The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
I Dare Not Hope
I may have mentioned that when we adopted Gibbs, my friend Karen (who has three dogs in the five to ten pound range) gave us about a million toys that her dogs weren’t using. Today, she gave me some more. In the pile was a brightly colored star-shaped frisbee for dogs.
Blanket 32
This was from a stash of Bernat Satin yarn that I picked up on clearance:
Banana and Lapis are the colors.
The other night, my mother reminded me that I had to make a Christmas stocking for the puppy. Yeah. Everyone gets a stocking in my house. But I still have one last fleece blanket to finish before Saturday. And a lot of yarn.
But I’ll get to it!
Things I Have Taken Out of the Puppy’s Mouth
Sticks
Off! Clip On
I am not up to date with my insect repellent technology. The last thing I remember is the discovery that Avon’s Skin So Soft spray worked really well. But I am housetraining a puppy and spending more time outside at odd hours than I have since the days of pretend camping at Woodhaven Lakes.
Howl
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B0042U9B3G&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrIt is incredibly foolish of me to get distracted by hulu.com, but there I was and there was the link to Howl, the 2010 film about the work by Allen Ginsberg. I seem to remember reading it during the five-minute Beat Poet phase of my early 20s.
This short film is based on some recordings Ginsberg made while his publisher was on trial for selling obscene material. The narrative bounces between several things:
- a coffee house reading by Ginsberg – shot in b&w
- the action that inspired the work – with Kerouac and Cassady, et al
- the trial with the expert witnesses from academia debating its literary value
- said recordings
- dreamy interpretation in animation
Gibbs – After Three Weeks
Three weeks ago, when we adopted him, Gibbs was ten weeks old and weighed seven pounds. At 13 weeks, he is 12.2 pounds. Is there a metric for how big he is going to get?
He is not entirely house trained, but does well at night in his crate. He has learned to go up and down the stairs. Except at 2 a.m. when I know he has to go outside and he doesn’t want to get up. He stretches and yawns rather dramatically.
He has about one encounter each day with Spooky the Cat. The best we can say about that is that he is still alive. He has taken bites – no blood was found – from each of the birds and now stays away from them.
He has made up an agility course in the backyard, made up of bushes against the side of the house. This was all fine and good until he learned that if he went deep enough into the bushes, it was really hard for people to grab him. He is unbelievably fast. And smart. He knows that he can out run me, but also that he will get tired before I will. So there is a timer in his head that tells him exactly how long he will have to go before he has chewed and swallowed whatever it is I don’t want him to have.
He has three weeks to go before his immunizations are complete and I can start taking him to a training class. I’d better start looking for one.
Blanket 31
The Bulls fleece blanket:
The foundation row is Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn in White and the two rows of single crochet are Red Heart yarn in Cherry Red. This will make some kid very happy.
Independence Day Grinch
Dear Neighbors:
In addition to being kept up past 2 a.m. on a work night, I have pulled no less than four pieces of bottle-rocket debris from the mouth of my puppy.
You suck.
Edit: 8:30 p.m. That would be five pieces of bottle-rocket debris.
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0060557818&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrBook 34
Neverwhere is a book that my friend Liza raved about (she raves about everything Gaiman), but it sat on my shelf until it was chosen as the last One Book One Chicago of Mayor Daley’s reign.
It is a dark, dark fantasy set in London (sort of). It is so dark that it took awhile before I fully engaged. I actually had a “why am I reading this” moment, but I liked the heroes from the beginning, so I held on.
Wise choice I made there.
The thing with fantasy novels is that the author is creating a whole new world, and the reader has to buy into that world. Buy into its rules and care about what happens there. The world Gaiman created runs parallel to London reality, and our hero, Richard comes from the Real World. So his introduction is our introduction and it works nicely. There was only one major moment where I thought he was an idiot – and that involved a girl.
You have your battles of Good and Evil, your Friends and Foes and trying to figure out which is which. You have your Truth and your Consequences and it is all so cinematic that I had problems eating lunch and reading this thing. Seriously, it has a pretty high Ick Factor.
Having said that, it really is a beautifully written piece. If there were a sequel, I would read it. Is there a sequel?
How to Contribute without Spending a Dime
The Next Dark Age 