Witness the power of technology: "the age of radio gave rise to the four most powerful political leaders of the twentieth century - Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt - each of whom used the then-new medium to address their people at crucial moments in history. At these times, their voices came into living rooms, heretofore the precinct primarily of family, and spoke via a device unable to register any contrary opinion or objection ... McLuhan caught the fleeting reign of the radio family in his oft-quoted observation (1964, p. 261) that 'had TV come first there would have been no Hitler'" (p. 67).

--Paul Levinson in Digital McLuhan, 1999.

I love this!!

1. saw my mom and little sister, Kathryn, off to England for two weeks. Their itinerary and preparations dredged up memories of my own two summers in the UK--oh to go back!
2. ate a fresh apricot--doesn't taste like dried!
3. became enamored of dyeing fabric after viewing Shabd's work
4. made iced coffee concentrate following Pioneer Woman's directions
5. have been enjoying Wilson Library's blog, Civil War Day by Day
6. made a pattern from my go-to readymade tank and sewed up two versions
7. am fixing to draft sailor shorts like this Kwik Sew version DixieDIY made
8. continued my ever-looming thesis research with Levinson's Digital McLuhan
9. started listening to the cute and insightful Saturdays with Stella: How My Dog Taught Me to Sit, Stay, and Come When God Calls

Kathryn's keeping a tumblr blog now, called ::myperfumebottle:: She's already started updating it with accounts from her England adventures, so I think you'll be in for a treat if you peek in from time to time.

So I've recently started watching Switched at Birth. Kind of embarrassing since it's a teen-centered drama and consequently a bit...well, dramatic, but one of the characters is deaf and so I've been tuning in. [--edit: it's getting harder to tune in to those ridiculous story lines, and I have a BIG problem with shows like this that portray teens dabbling with sex; they are creating the impression that it's normal and almost inevitable that teens will dabble and that it's a part of growing up. In fact, it's the opposite; real maturity comes with self control and the willingness to defer what you want until the appropriate time (marriage)]

I've been fascinated by the Deaf culture since high school, when I took American Sign Language in tenth grade. One of our assignments for the year was attending Deaf events (by the way, "deaf" is the physical condition, and "Deaf" is the culture). Kris and I would go to Silent Dinners at various local malls and try to converse using our stilted, halting, ever-uncomprehending ASL. Then in my year off from Grove City College when I attended Tidewater Community College, I took another year of ASL. My teacher was deaf and classes were immersion-style. My brain would hurt afterwards! I'm pretty sure my optic lobe had never communicated so intensely with whatever part is responsible for comprehension. Using a language based not on sound but on gesture is a new way of thinking and perceiving the world.

I remember one time when I was attending a Deaf church, I was introducing myself to one of the congregants. I finger-spelled my name and braced myself when he spelled something back. I'm terrible at understanding finger-spelling...come to think of it, I'm not so good at understanding spoken spelling, either...but those who are proficient in ASL spell with such fluidity, it's hard to distinguish each letter, much less string them together into a word. I signed "AGAIN?" and he repeated the word and then repeated it again at my puzzlement. "?-?-L-E-?-I-E. V-?-L-E-?-I-E" Ohhh, rats. He was confirming my own name.

Back at GCC, I resumed my participation with the ASL Club with weekly meetings, silent dinners, and chapel performances in which we would sign worship songs like "Before the Throne of God Above," "Better is One Day," and I can't even remember the others. Unfortunately, all I have to commemorate those performances is this picture:

In my defense, I had a 103 degree fever at the time (which, among other things, apparently prohibited me from assessing the fit of my khakis with a critical eye).

My love of signing lead me to sign to worship songs in church, which caught the attention of my English professor's wife, which lead to my little gig teaching ASL to ten first-sixth graders every Friday afternoon. It was such fun! I loved coming up with each week's unit and covered things like the alphabet, introductions, family, food, and activities. Our ongoing project was learning to sign the song, "Thy Word." They had it down by the end of the semester.

Fast forward to today, when I sign very little. I'll watch vlogs and sermons in ASL occasionally, and I'll gloss songs during church at times (for a beautiful gloss of "Here I am to Worship," see my high school teacher's interpretation here). But right now most of my contact with ASL, deafness, and Deaf culture comes through literature and television programs like Switched at Birth. I've mused on sign language before and have a few posts in draft form about various books I've read about deafness and Deaf culture. If you want to read more, I recommend Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, and Deaf Like Me, or watching Kathy Buckley, a hearing impaired comedienne and motivational speaker (I love No Labels, No Limits!). These offer glimpses into an American culture that subsists alongside and often within the hearing culture.

Mom and Kathryn are off on their England adventure! Hopefully they won't encounter service like this in the air.

What I'm loving right now...

