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bookmark_border“Shock Induction”, by Chuck Palahniuk

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This is the latest novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a satire. The only reason this is not a non-fiction novel is because it is a satire. The truth is that everything this novel talks about basically does happen, just not in the absurd ways Palahniuk pretends it does for the purposes of this novel. Everything that “some shadowy but not actually secret at all group” is doing to young people in the novel is actually happening, just to different sets of young people than imagined in the novel, and in slightly different ways.

This book is a fast read. It is engaging and well written. It is confusing at times, but nobody reads Chuck Palahniuk expecting the narrative to go down like vanilla ice cream, right? Chuck Palahniuk is more like a double cone of rum raisin and rocky road, and the cone is cracked, and the day is hot and sunny; and there you are in the hot sun trying to ingest this mix of textures and flavors while constantly licking the outside of the whole thing to keep from getting any on your pants.

I do not think that Shock Induction will become one of my favorite Chuck Palahniuk books. Those are still Fight Club, Diary, and Rant. It’s pretty high up in the second tier, though. Holding it up against his other recent books, it’s tighter than The Invention of Sound, more palatable than Not Forever But for Now, and less terrifying than Adjustment Day. Maybe wait for this one in softcover if you’re not already the proud owner of a hardcover copy. I mean, it came out weeks ago.

bookmark_borderFifth Takadai Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This braid has been on the takadai for about six months. I have not been working on it constantly, of course, but still. It is a double-layer double-twill braid that used both the upper and lower arms, so it is essentially two braids stitched together at the edges. Even If I had been braiding at full speed, it still would have taken me twice as long as a single-layer braid, but I had so many other things to take care of and so many other braids to do.

The final braid is about a yard long and a little more than a half-inch wide. It’s all in silk lace-weight yarn and there are 52 (!) elements with 3 ends of yarn per element. There are plenty of errors in the braid. You can probably see a few in the photo. I’m still happy with it. It was a great learning experience.

bookmark_border“Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer

Posted on by Elliott Evans

A while back (apparently February of 2023), I saw the 2005 movie (starring Elijah Wood) that Liev Schreiber made from the 2002 novel. I was very taken by the film, and I knew that the novel would give me a different perspective on the story. I did not know how different these two stories would be. It took me about a month to read the novel.

The film details the “very rigid search” that a young American man (also named Jonathan Foer) makes to Ukraine to explore the history of his family there. Jonathan is the family collector. At home, Jonathan has a museum of his family’s history, filled with photos and artifacts. The film is narrated with voice over and vignetted with chapter cards by the young Ukrainian man who is hired to guide the American to “Trachimbrod” the birthplace of American’s grandfather Safran Foer. There are some flashbacks, but most of the film is the story of the search for Trachimbrod and what they find there.

The narration of the film is taken from letters that the guide, named Alex, writes to Jonathan after Jonathan has returned to the USA. Alex’s father runs “Heritage Tours”, the company that Jonathan hires to take him to Trachimbrod. Alex is the guide, pressed into service by his father, and Alex’s grandfather is the driver of the company car. Grandfather believes he is blind, so he has a seeing eye dog who he has named “Sammy Davis Junior, Junior”. Alex’s letters are printed in the book with his fractured English and editorial comments.

There is so much more in the book, however. Alex’s letters are interspersed with a history of Trachimbrod, and of Jonathan’s family there. This “history” is fantastic in the sense that it appears to be largely made of fantasies that Jonathan imagines to be the history of Trachimbrod. These fantasies are probably based on the artifacts that Jonathan retrieves from Trachimbrod, but an early detail in one of Alex’s letters reveals that these items were all stolen while Jonathan is still in Ukraine. This detail, like the note in the foreword to Lolita regarding the death of Mrs. Richard F. Schiller, will most likely be forgotten by the reader before its import becomes clear. None of this is included in the film.

The history of Alex’s family and its connection to the Foer family is also wildly different between the novel and the film. This is not a criticism of either. Both stories are poignant, enigmatic, and impactful. I don’t know if I think either story is better than the other. They are very different, though they end similarly. Alex’s final letters reveal more than the film about how he and his family fare after he returns home with his Grandfather.

Jonathan Safran Foer the author also wrote the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which was also made into a film. For personal reasons, I have never allowed myself to watch that film, but perhaps I will read the book.

