the heat is hot

It is punishingly hot.
85F/30C (that sounds so much pleasanter to unaccustomed ears: 30 degrees, if only)
60% humidity
heat index 91

Ow.

Clearly it's time for buckets of iced tea. Here's how my Mom made it, by the gallon, with a syrup. Never cloudy, always bright.

In a small saucepan,
2 cups (or so) tap water.
No real need to measure, but you want to avoid boiling over.
5 tea bags
(Plain old black tea from the grocery store -- Tetley, Red Rose,
Salada -- whatever's on sale in the 100-count box)
10 tablespoons sugar
(ah, those were the days, and even so, Dad added MORE sugar
to each glassful he drank )
Have ready:
1 lemon
1/2 lime
ICE and cold water
1-gallon vessel

Bring the tea and sugar mixture just to boiling. Stir while heating to be sure all the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat, let cool on the burner (or not).
While the syrup is working, squeeze lemon and lime juice into the vessel. Fill halfway with cold water. Add the syrup, ice, and more water to make one gallon.
Mom used to make extra syrup and freeze or refrigerate it, so as not to be stirring hot stuff when it was punishingly hot. And so as not to run out.

I make a 2-quart version with 4 teabags, 3 packets of Equal, 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 a lime. I just boil the teabags and add everything else after. I also keep extra brew in the fridge, mostly so that it's already cold when needed.

We always dumped the rinds into the tea, the oil in the rinds adds flavor. Back in the day, we didn't wash the fruit first, but these days I do.

We didn't fuss with greenery, mint and such, or with bush or tree fruits, but feel free if you like that sort of thing. And fool with the ratio of tea and sweetening until you find the balance of strength and sweetness you like -- which, now that I think of it, is pretty good advice for much of life.

piece process

So I'm back from the Nancy Crow extravaganza and I must say it was remarkable. Intense, as promised, but exhilarating and possibly exalting.

We began with an exercise in black and white. So far, so good, b&w is my comfort zone. Nancy gave us a list of widths to cut and sew together, and we were set loose to make a composition out of the pieces. I started out working horizontally.

But as the thing evolved, I liked it better vertical.

That long strip of black in white at the bottom was something I stuck in as a place holder because I was (already) getting tired and we were running out of time. It is also, of course, the one thing Nancy remarked on: "I'm not sure about this piece." she said. Me neither.

That was Monday. On Tuesday (into Wednesday), we began piecing together colors in prescribed assortments (warm/cool, neutrals, neutrals and brown, brown with blue, etc.) and ratios. We were exhorted to do 16 of these. I managed 12, one of which (the rust and purple one near the bottom) was not on the list. I had confused and combined two instructions -- not the most auspicious start.

Wednesday into Thursday, we were to do another 14 or so assortments of "bold graphic prints", plaids, and stripes. I HATE plaid and refused to get any even for the purpose of the class. I made do with some batik and brights. I may have added 4 or so fabrics to the 12 from the first exercise.

Midday on Thursday, we got the final instruction: create a composition in the form of a ribbon quilt. Damn and blast!, I thought. If I had known we were going to make a ribbon quilt, I'd have approached the whole piecing exercise completely differently. Which, I realized in the next moment, is the point of not knowing.

Onward. Sorted and pinned things, hoping for a composition to emerge. I am very fond of that sparrow-color gradation of brown and gray at the top, but it didn't make it into the final piece.

Adding and subtracting and shifting things up, down, across, and around on the design wall, by midnight or so I had this:

A somewhat coherent something with a big hole in the middle. I could not resolve the void, so I gave up and went to bed. First, for levity's sake, I filled the hole with one possibility:

(That's a scrap paper label stating: "Your Name Here." My mind was not the only thing that wouldn't come into focus . . .)

Friday. Fresh perspective. At breakfast I had an idea that amounted to "retreat to your comfort zone: go for b&w." As I was working, I was uneasy about the T-shaped purple bit, but Nancy said, "Keep that. It makes the whole piece." She also was complimentary about the use of b&w to resolve the center. Okay then, be it resolved:

It was 5.30 on Friday. I had made it through -- and finished something -- and was jumping up and down chortling:"I survived Nancy Crow!" She had the grace to smile.

