Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

There are a number of things that I’ve been wanting to write about, after finishing the piece on ISO/IEC 29500. The idea of computer languages and information, is one, as a continuation of my philosophical appreciation of the standardization issues. Another is the sequel to Finding Linux, which I started several days ago with some thoughts on software licensing and contract agreements with users and manufacturers. A third subject is a critical reflection on the (buzz)word “open.”

However, numerous times I found myself rather discouraged (by a variety of things), fortunately finding comfort in my crochet work. I was able to finish a little bag yesterday, after deciding to replace the fancy circular pocket with a simple rectangular one, below.

It was a lot of work, working, un-working and re-working the piece. It looks fairly simple enough and yet I wish I could make it perfect. I enjoyed sewing the zip into the scalloped top of the bag and putting this little crocheted “ears” on both ends of the zip. There is also a small pocket inside the bag.

Then just this morning I started work on a new project, a bag made up of “granny squares”, below. This is probably one of the simplest and most basic crochet projects but I thought I’d do it anyway to see if I could work out something different with it.

At the same time I’ve been continuing work on a little gray and yellow motif bag. I want it to have a small bottom and a large top. I already finished the zip for this one because I was so excited to sew the zip to a scalloped edging. But I had to stop working on this bag for a while because I ran out of gray yarn.

These conversations with patterns and loops are becoming more enjoyable, and it seems that I am getting more used to the language. If I keep on with the conversation I would soon have enough crocheted gifts to give away to everyone in the family.

Writing or crochet, it is good to be able o do these things simply because they are enjoyable conversations, not because I have to submit a paper to a conference or make a bag to sell or to call “art.”

We made it to my mom’s house, finally, to pick up some mail and other stuff. It’s not easy when your working hours are 3PM-3AM! Alwin was really excited to see us, jumping up and down, scaring poor old Fortun who was trying to get some sleep on the condiments table. I guess the folks at home don’t mind Fortun staying there anymore.

Fortun has really grown bigger. I didn’t see George today, though, ad last I saw him some 2 weeks ago he looked quite thin and scruffy. Then I learned that Machang died - so Alwin told me, and Trevor and I were so shocked. Poor old Machang! My mom said that it was parvo. I suddenly thought that maybe George had that too - I hope he isn’t hiding away somewhere sick. Our cats usually do that when they are sick, they hide somewhere, and if they are going to make it, they come back into the house still sick, and spend the next several days trying to get well.

I thought Fortun has a better immune system than George because when they were younger, Fortun always played with dirt and stole food bits from the garbage whereas George just stayed home always clean.

Well, George is much older than Machang and maybe a year or two older than Fortun. It’s quite sad that Machang’s gone. Well they say that pets get sick and die so their owners won’t.

Anyway, Alwin showed me his new pets that my brother gave him. They were in this plastic bowl with some wood shavings and a dry carrot. They were worms and Alwin said that later they will turn into cocoons and then turn into bugs!

Hmmm… I didn’t know these worms ate carrots.

At least this summer, Alwin has new things to play with. He has prepared some ten small plastic containers to put the cocoons in when the time comes …

On the way home at the mall, we finally saw our K9 handler and his German shepherd again. I was so surprised that I yelped so loudly and embarrassed Trevor. And before I could calm down from my surprise, a short distance behind K9 was an old fellow with dark glasses, his hair well-pomaded with side-burns, wearing an all black with silver and chains ensemble. A cross between Elvis and FPJ! So shockingly funny, the little old fellow had both thumbs in his side pockets and was walking as if he was ready to shoot someone. Hmmm … strange world outside it is, especially in the daytime!

I finished the crocheted shoes last night (photo below), but I am not very happy with them. I do like that they are of different colors (in a subtle way) because I had to use brown yarn after I ran out of blue yarn for the right shoe.

What I’m not so happy about is that it’s too soft and therefore not very comfortable for long wearing. I think I need to get rubber soles for the shoes which are not very expensive actually and can be bought at the shoe repair shops. The shops can also sew the soles in for you since they have a special shoe-sewing machine for doing that. Maybe one day I’ll bring my crocheted shoes to the shoe shop.

I also thought that the shoes could be more comfortable as a slipper-type so I might need to remove the heel part of the shoes. Then later, when they’re comfortable enough I’d like to decorate it with some tassels and beads.

Making shoes certainly isn’t easy.

In the meantime, I have just started a new project, a rectangular zip bag with a round bottom. I’d like to use the zippers hanging around here - yeah, put them to some good use. And the round and square shape could be an interesting shape (and challenge) for crocheting.

If I get this and the shoes right I can make some more to give as gifts on Christmas! ;P

Although sometimes I wonder if I could get good enough with crocheting and earn a bit of income from it. That would be nice so that I can contribute some money for paying the hosting bills!

