What Emma Thompson is up to

November 5, 2006  By SARAH LYALL

LONDON – EMMA THOMPSON was recalling the pivotal scene in Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” when her resolutely self-contained character, Elinor Dashwood, realizes that her life has changed forever, that the man she loves has not, as she had thought, gone and married someone else.

Hugh Grant, her co-star, “hadn’t realized that I was going to be sobbing all the way through his speech,” Ms. Thompson recalled. “But I said, ‘There’s no other way, and I promise you it’ll work, and it will be funny as well as being touching. And he said, ‘Oh, all right,’ and he was very good about it.” She grinned. “That is a terrible example of how to upstage another actor.”

It is also a terrific example of Ms. Thompson’s skill at mixing comedy and pathos, finding ruefulness in mirth, laughter in despair and threads of humor in just about everything. Now 47, she has earned a reputation as an actor of versatility and intelligence who brings unusual subtlety and poignancy to her roles: a lonely scholar dying of ovarian cancer in “Wit”; an unappreciated wife who learns that her husband is cheating on her in “Love, Actually”; the homely title character, accessorized with strategically placed facial warts and a gift for magic, in “Nanny McPhee.”

Read it and cheer – and VOTE on Tuesday!

The Difference Two Years Made

On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women’s rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president’s campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Mr. Bush’s goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

See the superb Andrew Sullivan for the editorial to be released by the ARMY TIMES calling for R’s resignation.

It was TIME to clean up the basement storage area – couldn’t  deal with all the

• folded moving boxes stacked and scattered throughout
• boxes full of “mysterious” yarn – what was where?
• miscellaneous boxes full of “stuff”

So it being a fairly coolish day (in the 40s) but since my storage area is shared with the furnace for the apt above it (the other one on my floor) I knew it would be warm and toasty while I did some work. 

Digression:   warming tactics in the home

I am HOLDING off turning on my heat – I have to pay for my heat – its gas and its baseboard heaters and its a very drafty apt.  Unfortunately I dont have the exact costs per month from last year cause the Electric company “guesstimated” my gas for FIVE months from Jan to May and then WHAMMY hit me with a HUGE bill of the actual costs – one lump sum that I am still paying off slowly month by month .  ARGH!  So I am determined NOT to give much money to them this year .  SIGH I will be swaddled with many layers of sweaters and wearing gloves and hats as much as I can.  

In efforts to keep the gas bill down, I bought two Lasko Ceramic Pedestal Heaters with Remote Control .

One is in the Music Room – the very front room that faces due west and towards the river – so you KNOW it gets the Western Wind off the river – and one of the windows has no storm window (BIG sigh, for landlords who don’t invest in their property).  I have heavy damask curtains with heavy blackout/insulated liners which are drawn across both windows and do help to keep the wind out fairly well.  However the front door is right outside the door and there is an internal front door into the hallway. 

Last year I had my carpenter create above the door modling a type of  “sill” out of another piece of molding and a couple of hooks so that i could hang a curtain rod on it with curtains to block the wind coming in thru the door

because the Piano is RIGHT next to the door!  [can you say chilly!]

The apt also has three windows on the long “hallway” of the Southern side of the building (Its a shotgun or railroad type apartment).  They are mostly blocked by the evergreens that line the boundary of the next door neighbor’s property (a very exclusive “park” which borders the street I live on which is full of lesser type buildings!).  I have lined all the curtains – actually doubled the liners as  – you know it – these windows, while having storm windows, are full of drafty holes as the windows are VERY OLD (double hung and lots of holes between the storm window and the building).  I don’t expect to ever see these replaced  – although it would be very welcome and a miracle if they were.

Last spring I bought insulated shades as well for the windows so now they have triple protection – the storm window, the shade and the liner and curtains. 

This is the other helpful item I bought – and something I have never used – an electric blanket.  I put it on the bed last night – but the instructions said not to use an extension cord – unfortunately, I have a loft bed and there is no plug up there – so I will go to the hardware store and see if there is a Heavy duty extension cord I could get – other than that I may have to drill a hole in the bed and string the cord down to the ONE plug in the room (remember this is a VERY old house) and then PRAY it reaches.  SIGH

oh one more thing – since I am on the first floor and the furnaces are in the basement I am seeing some “residual” heat helping the apt – however, its only in the back of the apt – in the den and kitchen because the furnaces for the upper floor two apts are under the kitchen/den area.  So at night it becomes a bit more toasty as the tenants upstairs turn up their heat while home.  My furnace is under my bedroom/music room , in fact the chimney for the furnace (there is a mantel for a fireplace in each front room – we think that there must have been gas stoves in them – but cant find any stone hearth – so its a mystery.  Anyway, the “works” for my furnace come up thru that chimney = but since I dont have mine on yet, there isnt much warmth yet.

