a little red hen

A Woman's Bookstore with Zines

Place yourself in this photo and you're walking toward the checkout/cafe counter of Bluestockings, the only women's bookstore in New York City.  In truth, it has expanded from its 1999 beginning as a place for women's books to its current incarnation as a "radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center" on the lower east side. 

Here's an excellent photo of the storefront by Brian of New York Daily Photo, a site filled with images that have the depth and richness of those on Blogging in Paris.

Various publications can be found at Bluestockings.  I was particularly interested in browsing their zines.  Get ready...click on Microcosm Publishing for a dunk into a world mostly known to people under, uh, 30--maybe 20.  While we elders sleep, there's a throbbing universe of DIY folks who put together under $5.00, limited edition publications to express ideas--personal and/or political.  Above are two zines I especially like.  The front and one inside page of (of course) "Hen Party" and "the war at home:  New Orleans after Katrina" with text plus black and white photos.  The tan one with knit worms on its cover was the free handout for "This Dirt Museum: the ladies' room," my 2001 composting installation 2001. Perhaps, a zine?

Because I am about to co-produce a zine, my frequent Google searches have led to a new development:  ZineWiki.  Go read it; maybe you'll create one yourself.

Also on my list for Bluestockings was the recent anthology, "We Don't Need Another Wave"  The subtitle is, "Dispatches from the next generation of feminists," the editor Melody Berger.  Also found the latest copy of Bitch Magazine, "a feminist response to pop culture."  I am going to subscribe to this one; it's too hard to find uptown.  Also not comfortable to ask the mostly Middle Eastern news sellers if they have a copy of Bitch.

What a pleasure to be in a space where I can linger, sample publications from all over, touch paper, turn pages, think about coming back another time to see what's new.  Bluestockings--sun streaming into its large front windows, cafe tables nearby--feels like a mini-version of Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon.*  Also brought home a copy Herizons, a women's quarterly from Canada.  Thorough and scary article about North American cosmetics, another on Tajikistan, a country in Central Asia unknown to me.   

Oh, yes, about the zine in my own life.  "Knit A Condom Amulet," an online zine with designs and how-tos from other knitters is in the planning stage.

*In Other Words in Portland, Oregon, is the only non-profit women's bookstore in the U.S.

Knitting...Two FOs

Knitting furiously, how long does it take to finish a infant hat?  (FO=finished object) Tuesday night I got started, worked through a meeting where a group of 12 women tried to envision their lives ten years from now.  A bit more that evening at home--along with a few more rows on the blue silk noile shawl.

More on Wednesday at Knitty City (missing the knit circle changed to Thursdays to follow Betty) in the company of another grandmother whose two-year-old played with a tape measure, great safe toy, then fell into a deep sleep in her stroller.  Answering our pattern questions was Amanda Gael who has made a very different Condom Amulet for the upcoming Zine (more later).

That evening gave the hat a big push--much done during a lengthy meeting of people from the six buildings that comprise the middle-income co-op where I live.  Representatives arrive from each building plus any interested co-oper.  New people, many with young children, have moved in during the last couple of years and brought a good energy for change that we've needed.

Finally, did the crochet "button" for the top and it was complete--Thursday.  People used to surprise me by asking how long it took to knit one red wiggler worm.  Now I know it takes me two days for a baby hat.  This one goes to the west coast for the first grandchild of a New York friend who joins me in grandparenting at a distance. 

Finished the shawl too--such an energy burst--have to think of fitting glamourous photo with it...back to knitting the 18-inch doll.

Tupperware's Unusual Salesperson

My first Tupperware Party...in a small, dark shoebox theatre, our hands stamped on the way in, individually greeted by a BIG woman in a tight-fitting vintage apron.  "Oh my, you're knitting...I never could do it on all those needles!"  Do what, Dixie?  Most responses called forth a coy answer--usually double-entendre, sexual.