The Japanese crochet magazines are more useful than I have imagined. Although I couldn’t read the texts, the pattern diagrams have provided me with a great deal of inspired new ideas. In fact, now I am thinking of making the patterns of my own crochet projects available through diagrams rather than written instructions.

Anyway, the other day I managed to finish the multi-colored bag that I was making using scrap yarn. Below is a photo of the bag. It has a small inside pocket and an outside pocket decorated with beads.

Right now I am trying to finish the right shoe for a new pair that I decided to make several days ago following the tiny pair I made for my nephew. Below is a photo of my crocheted shoe.

In the meantime, the crocheted blouse that I’ve been making for several weeks now is on hold - but should continue when I’m done with the shoes. I have also decided to make the blouse into a full crocheted dress! That was the original challenge anyhow, to see if I have enough patience to crochet an entire dress.

And finally, with all these distractions, I managed to finish the first draft of a text about the newly approved international standard, MSOOXML. I’ve posted the text over at Korakora Proyekto - and welcome comments, questions, corrections.

A couple months ago, a metal cage was being built for the brown dog living in the apartment we often pass on our way out of the housing compound. It wasn’t really a cage but more like a metal gate for the three-walled enclave attached to the front of the house.

The past year and a half I often looked into that apartment to see the dog, tied to the side of the house, often bored, asleep, a few times barking, and once I saw him outside though still on a leash, with a human. A number of times I saw him asleep on a pile of torn up newspapers or cardboard; apparently just had a tantrum.

Then two months ago, his leashed prison became worse when they transformed that tiny corner into a cage.

A few weeks later, I saw someone painting his prison gate green.

On the way out of the housing compound, I saw him barking furiously and gnawing at the metal gate, apparently wanting to play with a smaller hairier terrier-like dog who also lived in that apartment. The smaller dog, also on a leash, just sat there looking into his cage.

When we got back an hour later, we were surprised to see that the smaller dog was placed in the cage with the brown dog. Old brownie was quiet, asleep it seemed.

I thought it was funny, how little terrier got punished for all the racket that brownie made. Of course, for little terrier, that wasn’t very funny, as was apparent with the look on his hairy face.

We pass along another apartment where I often try to look in to see a big white dog that often sat on the bamboo chair in the living room. We joked that he probably read the newspapers too. One time he was under the table when the humans in the house were playing mahjong. Looks like he wasn’t allowed to play. Same situation in another apartment that had mahjong sessions everyday - and a dark graying-brown dog with a short thick pointed tail always sat outside the door. At least he and the white dog weren’t caged or tied.

A couple of months ago, I noticed that the white dog had a new companion - another smaller white dog. I don’t see him sitting on the bamboo chair anymore, so the territories must’ve changed.

The other day on the way to the laundry, we saw old chow again, under one of the cars parked in front the apartment where he lives. He looked at me intently. It seems that he remembers that I was the one who saw him trying to play with a cat that scratched his face.

Actually, there is a black and white cat in his apartment. Then just a few days ago, I saw a little black and white kitten running in their garden.

We haven’t seen our K9 handler in several weeks now. His lovely golden retriever Coke was replaced a few months ago by a german shepherd. We thought that Coke must’ve been sacked because he was getting fat because he was always sleeping, and because he was always playing with kids at the mall. Quite sad, he was such a friendly dog, although he barked at Trevor because Trevor looked different, but I guess being friendly (and lazy) wasn’t plus points for a bomb sniffer. I hope his handler didn’t get sacked too (he was also quite friendly)! I could imagine it must’ve been quite difficult trying not to be too friendly with the public when you have a lovely friendly dog with you …

Anyway, putting dogs in cages seem to be recent fashion. By recent I mean middle class people have adopted the habit only in the past decade. There are also now more dog cage builders - just as there were many chicken coop builders and rooster shed builders for as long as I can remember.

Before that, people let their dogs free or had collar and leash. If I am not mistaken, the dog cage habit came from rich families who bred pedigree dogs for sale or for amusement, and then, as often happens, the middle and lower class folks copy the upper class habits and tastes.

My sister, who lives in my mom’s house, puts her two dogs in cages. When we were younger, my dad kept all our dogs free, at one time we had over 10 dogs at home - all free to go in and out of the house, mess up the garden, fight over food (which can be bloody sometimes), wake us up in bed. I guess my sister decided to put the two dogs in cages because there is a baby and a young child in the house, although there is one free dog, Machang, and she’s very friendly.