• linen
• a full night's sleep (insomnia is for the birds)
• grace periods at the library
• Awaken the Dawn by Keith and Kristyn Getty
• mint colored nail polish
• The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (a British series following Detective Inspector Lynley and Detective Sargeant Havers. I first watched it at Hazel's house in Kent; we would come in from our days of mowing the pear orchard/chopping wood and watch a program in the evenings--or cross linseed fields and an ancient Roman site to see if the badgers were out)
• Textfree app for the iPod Touch--Kathryn and I have been messaging each other like crazy--texting really is fun!
• Goody Spin Pins

I was walking to the bus stop when I heard fevered rustling emanating from...the garbage can. As I suspected, a squirrel popped up, proudly claiming a chunk of bread nearly as big as he was.

Photo source

This recent heat wave has reminded me to fortify my summertime wardrobe, particularly with blouses. With that in mind, I've been gathering breathable fabrics and simple patterns in order to begin sewing in the gap.

For this particular project, I used Sarah Eagle's popular Port Elizabeth Top pattern. Its loose, easy-going style makes it appropriate for hot summer weather, while its simplicity gives center stage to this absolutely glorious linen, cross woven with fuchsia and gold threads. The only changes I made to the pattern were to lengthen it a bit and to pinch in the sleeves with wooden buttons.

So I bake my own bread, which means I've tried many, many recipes for whole grain loaves. I am always looking for the holy grail of recipes.

Now, I am not writing to say I've discovered it; I'll keep looking and experimenting. But my search did lead me to this great website, The Fresh Loaf. It is a community of "amateur artisan bakers and bread enthusiasts" that hosts tutorials, forums, and of course, recipes. I just tried the aromatic and delicious Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Bread (sans raisins, since I didn't have those on hand and using active dry yeast in place of the instant). It didn't rise as much as some other recipes I've tried, but I think that was in my technique today rather than in the recipe. It is worth practicing to get this bread perfected.

Some of the other recipes I'm eager to try include Honey Whole Wheat Bread, Pretzels, Bagels, and Pain Aux Raisins and Cream Cheese Snails (these most assuredly).

I love to wear aprons in the kitchen--not only are they useful for protecting my clothes from puffs of flour and splashes of tomato sauce, but also they help to set baking and cooking apart from my other household activities. Culinary pursuits require full-front aprons. Thus, when I set about sewing one, I drafted a full apron that slips over the head and ties in the back.

My inspiration for the design came from vintage patterns, particularly ones from the 1950s with scalloped hems. In order to accentuate the tulip hem and bodice edges, I bound them with black and white gingham, while I used French seams (my favorite and possibly overused finishing technique) to increase the apron's durability. Afterall, I hope this will see me through many a baking marathon!

You can also see this project in my BurdaStyle entry, Vintage-Inspired Apron.

Mechanization is achieved by fragmentation of any process and by putting the fragmented parts in a series

-Marshall McLuhan, 1964

Interesting: I just saw a squirrel chasing a bird--over the mulch, up trees, across the sidewalk. Did the bird take his acorn, perhaps?

My teacher indulged the class today with this video:

Oh goodness...I'm still chuckling :)

Would you like to know what a day off looks like in baked goods?

• 2 loaves of whole wheat bread
• 3 loaves of pumpkin bread
• 2 dozen molasses cookies
• 2 dozen miniature blueberry bagels
• 2 dozen blueberry-lemon muffins

Part of the impetus behind this freezer-filling array was the impending expiration of nearly a dozen eggs. I bought them before Christmas break and, what with traveling and all, hadn't gotten a chance to use them all up yet.

I'm looking forward to trying one of my bagels with the blueberry jam I made in December--it seems I've been on a blueberry binge lately.

We become what we behold.

As a piece of technology, the clock is a machine that produces uniform seconds, minutes, and hours on an assembly-line pattern. Processed in this uniform way, time is separated from the rhythms of human experience. The mechanical clock, in short, helps to create the image of a numerically quantified and mechanically-powered universe ... Time measured not by the uniqueness of private experience but by abstract uniform units gradually pervades all sense life ... Not only work, but also eating and sleeping, came to accommodate themselves to the clock rather than organic needs.

-Marshall McLuhan

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Insouciance: the state of being carefree or indifferent.

example: "It's all the same to me," she tittered, waving her hand dismissively over the scripts strewn across the dining table. "I've done it all. You choose, dear." Yet her darting eyes and flash-frozen smile belied her insouciance, and I hurriedly grasped the first, smallish packet I saw.

Writing: the commitment of the word to space.

Walter J. Ong in Orality and Literacy (2002)

Might I recommend perusing Mother Earth's Children, a darling and whimsical collection of rhymes about little fruit and vegetable people?