Was it by chance that she called out "Number 10," the one on my, yes, nametag as a raffle winner?  Bounded onstage, answered, "How do you feel?" with an exuberant, "Excited!"  Wish you could have been with me as I was challenged by "Dixie Longate," who truly is the Number One saleswoman for what she calls " this plastic stuff."  Picture a little fuzzy?  We were laughing so hard.  Wish Ron had taken a picture of her red and white high heels, 1950s vintage.  You can see she towers over me, challenged me with questions about a small red and blue ball on a key chain, odd object that was my prize.

Always in character, when I offered Dixie, nee Kris Andersson, New York City condoms--she's from Alabama-- "Well, honey, I needed these at 4:30 this afternoon!"  Of course I bought "the product," two skinny orange pitchers and a set of collapsible, lime green, 3-cup bowls with lids.  Ever since meeting that  Saturday with Xtreme English, been carrying the NTC condoms all the time.  Only about 500 left--and a plan ahead.

Dixe's Party is on through June 17.  I learned so much from her performance; wish I'd seen it when I was promoting Wormware, the world's smallest kitchen composter--the little blue takeout container in photo at right.   There's still a chance with Condom Amulets; I have the vintage aprons, forget the high heels.

Dixie has been supporting herself--currently booked up--with at-home Tupperware parties.  She averages $20,000 a month; a great fallback for a working actor.   See the show for a splendid mix of cross-dressing, hilarity, women's studies/feminism.

Enjoy your Mother's Day--if that's your thing. Check out this different approach ... thanks to Women's Voices for Change for the link.

The Desparate Deck of Cards

Yes, necessity is the mother of invention.  That's what gave birth to a handmade deck of cards.  Though I have prettier objects that form memories of  our 1999 trip to Mexico, these little pieces of paper are special.  It began bumpily yet ended with an expansion of my creative work.

We had visited Oaxaca in southern Mexico the year before for ten days, spent some time with a weaver in the town of Teotitlan. and decided to return for a longer time.  Oaxaca, the big city center, is surrounded by small Indian villages famous for various crafts.  Our guide had been Susan, an American woman who ran a coffee and bagel (yes!) shop.  After seeing all the area had to offer, we learned she could arrange for us to learn natural wool-dyeing with indigo and cochineal, the brilliant red color.  We'd return to stay with a weaver we'd met in Teotilan who had given a good introduction to dyeing and could teach us off-loom weaving.  ins Teotitlan, the village famous for its woven rugs.

By the time we were ready to return the following winter, Susan had had a falling out with the weaver we'd visited with the year before.  Not to worry, she'd found "Raul & Beatriz and family," as she drove  us to their home in the town.  One thing:  we would not be staying with them for the week but in a home they'd built outside the village.  They would pick us up for breakfast and the afternoon meal. 

We never met Raul (and did not dye or weave.)  Their teenage daughter, who unlike her mother spoke English,  drove us us from the town center to a very large house in the middle of nowhere.   She'd return in the morning.  There was no phone, no windows, no locks on doors.  When evening came, we realized we should have bought food for dinner.  I'd brought along a small flashlight used for "Moonsnail Saves Planet," the opening night performance of my last exhibit in Maryland.  It's little beam made it possible to find the way to the main road where we'd noticed a restaurant on our way in. 

Genial man came onto the second floor balcony, "Sorry, we're not open tonight.  Come back tomorrow!"  As we wondered what to do next, a pick-up truck stopped pulled up.  Spanish and a little English got across the idea that the elderly couple in it were the parents of Beatriz--and the restaurant owner.  They took us back to the village where a wonderful street cart served up hamburgers.  Our meal provided the surrounding community a chance to observe the "locos Americanos" stuck in the Mexican boonies.  All very gracious; the pick-up returned to take us back.

And the deck of cards?  We had a room with a couch and a bare lightbulb overhead.  Reading as long as we could, after several days--we were there for Christmas week--something else was needed.  We made the cards and played gin rummy. 

Better adventures awaited us at breakfast.  We'd first go to the market, shop for our dinner, take showers, sit at the family table in Beatriz' home-plus-studio.  I stared at the skeins of yarn hanging from the ceiling--indigo blue and . The color, in all its variations everywhere, and I began to think what I could do with this vibrant cochineal dyed yarn.

This is how I came to knit interpretations of red wiggler worms. 

