New York Minknit

When we went to Montauk on Valentine’s Day, we of course had to make the obligatory stop at a yarn store. Montauk’s only yarn store (I think) is called Purl By The Sea and was very difficult to find, even though Montauk is super-small. I ended up having to call the owner (Nora Franzetti, also of the real estate shingle there) and she gave us step-by-step directions even though we were literally a block away. Montauk, you are so confusing.

Anyway, this is really a very nice store. My secret dream is to live in a summer beach town during the winter and be a “townie,” and this store seemed like the local hot spot for the townies in the winter. I was actually surprised they were open, because I assume Montauk does most of their business in the summer, but they were, and all the customers were having a grand old time. I think they were supposed to be having a knitting circle, but it seemed a bit more like a daily catch up. It seemed like a fun neighborhood spot, adding more fuel to my dream of becoming a beach-town townie. It also had an unusually wide range of yarns, price point-wise–this was the only boutique-type store I’ve seen with Red Heart and Lion Brand yarn, which is nice. They actually had a huge selection of everything, including lots of higher-end brands, all in a snug, cozy space.

And they gave me this free bag with purchase!

Purl by the Sea
Address: 34 South Erie Ave
Montauk, NY
Phone: 631-668-7875
website: montaukonline.net/purlbythesea/

Thanks for all the comments on my last post–clearly, I need to fact-check my blog posts, instead of just rambling. But oh, how I love rambling. I’ve updated the post to reflect the new, correct info.

Anyway, when I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You the other day (I enjoy a rom-com, shut up. Read this post written by these guy friends of Adam’s who all watched Music and Lyrics, the fine fine movie with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.) and I noticed that Jennifer Connelly (an actress I dislike normally–her eyebrows! I just can’t deal!) was wearing this short-sleeved sweater with a long-sleeved shirt underneath in most of her scenes:

I think this might have been the wardrobe department’s idea of using clothes to signal that her character is uptight, but I kind of liked the look actually. There’s been a long tradition of guys wearing long-sleeved t-shirts under short-sleeved t-shirts, which was popular even when I was in high school, and probably best shown on tv by the O.C.‘s Seth Cohen (Adam Brody):

But that’s shirts, not sweaters. I think the layered look is cute, and I found this free Classic Elite pattern that uses this same kind of styling. What do you think? Cute but impractical? Or does it only work with thin sweaters, not bulky ones like the one below? (By the way, the Classic Elite site has tons of great free patterns. I think they can come in a weekly e-newsletter too, if you want.)

Once, when I lived in Paris and saw movies by myself all the time, I went to a movie I thought was called Lola Stella, but turns out to have been called Lola Turns Stella Does Tricks,  and it was a film of unspeakable filth. (I was deceived by the movie guide listing and apparent lack of ability to read movie summaries in French. I had only understood one sentence of the summary. All I knew was that it starred the girl from Trainspotting and that it was in English) After ten minutes, I was like, OMG, I cannot take anymore of this movie–I felt like I needed to bleach out my retinas from what was going on on screen–and I went outside and explained my predicament to the usher and she nodded. She said, “I understand completely. Just wait here for five minutes, and you can go see the next showing of Stepmom, it’s really good.” I have never been so grateful to see Hollywood schlock. I was like thank the lord for Julia Roberts and her dippy movie, because it has saved me from seeing these terrible images of Lola Turns Tricks Stella Does Tricks.

To a lesser extent, this happened to me reading-wise last week. As I mentioned, a friend had given me Out and Grotesque, two Natsuo Kirino mystery novels, and since he and I normally have the same taste (we almost always give each other stuff the other person already has–past gifts have included Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy, Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled) I was excited to read them. They were compelling and parts of them were quite interesting, but there was also a level of violence that I was not expecting and I was a little taken aback. (Out was about lonely factory-working housewives who turned to murder and Grotesque was about prep-school girls who turn to prostitution and more.) So when Adam’s mom sent me Kate Jacobs’s The Friday Night Knitting Club as a gift in the mail, it was a very nice unexpected surprise–much like when I saw Stepmom.

