Gallery: Knits You Can Still Buy from This Web Site

This is such a cheap, cheesy way to do a shopping post, but it's been known to work in real life, so here comes...The Mostly Bad Photos of Hand Knitting Still For Sale Through This Site. (This will be cross-posted to Ko-fi.) I believe Blogspot is automatically linking each sweater to its own post. If not, you may use the mail or e-mail address at the bottom of the screen for inquiries about price, availability, etc.

Yes, it's Kaffe Fassett's "Turkish Carnation" design. I actually have two versions--a big blousy jacket, as shown, and the snug-waisted Zoe Hunt cardigan shape shown in Glorious Knitting. Both feature red and pink flowers on a blue background. I'm not sure what caused the flowers near the top to show white in the picture--it wasn't even my cell phone camera, which did an even worse job. The colors you see on the sleeves and waist of this sweater are fairly true.

Years ago somebody (it was my goofball elder Oogesti, if you must know) bought me a lot of yellow-and-white yarn just to see what I'd make of it. I made various whimsical things. This cardigan is the one that's left. Believe it or not, another cardigan and a blanket actually sold.

This pullover, with the cables around the upper arms and wrists as well as down the front, was inspired by a pattern printed in the late Seventies but is definitely in the category of Eighties Sweaters. In real life the color is more yellow than cream. 

A classic Eighties Sweater design by Sue Bradley. One size fits most men or women in approved Eighties oversized fashion. (This was actually ordered for a man, who then bought something else.)

Large size cardigan. 

Small (adult's) cardigan. 

In real life the sleeves are the same (reasonable) length and size. 

In real life this vest was knitted all in one piece, and the fronts and back are the same length. (This batch of photos was snapped by a friend's college-age kid who became impatient with the job.) It's a long vest, meant not to ride up and admit a draft when you bend over.

In real life the collar turns down like a shirt collar. 

This is not a pullover but a tabard--an open-sided shaped covering to pull over for warmth and lift off easily when you feel like lifting it off. Basically a shaped blanket. Though big, it's lightweight with lots of mohair yarn.

Medium woman's size jacket.

Detail of a cotton pullover with full-length raglan sleeves. 

Wool blend sweater, sized to fit teenagers or small adults.

Medium to small woman's cardigan. In real life the color is bright Christmas green, not teal, and no, I don't have any more of those buttons. 

In real life this baggy brushed acrylic vest has a reasonably long back waist and those figure-flattering (to some) points down the front. The armholes are roomy but the back and fronts are basically the same length.

This lightweight, long-line, medium-size pullover was a variation on a Cynthia Helene pattern printed in Vogue Knitting. She called the main stitch pattern "Ponga" (a kind of fern) and described all the other fresh stitch patterns as original tributes to New Zealand. What you see is not a precise copy, but close enough to call for attribution. It's a wool blend--should be machine washable, but be careful.

This extra-large mohair patchwork sweater was designed in and of the present century. It's a variation on a design Nancie Wiseman published in a book that was marketed as something new for people who'd learned to knit in the Eighties. One size has been a roomy fit for almost all women who've tried it on. Real wool and mohair will shrink to the size you prefer if you pin it to that size and let it air-dry flat.

Well, the Eighties sweater is still for sale anyway. That individual cap is not, but I always have a selection of simple little caps similar to it.

Tor-iiii...In real life the back and fronts are the same length, and that little tag of contrasting color is a skein band with care instructions for the main yarn. And the sleeves are designed for turning back. And if you ever get it wet you'll be turning the cuffs back more than once...but don't you love those autumn leaf colors of a vintage Eighties yarn that was given the classic Eighties name "Diana."  

In real life one of the two Cherry Tree Hill yarns in this jacket show more acid green than the blue-green I'm seeing on the computer screen. The jacket really does consist of two coordinating hand-painted yarns with little flecks of blue, purple, and green, one wool and the other mohair. Natural wool and mohair move very slowly in local markets. Online shoppers who love natural wools, here's your chance.

I knitted this one, using some acrylic yarn that was on sale, to the precise size specifications from a pattern a magazine called extra-small. Then I stepped back and said, "Why, I could wear that!" Yes. Eighties sweaters were oversized. The magazine editors were responding to a request to offer patterns for "a true petite" who'd described herself as 4'10" and a size 2. I'm 5'4" and a size 8. In real life the color is a little more blue and green than lavender, but the colored yarn is spun together with light grey, so from a distance it reads as a grey sweater with subtle stripes of color.

Detail of a blue and white cotton patchwork pullover. The design is meant to suggest a quilt and has a bunchy "quilted" look that some people may love but local shoppers apparently hate. It fits a 36" bust.

This round-necked, beige-and-pastels, all acrylic cardigan uses stitch patterns from a boat-necked natural-fibres-colored Eighties sweater designed by Helene Rush. 

In the late Eighties or early Nineties Knitter's magazine printed a design for a lace-collared, lace-fronted pullover to knit with silk yarn. I used the lace patterns to make this sweater with 100% cotton. Very wearable. Machine washable. Fits an average woman.

In real life this lightweight wool pullover looks black and white, though it probably will fade to grey after a few seasons' wearing. Very much a part of the Eighties' ethnic tradition school of sweater design.

Apart from being knitted in the 1990s of acrylic yarn available in the United States, this could have been one of Patricia Roberts' Eighties designs. 

Meg Swansen published the yoke design on this cotton pullover in the present century, but she and her mother were knitting variations on traditional stitch patterns like this in the Eighties. In real life it's dark green with light green "aspen leaves" around the shoulders.

