Brooklyn’s blue airwaves

Today, I noticed that my dear college friend Ryan Scammell had posted a new radio segment (I guess I’ll call it that?). Scammell, as he’s fondly called by all who knew him at Northwestern, has always been the most adept of storytellers, whether he’s working in film or radio, whether he’s talking about his heartbreak or the time he dressed up in a banana suit. He worked for NPR for a while, and some of the films he made in college were just breathtaking—both visually and dramatically. I can’t say enough about this guy’s skills, from writing to directing, and these “audio polaroids” (his words) that he produces are just another example of how he manages to translate his easygoing demeanor into something that just sings. There is certainly an art to being a storyteller; it involves a sort of choreographed abandon, if you will. There are times that craft comes into play, when sequence matters; but there are others when a voice across the slow, blue airwaves is all we need.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this art of storytelling. It started when I began a non-fiction piece about my father’s side of the family—my grandma, my dad, and my three aunts and uncles—who sit around the dinner table on Thanksgiving or Christmas and regale everyone with silly tales of their past or present. They all have that storytelling instinct, the one I didn’t inherit. Somehow, my dad and his brothers and sister can make anything funny, even to those who weren’t there. The piece I was writing about this, appropriately enough, didn’t really work. It’s about 1000 words deep and resting on my hard drive, likely to not be resurrected.

Strangely enough, in deciding to scrap that essay, I started writing another one about Scammell, about his art, and about how we thrived off each other one summer in our early twenties. It was as if, all the way from Brooklyn, he heard my fingers on the keyboard and produced his piece, which alludes to the same time. Oh, and that music in the background, at the end? It’s Thomas Tallis, a composer I introduced him to. I’m just slightly proud—that I gave him something, that he liked it.

 

Jeans hem, part two

This afternoon, I took a break from doing the reading for my Travel Literature class to focus on sewing. I tend to move back and forth between schoolwork and craftwork, using one as a reprieve for the other. I returned to the jeans that I’d started adding a fabric hem to last week and—nor can I believe it—I finished them. Both legs are now complete. They have their imperfections, but that’s one thing I’m beginning to learn from crafting: that I have to put aside my perfectionism if I ever want to get anything done. And so, in that spirit, one project completed:

 

Letterpress: the weekend in recap

I spent the better part of Sunday in the letterpress shop, making notecards that I’ll (fingers crossed) sell at the flea market next month. I wasn’t quite sure where to start, given that I want these to be a bit personal—notecards and envelopes with initials, so that they’ll seem customized. But this is hard to do without actually knowing who will buy these, not to mention what their names will be. So I did what any strategizing, calculated person would do: I guessed. Mostly, I just picked the letters that I liked best.

Progress, so far.

So I’m hoping that Mary, Kim, and Evelyn come to the market. (If not, my friends with M, K, and E names can look forward to a present in the mail . . .) I’ll be making more of the general “hello” cards, as well, and some thank-you notes of sort. But I think this is a pretty good start.

Watching ink dry.

I love how these “K” ones came out: textured, but clear.

 

Friday afternoon sewing: Patterned jeans cuffs

I suppose the subtitle for this post should be “or . . . what happens when you hem your jeans too short and need to fix them.” A couple of months ago, I bought a pair of Salt Works jeans at a local boutique, and though I loved the fit, they were way too long. I tried wearing them a couple of times, but even with my tallest boots on, the hems dragged on the ground and—an inevitability in the rainy Oregon winter—got soaking wet. In a hurry to wear them one day, I cut off the bottoms and thought I’d give them a quick hem. Well, turns out I was too hasty and didn’t follow my father’s old idiom: “Measure twice, cut once.”

So in an attempt to reconcile the situation, I decided to sew a new, decorative hem around the bottom. I sketched up this pattern on a piece of scrap paper:

It makes perfect sense to me . . .

Consulting my stash, I found some vintage upholstery fabric that I thought would hold up well. I particularly like the photo below. The fabric was laying below a window, tossed aside for the moment, and the sun fell through it just right.

So, about an hour later, I had one leg down, one to go. Knowing myself, it might be a few days before I get the other side completed. Making things in pairs is always somewhat tiring to me. I like the challenge of “figuring out” the first one, and by comparison, the second edition of whatever it is seems more rote, mechanical. But I do like how the first leg turned out; it’s not quite perfect, but nor is anything I sew.

Left leg, finished

Overexposed

One down, one to go

 

Milestones and old maps

My thesis—a collection of narrative non-fiction essays—is done. I think I’m still in disbelief, even after a few hours of battling Word to get it to number the damned pages correctly.

The thesis: Half-Life: Essays

Writing these essays has consumed so much of my time this year—since October, when I decided to switch gears and go with non-fiction instead of fiction. I’m not sure what I’ll do now. Will I remember how I used to spend quiet Corvallis evenings, pre-thesis? Will I know what to do on sunny Sundays when I don’t have to be cooped up inside? I’m sure I’ll find plenty of Sisyphean tasks to occupy me; and once again, I’ll return to my pattern of starting things and not finishing them. So I suppose this is a milestone; not just a story finished, but a whole collection. And though there’s a sense of achievement that accompanies this stack of papers, ready to be photocopied tomorrow and handed out to my defense committee, I almost wish it could stretch on a bit longer. I found myself, today, reading all 80-some pages for what felt like the millionth time, searching for stray commas and rogue apostrophes, even though I knew there couldn’t be any typos left. I think I was just trying to prolong the experience, to prolong what this thesis has provided me: the impetus to write daily.