The Friday Night Knitting Club is blurbed on the front as “Like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan.” I have not seen Steel Magnolias, but I am pretty sure this is a fairly accurate description. In fact, I am kind of surprised no one has come up with the gimmick of the book before. Much like Like Water for Chocolate or Heartburn or whatever book that used food as a metaphor for life,  the novel uses knitting as a metaphor for life–you know, each chapter starts out with a description of a stitch, and then it says something like, “Purls, you keep the bumpy side hidden, and the smooth side you show to the world.” (<–paraphrasing here, but you know where this book is heading. It’s like all the Carrie Bradshaw pun-filled voiceovers in Sex and the City–“When it comes to life and love, why do we believe our worst reviews?”) I think Julia Roberts is actually starring in the movie version of this book, which is amusing, because she is also in Steel Magnolias and Stepmom, all three of which (spoiler alert) involve a woman–with so much life left to live!–dying of cancer.** Not that cancer is funny, but it’s like the modern consumption. Once someone in an old-timey movie or book starts coughing, you know it’s all over. Though characters with consumption always seem to have a lot of male suitors.

Anyway, personally, I enjoyed The Friday Night Knitting Club, and might even read the sequel, though I have to say that it’s kind of the literary equivalent of Stepmom. I went through a phase of reading a bunch of Laurie Colwin novels (I get the urge again every summer at the beach), and this book definitely fell into the Laurie Colwin category, where everyone lives in a mythical Upper West Side: People are quirky, but not to the point where it would be weird; people work in publishing, and love to read; men sometimes cheat, but only because they cannot express their true love; old people live in the San Remo; and everyone loves Zabar’s. Laurie Colwin novels are like porn for a certain kind of girl*–it’s this fantasy of the Upper West Side and all of its bourgeois WACKINESS in one light joyous romance. 

*If you majored in English and work in publishing, this is probably you.

I will also say that though I do not feel this book actually had very much to do with knitting at all, though if you like knitting, you might enjoy this notion of a knitting circle as the new book club. It’s not like they knit entrelac in it or anything. Haha. There is, though, like Heartburn, a knitting pattern and a recipe in the back, (written by the characters, of course) for verisimilitude.

** EDITED TO ADD: As several commenters have pointed out, Julia Roberts actually dies of diabetes, not cancer, in Steel Magnolias. Also, after reading Grace’s comment, I checked and realized this movie was called Stella Does Tricks. This blog, clearly not fact-checked. Will try to improve.

Adam’s sock. In the picture above, I used the white balance function, in the one below I did not. Small things. Big differences. Anyway, both of these photos were taken outside my window…it’s like that movie Smoke, but with knitting.

We had a big snowfall here in New York (the top photo was taken last Thursday). It felt like a real winter, but I was also kind of like okaaaaaaaay winter, think it might be time for you to head on out.

The New York Times ran two obituaries, an official one and then a more profile-y one of Estelle Bennett, one of the Ronettes, earlier this month when she died, and they were both sad. I love the look of the girl groups from that era, especially their hair. Every now and then for parties, I’ll try to do big beehive hair, but unfortunately, I just don’t have the hair for that kind of volume (plus, I think it requires a good half a day under those old-fashioned hair dryers to get those beehives into place. I was, however, lured by some product on television I saw the other day that was a plastic bump that promised this volume for modern hair). Anyway, I’ve always loved “Be My Baby,” which I remember learning in junior high music theory class* that it had the same bass line as Pachelbel’s Cannon. I also fact-checked a story about the backup musicians from this era a couple of years ago, (favorite quote from a source, “It was the ’60s, honey, it was one big blur”), and I got oddly fascinated with Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and his relationship with Ronnie Spector. In fact, I was so into it, I was confused when my friend and then-co-worker said something about going to see Regina Spektor, and I was like, “Phil Spector’s wife?” and she was like, “No! Your brain has been addled by talking to all these old  musicians!”

*Yes, I was a nerd.

