Child ballad sighting: Garrison Keillor’s got #200 on today’s Writer’s Almanac.

It’s anonymous ’cause it’s really folk music.

In other news, I was thrilled to hear my fiddle teacher, Patrick, on the voicemail today. We haven’t seen each other in a while.

Back from Portland; regular updates will resume momentarily. In the meantime, have some holiday knitting pics. Here we have a set of matching drawstring bags:

Oh look, more drawstring bags:

Hey! There’s that damn triceretops that took me three and a half hours to stitch together:

The dinosaur was for my little nephew. He digs it. Apparently my brother is going to send a photo of him diggin’ it. Makes it all worthwhile. Pattern was free here.

The set of three pouches are this dice bag in action. The matching bags are from the book HANDKNIT HOLIDAYS. Two skeins of Lamb’s Pride worsted will get ‘em in the small size (one of each) if you junk the Fair Isle, which I did because I wanted to zone out, not read a pattern.

You think that the above represents the sum and total of all the drawstring bags knitted whilst we were away, but you would be mistaken.

My fingers hurt.

Here endeth the knitting interude, amen.

Leland and I opened our gifts today, as we’ll be leaving for Portland tomorrow and we’ll have enough to lug as it is. There were many fine gifts to be had from family and friends, but nothing could top this, Leland’s star on the top of the Yule tree:

(Though the recipe basket from my mother, complete with recipes hand-written by her and my sister came really close, don’t get me wrong.)

After much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, we finally got the last of my holiday gifts made and in the mail, as well. There was much knitting this year, probably more than in year’s past. It feels good to be done, like, wow-we-can-actually-enjoy-the-holidays-now kind of good.

My good friends Steven and Dan, a.k.a. the Brothers Goldman, in their recent photo shoot:

Simmer down, ladies — they’re both taken!

Check out this Gothamist interview with my pal Ron of Beatrice and GalleyCat.

Map Nerds Rejoice: NYPL Map Room Reopens!

Haven’t been to the Nipple in a while. This might be the excuse we need — as if we need an excuse, who are we kidding.

Did you know that a good portion of the NYPL’s folklore reference books are right in the Rose Reading Room, for easy access? Here’s what you do: from the main entrance on 5th Avenue, go up to the third floor, and take a right through the catalog room. Keep goin’ straight (the reference desk will be on your right), through the doorway to the Rose room. The Rose room is divided in half; when you step through that door, take a right. Take a left at the info desk, then turn right and walk down a few shelves. The folklore books will be on your left. Feel free to take them right off the shelves — just remember to put them back where you found them!

This reminds me: I need to ask Midori or Helen how to use the Aarne-Thompson index….

My apologies for the profanity, but I daresay I can’t resist:

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/003619.html

Girl #1: You got some yarn?
Girl #2: Fuck yeah, I got some motherfucking yarn! I pulling out my needles, niggas being all, “Damn, she crocheting and shit!” Ain’t nobody doing it before I been doing it.
Girl #3: I got mine.
Girl #2: Holla.

Overheard by: Andy Hobin

I’m sure she’s been doing it much longer than I’ve been doing it.

Oh, look — some kitties and Christmas ornaments!

Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers

Been a bit behind on my Gothamist reading (but only by a few days, which is actually better than my usual average, as far as keeping up with the RSS feeds goes), so maybe some of you have seen this already:

Folksongs for the Five Points

This is so much cooler than your average maps mashup! The Tenement Museum has put together an amazing soundmap of the Lower East Side– you position the white circles over the various colored dots to create a mix of up to five sound streams. They’ve got ambient noise (fire hydrants, traffic, music from ice cream vans), folk music, and interviews with people on the streets. It’s compulsively fun to play with– probably best to tell your boss that you’ve got a doctor’s appointment and take your laptop to Starbucks– because you’ll be on this site for at least an hour.

That is the bomb.

Speaking of RSS feeds, if you’re a Gmail user, you can now get them in a clips bar at the top of your Inbox. Maybe I’ll keep up with Gothamist a little better now.

(If you’re not a Gmail user yet, let me know and I’ll send you one of the one frillion invites they’ve given me.)

By way of one of my good friends and the man himself, just wanted to give a heads up that Lon Milo DuQuette will be giving a lecture this Saturday night. The event is sponsored by Tahuti Lodge, one of the city’s O.T.O. chapters.

Lon’s lecture, “The Art of Divination”, is sure to draw heavily from his latest tome, THE BOOK OF ORDINARY ORACLES. It’s also rumored that Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford will make an appearance. You wouldn’t want to miss that, believe me.

Details:

“The Art of Divination with a special appearance by Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford. December 10th, 2005 Entry: 4PM Lecture: 4:30 to 9PM Location: Community Church of NY 40 East 35 Street New York, NY 10016 Cost: $25.00 pre-registered Email: hermeticways@nyc.rr.com.”