Thursday, July 23, 2015

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying . . . well, you decide


      When I received Scott Hawkins' The Library at Mount Char from Blogging for Books, I had hopes that it would be an inventive, intelligent, high-concept fantasy. I mean, it does have the word "Library" in the title, and as a fan of Jorge Luis Borges, that alone is a draw. And then there's inside front cover copy, indicating "ancient customs" and the possibility that the plot deals with nothing less than the actual death of God. I'm a sucker for "ancient customs" and mythologies (I majored in anthropology as an undergrad and later taught mythology), and I'm inclined to be forgiving and generous when it comes to fictional representations of those subjects. But Hawkins' first novel owes more to the mythology of twelve-year-old fanboys, i.e., ugly and gratuitous violence, generally leading to explosions of varying degrees and dimensions, than it does to anything found in an actual or even invented library. And it's not the inventive recasting of the idea of a library that's the problem; it's the lack of a solid underpinning or grounding for the world Hawkins creates here. He does eventually get around to that, but not until the reader has slogged through 275 pages, give or take a few, of fairly mind-numbing carnage, much of it at the hands of David, a larger-than-life psychopath in a tutu who's generally described as covered in blood. Aside from that description, and the fact that he's unstoppable (until near the end), David's not really very interesting, just an oddly dressed variation on one of the evil Terminators from the movie franchise.
      David has a sister, Carolyn, who's apparently the protagonist of the story, though she's another fairly flat character with few redeeming or even particularly interesting qualities. She's very smart and has vast knowledge (gleaned from the Library) of stuff regular people don't know much about, though her cloistered upbringing has rendered her fairly ignorant in the ways of the outside world, and she dresses strangely. But she's on a mission, so I suppose she can be forgiven her one-track mind. That mission concerns the probable death of God, who raised her and her adopted siblings (including David) in the Library; they refer to him as "Father," and like God (and perhaps some real fathers) he is the great mystery at the heart of this book. We could perhaps compare him to Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Perhaps.
      Fortunately, Hawkins has given Carolyn a foil, Steven, the "American" she sort of loves (to the dozen "children" of the Library, all outsiders are "Americans"). We learn very late in the book that they have a childhood connection, but it's too late to save either their relationship or the novel. Carolyn puts him through all kinds of torments, but she does give him a lioness, Naga, so he's less alone than he might be while the world is going to hell. Steve's relationship with Naga is one of the very best things about this book.
      The other intriguing character is Erwin Charles Leffington, an authentic war hero who served three tours in Afghanistan and then "decided he'd killed enough people," and now works for the Department of Homeland Security. Erwin, Steve, and Carolyn eventually become a sort of team, three musketeers against the bad guys, who include some of Carolyn's siblings and the U.S. military-industrial complex. (Most of the other characters eventually wind up as collateral damage.) Without Steven and Erwin, I doubt I'd have finished The Library at Mount Char
      If this book winds up being made into a movie, I might go see it. It has potential, given a good screenwriter and director - Guillermo del Toro comes to mind - who could emphasize the humanity of some characters who don't seem to really interest Hawkins, particularly female characters, who are thinly drawn, even Carolyn, who for the most part is just a killing machine with a sort of detached curiosity about others, whom she describes as "disposable." The visuals and special effects, though, should be awesome.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Use What You Have: Patchwork Pillows & Potholders

