Yarn Along .... frogging, beginning, preparing and relief

Yarn Along .... frogging, beginning, preparing and relief


~Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?



As of tomorrow this will all be frogged. Gasp you say! Well I do and I am so disappointed in myself. I wrote about the beginning of this sweater here. I was enjoying this knit. It was smooth and just enough challenge. I had completed the front section and was directed to take out the provisional cast on and begin increasing the back. When I went to remove the stitches, they wouldn't. The yarn had somehow grown into the cast on and it was stuck. A little snipping and pulling eventually loosened it, but damage was done. I asked my oldest daughter, the " nothing scares her knitter" to take a look at it. She said there was no way I did a provisional cast on. She couldn't for the life of her decide what I had done. She did her best to try and salvage it, but to no avail. It is a loss. I will be starting over and Elizabeth will be putting in that cast on. Now, mind you, I taught this daughter to knit and look at her. Mrs. Smarty Pants! She knows more than I do! I love her!!!

In the meantime, there is another baby to knit for. No, no , no! Not one of my daughters! I am glad for a pause. Caitlin has a good friend who is expecting her first, a little girl, and I am going to surprise her.



I dashed into Mad Tosh today and picked up 7 skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash. The color is salmon, but it looks pretty pink in the photo. With the short days, getting home to capture pictures in good light gets harder.

My "go to" blanket is Feather and Fan.



I have knit this blanket a dozen times. I never tire of it.

On the Thanksgiving front.... 13 here on Thursday. I usually have preparations well underway, but this year the only thing I have done is begin the dressing. So tonight I am ironing the tablecloth.



It is slow going. I am hurt. I somehow did something to my back. Maybe about a month or so ago. I have no idea what, but the pain in my left leg has become very severe. Getting up from a sitting position takes the help of Mr. Golfer and the mornings take about 2 hours to be able to loosen up. Today I saw a Chiropractor for the first time. He said he had never seen such a damaged gluteal muscle. I moaned and groaned all the way through his management. His prognosis is that it will get better but will take time.

On the reading front. These two.




My focus this year is slowing down. I want to be present in the moment this Advent. To live the stories and focus on breathing the season. Preparing my heart in a new way for this baby, this Christ. To understand the manger is to understand the cross. One does not exist without the other.

I wish each of you a grateful Thanksgiving!

The Supreme Court's Decision On The December 2012 Elections

The Supreme Court's Decision On The December 2012 Elections


Shisaku is on hiatus while the author is conducting a fish survey. However the Supreme Court decision on the December 2012 House of Representatives election (Link) deserves some kind of comment.

One should probably be checking in with Andrea Ortolani for fine- grained analysis. However, it seems that in the aggregate the Supremes, in declaring the district elections "in a state of unconstitutionality" (iken jotai) with three justices ruling the elections "unconstitutional but not invalid", have worked out a least worst outcome. While a preservation of the dignity of the Court would seemingly have demanded a ruling that the December 2012 elections, carried out as they were in defiance of a Supreme Court order to change the electoral map, be slapped down at least as unconstitutional, if not unconstitutional and invalid (what the logical difference would be between those two possible rulings, I would not wish to ponder).

Ruling the 2012 elections unconstitutional would have created a juridical/legislative black hole, though. If the elections that elected the current crop of Diet members were unconstitutional, then the only legitimate Diet capable of reforming the districts would be the one that was turned out of office a year ago. Reassembling those members now, to vote on reform legislation, would itself be unconstitutional as the terms in office of those members, had they been served out in full, ended in August.

So the Supremes simply repeated themselves -- "this is wrong and you should fix it before you hold another election" -- a flash of a sword but not a real stab the contradictions inherent in the description of the relative powers of the judiciary and the legislature found in Articles 41 and 81 of the Constitution). The contradiction -- the Diet is the supreme organ but the Court is the ultimate decider of constitutionality versus unconstitutionality -- is not something the Supremes would necessarily want to resolve given that the 2012 elections did result in a transfer of power in between parties.

In a seemingly pointless but still significant snit of protest, the Court did pre-emptively strike down the current reformation of the electoral map, the so-called +0/-5 solution passed in the final days of the last Diet, as insufficient to fix the state of unconstitutionality. Fiddling at the margins -- dropping the five smallest districts and moving a few communities in and out of a few districts so that the maximum measured level of disparity is 1.99 -- is NOT what the Supremes want in terms of rectifying the disparities in between the districts. Since the population shifts since 2010, the time of the last census, have resulted the new, "reformed" districts again creeping past the 2.0 disparity standard, the Court had the opportunity to blast the +0/-5 fiddle -- and to the Court's credit, it did.