And in real life these long-wristed mittens are lavender. If they'd been pale grey they would probably have sold faster.

In real life this short adult's or well-grown teen's jacket is more green than gray, but it's a mix of grayish greens. All acrylic, machine washable. 

Detail of an oversized jacket made from an early Eighties design. The motivation was to use up some chunky textured yarns; in real life they're lavender, blue, and grey. Sleeves are designed to be rolled.

Black and neon colors were a late Eighties look, though the neon-colored yarn used here was sold in the early Nineties. The stitch pattern was published in the early Eighties. In real life this is a largish unisex sweater, black wool (not 100% shrinkproof) with neon-colored acrylic around the shoulders. That's why I've had it in stock so long. You can wash it, even machine dry it if you want the waist and sleeves to fit a typical woman, but at some point you'll need to start pinning it to shape and drying it flat.

Spectacularly badly photographed detail of a lacy little sweater. In real life the color is pale aqua, the yarn is acrylic boucle, and the cardigan fits medium to small women.

Misleadingly photographed detail of a late Eighties design that was republished around the turn of the millennium as a "classic." (Michele Rose designed it as a pullover. Of her designs, Michele Rose was the one who publicly stated that she'd had trouble getting her Indonesian hand knitters to follow the shaping instructions, as they couldn't believe anybody really wanted their sleeves that long. Well...I used enough real wool and mohair that those who don't want a "one size fits up to 6'6" tall" look should be able to shrink the sleeves to the length they prefer.) In real life, though there are some blue and lavender tones, the colors in this heavy winter jacket are brown and gray--a mix of dyed and undyed sheep's coats. If you're willing to pin it to shape and dry it flat, this jacket will turn snow.

In real life this dainty little lightweight pullover is pale pink.

In real life this big, bold, unisex (if guys dare) jacket is called "Does Beige Really Go With Everything?" and it's a mix of beige yarn with scraps of everything left over at the bottom of the bin. It is machine washable and won't shrink. 

In real life this small woman's sweater (average length, but narrow armholes give away that it was designed for slim bodies) is royal blue with Eighties-style pictorial patterns, pine trees on the wearer's left and a sailboat on her right. 

Detail of an Eighties batwing shape from Fashion Knitting. 

Detail of a woman's chunky slipover vest that's not quite Eighties, because it was knitted during the Gulf War. The original pattern also featured long fringe, which this vest does not have.

This striped sweater (light browns, light greens, and light grays) was actually knitted from a "fashion" pattern printed in 2010. There's nothing of the Eighties about it but, because it does flaunt being hand-knitted, it could be mistaken for an Eighties sweater. 

The hat to match the sweater above.

 

This snapshot of the sweater in the bin is bunchy (in real life the fronts match) but shows the colors much closer to the way they really look. Little knots were a feature of the way some of those yarns were spun. 

Very thick and fluffy, this soft mohair-and-brushed-acrylic sweater in Spring colors has an Eighties look, especially if you can find a vertically striped straight-cut skirt to wear with it. In real life it really does feature acid green, periwinkle blue, lavender, pale yellow and white. It's one of those things that stay on the display for a while before someone comes along and says "It's me." 

This woman's sweater is seriously for small sizes (it'll stretch to cover a 34" bust, but it looks better on a 30 or 32). Wool blend, but enough acrylic to be machine washable. 

Another wonderful Sue Bradley design from the Eighties, though knitted later, with its date of manufacture knitted around one sleeve.

In real life this light, drapey shawl is more aqua than grey. 

This plaid jacket comes from a pattern that was printed in Elle in the Eighties, reprinted in a book I bought in the Nineties. The acrylic yarn really is pale jade green with blue and yellow contrasts. 

In real life this large child's or small adult's cardigan is light grey, not green.

The pattern of these big, thick mittens was "unvented" by Elizabeth Zimmermann in the Eighties. 

Detail of a natural gray-and-cream wool-and-mohair jacket I particularly like, designed by Meg Swansen in the Eighties. The fairisle stitch pattern is of Turkish origins and forms figure-flattering V lines across the front and back. Medium to tall adult.

At the top of the bin you see a gansey-style sweater knitted from a pattern by Madeline Weston. In real life the color is a soft watermelon red; it shows up as bright orange-red on some browsers. It's spread out on top of some of the other sweaters mentioned above, as they were folded in the bin.

The Sestina Afghan, an original design, is still on the display--probably because it's big. It's displayed here on a twin bed, but it'll cover a king-sized one. 

Here's a sample of the "topless hats" I started playing with before knitting real COVID cowls. This particular design is too lacy to be an effective face mask; it's for hair control and ear coziness only. The COVID cowls often feature a lace pattern folded over a plain or multicolor pattern. They're all similar in size and shape. In real life they're nice even bands of fabric, though the cell phone tends to make the end that was on my left look bigger. 

Detail of the brown twin-bed-or-couch-size blanket on the display. In real life it's dark reddish brown, beige, Christmas red, and blue-to-white, with sections of plain brown, textured, and colored patterns. The patterns I used are online at Naomi Parkhurst's blog, gannetdesigns.com, if you search back far enough.

Now a few new additions...

Google wants them to appear sidewise. Fine. Here, with the cell phone camera reflecting light and my hand casting a shadow on one of them, are two hats knitted from Gannet Designs stitch patterns.

Dolls dressed to match books.

Some dolls that were dressed to match books, but became separated from their books in storage. 

Large slipper socks. Some people are alarmed by the traditional Turkish slipper style, with heels pointed to match toes. Actually, when you pull these soft slippers on, they take the shape of your foot, so the heels don't look as unusual in wear as they do on a display. However, these socks fit a woman's shoe size 10 to 12, not the usual 6 to 8. 