I am not sure if this is, strictly speaking, a book review.

bookmark_borderNew License Plate

Posted on by Elliott Evans

PennDOT sent me a new license plate for my car, since the old one was about 25 years old and some of those old plates have started falling apart.

Mr. R and his Ripping Rubberbands

So I had to get this sticker to put next to my new plate. If you don’t know about the Letter People, this won’t mean anything to you.

Coincidentally, the week my kindergarten class did the unit on Mr. R, that was the week I was out with the chicken pox.

bookmark_borderShibori Experiments

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Some members of the Fiber Arts Guild of the Debatable Lands have been practicing their fabric dyeing lately, but it is to big a production to make up large dye pots just to try some new things out. For that purpose we had a dyeing day at Mistress Tsvee’a’s House this past Sunday. We had a vat of indigo, a tub of dark red fiber-reactive dye, and a couple of burbling vats of natural dye.

I put one carefully prepared ball of fabric into the indigo. I had fan-folded a rectangle of cotton around a point in the middle of one long edge. Then I rolled the folded fabric into a ball and tied the edge with yarn.

Indigo-dyed Folded Shibori

I put another carefully prepared bll of fabric into the Turkey Red Procion dye. I had twisted it up around two separate points until the whorls met in the middle, then again tied them with yarn. I should have twisted tighter and tied a little lighter. Still, it’s interesting.

Procion-dyed Twisted Shibori

I also dyed some twisted up cotton yarn, but that description will have to wait until the braid is finished.

bookmark_borderA pair of Loop Braids

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Almost 8 years ago, Makiko Tada was kind enough to teach me kute-uchi hand-loop braiding in her studio. For the past 8 years I have been making “practice” braids, “sample” braids, “class” braids, and the like, but never making any actual braids from silk. So, I did it. Twice.

The first braid is a 5-loop (3+2) AB flat braid that is usually referred to as shigeuchi. I used 12 ends of silk reeled silk yarn per loop, 3 loops red and 2 loops pink. The “3+2” means that three loops start on the left hand, and 2 on the right. The “AB” refers to two of the four moves used to make the braid from loops:

  • A = Outside Straight
  • B = Outside Twist
  • C = Inside Straight
  • D = Inside Twist

I realize that this doesn’t actually tell you anything you need to know about loop braiding. Anyway, the braid:

5-loop AB Shigeuchi in Reeled Silk

The second braid is a 9-loop (6 +3) AADC Odoshige braid, again with 12 ends of reeled silk yarn per loop. This time I had 6 loops of pink and 3 of red. This braid makes this great 8-ridge flat twill structure. The name odoshige indicates that it was mainly used as lacing on odoshi , which is a word for armor. This particular one is a little wide for armor lacing, though.

9-loop AADC Odoshige in Reeled Silk

I feel like the tension on both of these braids is still a little off. I bet you can even see the change in tension over the course of each braid. I have tried to showcase the best section of each braid. In the first braid, it’s the arc at the bottom. In the second braid it is the diagonal part near the top. In both cases, the nicer part of the braid is closer to the finish end of the braid. That should tell you something about how difficult it is to tension a longer braid.

Both braids are roughly 30 inches long. The second braid also has an error in it, but I have skillfully hidden that error from the camera.

bookmark_borderKingdom Shigeuchidai Braids

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I had been doing a lot of sankakudai braiding recently, and had an event coming up where I had very little to do except watch tournaments, talk to artisans, and wait for things to happen. So, I decided to experiment with interesting patterns on the shigeuchidai, using some heavy cotton to make 9-strand shigeuchi braids.

6 ends of cotton crochet thread per strand
3 red and 6 white, RWRWR and WWWW
8 ends of cotton crochet thread per strand
3 white and 6 red, RRWRR and WRRW

I had fun just sitting and braiding, plus people walking by would ask questions about the shigeuchidai and kumihimo, so I could tells stories and explain explain the different braids and equipment.

bookmark_borderRainbow Sankakudai Braids

Posted on by Elliott Evans

When the call went out before Pennsic for largesse items to be gifted to the East Kingdom, one of the suggestions was “rainbow” color schemes. I did all my braids in purple and gold to match East colors, but the rainbow idea stuck in the back of my mind. I later realized that as possibly the only person in North America to own a traditional Japanese sankaku-dai, I was maybe the only person in the SCA who could create braids in the classic 7-color “Roy G. Biv” (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) rainbow pattern. Seven-strand braids are possible on other braiding stands, but they are fast and smooth on the sankakudai.