Saturday, I went to an exhibition of Nancy's work at the Schweinfurth Center in Auburn, and then I came home -- with renewed enthusiasm and a great deal to think about. I think this is going to be the event I look back at and say "That's where it all changed and came together."

as promised: roy g. biv

I think I may be ready for Nancy Crow's class next week. Behold:

^That's about 90 yards of solid color, 100% cotton fabric in at least 1-yard lengths. "Do NOT," Crow says, "bring marbled fabrics." Well, some of the greens are a little mottled because I'm not wildly skilled at hand dyeing. And I tried doing some hand dyeing in an effort to be somewhat economical about this extravaganza.

^Red, orange, yellow. In the back, that lovely wood-rose color I like so much (and because the store had a clear run of 6 shades). Tan to brown, and not enough gray. In my usual palette, you can never have enough gray. The pieces in the front are the hand dyes (Rit), the ones on top and in the back I bought.

^Green, Blue, Violet. I tried to buy blue violet and red violet, but in life they're closer in tone than in the picture.

Plus (not shown) 4 yards each of black and white.

Plus, Crow says, "bring bold graphic commercial prints. Do NOT bring fat quarters. We will be working selvage to selvage." (For those of you not up on the jargon, a fat quarter is a half-yard cut in half to yield a piece roughly 18 x 22 inches.)

Ai-yi-yi.
"Bold graphic commercial prints" is so not my usual thing. So I'm packing pretty much anything for which I have yardage and -- ever the iconoclast -- some fat quarters. Because in a class with Carol Bryer Fallert, she said that if she needs a bigger bit of something, she just pieces it. "And," she said, "no one has ever called me on it." If it's okay with the woman who has many, many more awards and accolades than cats have lives, who am I to argue?

The class is next week. I'm very interested to see how it goes. I've been away from color for a long time. Not out of anxiety, but because I think color is so seductive, it can overwhelm, or overcompensate for, other aspects of the work. I like the way a limited palette forces attention into the other aspects of design. Nancy Crow, on the other hand, asserts that she uses a palette of 500 colors. This is going to be so interesting.

in the summertime

I'm pumping my word count -- 12,000 and a little bit. Of course, I started with about 8,000 for the most recent NaNoWriMo exercise, but still, I'm chuffed. 12,000 down, somewhere between 38K and 53K to go, depending on how things shape. For example: The Great Gatsby is about 50K. TC Boyles' The Women (which is on my nightstand now and which will likely stay there since I'm finding it tedious) is about twice that. There are about 250 words to a printed page.

Beau, on the other hand, has about all he can manage just working on his tan.

as I was saying

Remember that the blog has been languishing since -- eek! -- April. Check.

Think that it might be well to get started again, howsoever modestly. Check.

Remember how to sign in. Check.

Sign in on the sly while my collaborator is gone walkabout (shh, don't tell Stella . . . yet) in this heat. Check.

Post a recent work from her String Theory series because when she finds out I've been blogging without her there will be sulking. And in this heat.

Realize that it has taken way too long to remember how to do this, but then it was never one of those so-called intuitive processes in the first place. Check.

Consider announcing that I've quit my job and that before looking for another, I plan to finish a draft of the novel I've wanted to write since I was 14. Not this particular novel since I was 14, but a novel since I was 14. [check?]

Mention that I have been collecting a huge pile o' fabric in anticipation of taking a class during the week of the 18th with Nancy Crow who is some kind of genius and who requires this. Promise "more about this later." Check.

That's probably enough for now.
Did I mention that it's hot?

Check.

habeas corpus

I was at the Morgan Library today to see one of the 17 surviving original manuscripts of the Magna Carter. Reportedly, because each copy bears the royal seal, they're technically not copies, but "engrossments." Live and learn.

It's surprisingly small -- about 15 x 18 inches. It's closely written in a fair hand, maybe 42 lines of script. The ink is brown -- probably turned brown over time. It's been a long time, almost 800 years. It's in Latin. Of course it would be.

This particular manuscript had never been out of England before. It was brought over from Oxford to be part of a special event for the university and was -- yes, really -- grounded by the Icelandic ash crisis. So the university called the library and offered it for display while new arrangements are made to return it to the Bodleian. It will be at the Morgan until May 30th. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and give thanks.

Welcome to America, keystone document of democracy. And thank you.