On the display, this wool-blend hat (actually navy blue) looks like a small hat with a big, floppy turned-back brim. On your head, the hat stretches to match the brim and they fit snugly around a medium to large head.  

Here is the conventional hat to match the "topless hat" above. In real life both are a dark reddish brown, a warmer color than they appear to be on the screen. 

Another hat. In real life this one is made of "baby rainbow" cotton, white with flecks of pastel pink, yellow, green, and blue. 

This lightweight, extra soft and snuggly woman's cardigan originally accompanied a set of baby's things. I still have the matching bootees. In real life the colors are white, blue, and green, with none of the pink and grey I'm seeing on the screen. 

Hat to match the child's jacket below.

Here's a real Eighties "witty knit"--a Purple Cow sweater. The cow motif comes from Mary Ann Erickson's Knitting by Design. I changed the design slightly and added the sleeve stripes and matching hat. The set should fit an average child at ages two to three. Washable, of course, and made of rugged Red Heart yarn for handing down after the child outgrows it.

This scrappy denim-mix vest is held together by one strand of durable lightweight acrylic sock yarn, filled out with odds and ends from my leftovers ball. It's a classic V-necked pointed-front vest, a little more fitted than the gray vest shown above, as worn in the Eighties.

Detail of one of the Rainbow Round Your Shoulders Shawls set. The story about these shawls is that once, long ago, I arranged all my odd balls of yarn in a rainbow sequence and knitted a blanket that shaded through pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, back to red again. That blanket was damaged in storage so I took some plain white acrylic yarn and knitted a blanket with the rainbow shades plied together with white, forming an interesting design. Though more durable than the first blanket, the second one was once again damaged in storage, so I took the usable yarn and re-knitted it into a set of blanket-weight shawls. The red and blue tones, mixed with white, each form an L-shaped shawl, similar to my own big blanket shawl and, like it, suitable for wearing at temperatures between the zero points on the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. The green and yellow tones form a smaller triangular shawl. 

Detail of a Magical Mandalas square jacket. The square design, though not the mandalas, come from a pattern Ann Bourgeois printed in Knitter's in the 1990s. (Her mandalas were repeated in each square; mine are different in each square.) Once again the idea was to use up scraps of yarn, in this case blue scraps against a creamy white background. The finished jacket will turn snow and fits a medium to large/tall adult. (If you're not tall, fold the cuffs back.)

Two caps knitted with yarns a client supplied. The yarn is super-thick so the snowproof hats look as if they'd be extremely large. They're not, actually. They're big, soft hats that will stay on an average head. 

A client supplied the variegated cotton in this cap, too.

This blue and white yarn also appears in the brown blanket above. Here it's knitted all by itself as a blue anti-bullying hat.

Detail of one of the squares in a thick, warm patch afghan. The base yarn was cream-colored cotton, and the contrasts include several colors and materials--the black and gray mix in this square was not extended to the other squares.

If you look closely you'll see that these are two separate objects, a pair of slippers shaped from a pattern that recently appeared in Knitty.com. In real life they're a warmer shade of pale brown with a black fleck, rather than pale gray as shown. They fit a woman's size 6 to 8 quite comfortably, and have a side opening with string ties.

Eighties Sweaters Are Back: Part I.2

Last week's post, Part I.1, discussed Eighties versions of the "gansey" sweater style. This week, we consider a form of the gansey that developed its own special tradition.

2. Fair Isle 

Fair Isle is the name of one island in the Shetland group. Fairisle stitch is the style of knitting that developed there. In the Eighties there was considerable confusion about this. 

Again, the concept of cultural appropriation does not exist in Eighties sweaters. Fair Isle has been exporting more fairisle knitwear to off-islanders, every year, than could  possibly be worn by islanders. 

To be a Real Fair Isle Sweater, it has to have been knitted by a resident of the island, on the island, preferably using wool that was produced on the island. Shetland sheep are a special breed. Their wool is softer than that of most sheep, and it comes in a wide range of soft neutral colors. Generally the colors are classified into nine groups, including what are called black, white, red, and blue. Compared with the colors of bleached and dyed materials these are brownish shades of black, white, red, and blue, but they make an interesting mix in the stripes and bands of multicolor knitting that constitute a fairisle stitch pattern.

There is or used to be a school of Fair Isle knitters who favor patterns knitted only with those nine shades of brown and gray that look like a flock of Shetland sheep. However, there's also a traditional school of Fair Isle knitters who favor bright mixes of dyed yarns. The oldest museum pieces are dyed; the softest, least scratchy fabrics are naturally colored. 

Dyes used to be produced on the island with chemicals naturally extracted from solutions of native plant materials, purchased additives, and natural ammonia. The colors were intended to be as bright as possible, when new. The best preserved museum pieces show vivid primary colors. 

In the twentieth century, as fairisle sweaters became fashionable, designers rushed to offer fuller ranges of aniline-dyed wools, and many knitters created bold, fresh patterns, adding bright purple and orange as well as trendy pastels to their combinations. These more recent designs were Real Fair Isles, but they were not always loved by the islanders themselves. At this period stores were demanding lots of sweaters that were "made by hand on Fair Isle" but were not paying the knitters well for them. Many knitters resorted to working on hand-cranked frames rather than knitting needles, and remember one or more family members grimly cranking and clattering away at meals so the family would be able to pay for the next meals. When researcher Ann Feitelson went to the (now oil-rich, but traditionally poor) island to interview the old retired knitters and designers, some told her they used to hate knitting. 