I digress for background info.

Kitchen composting and the worms had become my art form soon after our 1995 move to New York.  My life as a public artist has not followed a tidy path. Back in the City, I found a brochure in the laundry room of my building.  Writing the Personal Essay, a weekend class at the nearby YMCA.  There I wrote "Composting in Manhattan," a slightly embroidered telling of our life with red wigglers.  The title seemed right as a metaphor for our return and our stage of life.  In various unlikely venues I performed my tale, made art books.  (Posted about it here on the blog.) 

A couple of artists encouraged me to apply for an art grant to mount something more ambitious, to reach more people about the need for urban dwellers to dispose of food waste by bringing einsenia fetida into their apartments. An immodest proposal, yes, but an engaging one.

A grant?  I'd never written one.  Who would give money to an old lady who'd never been to art school?  After dragging my feet for a couple of years, I finally took the application material--very uncomplicated--with me to the airport as we started this trip. With my WormWare box, world's smallest composter, beside me, I did the unthinkable:  wrote it by hand on lined notebook paper.  Described how I hoped to find a group of "seniors,"--yes, that's who we are to the world--who would join me in kitchen composting, then form a troupe to celebrate the scheduled closing of the City's enormous garbage dump, Fresh Kills in 2001.

Back in Oaxaca City, I bought knitting needles, found a wonderful studio in a new, art school, Sachmo Centro de Arte.  I did a one evening performance, "Agua y Abono," at the end of our stay about the connection of water to compost.  On the wall behind me are rubbings of water meters; another time I'll post some.  Ron took Spanish classes. It was on this trip that he became interested in weaving, a craft he's only recently reconnected with. 

Puffin Foundation gave me the modest grant.  Again my friend, Miriam Schaer, advised, "Apply for your next one...a bigger one!"  I did, got it too. That is the why and how of my knitting 150 red wiggler worms for "This Dirt Museum:  the Ladies' Room," an art installation with three working compost bins, compost education, activities for all ages in Spanish, Mandarin, English.  It opened in October 2001 at Queens Botanical Garden.  [More at Cityworm, my website.]

 

Leslie Cuts My Hair, Etcetera

Once the basic challenge of finding an apartment was solved and  we moved back to New York City, the next was finding a good hair cutter.  That's all I need--no styling, drying--just great scissors.  At the theatre, on the street, I'd stop women around my age, "Great haircut!  Where?"

One woman surprised me with,   "I'd rather not say," in the tradition of my college roommate's mother who made a fabulous pumpkin pie:  don't ask for the recipe.  More useful was an address, name of "this marvelous man," and a price that widened my eyes.  On my own, I added to a life history of bad cuts.  How did I find Leslie F, former art student, pictured above in her own unique setting?

Joelle Wallach, first woman composer I'd ever met, sat next to me at a noisy party in the late 1990s.  She had graying hair, beautifully cut, shared her with me.  Joelle was one of the women over 50 who wore red wiggler worms for the Free Lunch, You May Qualify, part of my environmental installation.  (For a more glamorous photo, scores, and text from her choral work, click on her name.)

Leslie would never do that--and she was too young to qualify.  More important is what she wil do.   Continuing the tradition of beauty parlors, a phrase some prefer to salons, her chair is a space for free-form thinking.  Talk about creative work, my family, how her neighborhood, Chelsea, cannot possibly squeeze in one more over-priced restaurant.  Mostly Leslie listens, comments a bit.  She is busy thinking about her craft, my hair.  Leslie has no problem sharing her own opinions but most of the air time is left to the person in the chair. We have exchanged how her work resembles therapy, my own old craft.

This week I brought her 20+ NYC Condoms.  She found a funky container, gave them place of honor on the sacred shelf in front of the mirror, "My customers will love these!"  Thanks to Leslie for launching me on Plan B ... distribution of the 1,000 condoms resting in my front hall.

Your ideas appreciated.