     My current project is really a succession of projects, a continuing foray into stash-busting. This is a public declaration: I have accumulated so many things (like the beat-up school chair in the post before last, http://morning-glory-garden.blogspot.com/2015/07/chairs-and-more-chairs.html?spref=fb, for example), so much stuff of various kinds, out of the conviction I could turn them into something beautiful, or at least interesting. Rather than take it all down to Goodwill or have a yard sale (I like going to them, but not holding them) I'm making a conscious effort to actually do what I'd intended with all those things I've collected. So this is the most recent step toward that goal . . . . 
     The three pillows above are made from vintage patchwork blocks I bought at the January Tucson Quilt Festival, four or five Januaries ago. I appliqued each one to a coordinating cotton fabric (white muslin, blue chambray, and unbleached muslin, left to right), made each one into the usual quilt sandwich of pieced block, batting, and backing, and hand-quilted them. I used red quilting thread on the one on the right, to pick up the color of some tiny red flowers, and I really like the way it turned out, though it's such a subtle detail it may not show in the picture. The center seams on the smallest one, in the middle, were a bit off so the orange and red pieces didn't quite line up as they should; that's why I sewed the button there. Then I sewed piping around the edges and sewed the quilted pillow tops to their backings, which have sort of envelope openings (see below) so you can slip (or violently stuff, in some cases) the pillow forms into the decorative covers, and when they get dirty slip them out again to wash the covers.
          These are the backs of the three pillows below. Each one is made of two pieces of fabric (scrap fabric in two cases, and part of an old slip cover that the cats had scratched badly - but only in spots - in the other), with each piece hemmed and overlapping the other by about four inches. Like the chair I mentioned above, this project was an exercise in meeting the challenge of using things I already had without buying anything else.
           The fronts of the next three pillows began with 11" blocks given to me by the woman who heads up the quilting group at our church. There were actually six of them in a box of odds and ends that the group had no use for, and I was happy to take them. I added a 1 1/2" border of unbleached muslin around each one and then hand-quilted and assembled them just like the ones in the first photo above. The border was a little more than I needed, but that way I was sure they'd be big enough; I could (and did) trim off the excess after sewing the covers together. For these and the little red and blue one with the button above, I used 12" pillow forms I bought at IKEA a few years ago for 99 cents each! Unfortunately, they no longer carry that item; believe me, I've looked.
      I said there were six of these quilt blocks; the last three became potholders but I gave one away to a friend for her birthday, so I can only show you two. The process was the same as for the pillows through the hand quilting and then I just sewed wide double-fold bias tape around the edges of the quilted "sandwiches," extending the last couple of inches or so to make a hanging loop.
     Cosmo wanted to be in a picture, so here he is with some more little pillows covered with granny squares that I made to use up the last bits of some leftover yarn from other projects (of course). They're made in essentially the same way as the patchwork ones, though with no batting or quilting, obviously. For each one, I sewed the crocheted square to a square of the fabric that's used for the back with its overlapping opening, then sewed the fronts and backs together all the way around, right sides together, clipped the corners, turned them right side out, and stuffed the pillow forms into them.
 And then I put them on the sofa so Cosmo could pose with them, since they all go so well together.


Saturday, July 11, 2015

Bug Off! An Easy Approach

This is the windowsill over my kitchen sink, at least part of it. There are a couple more pots to the right and left of those you see, but what I want you to notice is the little white dish with the blue flower. It's a death trap.
It's the time of year for fruit flies but we've also been subject to a small plague of fungus gnats. Here with the potted plants I'm pretty sure it's fungus gnats.They don't rise up in great clouds when I water the plants, but a few do, and they're extremely annoying and almost impossible to eradicate completely - insecticidal soap and trying not to overwater both help some. But this old school remedy, which was originally thought up for fruit flies, has made a big difference. The white dish contains apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap. The tiny bugs are attracted to the vinegar, and once they land on it, the dish soap keeps them from flying out again.
 This is a two-day catch, not pretty, but very satisfying. Since it's been hot we've been keeping the curtains closed, which has the added benefit of keeping the windowsill plants and their unwelcome tenants cut off from the rest of the room, so in that confined space they're more likely, I think, to succumb to the allure of the vinegar trap. Behind the curtain below, stealthy murder is being carried out. And I don't feel a bit guilty.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Rain and More Rain - a book review


I live in the Sonoran desert, and I have a garden; consequently, I am obsessed with rain. As an undergraduate, I majored in anthropology with a minor in history. So of course I was drawn to Cynthia Barnett's Rain: A Natural and Cultural History. I was hoping for something like Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History and Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, two books I found enormously entertaining and enlightening. (I've also learned that Kurlansky has written a book on oysters, and I'm looking forward to reading it, too.) Rain, I thought, is far more central to life on the planet and occupies more important places in human life and consciousness, and so Barnett's book should be at least as compelling as Kurlansky's works. And at least in some places, it is.

      She begins with a beautifully written recounting of Ray Bradbury's description of the rains of Mars in The Martian Chronicles, then segues into the history of water on our planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus, Earth's exceptional good fortune in still having water, and the history of water on our planet through the various geologic ages and throughout human history until today. I learned about the pluvial or wet periods in which our earliest primate ancestors lived and how climate shifts, from rain forest to open savanna, likely triggered later ancestors' transition to bipedalism. I learned about the famines that resulted during excessively pluvial periods of the Middle Ages, and about British meteorologist Luke Howard's early 19th century classification of cloud types and the origin of the phrase "Cloud Nine" (the towering cumulonimbus clouds were number nine on his list of ten types, and even though they were later shifted to number ten, the phrase remains as a reference to the highest, thickest, arguably most dramatic and beautiful of clouds, a place of ultimate joy). Barnett writes about railroad promoters who in the 19th century encouraged pioneers to settle in the arid West with the claim that "rain follows the plow." (It didn't.)