The scanty wages Feitelson's informants remembered earning for piecework were a huge step forward for knitters on Fair Isle. When stores first began marketing ready-to-wear hand knitting, the store owners wanted to pay in barter only. What the stores had a lot of was clothing. Early visitors to the island reported finding knitters and their families "starving in finery." 

Naturally any time-saving measure that produced results the customers tolerated was used whenever possible. Real Fair Isle sweaters were often knitted on frames as round pieces, cut, and sewn. Socks were made with clumsy seams rather than gracefully shaped toes. Yarns were twisted between every inch rather than between every stitch, so it's not uncommon to find the one-color part of a garment worked at 6 stitches to the inch while the fairisle stitch is worked at 7 stitches to the inch. 

The first garments exported from Fair Isle predated the sweater fashion by several decades, and were caps, socks, scarves, mittens, and gloves rather than sweaters. When sweaters were knitted, the style was similar to the ganseys made in other parts of Britain, only with stripes and two-color patterns rather than textured patterns. Knitters agreed that the original idea was to use up leftover yarn, but knitters soon began planning perfectly symmetrical patterns. 

The early sweaters were men's ganseys with long sleeves, diamond-shaped underarm gussets, high snug necks, and long waistbands. It didn't take long, though, for knitters to adapt their pattern stitches to trendier garment shapes. Fair Isle knits really became fashionable when the Prince of Wales had his portrait painted in a V-neck fairisle sweater.

What makes a sweater fairisle? 

(a) First of all, if it was made in any other part of the world, including the other Shetland islands, it may be fairisle stitch but it's not a Real Fair Isle Sweater. Most Eighties fairisle sweaters were frankly foreign imitations, though some designers, like Ron Schweitzer, tried to follow traditional design rules. 

(b) Fair Islanders knitted samples of every sweater shape that came into fashion. One can imagine that those who were knitting just to earn money were delighted with the 1950s' round-yoke styles, with plain one-color knitting up to the shoulders and only one long and one short stitch pattern to remember. If it could be knitted, at some point in the twentieth century somebody on Fair Isle probably had a contract to knit a few dozen of it. (They did not foresee a need for cell phone covers but they knitted little pouches and purses in suitable shapes.)

(c) Real Fair Isle sweaters were always made of lightweight wool yarn. Fairisle stitch works beautifully with chunkier yarns in cotton or acrylic, but such garments were not knitted on Fair Isle.

(d) Fairisle stitch patterns are symmetrical, usually simple geometric motifs. They were classified by the number of rows in a complete pattern. Some large patterns were repeated all over a garment, but this came to be seen as more typical of Scandinavian rather than Fair Isle knitting. Real Fair Isle museum pieces were striped in mixes of large and small patterns. Each pattern consists of just two colors on each row, but within the pattern these colors may change several times. The patterns were recorded on simple charts with plain and filled squares. The rule for producing the most distinctive designs was to work the plain squares on each row in stripes shading from darkest to lightest, and the filled squares in stripes shading from lightest to darkest, or vice versa. Larger patterns (nine rows or more) usually had an odd number of rows, with the center row often worked in an accent color like red, yellow, or black. 

The original Fair Isle patterns were not pictorial, but pictures can be worked in fairisle stitch, and often have been--especially in Canadian sweaters.

Fairisle stitch is often worked with both hands. Although some knitters twist the two yarns between every stitch or at most every two stitches, the lightweight wool used in traditional Fair Isle knitting tends to stick together and was often twisted only every inch--every 7 to 10 stitches--for faster knitting.

Pattern books to look for: 

* Sarah Don, Fair Isle Knitting. Bigger and better studies of Fair Isle knitting came later. This was one of the better collections available in the Eighties. All the charts and pictures are black-and-white and, as one horrified young reader exclaimed on Amazon, the patterns direct you to knit things in the round and then cut them open. This was one of the time-saving techniques the old Fair Isle knitters used; it works if you knit with 100% Shetland wool. Wool coheres, once knitted, in ways other yarns do not. Some of the styles have a Seventies look. (This book was first published in 1982; it's been reprinted by Dover and it's also available on Kindle. Some readers say pattern charts don't work well on Kindle.)

 * Sheila McGregor, The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting. Again, it's still the 1980s; knitting is not yet booming enough that publishers automatically design knitting pattern books as expensive coffee table books. Despite relatively cheap production this book was authentic, respectful, and usable. It was first published in 1986 and is now available as a new reprint from Dover. 

* Alice Starmore, Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. In the late Eighties and early Nineties this knitter brought out one dazzling coffee-table book of original designs after another. "When does Alice Starmore sleep?" wondered reviewer Carol LaBranche. The answer was, of course, that Starmore had spent years designing sweaters that made people remember her name, before interest in knitting boomed and publishers discovered that her name had magical effects on sales. 

Few if any people have ever been disappointed by the look of any book by Alice Starmore, but some people have become discouraged by trying to knit up her patterns. They tend to be labors of love. Knit them for people who will make good models, and snap lots of pictures; you'll want to relive, and brag about, the experience of knitting these designs for many years to come. 

* Ann Feitelson, The Art of Fair Isle Knitting. Though only a few of these patterns were "previewed" in magazines before 1996, the book contains lots of historical material, including a pattern for authentic, bright-colored fairisle socks reprinted from an early twentieth century source. (Just for fun, I halved the stitch count and knitted them as an unmatched pair of bulky slipper-socks at 4 stitches per inch. They sold within an hour.) 