Book Making, the Legal Way

Definitions of "art book making" abound. Mine are only one notion  of handmade book.   Yard goods, remnants from $1.00 bin or my own clothes, usually are central to books I make.    Red fabric one on far left was attached to a body- shaped healing quilt, "Courage, My Love,"  I made  in 1995.  Next is one is wirecloth,  window screening that's  visible when you click on the the image;  made in connection with my work on kitchen composting with red wiggler worms.  This material was   used for drainage at the bottom of  both my full-sized indoor composter and the world's smallest kitchen composter I used for travel.  The image on the front was cut from the iconic photo of a red wiggler on my watch- first used to illustrate "To sleep with red worms," my 1998 environmental manifesto.

Mine are only one notion  of handmade book.  The more traditional,  elegantly crafted ones can be seen at The Center for Book Arts .  In  a class there with Miriam Schaer  I produced  a gorgeous book with just one problem:  its blank pages of white, high quality paper stopped me from finishing it at home.  Mimi,as she is known,  understood my wish to move in a quirkier direction.  She was,  at that time,  best know for her girdle books.  [News flash from Mimi:  she just sold out an edition of her doll dress books!]
 

"Is it a book?" gets discussed extensively  at  Philobiblon website.  Move around theere for a view of   book arts  developmentally--from the novel  you hold in your hands at bedtime to comics to the web.  Only missing is the Performance Book but that's the way out on the edge.  I did one in for a performance in a zocalo in Mexico; Mimi Schaer had an entire audience make a small book at a dance performance in New York .

Our friend Google offered up a link to  therapeutic aspects  of book making.  Reminds me of my own workshops in  "Women's Studies as Therapy," (have I written here about this?).

Which brings me to one of the three books I worked on during  my exceptional week  at The Folk School in North Carolina.  For a number of years  I have  not thrown away the paper hospital gowns my body has been enclosed in for doctor visits.  One of them went was in the recycling materials I took  to my Book Arts class.  Somehow I neglected to take digital photos of  the finished work, "My Body in Various States,"  on my digital camera, so that image will have to wait till 35 mm photos are in hand. 

When I returned to the City, I took a canvas bag mistakenly purchased (too heavy with just two small volumes) at Strands, "16 Miles of Books,"  for a  slipcase.  My old white gloves (remember?) will be replaced by used  red rubber ones around here somewhere.  Also, the small card instructing viewers how to handle, with gloves, the book inside will be another small book.

As much as possible, all that I use comes from what I already have in my studio.  Recycle, reduce, and re-use has become more of a mantra as the culture tries to lure me toward recreational shopping and buying.

Ten Women Spinning...

It was an idea.  An abused  Babe's spinning wheel was dropped off at Knitty City.  During a Men's Knitting Circle, Ron took some time from his current knitting obsession, a vest for our grandson, to clean it up.  "How about doing a class?" Pearl Chin suggested.  Modest about his expertise, he agreed to a one-time intro session with proceeds to Knitters without Borders.  That's the Yarn Harlot's innovation to remind her followers to support the remarkable international work of Doctors without Borders.  From one sign-up, the group grew to ten!

Wool roving was handed out; everyone learned how to draft, or extend the fiber without twisting it.  The redhead on the right in photo, Julie, was a birthday girl, known to bloggers as Evil Julie.  Learning to spin was something she had promised herself for this year.

My picture of her blue toenails on the pedals gives a sense of how fast she was moving.  Those are Ron's white socks.  (Everyone has to be shoeless to spin, he claims.)   

First student to step up to the wheel had experience with a drop spindle.  She showed one to the group.  It is the most basic spinning technique-- favored by many new spinners. Some stay with drop spinning for its mellowness and portability.  Ron was impressed how quickly all the students took to wheel spinning.  Just like he did four years ago.  I'm not branching out yet:  knitting and becoming more comfortable with crochet, these are my areas.

Speaking of which, Lisa Daehlin dropped by.  On her wrist were crocheted wire bracelets she's been making lately.  We missed an opportunity to have her sing "Happy Birthday" to Julie.  Could have done a duet with Ubaldo, another opera singer/knitter who works at Knitty City now (Sahara snapped him for her blog).  Maybe I'll sign up for Lisa's November crocheted hats and purses at Cooper Union.