But this also means that I’ll have room opened up for other projects, like my newfound need to sell my letterpress art at the local flea market. I did log some time making things this weekend, namely, hand-cut, -folded, and -glued envelopes made from vintage National Geographic maps. I bought these a few years ago, at a used bookstore in Chicago, for something like 10 cents each. Now seemed like a good time to make them into these envelopes:

Map envelopes—40 in all, packaged in fives

Denmark, circa 1964

I’m not sure about pricing yet, but really, that’s negligible. There’s not much that’s more relaxing to me than a few hours spent cutting, gluing, and listening to the online archives of NPR’s This American Life. So in that regard, even if I sell nothing, I’ll be happier for having made these.

 

Pushing the envelope (and notecard)

A few weeks ago, I learned from a flier in a local restaurant about the flea market that takes place at the Benton County Fairgrounds one Saturday a month. In anticipation of lots of thrifting finds, I went to the fairgrounds’ website today for a preview. While there wasn’t a list of vendors, I did find out that spots are still open to sell crafts at the May 10 market. With that, the fire was lit. What, I thought, if I could sell my letterpress art? I’ve been spending long hours in OSU’s letterpress studio lately. Although I’ve been working on printing my own wedding invitations, I’ve become quite facile with the equipment and it wouldn’t be hard to turn out some notecards and envelopes.

I love working in the shop. It’s in the basement of the Art Department building, and stacked almost floor-to-ceiling with cabinets of old type in all fonts—Garamond, Futura, Caslon, Century Schoolbook. But my favorite couple of drawers are the ones that house truly old wood type. While not all the letters of the alphabet have made it into the present, there are plenty of initials to choose from. I’m thinking simple at this point: blank notecards and envelopes with single initials printed from these wood type pieces. I made some already for my friend Sarah:

Cards, packaged and ready to send.

Close-up of wood block printing

Now I’m in planning mode—perhaps my favorite mode, as I’m the type of person who loves ideas in their nascent stages, the way they pervade every minute of the day. I love to-do lists and adding new things to my planner, and, in general, the taste of anticipation. Especially when it involves long hours in the letterpress room.

 

The good and the will

Driving to the grocery store today, I passed Goodwill and realized it’d been a while since I’d browsed around. I normally frequent other thrift and antiques/junk shops here in Corvallis, but the Goodwill here is one of those “mega-Goodwills” that consists of about half cast-offs and half unsold items from big retailers like Target (tags still attached). In short, there’s little vintage stuff to be had. And while I don’t deny the utility of the store for “practical” items like Tupperware, muffin tins, and garlic presses, it’s not the kind of place I’d go in anticipation of good thrifting. But today I came away with two good finds:

Green stapler. Vintage Swingline “Colt.”

Purple boots. With blue socks, yes.

So these two small things have been the highlight of my afternoon. My intention for the evening is to continue today’s purple theme and work on my knitting project, this pattern from knitty. I’m knitting it in Blue Sky Alpacas‘ sport-weight in the color eggplant. It’s my first go at knitting a lace motif, and I’ve started over twice already, once because I screwed up something I couldn’t even identify, and the second because I dropped a stitch but couldn’t figure out where.

 

On stage, at last

I think the reason I’ve put off starting this blog for so long is that, for me, as a writer, it poses issues of audience. I’m not writing a letter to one person, nor am I writing an essay that will be read by a professor, or a creative piece that might—on a good day—be published in a small and obscure lit journal. And I have to face it: My voice changes depending on whom I’m writing to. But being inexperienced in this medium, I’m challenged to find a new style, one I’ve never toyed with before. I know I don’t have it right now, but I’m hoping that it will emerge over time, similar to the way my voice in non-fiction writing did. I just sort of stumbled on it one day, and it’s never flagged.

I’ve heard before that the best way to write a piece that will be read by many is to write to one. It’s certainly been working with my thesis; I always have one reader—in this case, my thesis advisor—in my head. I can picture her, cocking her head at a funny angle when the words don’t work, or matter-of-factly adjusting her glasses when they do. And I think I know who this will be written to; in fact, I do know. I have a friend from my undergrad days whom I send frequent letters to; and he sends back the loveliest prose in return. And he once told me that when he reads my letters, he hears my spoken voice. I think that’s something that’s hard to convey in writing; that our prosaic voice should mimic the spoken. But then, isn’t that what the art of the story is all about? About the spoken? About the instinct to tell?

I think I’ve arrived. Maybe, now, I’ll start making time for writing in this forum. Amid the craziness of finishing up my thesis and trying to find a job, I could use some time to sit down and create, but not on a deadline. And I’m hoping that the effect, here, will by cyclical: By writing about my crafts—whether it be writing or letterpress or knitting—I’ll want to set aside time for them. And then by doing them, keeping that muscle memory intact, I’ll have more to write about.