Here endeth the digression.

So spending sometime in the basement next to a warm furnace was not undesirable – and since I have been so wordy about my heating issues – here are photos to tell the story.

BEFORE

Looking into my storage space.  Folded moving boxes have already been stacked and stored in back corner (way back behind the boxes on the left side of the photo).

AFTER

Ok, so it maybe it doesn’t look THAT different – you can see in the next photos the real work.

Yarn Inventory BEFORE 

and AFTER

All boxes opened and all yarn redistributed according to manufacturer.  Yarn taken from old style moving boxes and put into new smaller easier-to-handle boxes with lids and handholds on each side.   (from ULINE – a great place for supplies)

Whew!  It was good to do this. 

And now I am inspired to tackle my books!  – I have books still in boxes in the basement but they were haphazardly packed by a very uncooperative moving man during the move and I am missing a lot of my favorite books – mostly my mysteries (i have a huge collection of paperback mysteries).  Now that I am organized in my study, and seem to have a bit more free shelf space than I thought, I want to sort thru them.  (They are off to the left of the photos at the top).

After all that excitement, I fell asleep on the sofa watching Law n Order and woke up around 3 – and now its time to go back to bed.

Knitting photos soon – current projects are:

• Red Sweater KAL and Ariann KAL Sweater – Ariann in Rio Red Inca Alpaca
• Zimmermania KAL – Totem Jacket
• My own design Aran Sweater for nephew -need to steek for sleeves
• BWAbbey KAL sweater – just received pattern in the mail.  Need to shop stash for yarn.

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?

rest here,  please read it and, need I say – VOTE on Tuesday!

from NY TIMES

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Even before his career took off, the young Leonard Bernstein sized up television and thought, first, that it was potentially the greatest tool for general music education and, second, that he was the ideal television teacher. He was right on both counts.

In 1958, Bernstein, by then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, presented his first Young People’s Concert, which was televised nationally. The broadcasts continued for 15 years and have never been equaled.

The field of classical music has long been waiting for some musician to come along who could use television with Bernstein’s galvanizing impact. The closest, it seemed, has been the dynamic maestro Michael Tilson Thomas, a natural who has masterminded some impressive shows. Until recently, though, TV had not been a central component of Mr. Thomas’s work.

That has now changed. Mr. Thomas is the creative force behind a $23 million, five-year project titled “Keeping Score.” Developed by the San Francisco Symphony, where Mr. Thomas is in his 11th season as music director, “Keeping Score” comprises a series of PBS television shows, an interactive Web site, a series of radio broadcasts, documentary and live performance DVDs and a program for public schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, that is starting this fall in selected cities in California and Arizona.

This ambitious project would not amount to much if it did not have the right communicator directing things. Mr. Thomas is that person, as the first three “Keeping Score” TV shows make clear. Last night various PBS stations began broadcasting the first 60-minute installment, which explores Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. (It will be broadcast in New York on Channel 13 at noon on Sunday.)

New School Knitting: The Influence of Elizabeth Zimmermann and Schoolhouse Press

October 27 – December 17, 2006

Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen, ca. 1947. Photo courtesy of Schoolhouse Press.

A virtual exhibition catalog is available at www.newschoolknittingexhibition.org

Knitwear designers Elizabeth Zimmermann (1910-1999) and Meg Swansen (b. 1942), a mother and daughter team from Wisconsin, have devoted their careers to promoting Zimmermann’s “percentage system” of knitwear design. This system, which emphasizes seamless construction and allows individuals to design their own garments without a pattern, has had a tremendous impact on contemporary American knitting. Zimmermann and Swansen have influenced many individual knitters as well as a significant group of knitwear designers through their PBS television series, workshops, classes, and summer “knitting camps,” newsletter and magazine articles, as well as their own books, videos, and reprints published through The Schoolhouse Press, which was founded in 1959 by Zimmermann and continues today under Swansen's leadership.