I have a work project and I’ve been sucked into reading a couple of mysteries that a friend gave me so my blogging has suffered this week. I had to stop reading tonight because I don’t want the book’s images to be the last thing I read before I go to sleep. (Also, interestingly, the mystery–Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino–it’s kind of a mix of seedy pulp noir, Gossip Girl (it’s set at a girl’s school), and Notes from a Scandal, all set in Japan, is right at the point where they’re talking about this ugly scarf that this loser character has spent weeks knitting. Sigh. Maybe I am a loser knitter.)

Anyway, I’ve moved to the sleeve part of the sweater (above). Voila!

Oops–I’m getting this post in a wee bit late for Monday, but I think y’all can live.

I stole this picture from Adam’s Flickr…he’s known how to knit since before we started dating, and he’s made a hat for himself and a couple baby hats, but he wanted a ribbed scarf, so I taught him how to purl. He’s coming along well–look at how much he’s knit in just a few days! Read his own blog post about it.

I made these in 2008, but it took me a while to blog about them because I wanted to put a pattern together. They’re super-duper easy. I came up with them on CalTrain on the way back from Purlescence. You can follow the more traditional  instructions that are in the PDF (link at the bottom of this post) or just make up your own–knit a bit of ribbing in chunky yarn, throw together a cable (I just knit the easiest one I could think of), make a thumb gusset, picot edging off and ta-da! You’re done. These literally took me three days.

Oh, and they’re called MittSF because they were designed and knitted in San Francisco and also because it sounds like mitzvah, a charitable act, which it certainly would be if you made a pair for a friend.

Download the pattern here.

Also available on Ravelry here.

From this week’s New York magazine’s Look Book feature. Here’s a nice variegated hat (Missoni, natch) worn with an all-black outfit. Yay for those of us who like the often-ugly variegated yarns.

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. [thunk thunk]<–That’s the Law and Order scene change sound, duh.

And this is my story, of being an extra on Law and Order. To sum it up, it was a lot like jury duty, where I went in thinking it would be super exciting and I would get to change the world (well, maybe not in the case of being an extra, but anyway), and by the end, was totally bored and unable to knit. But still, interesting nonetheless.

First, we were put into a “holding” area in a church, where we sat around for a long time. I read an entire article in this week’s New Yorker about Ian McEwan, which was very uninteresting. Much like Ian McEwan’s books. Anyway, I also knit a stripe and a half on Adam’s sock (above), and listened to the insane conversations of my fellow extras. They must have tried to cast primarily Asians because we were going to be gallery-goers for Chinese Communist propaganda art show (amusingly for me, something I actually know about, and thus, might have potentially attended in real life) and I thought this was a little unusual. I was like “Asians! There are only two acceptable professions for our kind! Lawyers and doctors!” I never realized that there were so many Asian extras. So many disappointed parents. Anyway, moving on, there were also many older extras with thespian dreams (reading material of my fellow extras: scripts, the trade newspaper Backstage, a biography of director Eliza Kazan, etc.), and not to be a dream-crusher, but if you’re in your 40s or 50s, you are probably not going to Make It.

Pause: As I mentioned, normally, I work in magazines, and though sometimes magazine writers can be wacky, they’re generally pretty professional. The extras reminded me of a totally different deluded group: wannabe novelists. My first job in publishing was reading the slush pile, or unsolicited manuscripts, for a publishing house and the amount of totally insane manuscripts written by deluded writers that I read made me realize that there is a whole group of people with unrealized but hopeless dreams. I harbor novel-writing dreams myself, so I get it, but really, if your book involves a clown who lives in cranberry bog, it’s probably not going to be published.

Anyway. Here are my two favorite overheard conversations. The first one was between a 50-something man wearing more eye makeup than Jenny Humphrey and a 40-something woman.

Man: Well, I’ve been working on a play.

Woman: Um hum.

Man: I gave it to Andrew Lloyd Weber, and he wrote me back. Do you want to see the letter?

Woman: (Reading letter) Wow, the ink has faded on your letter. Um, so have you sent your play to other directors to be produced?

Man: Oh sure, I sent it to 10 other directors, but I don’t need to, because Andrew Lloyd Weber is going to do it.

Woman: How do you know?