Sankaku-dai set up for 7-strand rainbow braid

To work a 7-set braid on the sankakudai, you lift the top strand on left, and move it over the other left-hand threads to become the bottom strand on the right. Then you do the same from right to left. When the point of braiding gets too close to the tip, use the roller to pull it back towards the torii. When the tama get too close to the mirror of the dai, extend them as you would on a marudai. You can add twist to the strands or not, as you please. I have found very little difference in the resulting braid, but that may be because of the material I am using.

Here are the 3 rainbow braids I made in one evening on my sankakudai:

braid-20240821-1
Sankakudai 7-set rainbow braid,
8 ends of crochet cotton per strand
(twist applied)
braid-20240821-2
Sankakudai 7-set rainbow braid,
8 ends of crochet cotton per strand
(no twist)
braid-20240821-3
Sankakudai 7-set rainbow braid,
10 ends of crochet cotton per strand
(no twist)

Adding more ends per strand make a braid that is only a little wider, but much softer. I am really glad I tried this braid, and happy to add it to my repertoire. These braids are cheerful and friendly, and I know that people will enjoy receiving them.

bookmark_borderUnpopular Braiding Equipment

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I will be teaching a class at the sixth international braiding conference next year in Cleveland, so I have been doing a lot of experimentation and research on a braid called “shige-uchi”.

As you know, most braiding in Japan is performed on braiding stands, called “dai”. A braiding researcher in Japan clued me in to the fact that this braid was made traditionally on three different braiding stands, but only one of those pieces of equipment is used today. The two other dai are rarely seen even in Japan these days, and most braiders outside of Japan have never heard of them.

If I lived in Japan, I could probably make an appointment to travel to one of the few braiding studios that still possess them. In the USA, if I wanted to experiment with these stands I was going to have to DIY them based on some of the few photos that exist on the Internet.

The first is a stand that appears to be specialized just for the shigeuchi braid, since it is called the “shigeuchi-dai”. The unbraided strands hang down over the sides of the dai, and are wound around weighted bobbins called “tama”. The strands are passed between other strands and moved from side to side and to create the braid at the center. The completed braid passes over the “torii” at the top of the dai and is wound around the roller at the back. For scale, this stand is about 2 feet tall.

The second stand is used for several different braids, but usually with an odd number of strands. It is called a “sankaku-dai” because of its triangular (san=3, kaku=angle) top. The strands are (again) passed from side to side, but over the top instead of across a gap. This stand is smaller, at about 16 inches tall.

Both stands are made from pine to keep them affordable, and assembled with screws to keep assembly (and disassembly) simple. Learning to braid on these dai has been fun and informative. My researcher friend in Japan tells me they are most likely the only dai of their kind in North America!

Here is a sampling of sankakudai braids in various materials and colors:

9-element shigeuchi in poly-yarn, 5-set poly-yarn, 5-set poly-yarn, 7-set poly-yarn, 5-set cotton, 7-set cotton, 10-element trapezoid poly-yarn

bookmark_borderBamboo Tote

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Having made the bamboo satchel, I still had one RÖDEBY bamboo thingy from IKEA. I’ve been using a collapsible box tote for the last few years to carry all my regular SCA stuff (papers and whatnot), and it is starting to show its age. I figure these bamboo things will be pretty durable over time, so maybe a more open-top design this time. This is much like the crates I used to make a lot of, but the fabric lining makes it a continuous surface inside. I just had to figure out the right size squares for the end pieces.

Bamboo Tote with Pine Board ends and a Rope Handle

The tote is assembled with glue and copper nails . The rope is attached by inserting it through holes I drilled in the pine board. There is no finish or anything other than what came on the RÖDEBY. Here’s what it looks like when I fill it up with my stuffs:

Bamboo Tote All Filled up with Stuffs

It is a little smaller than the fabric tote it is replacing, but that is OK. I often despair of how much stuffs I carry around all the time, so tighter limits are probably for the best.

This only took me an hour or so to put together, plus the time it took for the glue to fully cure.