I guess if dogs are allowed to be free and socialize with people and other dogs then they will not be any trouble. In fact, Machang even plays with my cat George and a few times I’ve seen George biting Machang…

The free dogs here in our housing compounds are ok - they don’t do any trouble at all like chasing or biting people. They usually stay in their territory and go out occasionally to pee or poo. With the recent trend of cages, I guess it’s also because some people are more careful now with the anti-rabies law passed (just last year if I’m not mistaken).

But in my experience, once a dog has been caged for a long time it could be quite difficult trying to set them free. My sister’s old pit bull Sandy wouldn’t even jump out of her cage when Trevor opened the cage door and tried calling her out. Poor old Sandy died a few months ago, now free in the afterlife.

I’m afraid that too might be the fate of poor old brownie …

One of the interesting things about Eric’s blogpost for Sid, is how Eric interpreted Sid’s poetry on Luna as a (personal) reminder to “keep the faith in heresy alive.” Another matter of interest is how we have a thing for conversations with the dead.

With electronic mail rendering with ease the instant forwarding of feel-good propaganda, social networking services giving people tools to connect with other people around them as if they were totally inutile without such tools, vast systems of SMS servers receiving and transmitting millions of totally mindless things said because there is nothing to say, and discussions groups replete with lurkers aka academic cherry-pickers and appropriators - we are, in fact, living in the world of the dead. The Spirit of Resistance has passed away.

Trevor and I have given up on conversations with this “outside world.” With very very few exceptions, there is no more intelligent life left out there. This “outside world” is what Eric might call “artistic careers in complacency and oblivion, wallowing in the contentment of cows.” Eric’s “sila XXX”s would typically attest to the passive acceptance of the COW theory, and subscriptions as these are what keep the world grinding away, not to a halt, but to a bottomless pit of shallow social traditions (not only in the arts and the academe but in all disciplines). Life on the global farm is for sheep and cows, although I would suspect that these animals actually have more complex and interesting social traditions than humans.

The pit is likewise full of people who have something to say only if it links with profit or career. This is called “professionalism.” If the offer to discuss is not within the context of a career, there will be little or no involvement at all. You see, you can’t waste the time of professionals. So, it has been proven again recently that earnest effort to get a dialogue and a space going (outside of artistic, academic or professional careers) for serious discussion of urgent problems underlying the mental and creative lethargy of society is of no avail.

Gwangju Biennale people were supposed to have visited here during the Holy Week. I received an email from them a few weeks earlier asking for a visit. I offered instead an informal dialogue, and admitted that I wasn’t interested in biennales. But such fanfares, already embedded within careeristic pursuits of artists and what a friend calls the “art world ambassadors”, are the staple of stable (as in horses!) artists and their cherry-pickers. The informal dialogue, of course, never transpired. The shopping was more important. Not so surprising really, it happened recently with Websining, when Process/yon was canceled because the promoters of fanfares and “intensive promo” had taken over the committee.

Trevor admitted, there has also been “the lack of actions by a whole range of people whom one might have thought would be more sympathetic to activities set up for (everybody’s) mutual benefit.”
I told Eric, there are very very very few really intelligent and worthwhile people left out there to work and discuss with. Don’t waste your time on the “art community” - if ever, I’d guess that Sid is asking you, first, to give yourself a second chance, to write again (a craft which he obviously loved much, perhaps more than visual art), and second, to write - not for this fictional “art community” - but for those you love (which Sid seemed to do for you).

In a response to Roger Malina’s comment on my blog, I admitted that I like talking with dead people when the living are no longer capable of thinking outside their comfort and craving zones  - at that particular moment with Victor Papanek (Design for the Real World) and Milton Meyer (They Thought They Were Free - The Germans 1933-45).

“While I am doing this out of a renewed interest in the visions of people in the 60s and earlier, perhaps this is also something I need to do more out of the loneliness of the present time when there are fewer and fewer people to engage in real dialogues.”

If you are one of the rare and few, an outsider, heretic, will you ever cross over or will the mainstream carry you away?

A few days ago, I was able to finish making a crocheted purse for Trevor. I used a multi-color yarn and the simple pattern (of single and double-crochet stitches) produced an interesting effect which resembled the behavior of some of his computer programs.

Below is a photo of the purse, using the same string from his old leather purse that broke a couple of weeks ago. Right next to the purse is a mobile phone case that I made for our reflexologist (she is supposed to give this as birthday present for their vocation directress, who being a nun, likes simple things - and likes the color blue ).

Now I have two works in-progress. First is a sleeveless blouse that I started several weeks ago, below. This work is taking an awfully long time and I’ve had to make repairs along the way. I still have lots to learn when it comes to crocheting stuff to wear!

My second work in-progress is something that I started just yesterday - it’s another way to use of all the old scrap yarn lying around here in the apartment. I hope to make a multi-color bag.