* Ron Schweitzer, Appalachian Portraits. Ron Schweitzer (Amazon lists him as "Rob") specialized in designing nine-color fairisle sweaters for Yarns International, a Maryland store that imported naturally colored Shetland wool yarns. Though his booklets were printed around the turn of the century, they're an authentic part of the design tradition and will fit right in with Eighties sweaters.

About the colors... 

In the Seventies, natural colors and "earth tone" dyes were the height of fashion. In the Eighties, we all realized that most people look better in pure bleached white, flat black, blue, red, and pink. In the Nineties, as natural sheep colors, brown, green, and orange had almost disappeared from stores, a few people began muttering insidiously about its being Green to "reduce our carbon footprint" by wearing undyed fabric, and designers became fascinated with those "urban camouflage" dyes. Part of what made Melania Trump look so exotic and impossible to follow, as a fashion leader, is her minority complexion; as a classic "Spring," she looks her best in all the colors most of us have learned to avoid.

As a colorist, I often knit and design with colors that I know will look better on other people than they would on me. It's not possible to have every finished piece in every size and color people want on a display, however big the display may be. Natural wools are easily damaged on a display. It's not easy to stock enough black, red, white, and blue things; it wouldn't be feasible to try to stock every style in a natural-colored wool. 

I do enjoy handling natural-colored wool. Most knitters do. However, thousands if not millions of Americans are convinced that they're allergic to wool. Actually, they're allergic to the acid in which commercial wool is soaked and/or various other harsh chemicals used to dye and preserve it. Natural wool--especially Merino, Shetland, Iceland and even Ontario wool--can safely be wrapped around babies.

And I do consciously try to stock some things in "Spring" and "Autumn" colors. Eventually someone will pounce on these pieces squealing delightedly, "It's me!"--but before that happens I can count on a few other Springs and Autumns to say reproachfully, "It's not me." These days they even add, "You're behind the fashions! Why don't you have more contemporary, more fashionable, more ecologically conscious colors..."

I don't see sludgy, earthy colors coming into fashion in anything like the way they did in the Seventies, or like the way they went out in the Eighties. Those colors just don't look good on the majority of people, and by now most people know this. I don't mind knitting for a minority of people, or for one specific person, but I prefer that they not be tiresome about it. 

Just about everyone can enjoy the secret comfort of a pair of natural wool slipper-socks that soften the dry skin while they warm the feet. 

Most of us can choose between the coziness of a natural wool sweater that makes us look as if we'd been too ill to wash our faces for a month, and the compensating appeal of some other kind of sweater that suits our complexions. 

A few people can wear the natural color of a light brown sheep, next to their faces, and look their best. Those people are very lucky. (Usually, for some part of their lifetime, their hair was red.) They should not spoil the effect by berating the majority of humankind. 

If you are an "Autumn" who looks good in off-white, sepia, and brown, the dye-free nine-color fairisle look is for you. Revel in it. You get to wear softer wool, with a smaller carbon footprint, in aid of oppressed minority sheep, and have the colors harmonize rather than clash with your warm brown eyes. 

Bad Poetry: Covidiot

(If it's true that there's a general tendency for more "liberal" types to show more interest in coronavirus quarantine--although I myself doubt this--can we count this post as Liberal Post #4?)

This is the first Thanksgiving holiday where the Internet's been on the guest list, in my life. Last night I was surfing the'Net and found a real blast from the past--songs by C.W. McCall. 

Supposed truck driver McCall was a character created for radio ads by an advertising man who couldn't sing, but found that no great obstacle to producing country-western hit songs. Instead, he made McCall one of the commercial music industry's first rappers, chanting his rhymes in between choruses sung by backup bands. His best known song was "Convoy," which generated a movie (with updated verses reflecting the movie's plot) and several imitations. 

The best of the imitations, for which I couldn't find anything at all on Goodsearch, was a protest against the sensible 55mph speed limit called "Yovnoc," in which "That turtle in the girdle was doin' five-five, right wher' she oughta be. But I slowed my rate so I wouldn't tailgate, and I was doin' about fifty-three. Oh, we're gonna have a Yovnoc across the U.S.A., a two-lane legal Yovnoc, everybody watch and wait," and in the final verse somebody was driving "minus three." Any relation to reality was strictly coincidence. That was what I thought made the rhymes so hilarious. 

McCall also recorded a song YouTubers described as "haunting" that envisioned an instant cultural-and-environmental apocalypse, very different from the gradual cancerous growth of "Agenda 21" but having similar outcomes: "It's only gon' be about an hour before they dam your favorite river, so you can water-ski just one more reservoir...and that one last tired old eagle bites the sand, and all of that high and mighty scenery's gon' be levelled to the ground by...mindless strip mines across the land...There won't be no country music! There won't be no rock-and-roll!" Though the timing was all wrong, I was just the right age to appreciate this song when it came out of radios in the 1970s. It's still a favorite.

Then this morning the following poem prompt was in my blog feed: https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2020/11/writers-pantry-48-words-words-words.html .

The word "Covidiot" reminded me of something documented at this web site, years ago...Stupidity happens to everybody now and then, even me. 

I grew up knowing how it feels to be a theoretically healthy person with a very weak immune system--the person who catches every little cold that goes around and has symptoms for weeks, and everybody thinks the person is making it up, and so the person is forced to go to primary school while conspicuously ill. Not fun. And then in my thirties I found out how it feels to be a healthy adult with a robust immune system who picks up and passes on a harmless little "summer cold" and thus inadvertently causes the death of, in that case, a lovable sickly child. 

