love with this hotel and the area the first year I taught at the Rugs by the Sea rug camp. It is held every year in September. There are two weeks of instruction offered. See the teaching schedule on my website for more information on this camp and others.I started the hit and miss that