I haven’t done anything very crafty for a while, but I did just finish this vest for a friend’s baby (who is yet to be born! Usually, I don’t finish baby presents until the intended recipient is at least 6 months old. Let’s not go into whether this is the same baby I originally started the project for…).
Completing this project also means that my ravelry projects page is a nice grid of pictures, with no unfinished items taunting me with their empty boxes!
The Tournament of Books has begun! I actually missed the play-in round, in which Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (one of my favourite books of last year) beat Woke Up Lonely. I haven’t read Woke Up Lonely, and the judging commentary didn’t make me regret that.
There was some controversy in the comments, where it was revealed that the author of Hill William had tried to withdraw from the competition by means of a cryptic facebook post. Luckily for him, the ToB organisers don’t care what the authors think, so it stayed in the tournament.
In the first round, the 200-page, indie-published Hill William, took on the 834-page, Booker-Prize-winning The Luminaries.
Surprisingly, Rachel Fershleiser chose Hill William over The Luminaries, although she didn’t sound that enthusiastic about either book. Fershleiser saw The Luminaries as just another Dead White Guy novel, and it is certainly an homage to that kind of book. She didn’t appreciate the understated writing of the characters, claims erroneously that it wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test (two female characters isn’t a lot, but they certainly discuss more than just a man), and can only muster half-hearted respect for the structure. Somehow Hill William gets points for being “real” because it describes violence and abuse in ugly language.
Sometimes when reading ToB judgements, I get the impression that the judge enjoys the power of unilaterally knocking out a favourite book. In a case where you don’t really like either book, why not give the win to the more ambitious and skillfully crafted book, otherwise? In his commentary, Kevin Guilfoile contrasts the judging with the Sochi men’s figure skating, where the gold medal went to someone who fell 3 times while attempting a difficult routine. But this is like penalising the skater who gave a technically impressive and ambitious performance for not being graceful enough and giving the gold to the amateur skater who stuck it to the establishment by performing to punk rock or something.
Unsurprisingly, Jeremy was also outraged by the decision:
https://www.facebook.com/jeremyfreese/posts/10102961861108477?stream_ref=10
https://twitter.com/jeremyfreese/status/441726035487227904
https://twitter.com/jeremyfreese/status/441726729065725953
My winner: The Luminaries
Vianden Castle in Luxembourg. A chairlift ride up the hill from here is where we got engaged.
We just spent 6 days in Hong Kong and Macau, which was great (I was hoping that this week would be Hong Kong Week, but I’m still going through the photos), but it’s hard to blog while travelling. We leave next Monday on a much larger adventure involving 8 countries (or maybe more!). So we’re a little caught up in trying to get organised and get some work done in preparation. Maybe we’ll get the hang of doing trip reports from the road this time (except for when we’re on a cruise ship with no internet…).
This photo is kind of a cliche, but maybe you haven’t seen it before (I added a bonus photo below the cut in case you have). It was fun clambering around on the lava that blocked off what used to be a loop road around Volcanoes National Park.
On our last evening in Hawaii, we drove a long way around Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to the coast of the Big Island where you were supposedly able to see the lava flow at night. Sadly, it was so far away that all we could see was some small, red glowing dots. After we drove all the way back to where we were staying near the national park, I wanted to try at least seeing the crater in the park. I wasn’t expecting it to be that exciting, so Jeremy decided to stay behind.
As you can see (although the photo doesn’t do it justice), it turned out to be pretty awesome to see the glow of the magma in the crater, especially with so many stars visible. I took some photos and went back, thinking we could both drive back to see it together, but in a second sad twist for the night, the car was too low on petrol to make a second trip.
We had breakfast with a local in Kailua-Kona.
We did a zipline canopy tour in Kohala, HI that involved a number of rope bridges as well as lots of ziplines.
Sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawaii and home of a number of astronomical observatories.
We didn’t go to a luau in Hawaii, but the free Waikiki Beach Hula Show was excellent.