And then, in my forties...I recognized the woman who'd moved out to a remote computer center, from the main telephone company office. I thought from her manner that she'd made that move because she was an introvert, so if I just didn't talk to her or bother her we'd get along fine, while I posted about the computer center and thus encouraged other people to discover it. And I posted jokes about the harmless little streppy-bugs a sickly kitten kept breathing on me, and how if people annoyed me I'd breathe on them, and strep stinks. Streptococcus bacteria do have an odor; it's what comes to mind when I think of the word "foul." Hello? Though most streptococcus bacteria are harmless to most people, many people who were already in poor condition die from streptococcal pneumonia too. I thought the woman was acting idiotic about the way my nose clogged up while I waited for her to open the building on cold afternoons. I never once thought to ask whether she was acting that way because she was, or was living with someone who was, taking immune system suppressants. Local lurkers drove out to keep the nice free computer center open! They brought their friends! They brought children! And the telephone company employee, also obviously under the influence of the Cloud of Stupidity, never tried to explain, but just gave me increasingly evil looks until she could quit the job. And the company shut down the computer center. 

Maybe the pathogens themselves have something to do with this kind of behavior.

In the "Know Your Pests" posts there's a link to a science site that describes how caterpillars with certain infectious diseases seem compelled to assume an "inverted V" position, in which they hang upside down from twigs with both ends hanging down below their middles. The inverted V position probably offers some relief from some form of pain for the caterpillar. Its real function, however, is to benefit the disease germs. From this position the infected caterpillars "rain" germs down on other caterpillars. The researcher describing this compared it with the way some cold sufferers seem to crave companionship, and wondered whether virus and bacteria are evolving abilities to drive their victims to spread these germs to others. 

This is not, of course, the primary reason why some people have been actively seeking out the dreaded coronavirus. For the healthy people who have hardly any noticeable symptoms as they built up immunity, it was reasonable to want to have the virus in summer so you'd be safe before flu, school, work, and holidays came along. (Unfortunately a few people, like Herman Cain, overestimated their resistance.) For some people who've already decided not to bother with expensive, painful, high-risk treatments for painful, fatal, yucky diseases, it's reasonable to want to die of pneumonia before the cancer becomes unbearably painful or the brain deterioration comes between you and your family. 

When I woke up with a peculiar kind of cough and mild pericarditis I remember thinking, "Could this be the dreaded coronavirus? Please, God? May I have coronavirus now, please?" and being absolutely delighted, at least on my own behalf, by the evidence that that was what I had late in August. 

So, yes, if you live alone, or can arrange to live alone, or live with likeminded people, deliberately exposing yourself to coronavirus makes sense to me. 

Exposing other people, or people who will be around other people? Not so much. You don't know their level of resistance. Some people who try very hard to become healthy, go to school, play sports, have jobs, etc., are really not healthy at all. You can't tell by looking. Especially not about people like my younger self, living with a serious low-grade chronic condition for which adults didn't check before they told me "You're healthy as a horse if you'd just stop being lazy."

At how many offices would adults actually have conversations like, "Hello, Joe. Have you lost a lot of weight, or is it just a different hairstyle that makes you look so much thinner."

"Hello, Jane. No, actually I'm having chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I may be slightly radioactive. Stand back from me if you are or ever plan to be pregnant. So you were saying this wig looks lifelike, eh?"

"Yes, but actually I've had myself spayed because I don't want to risk pregnancy when I've been having so much trouble with lupus and with the immune suppressants I'm taking for it..."

Not likely. So I've been saying for years that we all need to learn to maintain a nice healthy social distance from everybody, all the time. Even in groups of healthy young people who think streptococcus is mainly a subject for jokes about its odor. Feeling "lonely" and wanting to be closer to other people can, of course, still be merely a symptom of extroversion, or of a physical attraction to a particular person, but who knows whether it's the diseases that make us act like Covidiots, or Rhinovidiots, or Streptidiots...

COVIDIOTS SONG

(Rap)

Well, he disinfects the counter with a mask tied on his face,

Then he runs around to lift a milk jug, and he is out of his place.

He orders a customer, "Mask up!" Oh, he's brave to take a stand!

Then he gives somebody change and presses the coins into the hand.

(Chorus)

He's a Covidiot! Covidiots! Where do they all come from?

(Repeat, with variations, until it forms a tune.)

(Rap)

Well, she goes to wake the children up, and they'd rather stay in bed.

They clutch the sheets and pillows tight around each little head.

Say, "Mommy, my throat's prickly, ears are ringing, skin is tickly,

No, there's nothing wrong at school, it's just me, I'm feeling sickly.

My nose itches, too-tight britches, oh, I feel no urge to roam.

Can't remember since September, and I just want to stay at home."

"No fever? Nothing's wrong with you," replies this viral fool.

"Wear a sweater if you're chilly, and get yourself off to school."

(Chorus)

She's a Fluidiot! Fluidiots! Where do they all come from?

(Rap)

He's a good hard-working fellow! Oh, he's never missed a day!

But his eyes are looking glassy. As you draw near, you hear him say,

"Got the lazies, drivin' me crazy, since I crawled out of the sack!

Form'la 44 is worth payin' for! Oh, it feels like a heart attack!

Re-ti-re-ment is not for me! On the job is where I want to be!

I just beat that kid out of a cash prize, and he's only twenty-three.

Coronavirus? What, me worry? That's just a big old hoax!"

The bigger they come, the harder they fall, and this is a big guy, folks.

(Chorus)

He's a Covidiot! Covidiots! Where do they all come from?

(Rap)

Well, I've always left her quite alone, so now what can her problem be?

Once I'm in out of the cold nobody hears a word from me.