       Unfortunately, the book bogs down in the middle and becomes more than a bit of a slog, as if in approaching the more pedestrian and prosaic present she can't help but succumb to a certain pedestrian style herself. She does, however, make a clear and cogent argument for the reality of climate change and self-serving, willful ignorance (or outright lies) of those who argue against the scientific evidence, such as U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, "perhaps the most prominent national opponent of meaningful legislation to reduce fossil fuel emissions, [who] has said that humans cannot possibly control the climate because only God can do that." Of course, "[i]n addition to his [alleged] religious convictions, Inhofe has a sense of duty to the energy sector, the largest industry in Oklahoma" (273-4). The information in the bulk of the book is as important as what comes before, but the writing is less compelling than in the earlier chapters, though she periodically gets her mojo back for short stretches, as when she returns to Bradbury and his observation that "the Martians 'blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle'" (276).

       Despite the "Accolades for Rain" cited on the back cover, Barnett's book is mostly the "investigation" though occasionally she approaches the "interpretation," and it is in those latter instances that her prose soars. It is a good book, or rather, a good-enough book that, as is evident from the early chapters, could have been much more.

Chairs and More Chairs

 I should have taken a picture of what this chair looked like when Joe first brought it home after finding it abandoned in a back room of his office building, just one of those nondescript chairs many of us remember from school. With its light-colored plywood seat and back and metal parts painted a sort of vomit beige, it was more than a little beat up, the wood scratched and nicked. But it had nice clean lines - potential. And it was free.
      It looked much worse after it got left outside in the rain after Joe cleaned the garage - trust me, you should be glad I didn't take a picture of it then - and I wondered briefly if I shouldn't just forget about it. It sat in the garage for longer than I want to admit, but finally I took up the challenge.  

      This project wasn't exactly free; rather, it utilized things we already had: some Kilz white primer to paint over the by now even more disreputable plywood, Mod-Podge, a replica of an old (probably 19th century) map of France, a can of varathane, and some gold spray paint for the metal parts.
     First I lightly sanded everything, wood and metal, then I painted the wood with two coats of primer. When that was dry I sprayed the metal, the bottom of the seat, and the back of the back with a couple of coats of gold. I didn't worry about masking anything because what wasn't gold would soon be covered up; the next step was to cut the map into two pieces to fit the seat and the back, cutting them generously because it's easier to trim off too much than to add in more if you cut it too small.  (Sadly, we won't "always have Paris," because in the process of cutting and pasting it disappeared somewhere between the back of the seat and the bottom of the back piece.)
      I glued the map pieces to the wood with Mod-Podge, working slowly, a bit at a time from back to front on the seat and top to bottom on the back piece to avoid bumps and bubbles and wrinkles. It's not perfect, as the wood surface itself wasn't perfectly smooth, but near enough.
     The picture below shows one of the metal nailheads - there are four on each piece, one on each  corner, attaching the wood to the metal tubing. I didn't put any Mod-Podge on them but otherwise just laid the paper over them and then cut around them with a craft knife while the Mod-Podge was still wet. In a couple of spots I cut a bit too much and had to touch up those places with acrylic paint blended to match the map colors.
     After the Mod-Podge dried, I trimmed off any excess paper along the edges and painted all the paper surfaces with three coats of varathane, letting it dry completely between coats.
      The only thing I actually bought for this project was a couple of yards of 5/8" gold braid that I glued on (with E6000, because that was what I had and I wanted to be sure it would stick forever) to cover the raw edges of the 5/8" plywood. (With a 50% off coupon the braid cost less than $3 at JoAnn.) I bought a lighter shade of gold than I really wanted because I knew it would darken from the varathane I painted over it as part of the fourth and final coat for the chair back and seat. The braid is stiff and hard as a result; it should be as tough and lasting as the rest of the chair.
     The picture below is a preview of coming attractions. Joe found this oak captain's chair by the side of the road while he was out walking one day and brought it home for my study. I'd been using one of those balance ball office chairs, bought on sale and on a whim a few years ago, but the ball had suddenly begun to leak and I'd long ago lost my fondness for the chair as a whole. Its black plastic frame and the green ball really didn't go with anything in the room. Healthy but ugly. So rather than try to fix the leak or buy a new ball, we put the whole assemblage out on the curb and someone quickly took it away, just like Joe took away this chair that someone else no longer wanted. Recycling in its purest form: no money, no middleman, no waste. I love it.
This chair just needs cleaning up with Minwax refinisher or something like that, four nail-on glides for the feet so it doesn't snag the rug, and a nice cushion, and it will be exactly the desk chair I always wanted (though I didn't know it until I saw it).