Man: Because Jesus told me.

Woman: Oh?

Man: Yes, well he’s currently working on a sequel to Phantom of the Opera, but Jesus told me that he’s not going to do that, instead he’s going to score and direct my play instead. [Gives confusing synopsis of his play–something involving monks.] Oh, [here the man leans in close to the woman, who he clearly knows from before] and of course, I’m going to give all of my friends first shot at some of the supporting roles.

Woman: Really?

Man: [mistaking her query for actual excitement] Oh yes, there are going to be a lot of supporting roles–I think one would be great for you. Like maybe being a household maid. You’re Asian, so you would know a lot about the culture.

Woman: You should have your mother try to be in it.

Man: [Faux bashfully] Well, I was really hoping she would try out for the lead, but it’s going to be a musical–Andrew Lloyd Weber, you know. You do know who he is, right? Anyway, of course Andrew will be writing it as a libretto, and I’m not sure my mother has the singing chops to take it on, but I hope so.

[the two talk more about other ridiculous topics before this great gem]

Man: You know who I hate? Bob Wong. [not the actual name. But he said a name of someone I had never heard of.] I mean, he is the worst, he has a big mouth and no talent. It’s one thing if you have a big mouth, but a lot of talent, like me, but no talent, ugh.

Woman: Well, you can say what you want about Bob, but he put himself out there and he’s really well known.

Man: Well, you know how he got ahead?

Woman: By working?

Man: No, Satan.

______________

Second conversation between two 20-somethings, a man and a woman. Anyway, they somehow started talking about books and I overheard the man say:

“You know they teach too much tragedy in school. Like Macbeth. So much tragedy you know? I think they should really teach more positive things. Like I read this great book recently [here, he takes out HIS NOTES on the book to show to the girl], The Power of Positive Thinking? They should teach that instead.”

So anyway, at this point I began to despair a little bit for humanity, but wardrobe came around to approve our clothing. I was disproportionately pleased because the wardrobe head liked my (own) dress a lot, and deemed it “very sophisticated,” whereas other extras were sent back to the wardrobe truck for new clothes. Then, we had to go to the set and film a minute-long scene for hours. Seriously, I have both a new respect and disdain for television, because there are so many people (staff, extras, sound people, etc.) for each minute of television, combined with hours of rehearsals. On one hand I was sort of impressed, on the other, I was like really? Can’t you make this quicker? Do we really need to check the lighting on these people for THREE hours?!? The entire scene was seriously less than a minute.

Due to my “very sophisticated” dress (<–small victories in life, people, this is what gets us through the day) I was chosen to actually walk in front of the camera. So if they don’t cut my scene, you might see my face or more likely, my back, walking in front of two dubious dudes arguing about a money deal, in front of a giant propaganda poster of Mao and some happy communists.  I walked like thirty times in front of these dudes, and at some point, I spilled some grape juice on my beige dress. Sigh, the spastic extra who will never be used again. But wardrobe magically appeared with baby wipes, and fixed the situation, though I still dropped off my dress at the dry cleaners last night. (I do actually like the dress, not just for my weird new past time as an extra.) I also drove my fellow extras crazy, by muttering “thunk thunk” between scenes, which no one seemed to appreciate. Also, all the extras decided to be Method extras. Like the extra who was walking with me actually said to me, “So, what’s our back story? Are we friends? Have we just met? Do we hate each other?” She also told me to walk slower, which I am incapable, as a New Yorker, of doing, but she slowed down (to get more camera time) and got called out by some director about this. (She said, “Oh, I’m lagging a beat?” I was like, lady, just walk faster.)  Another extra refused to talk to us, because she was too busy being “in character.”

At the end of day, when I was summing it up for Adam, I said, “You know, journalism may be a cruel and low-paying mistress, but at least it’s a mistress I know. Whereas being an extra is like working for a cruel and low-paying mistress that I don’t know, and I hung out with insane people.”

I’m reserving the right to do more extra work (especially if Gossip Girl ever needs extras!), but I have to say that in general, I was happy to cross “being an extra” off of my to-do list, and move on.