I'm just here to do my job while keeping strictly to myself,

But it looks from the way she's acting as if she thinks I have bad breath.

Oh, by the way, I spent yesterday with someone who had a bad cold.

They said "Will I die?" and I said "Why? You are not even old." 

I stopped at the store, that's what it's for, bought lozenges for my throat,

'Cos the cold wind makes it prickle so, I can hardly sing a note.

(Chorus)

(I'm)(S/He's) a Streptidiot! Streptidiots! Where do they all come from?

(Rap)

I don't know where they come from, but I know 

where a lot of people wish they would go...

Petfinder Links: Tabbies and Torbies

Ahhh, Google's brought back the pictures! Thank you Google! 

Today's Petfinder theme is Tabbies and Torbies--the most common kind of cats. Their coats are gray with black stripes, orange with deep red stripes, or sometimes mostly gray with black stripes and brownish patches (the Torbie). Some of these cats also have white fur underneath. Because tabby cats have agouti-type hair, in which sections of different colors on the individual hairs form the stripes and shading, Torbies don't have to have two X chromosomes and can be fertile males. (Years ago, I posted that I'd considered calling our Mackerel kitten "Small Change" because he had coppery as well as silvery patches. He was a Torbie. So not only can Torbies be male, but male Torbies can be fantastic once-in-a-lifetime pets.)

1. Zipcode 10101, New York: Simon from New Jersey

For those who've liked all that orange hair from New Jersey that's been in the news lately, here's an example of the red Tabby type. 

Simon is thought to be about eleven years old. In describing him as "sort of social" his human's not claiming that he's a social cat, but that he's gradually become human-friendly. He is not noticeably a social cat. He's described as quite a typical older male who likes to be brushed and petted until he tells you he's had enough. He's intelligent, though, in his way--he's learned to pose well! Bonding with him will be the challenge. If you do bond with him you'll love him. To find out whether that will happen, or whether you'll bond with another adoptable cat first, paste or click: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/simon-7410949/nj/fair-lawn/cozy-cottage-cat-adoption-center-fobas-nj158/

2. Zipcode 20202, Washington: Athena from Virginia 

Worth driving down to Dale City for? Quite likely. Isn't that coat special?

Some tabby cats' coats form a striped pattern like a tiger's coat. Other cats, like Athena, grow fur that forms a swirl on either side. Though it looks as if this pattern would be harder for nature to produce, it's actually thought to be produced by a dominant gene. Athena's age is unknown. She's described as clean, healthy, already spayed, vaccinated, and generally not much trouble, though she does share the calico cat's special ability to shed contrasting hairs on everything. (Cats like for everyone to know that you already belong to them, and so--admit it--do you.) To meet this splendid example of natural camouflage, click or paste: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/athena-30380114/va/dale-city/vip-rescues-and-adoptions-va570/.

3. Zipcode 30303, Atlanta: Eloise from Greensboro 

Here's a tip for shelter staff. Searches for tabby cats have to be filtered somehow--there are so many! People who've lost a pet search for the newest additions to shelters. There's something to be said for this filtering option (Petfinder makes it easy) from a humane point of view, too, since the newest shelter animals may be the least traumatized and easiest to adjust, but today I filtered for the pets who've been languishing longest in a shelter. That pulled up a lot of pictures of obese animals. Fat animals are not photogenic. They look like a lot of veterinary expenses looking for a place to happen. Please help the shelter animals get exercise as well as food.

This young adult cat is not obese.

Pale, pretty Eloise is described as shy and skittish with humans but social with other cats. That's the sort of cat Heather might have let me adopt if Samantha hadn't found me, or the sort Serena would be likely to allow to stay at the Cat Sanctuary--but why bring her to the Cat Sanctuary? She's in Greensboro, Georgia, looking for a Purrmanent Home. In between Georgia and Virginia, there has to be a good home looking for a lovable, young, healthy barn cat. To meet Eloise, paste or click: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/eloise-32314895/ga/greensboro/oconee-regional-humane-society-ga70/

4. Bonus: Winona from Arizona

And today's bonus pet is from Arizona. (Flagstaff, to be exact.) In honor of a theme that got out of hand--I suggested that the fiscal conservatives in that State organize a GoFundMe page for Miguel Ochoa, which has been done at https://www.gofundme.com/f/uber-driver-attacked-medical-bills-aid , and haters immediately used the automatic shadowbanning mechanism to hide my tweets from followers--I've received a lot of tweets and links from a State I don't actually intend to visit again in this lifetime. It's a great State, though, for those who like that kind of thing, and here is a blurry but charming photo of the photogenic cat Winona from Arizona.  

About all the shelter care to say about her is that she's a light brown, black, and gray tabby (Torbie) with short hair. Well, you can see that she's more interested in checking out the camera than in posing or snuggling, and from the fact that a "Humane Association" are holding her for adoption you know she's friendly and gentle. If you are in Arizona, click here to meet Winona: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/winona-45138838/az/flagstaff/coconino-humane-association-az126/ .

Amazon Reviews Update for Authors and Publishers

(Cross-posted from Ko-fi)

As you may have heard (possibly here), Amazon is cracking the whip on Associates. We now have to meet a sales quota every six months. Since the sales quota counts only use of specific links, as in specific copies of books, it appears to me that at no time in over ten years of Amazon Association have I ever met the quota. 

One trusted e-friend told me she clicked on a link I'd posted to a product she'd specifically mentioned looking for--a paint set for a child. She browsed around Amazon and had a wonderful time, letting the child choose a different paint set and ordering stuff for other family members as well. Credit to my Amazon account for those sales? Zero--because it's all handled by computer and my link went to the page for the paint set she didn't buy.

