Afternoon Tea (8/28/18)

This is a hard read, but very well done and important: We Saw Nuns Kill Children: The Ghosts of St. Joseph's Catholic Orphanage

Feminize Your Canon: Violette Leduc

Goop has exploited the medical establishment's failures on women's health

How Jane Eyre Helped Lead Me Out of Orthodox Judaism

Anglo-Saxon elephants

Afternoon Tea (6/27/17)

The Librarian Who Guarded the Manhattan Project’s Secrets

On Denmark's Jutland coast an elegant new museum counters a Nazi monolith

Your "rich people behaving hilariously" story for the day: Young Socialites Conjure the Ghost of Leonard Bernstein at the Dakota

A “Bullet-Proof” Monster Terrorized the French Countryside 250 Years Ago

Was Jane Eyre Written as a Secret Love Letter?

Morning Coffee (2/27/17)

(I'm traveling, so I put this list together in advance. Back to real time on Thursday!)

Very important international news: After Causing An Uproar, Iceland's President Says He Would Not Ban Pineapple Pizza

What Does North Korea Want?

On Trump and the wall: Abuser-In-Chief

Big businesses unleash their lobbyists on Republicans’ new Obamacare plan

Trump, Torture And The Spanish Inquisition: Why Torture Does Not “Absolutely Work”

In case you don't have enough to worry about today: How a Pandemic Might Play Out Under Trump

Do’s And Don'ts Of Covering Immigration Under Trump

Huh: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator to publish modern day Jane Eyre graphic novel

Ancient Mayan Superhighways Found in the Guatemala Jungle

Hunched Over a Microscope, He Sketched the Secrets of How the Brain Works

The Surprisingly Stubborn Theory That Beethoven's Heartbeat Influenced His Music

How a Texas Teen-Ager Became New York City’s Premier Truffle Dealer (The way The New Yorker still hyphenates "teen-ager" is my favorite thing.)

Morning Coffee (3/30/16)

ICYMI: I reviewed Chris Hayes's Twilight of the Elites.

Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s Campaign Manager, Is Charged With Battery

We Expect Women to Have Impostor Syndrome. That’s Why We Can’t Handle Hillary Clinton.

Ivanka Trump Makes Donald Even Scarier

This is great: @MichelleObama: An exclusive look at how the First Lady mastered social media

Sent Home From Middle School After Reporting A Rape

"Twenty-first-century feminism’s primary medium, the diversity critique, has as its functional terminus the ‘freedom’ of consumers to purchase a picture of a utopia from a company whose interests lie in preventing any of those utopias from occurring."

Please don't believe anyone who tells you that trolls and online smears don't matter in real life.

Oh: Prominent Silicon Valley investor denies he kept a sex slave for 13 years

I will never tire of reading about Ferrante theories, and am also cynical enough to think that whatever her original intentions, this is a GREAT marketing strategy.

So I kind of disagree with this about how she OBVIOUSLY wants to be left alone but that piece makes some other interesting points. I guess I'm partially saying that I still don't really buy the Death of the Author.

End of an era: Grandchildren of Sound of Music's Von Trapp family announce farewell show

Every Meal In Jane Eyre, Ranked In Order Of Severity

Morning Coffee (2/26/15)

If you've wondered why I care so much about Classic Alice, this is why.

Bertrice Small has died. I haven't read her - I should rectify that! - but she was so, so important to the romance genre and women in publishing. Two great quotes from that obituary: "I do not write weak women" and "If you're going to undress a heroine, you'd better damn well know what she's got on underneath."

Aaaaah, I'm VERY EXCITED about this Brian Wilson biopic.

Perfect: Boston Is a YA Dystopian Novel

The Punisher: Jeb Bush and the Schiavos

Ooh, they're rebooting DuckTales.

This is much funnier than it sounds: A mysterious tunnel was discovered in a Toronto park. We have many, many questions.

"Edward’s taste tends to run to jewel-encrusted goblets, mahogany armchairs, and tapestries of King Harold being gouged in the eye."

Morning Coffee (8/19/14)

It's the long-awaited day - Whole Foods is opening in Nashua!

Eeee, here's the new Taylor Swift video! Love it.

If you, like me, never like Greek yogurt as much as you want to, I recommend Stonyfield Petite Creme. (They're not paying me to say that. I just tried it yesterday and was delighted.)

Former Sen. Jim Jeffords has died.

Children’s Place Responds Terribly To Complaints Of Gamora-Less Guardians Shirt

This story is about lawsuits, knitting, and bleak Danish TV. Basically everything I like.

I want to go to the National Lighthouse Museum.

Super-cheery vacation idea: Attic that inspired Jane Eyre's 'madwoman in the attic' Bertha open for public tours

Finishing

I've suddenly been struck by a weird (er, for me) mood in which I want to finish things. Finish projects around the house, finish knitting that's been languishing, finish books I've been picking at for months. Will it last? Probably not. But I might as well see what I can get done in the meantime, and maybe getting some long-running projects out of the way will free up some psychological space. Or something.

I'm going to two big fiber festivals in the fall - NY State Sheep and Wool (aka Rhinebeck) in October and Kid 'N Ewe in Texas in November - so I think my goal will be to get my knitting stash organized by then and to knit up enough stash that I have at least half a bin free for any new purchases. Will it work? We'll see. In any case, it means you should be seeing some more knitting around here. (So, um, sorry to those of you who come to read about TV.)

First, a shawl I finished last month:

The pattern is based on the shawls in the recent Jane Eyre movie, and it includes several variations, so I will definitely be making more of these while pretending that Michael Fassbender might show up at any moment. (Yarn is some Plymouth Galway from stash.)