Question 9

I read an article in the Daily News (4/14) about the Census and Question 9. It was in the New York Viva section so I'm going out on a limb and assuming that the author --Dolores Prida -- self-identifies as Hispanic/Latina. She urged Latinos to complete Question 9, despite whatever anxiety, confusion, or misgivings they may have, and send in the form.

For those of you who don't know, for the census, after establishing that you are "Person 1," and answering some innocuous questions, you get to Question 9 (of 10). Question 9 asks: "What is Person 1's race?" The first option is "White." The next is "Black, African Am, or Negro." Next is American Indian or Alaska Native" with a row of boxes in which you are to declare your "enrolled tribe." Then follows a variety of Asian heritages including Asian Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Other Asian. Then a range of Pacific Islander options -- Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan, and Other Pacific Islander. For these "other" categories, in case you're unsure of what you are, the form offers suggestions: Hmong, Laotian, Fijian, Tongan and, in both cases, "and so on." I wonder how many people declare their tribe as "and so on." I was tempted. But since so many people have genealogical feet in many camps, Ms. Prida suggested in her article that "mixed" should be added to the mix.

Anyone who looked at me would say "unquestionably white," But I also had a problem with this question. I don't know much about my genealogy. It's entirely possibly that I'm 2% or 20% or some greater or lesser perc ent "other" if "other" means "other than white." And I object to classifying people by their appearance, even if a person's appearance seems to suggest a specific ethnic/racial/cultural/national heritage, perhaps especially if that is the case.

I doubt my appearance suggests that I grew up in a black neighborhood and was one of maybe half a dozen so-called white kids in my class at school. I sometimes look at old class portraits and think Let's play "Find the Minority." I doubt anyone would leap to the fact that some of my family is in Zimbabwe. Does that make me African American?

My appearance is more likely to suggest Northern European heritage. I have red hair so it's often assumed that I "am" Irish. I've never been to Ireland. As far as I know, no one in my family has been to Ireland in several generations. Red hair = Irish. Except that Scotland has the highest percentage of redheads per capita of any country in the world. So far as I know, no one in my family hails from Scotland, and anyway red hair =Irish. Everybody knows that.

Then there's my great grandfather (mother's side) who was Lithuanian, or maybe Polish. He was actually from the old country, but whether he was from the part of Lithuania that started out as Poland, then became Lithuania, then became Poland again or from someplace in that part of the world that held fast as"Lithuania" I don't know. Toss in some of the other "hails from" in my background and you get an unwieldy string of hyphens: Irish-Welsh-Polish/Lithuanian-German-American (except that, late in his life my father replaced German with English, I think because he had written to a "Find Your Family Crest" site in the back of magazine and that's what they told him. And having paid $39.95, who could argue?). Are the Welsh and the Germans sufficiently alike to constitute a race? Would Ms. Prida say my combined heritage constitutes "mixed race"? Is it a purely biochemical categorization, or does culture or national identity play a role? And what does "white" mean anyway? If someone knows that I am "white" what is they actually know about me?

I don't know why this matters so very much. I grew up in a black neighborhood, so my friends were black. My brother was less sanguine about this situation and sometimes called me a nigger-lover. It was a long time before I realized this was supposed to be insulting and/or cautionary. Aren't we supposed to love one another? Isn't that the whole point of living?

According the census site, a question like Question 9 has been asked on the census since 1790. More recently than the 18th century, it is intended to help monitor compliance with the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts, to assess fairness of employment practices, and to plan and obtain funds for public services. These are good things -- fairness, civility, service, voting. But must they be allotted according to how you look? Irish-Welsh-Polish/Lithuanian-German-Americans are under-reported and therefore under-represented. I should start a movement. And yes I know that this is not how the world is. The fact is we do judge, characterize, and allot based on how people look. I guess my question is: why have we not moved further along the path of humanity from the 18th century? Why is the government still asking this question as a form of barter?

So I -- who am usually the whitest person in any room -- being Person 1, checked "other" and wrote in "human." I expect that a Census worker will come to the door to clarify the answer, but as best as I can understand it, it's the only answer that makes any authentic sense.

[note: thanks to wee Davey over there in Scotland, for the encouragement to start up again.
and for her fans -- as she often does, Stella has gone walkabout. I imagine she's working on something Goldworthy now that the weather has gone all balmy.]