Betwixt.

Last weekend Bryan was in Nashville! See, look:

- Except that that's a picture of him in Louisville, KY. Did you know that the state line is a mere half-hour away by car? Oh, the places a rental car (even the tiniest Fiat) will take you...

 

 

It absolutely does not look like it from these photos, but Louisville is actually a city and a pretty great little city at that. We found it quite walkable, with commendable food diversity, neighborhoods, public art, thrift stores, and parks. The only real drawback is the name: as a friend pointed out, to say it correctly ("Louovul"?) feels a little like vomiting in your mouth.

This weekend I am back to the grind, eagerly awaiting my trip to Philadelphia (!) first thing Thursday morning. Yes indeed, Fall Break 2011 is upon us already. That means I'm scrambling to meet all of my routine academic obligations while casting an eye toward final papers -- and of course, interpreting the world through the lens of my PhD program application Statement of Purpose.

I did carve out an hour yesterday to swing by a handmade book fair at Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film yesterday. I attended a talk on "writing words worth preserving" and bumped into a few folks from the indigo-dying workshop I attended last fall. 

Here are a few of my favorites from the art show (and forgive the sloppy reportage; I didn't note the names of the artists...):

  

Magnetic Fields tribute, anyone?

  

 

  Nothing, but nothing, beats a harmonica-shaped book!

Okay, back to it...

Books of the week: 

Fearlessness, Imre Kertesz

In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind, Belenky et al. 

On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent, Gustavo Gutierrez

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Giorgio Agamben 

Films of the week:

A Serious Man

Sankofa

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Beloved

Carnival of Souls

The Spirit of the Beehive

On a hobby-life.

What with all my working hours now totally filled, I'm starting to feel like my hobbies are all being neglected. But indeed my interests are still budding (pun very intended), and one that I've been playing with for a little while now is terrarium-building. 

I started with moss from the woods, and some died and some lived depending on where I placed them and whether I left the lid on or not. So, it turns out that leaving the lid off is best (really, is it a big surprise that a plant living in the PA woods would not like being sealed up in a glass jar in the sun?). For my birthday I got a pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, and planted that in a neat glass jar, and a few weeks later my parents bought me a succulent plant, Echeveria, that I wedged into an old cookie jar. It must like it in there, because it sent out a flower stalk and is blooming like crazy. Just today as I was  buying a dehumidifier for the basement (boo!), I saw little Venus flytraps for only a couple dollars and picked one up to put in with the pitcher plant.

The other, dare I say, hobby that I dabble in from time to time is photography. Now, I say that knowing full well that I'm not a photographer,but  I just enjoy it and like playing with it from time to time. I also know that it's complete heresy that the majority of my photos are from my iPhone, but what is better than always having a camera in your pocket? The other point of heresy is that the photos below were all taken with the instagram app, which seems to be all over the interwebs these days:

Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula)

Moss (don't know the species)

Will you look at that. So nice.

My little blooming beauty (Echeveria x "Topsy Turvy")

I also really want to learn how to/start pruning Japanese maples and evergreens in the Japanese pruning style method, Niwaki. Imagine Bonsai type trees but larger and in the ground. Some forms are called cloud pruning, but many others have Japanese names with no direct English translation.They are generally pruned heavily to make them look like older trees in specific locations (i.e., on a cliff, mountain top, or riverside). Not many people do this type of pruning because it is very labor-intensive, but there are small groups of people that enjoy it. I am thinking of going to the local Bonsai Club monthly meeting to ask around if they know of anyone that prunes trees in this method in the hopes I can tag along and learn a few things.

As a side note, I'm also thinking about applying to the Longwood Garden graduate program in Horticulture. They only choose 5-6 people a year for a fully-funded two-year program through the University of Delaware. I have a friend that is in the program now, and I've been reading the bios of the other students. Wow: they are all ridiculously amazing individuals that have amazing resumes and make applying really intimidating. 

But here's to hobbies, optimism, acceptance to graduate programs, and a better economy so that we can all have jobs we enjoy.

Flora and fauna

At long last, I'm home in Philadelphia! Friends, neighborhood hangout spots, the sideyard garden, sensible public transit,* and -- most importantly -- my favorite husband ever all point to good summer times a-comin'. 