At the time I laughed it off. I was posting reviews of books I had for sale in the real world. Reviews drove real-world sales for me, so any Amazon sales were bonuses.

Now, I need to see use of the links in order to resume posting the links. And also, Amazon decided a few years ago to display reviews only from customers who bought the stuff we reviewed online using credit cards. (I use prepaid giftcards. Some clients pay me in giftcards.) 

I had given some publishers good reviews. Terse for Amazon, terser for Goodreads, full-length on my blog. I sold long-form reviews to review sites. One publisher told me, repeatedly, that a little more "literary" warbling than I normally do when writing online ought to get my reviews into print at the Kenyon Review or New Yorker. (Meh. Lots of competition.) And then Amazon made all of them disappear.

Though, frankly, they did need to do something. Amazon sells a lot of books and, although I've reviewed some rare ones, their space for reviews of successful new books does tend to fill fast.

However, for religious reasons, I don't do credit cards. And I think, if enough money were involved to justify a lawsuit, Amazon's demand for credit cards would count as religious discrimination.

So...after reviewing some online messages from publishers and fellow writers, I think I've thought of a work-around that will comply with current rules and laws.

1. You will be a legitimate author/publisher of a book that's available in the United States in English, French, or Spanish. (If you want a review that makes intuitive sense on Amazon, that does not begin with "This is not my native language so I'm not sure...", it should be English.) And you or your employer will have a credit card. And you will be able to afford to buy a copy, even if you already had the review copy you sent me. 

2. You will have sent me the book, and I will have read it. Galleys are fine. Copy-editing fees depend on the job; some galleys need lots of changes, some are ready to go. I'm tagging Andrei Codrescu because, years ago, I started flagging errors in a galley and didn't have enough online time to finish the book: Hello, Andrei and friends and fans, for the next year I should be able to go online whenever weather conditions permit. And I can do copy-editing in Word. 

This does not guarantee a rave review. I may think the premise of your speculative fiction is too unlikely to be even funny, or I would not personally eat anything made from your recipes, or your assumptions about "politically conservative" people are at least three generations out of date. But guess what? There are review sites, like the printed Washington Post Book World, that don't do really unfavorable reviews, although the Post has printed some overall-favorable reviews that included harsh criticism. Why? Because, if a reviewer thinks a book is really vile, and posts or publishes a review to that effect, people will buy it just to see if it's possible for the book to be as bad as the reviewer said. At my web site my policy is to post reviews that encourage living writers. Only at Goodreads, where the books have pages and reviews no matter how vile they are, have I posted anything about books I physically received, read, and burned. But I have posted comments on older books with titles like "Vindictive Review" or "Book Rant," where they seemed applicable--for books I was willing to sell while expressing disapproval--and two things happened: (1) they got five times the page views my normal book reviews did, and (2) I didn't have to store those books any more. Critical reviews sell books.

So it's up to you whether you want to pay for a critical review, if that's all I can offer. I would not recommend taking the trouble to get a critical review on Amazon. But a critical review on my blog is not going to hurt sales of your book.

Normally, my reaction to books is pretty bland; I've read a lot of books already. I don't claim that I loved all of them. I've taken a vow not to blather about "luminous prose." I'm more likely to write about the kind of person who would want this book to be their only gift from you this year, and leave it to readers to notice how different that person might be from me. Most novels and short story collections inspire terse reactions from me, and terse is best for Amazon.

3. So if you want a terse review on Amazon, a chattier review (with tangents and divagations) on Blogspot with an Amazon link, and the possibility of a 2500-word review at a paying review site, you would e-mail me to schedule a rendezvous on the banks of the Big River. (For brand-new books, this should be on the day of release--I've blogged about the galley system, but most non-writers haven't read that blog post and distrust pre-publication reviews. I can explain about them on my site.) I would then change my Amazon password and send you a new Amazon password, valid for the next ten minutes. You would use this password to log in, buy the book with your credit card, and have Amazon send it somewhere--as it might be to the next reviewer on your list, or to someone who prefers a Kindle edition. You would then log out, and I would then change the password. 

4. Sooner or later somebody's going to try to abuse this system just because it is there. Hacking into my accounts has never enabled anyone to steal any money; I don't have e-money. This has not kept literally hundreds of attempts from being made. People want to hack into personal, not-for-profit blogs (like my Live Journal) just to change a word and gloat that "I wuz ere." What happens then? They're not going to get more than US$100. Bezos can afford to have them hunted down. I will think very bad thoughts about them while changing the digits in my account. You, the one with the credit card, are the one who has to worry about intelligent hackers. Since I won't have your credit card digits, you don't have to worry about me.

5. However, there are review sites, like Metastellar for speculative fiction, that specifically encourage reviews that can include things like "The author is a good e-friend." There are sites, like Twitter, that specifically encourage writers and readers to follow each other, interact, tweet about our health and families and forthcoming new books and so on, which makes it easy to become good long-term e-friends. Sending me a review copy shows trust and builds warm fuzzy feelings. This is a point authors and publishers should consider. Read blogs! Bond with emergent authors! Even someone who blogs about being homeless can help you!

Some of my Tweeps (Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Jonah Goldberg) already have hordes of fans squabbling for position on Amazon's book pages. Others (Jim Geraghty was the one who mentioned it yesterday) are wondering why their sales numbers are out of proportion to their Amazon review pages. Feel free to recommend this system to other friends if it works for you. I'm eager to try it out during the holiday shopping season. 

E-mail: PriscillaKing2020@outlook

Books: Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322