Thursday, January 30, 2014

Pete Seeger


Rest in Peace

"Pete Seeger repeatedly put his career, his reputation and his personal security on the line so that he could play his significant musical part in campaigns for civil rights, environmental awareness and peace.

"He leaves behind a canon of songs that are both essential and true, and his contribution to folk music will be felt far into the future." BBC

Seeger performed at the Obama inauguration with Bruce Springsteen, singing the rarely heard complete version of Woodie Guthrie´s ¨This Land is Your Land¨ .
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
 
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
This land was made for you and me.
 
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
 
In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
 

Monday, January 27, 2014

New to Me



 After months of scanning the internet, I finally found a vintage, portable, electric sewing machine with both a straight and zig zag stitch.


She´s a 1960´s Alfa model 103 and came with the original instruction book and a whole bunch of accessories and gizmos.


I figure she´s been put away somewhere for a while, so I should probably disassemble the relevant parts and make sure she´s clean and oiled, but when I tried her out before taking her home the stitching was solid and quiet.


She will do a whole bunch of embroidery stitches, which seem more applicable to baby clothes than anything to me, BUT you can also drop the feed dogs, the little teethed plates that push the fabric under the pressure foot, so there is an option for free-form sewing used in machine embroidery and quilting that´s all the rage.



V has already started rearranging the second bedroom so I can have a space to work.  So woot for me!!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Misty




New soap using up the odds and ends from earlier projects.  Contains:  Almond, castor, cocont, olive, sunflower, sesame and jojoba oils, along with beeswax, shea and cocoa butter, and lard.  This is like the anti-vegan soap.  Scented with a fragrance from Fresholi which says ¨A fresh cologne that blends bergamot and orange blossom with delicate cottony florals with a base of precious powdery musks.¨  Colored with a smidge of alkanet infused olive oil that had been hanging around.


Monday, January 13, 2014

The Vermeer Controversy



I found this article fascinating - mostly because I think Tim Jenison is awesome, and because Vermeer is one of my favorites.

There has been a controversy swirling for years about whether or not Vermeer used an aparatus called a ¨camera obscura¨ as an aid in his paintings, a theory proposed by artist David Hockney and an architecture professor named Philip Steadman.

So Tim Jenison became interested in the theory and set about proving if it could be done - and his process is now the subject of a documentary by Penn Jillette, of the magical duo Penn and Teller.

Jenison´s devotion to the issue is remarkable.  He spent 5 years in the R&D phase, travelling to Amsterdam and London to study the paintings, reading translations of latin texts on optics and art, figuring out a way of putting together the lens and mirror contraption, building an exact replica of the room that was the subject of his painting - The Music Lesson, making the lenses himself as well as grinding the pigments for the paints.  An inspiration.



Tim’s Vermeer - releasing in February.


Tuesday, January 7, 2014

What the 3 Kings Brought Galicia












Of course the winning El NiƱo lottery number, worth around 120 million euros, was sold in Monforte de Lemos, so that´s something too. 

In Spain, traditionally gifts are exchanged on Epiphany, when the 3 Kings visited the baby Jesus

All images via La Voz de Galicia here.


Thursday, January 2, 2014

They´re Back

The team that brought you The Victorian/Edwardian Farm and Tales from the Green Valley on the BBC (which I loved) are doing another called The Tudor Monastery Farm.


Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold turn the clock back over 500 years to run a farm at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex exactly as it would have been in 1500, during the reign of the first Tudor King, Henry VII.

At Amazon.co.uk:  The Victorian Farm, The Edwardian Farm and Tales of the Green Valley .


Edwardian Farm Episode 1



Tales of the Green Valley Episode 1