Before I left Nashville, though, I found time for a weekend adventure with my friend Carrie, an up-and-coming docent at the Nashville Zoo (and an all-around all-star to boot). She has beautifully blogged about our escapade here, so click through and read that. Go ahead, I'll wait.



All done? Here are a few other photos from the zoo day:

 (I was fascinated by these life-sized statues of donors to the zoo that occasionally appeared in different settings. Just...wow.)


The day after the zoo trip, I got to hear Nicaraguan revolutionary, priest, and poet Father Ernesto Cardenal read from his new collection of poetry entitled The Origin of Species. He calls this "science poetry," and I was moved by it. Click here to check out a reading he did a few days before he came to Nashville -- from what I can tell it's similar to the presentation he gave at Vanderbilt. 


Then Saturday, I biked down to South Philly to find the Wild Foodies, a Meetup group for foragers of wild edibles. We mucked around near the pond in FDR Park and I got to sample curly dock, burdock, mulberry leaves, and garlic mustard, among other delectables. I've been wanting to learn about foraging in these here parts for quite a while, but I figured it was in my better interest to go with people who know what they're doing. 

 Lesson one: check. Now on to finishing our garden for the year.

* I know, I just wrote that about SEPTA! This should tell you more about Nashville's system than anything else could. 

Shofuso

So, I got to visit a new place in Philadelphia today:  Shofuso, a Japanese house. We walked around in our socks (or paper slippers) and enjoyed learning about the Japanese traditional styles of architecture, gardening, tea and more. Definitely check it out if you have not already; it's worth it.

The aforementioned paper slippers

Not a fountain, but a really nice water feature.

Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmmmm

Looks so pleasant, doesn't it?

This is painted onto the paper room divider doors and was inspired by a waterfall.

So, that's it for now. I'm still playing with the camera and having fun - I just discovered that the computer here in the house has Photoshop on it, score!

Developing an eye.

So I've been taking advantage of free classes at the Arboretum, and right now I'm in the midst of a 6-session photo class. It's meant for beginners who have digital cameras who want to take a little more control over the photos they take and stop relying on the automatic settings.

I finally feel like I'm getting an eye for how to look at something and know the steps to take to get the photo of it to where I want it to be. It took a while, honestly. Yesterday we had an opportunity to walk around with the instructor and take photos at the arb, and it was nice to have time devoted to taking photos.

Anyhow, here are some of my (beginner) shots. None were taken with the auto setting, and despite a few people telling me where the "good shot" was I did my own thing and took my own photos. So, here are some that are interesting to me. Enjoy.

All of these were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

Field learnin'

My roommate/schoolmate Marie and I decided to take a break from the books this weekend to attend a fiber-and-natural dye workshop at Sulphur Creek Farm organized by Ask Apparel, one of two natural dye houses in the U.S. The weather was clear and warm and the workshop was filled with amazing women. We had just as much fun sitting around and talking as we did learning how to do make beautiful things with indigo and kudzu.

The workshop followed the indigo dye process from the plants in the field through a fresh vat of ready-to-go dye, and we also harvested kudzu and learned how to turn it into a fibrous thread. (We didn't get to work as much with the kudzu because the plants harvested in preparation for the course weren't quite usable, so we got the gist of it but not as much hands-on experience.)

Rows of indigo, ready to harvest:

This vat had about 120 pounds of plants soaking in it:

Creating usable dye involves adding an alkaline substance and agitating to add oxygen. Look at how blue it was!

A sample was decanted so we could see how quickly the dye sediment was settling:

Because this process will create a dye that can be caked and saved for later, we made a fresh vat with soda ash to use for the weekend:

Indigo dyeing requires oxidation, which means fabric isn't immersed but is instead dipped and aired until the color reaches the desired shade:

Kudzu is another wonder plant that can be eaten (it's high in protein), used to create herbal medications, and of course turned into a fiber. It is best harvested at certain times of year, and goes through a process of soaking and drying and resoaking to remove the outer skin and make the vine pliable:

Did you know it's illegal to work with kudzu in Pennsylvania? Apparently the State Dept. of Agriculture is super-worried about aiding and abetting kudzu's northward migration. (I know this because the gals teaching this part of the program had come all the way from Philadelphia and have a really terrific project going there.)

Success.

Sigh. It's hard to go back to the books after a weekend like that, but there's a ton of work to be done before I go to Philadelphia on Wednesday for a much-anticipated long weekend (!).