A vintage "Penguin" wheel was brought in by Sharon, a teacher.  Bought cheaply many years ago at a school supply store.  Googling, I found a custom woodworker offering one for $500.  Sharon would be amazed.  Found another site, a 1980 "Mother Earth News" article, instructions on how to convert a potter's wheel into one that spins!

Swirling around us was a busy store.  Up front Maxine was teaching someone how to knit, children played with the sample toys.  It's a very comfortable and accepting environment.   Thanks to Pearl and Ron, $100 is on its way to Doctors without Borders, with the help of ten new women  spinners.  Pearl asked Ron to do it again in 2007.  He's ready.

Missing Red Wigglers

Sage leaves were in the fridge.  Left from the cranberry bean recipe of the other day, they made me sad.  Only three were used and now there were a whole lot left--and darkening.

For $1.49, over-packaged in hard plastic, this was the smallest amout to buy.   How I miss the red wiggler worms who once ate and procreated in a box in my apartment's front hall.  We had a great exchange going.  Though the sage might have been too strong to add all at once.  Fled this thought by diving into Recipes from an Ecological Kitchen by Lorna J. Sass.  No ideas for my herbs but like the quotes she sprinkles around--

One thing is certain:  nothing will happen if we all wait for others to do it first....The still, small voice whispering to me in the depts of my consciousness is saying exactly the same thing as the voice whispering to you: "I want an Earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love."  --Eknath Easwaran, The Lesson of the Hummingbird

A sage leaf or two might work with leftover cooked soy beans and parsley.  Ron used both earlier this week to make Ukranian borscht from a video on Hippy Gourmet, a link with some problems  That's yogurt mixed with dill and chives on top. You can find borscht variations everywhere-- beets, potatoes, tomatoes, whatever. 

Maybe you're fortunate and have red wigglers to eat your peelings.  I wish.  After six years, the fruit flies did in our good intentions.

Yarn Harlot Drops into NYC

She describes life on the road promoting her books as "being dropped into this city."  Though hardly anyone's idea of Tinker Bell, Stephanie McPhee does have a creature-from-elsewhere aura.  It's not just being a Canadian from Toronto, though that helps.  She is precisely the same straightforward woman in person as on her blog, Yarn Harlot.  And quirky.

Her voice sounds like someone in your knit circle who has a great sense of the ridiculuous--about yarn fantasies and child-raising.  She is funny and self-deprecating in a way that includes you, the knitter whom she values for being with her in the creation of handmade, not machined-tooled, objects.  In a room filled with yarn and fervid sock knitters, Stephie stood before us--Everywoman as Knitter, brownish shirt and pants, glasses slipping a bit down her nose--exactly as she appears on the cover of her latest, her third, book, Knitting Rules!

If you're having a really good time with a needle someone else (or maybe everyone else) says is crap, ignore the warnings.  You can like crap if it works for you.  [page 60]

Scarf Rescuse Hat:  A while ago, I discovered a way to get out of finishing a scarf ..I could just finish the thing...you'll enjoy it more when you bend a scarf to your will.*  [see page 107 for a 9-step program that will surprise you with its design possibilities, including new ways to measure for size]

Sunday night with Stephie at Knitty City was my dream of the ideal yarn community.  Pearl Chin, proprietor, has in less than a year created a mellow space on New York's Upper West Side.  I'm not even sure if we deserve it or are ready for the challenge.  But we seem to be opening up to the idea that a yarn shop in this overheated, expensive city can have a heart, can have free events along with classes, expensive and not-so-pricey yarn, books.

Stephie was a perfect fit.  (Disclaimer:  she and I had essays in the first KnitLit book.)  I first visited her blog because its name was so bold:  Yarn Harlot.  Beyond her wise writing, I found a kindred spirit, a woman with strong feelings about social justice.  Which brings me to the photo of us (thank you unnamed oberserver who reached out for my camera) during the post-talk, book-signing.  Stephie is famous in "our circles" for sock knitting and for maintaing her sanity (we hope) on book tours by schlepping around socks she's working on.  This practice is always immortalized by photos of sock du jour and the socks of her fans on location, so to speak.