This exhibition’s focus will be key works by Zimmermann and Swansen themselves and nine knitwear designers who have adopted their construction methods and design philosophy: Carol A. Anderson, Amy Detjen, Teva Durham, Wendy Easton, Kaffe Fassett, Norah Gaughan, Therese Inverso, Cheryl Oberle, and Joyce Williams. Through knitted garments, books, graphic diagrams, and video, the exhibition will demonstrate the way in which these designers have not only adopted the Zimmermann/Swansen approach, but elaborated on it both technically and aesthetically to create a distinct style.

Curated by Molly Greenfield, a graduate student in the Department of Environment, Textiles, and Design, the exhibition features over 65 garments, a range of archival patterns and images, and videos produced by Schoolhouse Press that feature both Zimmermann and Swansen and document their techniques and educational methods. Knitting needles, yarn, and comfortable chairs are available within the gallery so that visitors may try out Zimmermann’s innovative techniques for themselves.

From  Mambocat's Knitting Asylum a trip down MEMORY LANE

What with it being Halloween and all, I decided to regale you with a Very Old Object that has been raised from the dead.

During the course of the repair work on Mom's house in New Orleans, what to my wondering eyes should appear from the depths of a closet but the very first sweater I ever knitted for her, way back a life and a half ago.

Read more at her blog

Sending me down the LANE…

Wow mother love is incredible non?

i wish i still had any of the items i attempted to knit at 10 in baton rouge when my grandmother taught me. somehow nothing survived .

Interestingly enough my first sweater ever was a cable VOGUE creation in the 80s = i didnt know enough to know i couldnt do it.  It was in a heavy gray wool from a knitting shop near Dupont Circle.  I hung on to it for years after I grew and it didnt (!).  Eventually only gave it up when it had become a "bed" for my elder cats and then had to reluctantly throw it out when mice got into it. sigh.

But I saved the hat!   It is amazing looking at it – I do remember knitting it up in that very small one room studio apt (and I mean SMALL) right off of Dupont Circle where I was living while going to Graduate School and Working to pay the bills.  

My grandmother had died several months right after I had moved to Washington, so i was knitting it without her earthly guidance but I do believe she must have been guiding me in my efforts. I learned a hell of a lot with that sweater – one of these days I want to find that pattern and remake it.

Over the years I have received several of the sweaters she made – they are incredibly gorgeous – handsewn linings and crocheted flowers – and treasure them especially now that I have returned to the fold.  (photos to be put here soon)

What I would love to ask her (amongst many other questions) is how a south Louisiana girl learned to knit in the Continental Style – which was so uncommon in those days.  I wonder if one of the nuns at Sacred Heart in New Orleans taught her?  After all the order came over from France… hmm. 

Interestingly the crafts bug skipped her children but rested firmly in several of her grandchildren – many of us are crafty or technically handy (i have two cousins who have those jobs where they have to “kill you” if they tell you  and one who works at M#$%Soft. ) My other female eldest cousin was a GORGEOUS seamstress – quite professional in fact.

hmm. monday morning ruminations.

From The Guardian four interesting articles

Trouble in Catfish Row
Is it a celebration of the African-American spirit – or just a high-class minstrel show? Gary Younge on the controversy that has plagued Porgy and Bess since its creation.

Oliver Knussen ‘I had to write it’
Oliver Knussen tells Tom Service why he read 1,700 Emily Dickinson poems in order to compose a requiem for his former wife Sue.

War music
Audio slideshow: Andrew Dickson visits the National Gallery to find out about the concerts which took place there during the second world war – and the remarkable woman behind them.
Download the audio only to your MP3 player

Streets apart
How did a jet-setting opera director come to work with Newcastle’s homeless? Alfred Hickling meets Keith Warner.

arts front | Guardian Unlimited Arts.

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
New York Times

Anna Russell, the prima donna of operatic parody who claimed to have begun her career as “leading soprano of the Ellis Island Opera Company,” who said she learned to play the French horn from an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and who gave indelibly grating performances of a song she identified as Blotz’s “Schlumpf” to demonstrate what it is like to sing with “no voice but great art,” died on Wednesday in Bateman’s Bay, New South Wales, Australia. She was 94.

Her death was confirmed by her adopted daughter, Deirdre Prussak, in an interview with the Australian ABC radio network, quoted on its Web site.

Rest of obit

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