Fly Guy

Ironic recently posted a Simon's Cat and then today I stumbled upon this at Cursing Mama's - an episode I hadn't seen before.

Enjoy.

A Sports Whine, a Yarn Shop and a Library

Can someone please tell me when we will stop hearing about Brett Favre? I don't follow sports, but it feels like the news has been discussing the fact that he is retired and will not be coming out of retirement for a long, long time. If he is retired and not coming back to play doesn't that mean it is not news? Nothing happening doesn't usually qualify as news.

Sports confuse me.

In other sports news, swimmers' butts are, aparently, under scrutiny. Wow. Careers in prostitution, politics and sports become more and more similar every year.

On a brighter note, this is Dearborn Station in Chicago, home of Loopy Yarns. Loopy is a fantastic shop and it will be offering some classes this summer with Franklin Habit. I am trying to decide about going to one of them...
And this is the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, which I adore. It's the Library station on the El.

It has cool lights:
The combination of glass and brick, along with some sculpture at the top:
A detail:
Kind of a random combination of rant and photos today, but there you are.

Wow

Have you seen Harlot's blog?

wow

There are too many weirdos in the world

Internet provides them with a forum

Harlot's taking a valiant stand

Send her good vibes

She needs them

Namaste

A Sock for a Handrail

I've looked at KnittaPlease before, and there were the parking meters, and there have been a number of art installations, including Early Frost, and I keep thinking I'm going to do something and then Girl-child showed me this and I was inspired.

My first knit-tag:


Small start, but a start...

Born Identity

The Born Identity

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

(Silly me - I thought this issue was dead - the things you learn at staff meetings!)

Jackhammer Thursday

It's Thursday and that means Plant Pathology Library. Normally Plant Pathology is a silent cave, particularly in the summer, but this summer we have super-special construction so the silence alternates with jackhammering. Three hours. Every Thursday.

To entertain myself, and with the hope I don't lose my mind, I read American Libraries Direct on Plant Path days, I mean, why not? It's not like I can concentrate on anything.

And before I start, could I just mention that the North Koreans have slam-dunked Hillary Clinton - this just in from the wire services:

North Korea's Foreign Ministry lashing out at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in unusually personal terms for "vulgar remarks" that it said demonstrated "she is by no means intelligent."

Right. Consider the source.

And here are this week's favorite tid-bits from the library world:

Who knew that drinking beer could be such a literary endeavor? I usually curl up with a good book when I have a beer in the evening, but this beats all! This in from Brews and Books:

Avery Mephistopheles - Mephostophiles, by Faust.

Rogue Shakespeare Stout - The bard himself, William Shakespeare.

Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. The Fezziwigs are the owners of the warehouse business Scrooge worked at as a lad.

Baltimore-Washington Beer Works’ The Raven - The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven is brewed in Poe’s native Baltimore, and a nod to the author’s most famous work.

Sweetwater The Grapes of Cask - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Bad Habits’ The Hops of Wrath - The Grapes of Wrath again, natch.

Mattingly 1984 Golden Ale - 1984, by George Orwell.

Lost Abbey Inferno - Dante’s Inferno.

Grand Rapids A Clockwork Orange and Watch City Clockwork Orange - Both (a cream ale and an orange-flavored wit) are named after Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

Philadelphia Brewing Company Walt Wit - Walt Whitman, transcendentalist and (unfortunately) prohibitionist.

Shipyard Longfellow Winter Ale - Henry W. Longfellow. Fun fact - HWL was born at the current site of the Shipyard Brewery!

Rock Bottom Catcher in the Rye - Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger.

Bell’s Oberon - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare. Oberon (or Auberon) is the King of faeries in Shakespeare’s play.

New Holland’s The Poet - While it isn’t entirely clear from the description, the label for The Poet suggests it is another brew named for Poe’s The Raven.

New Holland’s Mad Hatter - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

O’Hanlon’s Thomas Hardy’s Ale - English author and naturalist Thomas Hardy.

East End Ugly American - Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s The Ugly American.

Cisco Whale’s Tale Pale Ale - Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. Though it isn’t obvious (other than the spelling of the word “tale” in the name), the brewery higher-ups have confirmed that the beer is named for Melville’s eponymous whale.

I'll have to get cracking since I've tried very few of the beers listed.

Also, and this is not a joke, did you hear about Kindle erasing the Orwell books? I was never very enthusiastic about Kindle but this will keep me away for a long, long time.

A very long time.

And although I know I'm old and a librarian and I knit and I'm oh-so-boring, I am able to enjoy the wild side vicariously. I can also appreciate creative fund raising. Take a look at this new 18-month calendar of tattooed librarians.

Maybe I should get a tattoo?

Shadows and a Sweater

Girl-child has been a part of the After Sunset Shadow Plays in the Minneapolis parks. The performers are all volunteers and they've worked hard to put on a great show. It's pretty much impossible to photograph without a tripod, but here's a shot of them setting up:
Note the anticipation of the wee ones in the foreground.

Girl-child also finished her first sweater - started about two years ago and finished yesterday, it turned out great:
Two of her summer goals can be checked off the list!

Zoömusicology

Word/title of the day

Odd and Ends

Gotta love the little pink flower for its tenacity:

This is the product of my long weekend in Chicago - I'm going to call it my Conference Sock:
And I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before, but we have child-rearing books at the library:

And this from my Page-a-Day calendar - Sunday's page:

"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'"

~Charles M. Schultz

Sidewalk Chalk Extraordinaire

Fire Escapes

Observations

Some things I noticed in Chicago:

• Chicago is not a larger version of the Twin Cities.
• It is way, way, way bigger.
• Minneapolis looks puny when you fly home from Chicago.
  
• There are a lot of skyscrapers.
• Many of the skyscrapers are in the Art Deco style.
• There are a lot of people begging in the streets.
• Young women in bars and restaurants wear CFMs and clothing that does not offer adequate coverage.
• North Rush Street is a great place to people watch on a Friday night.
• They have a mass transit system that works really, really well.
• Men sometimes offer up their seats to women on the trains.
• A woman should never decline a seat from a man on public transportation.
• I have trained Boy-child that he should never be sitting on a bus that has a woman standing.
• While I was on a train a woman scowled at a man who offered her his seat.
• I told said man that he was a real gentleman and I wished him better luck next time.
• I love to go to conferences.
• Who knew?
  

Some Chicago Architecture

We took an architecture tour on the river on Friday night and we had a great guide/docent. He had a lot of interesting history tidbits in addition to the architectural information.
This was an experimental community built on the river -if I remember right it was built in the 1970s - the first phase of a grand plan (and the only phase completed). I love the parking lot for boats:
And this is a small set of very cool townhouses on the river:
I thought we had a lot of bridges in the Twin Cities, but Chicago has an unbelievable number of bridges. Most of them are that meshy metal and they open up for river traffic to pass:

But really there are a ton of skyscrapers. When we flew in to Minneapolis there was a great view of downtown which looked puny by comparison.
And and occasional surprise - low brick with vines:
The Sears Tower (which has a new name now but who cares?) which is the ugly one in the middle:
This is one of my personal favorites:

This is a newly refurbished building, now the Hard Rock Hotel - complete with a gilded phallus on top:
These fountains in Millennium Park cool you off just by looking at them:
On our last night we went to Branch 27 restaurant - it used to be a branch of the public library:
It's very nice and open inside:
And although the American Gothic painting has always been on loan from the Institute when I've been there before, there was a way to see it this time (I didn't get to the museum - no time - but I will go back to look for the painting as well as to see the new Modern Wing):