I am not a sock knitter, am cerebrally-challenged by the idea of making two of anything.  Did not make earrings when doing jewelry, can only make it happen if I knit two sleeves at the same time.  However, once a grandmother, I had decent success with booties.  Empowered, I tried slipper socks using Cascade Fixation (cute colors, 5% elastic) from a pattern someone advertised online.  Did not happen, straight into stash.

If you enlarge the photo of us, you'll see Stephie wears my latest creation, "Unfinished Sock as Condom Amulet." She was thrilled.

Of course, this is the woman who has raised over $100,000 with her KNITTERS WITHOUT BORDERS idea:  you give up buying something yarn-related to send a contribution.  She gave me this button for my shirt, in exchange for the sock plus 2 condoms; that worked.  (She told the crowd during her presentation that "knitters condoms," her term  for the plastic bags we use for stash, are the true reason Ziploc sells so many, not food storage as the company claims.)

In between signings, I talked with women like me who've been knitting forever, enticed  a recent law school graduate into buying two balls of pretty yarn she "really loved" to knit her first scarf.    Lisa Daehlin, the soprano/designer (singing in the rain, back in April) dressed to the tens, in one of her flowered hats, respectfully removed to take up less room among the knitters  .  She has a growing following for her knit, crochet classes at Cooper Union.  The entry wall of Knitty City now features her sketches and actual wire-knit bracelets, handbags.  Her exhibit is a seamless shift from my knit worms who were happy to leave Ziploc retirement for a couple of months to promote urban kitchen composting on the Upper West Side.

Susan at Saz Secrets, please note, your name came up in a conversation with Sahara of who wore a gorgeous design of her own, pale green cotton lace dress.  At the end of the evening, we were carrying on about the specialness of knitting blogs.  Myself, I put in a plug for Elderblogging. Do not be confused by today's dive into knit life, alittleredhen is not a knit blog; it's one part of my creative life.  Knitting for Change is the other mostly-knit blog I visit.  However, there's always a possibility for more-- especially if Lisa D starts one on music and yarn.

Thank you, Stephie, for the chance to validate one another.  And for introducing me to your publisher's rep from Storey Publishing. who was genuinely interested in the HIV crisis in women over 50 and open to meeting Sahara and Lisa D who may one day find their way to writing fiber books  My knitting spouse wants you to know, because he found the book the next morning before I was awake, that "Five Hats" chapter in Knitting Rules! may shift his focus.

* speaks to me...one has lingered in my stash 4 years!  

LULU, Little Star in Our Galaxy

Claude at Blogging in Paris had great snap of Mounir, her exotic cat, clearly more than a match for my tabby, Lulu.  Now 12 years old, she debuts here in her portfolio photo.  This marked her famous appearance on Cityworm, my website, highlighting instructions on how to Knit One Red Worm. The worm one she's wearing was knit with multicolored hemp yarn from Poland. I've used it for some Condom Amulets (viewable in the SAFE SEX category to the right). 

This, however, is a posed photo.  You see her at her most dignifed and tolerant of people who insist on taking perfectly arranged pictures.  Other Elderbloggers, like Claude and Ronni Bennett have camera in hand at just the right performing moment (scroll down to the bottom of page to see Ronni's cat, Ollie, caught midair).

As I searched for photos of Lulu at her more natural self, a very intense storm.  Aha!  This might be a photo-opp.  And so it was.  This is my darling cat in her classic pose, enacted every time there is thunder and lightning.  In her younger years, one of those under-bed drawers, would be a confortable hiding place that lasted long past the rain.

Sensitive as she is, Lulu made remarkable transitions in her earlier life.  As we moved from Baltimore to New York, she had a one-year hiatus in Boston with our son and another cat.  There she was the #2 cat.  Re-settled in New York with us, she was still the second cat to our elderly Hazel.  That period marked much time of her invisibility.  The surprise was how she found her voice once Hazel died.  At first, we thought she was in some kind of pain, took her to the vet.  No, Lulu was now the top--and only resident animal.  Every now and then a little Meow would emerge from our previously silent Lulu.  Always a little voice when it thunders.