This aside leaves the door open for the Court to take action at a later date, if the Diet continues to shirk its obligation to renew the nation through more equal electoral district maps. By declaring the +0/-5 solution insufficient, the Supremes have put the Diet on the hook to fix the districts before the next election -- or else the Supremes could chose to really put their feet down.

The Supremes' ruling against the plaintiffs in this round of cases is a blow against those fighting for a rectification of the value of the votes of urban dwellers and the residents of rural constituencies. The Abe government and the current Liberal Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives can also breathe easier -- their elections to power being, if not exactly validated, at least insulated against major challenge.

The Asahi Shimbun is bummed at the setback (Link - J) but it should not be -- the legislative fight against electoral district disparity must continue.


Later - The Yomiuri Shimbun offers a government-supportive English-language edit (Link) and the Mainichi Shimbun a more neutral English-language edit (Link) of the story.

Set Sale 3 - Slash Maraud Detectives Inc Elric

Set Sale 3 - Slash Maraud Detectives Inc Elric





Get-ready-for-Christmas Sale

Slash Maraud/Detectives Inc/Elric setI went to the secret comic book warehouse here in the wilds of western Pennsylvania and came back with quantity on a few choice sets and single issues.I have NONE of these sets available. SOLD OUT!!

Please check out the other three sales I have going on right now

MORE PAUL GULACY (Slash Maraud artist) here:
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-4-six-from-siriusjohn.html

Here are the two other sales going on:
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-2-starstruckdragonringelric.html
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-elricwhisperplus4.html
25 bux postpaid gets you:
Slash Maraud six issue set - 1987
Detectives Inc two issue set - 1985 reprint of late 70s seriesElric three issue set - 1983

**$35 postpaid to Canada. $50 postpaid to Europe, Asia, etc.




First up: SLASH MARAUD!!! Arguably one of the weirdest comics of the 1980s to come out from a major publisher. The content is basically like an "indy black and white explosion" comic but it's drawn by grizzled veteran PAUL GULACY. Colored by Adrienne Roy.



One of those post apocalyptic wasteland tales where dinosaurs and motorcycles collide!








There are these dudes called Shapers who have these fuzzy heads. (below)

But because it is Gulacy drawing this stuff - it's really eerie and kind of scary. He gets the realism enough that it's not funny or funny looking - just scary:



Great colors that break up the layouts. I think this work is really "blocked in" well by the colorist Adrienne Roy. The pinks and greens and yellows especially:









Next up: Detectives Inc #1 and #2 (below)This is a 1985 reprint of a magazine size graphic novel from the late 70s. Eclipse did this with the Sabre graphic novel. So it was sort of a concession to the direct market. "Print it comic book sized so it is easier to shelve and store."









I like Marshall Rogers' art - he does these really interesting layouts that go across the spread. He goes from expansive broad strokes to clusters of tiny detailed actions. Rogers like Gulacy can also jam so much detail into his pages that they can be difficult to read. However the SEQUENCING that he pulls off within some of the wacky and overwrought layouts can be so fetching that it doesn't matter.













Also this book was originally made for black and white. So there are alot of zipatone screens and other grays. Coloring it must have been challenging because the tendency would be for it to "go dark" with all the layering. Tim Smith does a good job lightening the palette - especially with the bright greens - so the darker sections are balanced out a little bit. It's a strange document of the era when comics were trying to get "serious" and be more like a good tv drama or something. It may not be ultimately successful as a comic but it is n interesting work of graphic design and "sequential art".















Next up, Elric (below). I've written about this comic beforehere.This is one of my favorite comics because of the color process used to create it. P.Craig Russell and Michael T. Gilbert used watercolor, airbrush, dyes, inks, and the kitchen sink to color this one.








This is one of those examples of a creative team working together and figuring it out as they go and you can see that figuring out right on the page. Each issue's art gets better and it's exciting to see the palette and the drawings change.











Read the linked to article about the color process above - just remember that this was a watershed moment in comics coloring. It was early in the development of making full color comics and printing them affordably.







Check out the vibrancy of the colors in these panels. This independent series from Pacific Comics was a minor big deal because it was the beginning of the indy publishers outdoing the big publishers with nice paper and fancy inks.


















Please email me capneasyATgmail to buy. I will send you PayPal address info.25 bux postpaid gets you:
Slash Maraud six issue set - 1987
Detectives Inc two issue set - 1985 reprint of late 70s seriesElric three issue set - 1983



**orders to Canada are $35 postpaid. Overseas order $50 postpaid