Monday 5 November 2007

Tilted Blocks and Parrots

I kept going with Tilted Blocks yesterday. It was so grey all day that it really wasn't worth taking photographs. I took this today.It's about 53 inches long now. The pattern says 60, but I would like to keep going beyond that if I can find another ball of this wool.

I could wash it and stretch it a bit by blocking, I suppose, but I wouldn't want to overdo that.

I wonder what on earth it was called; something like Spruce perhaps because that's what it makes me think of. I think it's discontinued.



I watched a wonderful film last night, called The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. That's exactly what it's about, too, parrots which have been accidentally or otherwise released from captivity and live in the trees on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. It's about some of the human beings as well, especially the man who feeds them, although as he points out they don't depend on him and would survive if he stopped feeding them, as he eventually does because he has to move away. He explains this after a passer-by remarks, 'They can't be wild if you've got names for them.' Some of the humans are stranger than the parrots.

It has some surprises, including a soundtrack which includes Jack Kerouac singing 'Ain't We Got Fun?', which for me was worth the price of admission (or rental) on its own. And it has the best ending I've seen on a film in a long time. I won't spoil it for you but I sat and watched it with a big smile on my face, and then ran it back and watched it again.


It's beautifully shot and the colours are as exciting as you might expect; you kind of want to knit an enormous felted bag after watching it.

2 comments:

Knitting Linguist said...

The scarf is looking good! And I think I'm going to have to try to find that film -- could kids watch it, do you think? I'm also going to adopt "oos" to describe my dust bunnies, if that's OK. I love it! And it's just so evocative of the way they "ooze" out from under the couch just when guests arrive :)

Knitting Linguist said...

Thanks for the green light on Parrots -- I'm going to have to see if I can get it at my local store. The girls both love anything to do with animals, and since we lived near the City for years, they'll connect to that, too (or at least the older one will). I think I like "stoor" for dust almost as much as I like "oos" for dust bunnies. Man, I'm gonna have some fun now! (And yes, I'd heard folks saying "Hoover" -- I tell my students about that, and when they laugh I ask them what they think they're doing when they "xerox" something?)