01 September 2007

What Would Rani Mukerji Knit?

Welcome to my new blog. The title of today's post is the old working name for the entire blog; fortunately, a friend helped me see reason. (Thanks, Kelly!) Bollywool is a little less obscure. It is a combination of Bollywood (itself a blend of Hollywood and Bombay, the old name for Mumbai, one of the movie-making capitals of India) and wool, and so is my life, once I have left work and am not in a coffee shop.

Who is Rani Mukerji, a.k.a. Rani Mukherjee? She's a remarkable actor whom I had mistaken for a half-witted ass-shaker until I saw her gutsy performance in Veer-Zaara a second time. Here's
a web site.

My answer to the question of what she would knit is
this, which is one of the projects I've got on the needles. She would most likely knit it as a wrap, as I am doing, by multiplying the cast-on number by three. Being a woman of glamour, she might knit it in hand-painted silk. Because I am a vegetarian who gets irreparably gacked out by the thought of obtaining fiber by boiling wee beasties alive in their cocoons, I am knitting it in this alpaca yarn (yuuuuuuuuuum) in black. I even gave in to the urge to buy Addi Turbos, the Maseratis of knitting needles. I was hesitant to use them because I have little tolerance for high-pitched noises, especially metallic ones, but I'm pleased with how quiet they are and how nicely the pointed tips help with this fine yarn being knit on big needles (US 10.5, 6.5mm, UK size 3).

Sadly, my knitting attention has been hijacked, mostly by the sizeable stash my mother bestowed upon me when I visited my folks in July. Said stash, which includes mostly solid-color wool yarn and some odd colors of acrylic, weighs in at several paper bags and a couple of boxes, and is probably 35-40 years old. Fortunately, it's permanently moth-proofed. I've got two red and gray striped hats going, waiting for me to locate an unoccupied set of dpns so that I can finish the tops. I've also been knitting small
log cabin blankets (from this book) for the local animal shelter from the Red Heart acrylic yarn that's from a time when I had less money and a lot less faith in myself as a knitter.

My mother used to transcribe Braille; she would read and re-format printed texts and transform them into Braille through diligence, magic, and a tremendous knowledge of the English language. She still uses Braille-esque abbreviations in writing, and I am her child. I always read "dpns," knitting jargon for "double-pointed needles" as "doupons," to rhyme with "coupons." For non-knitters (what's wrong with you?), bamboo dpns look like dowels sharpened at both ends. They are used for knitting in the round or for small back-and-forth knitting. They also keep annoyed knitters with long hair from becoming raving murderers when they have been beset by hot sweaty hair sticking to the back of their necks while trying to puzzle through a challenging pattern. Here's a
picture of them in their natural habitat.

After an epic clusterfuck battle with FedEx, I received a package the other day that includes six Bollywood and Bollywood-esque movies (Omkara, Mangal Pandey: The Rising, Monsoon Wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, two older movies I got on the cheap) and a song-sequence anthology. I still haven't watched Dil Se, so if the Bollywood pickings at my very favorite theater (
Galaxy Cinema) continue to be summer throwaways, with the notable exception of Chak De India, which was excellent, I will still be able to get my fix of good movies.

Soon I'll cajole Sarah into teaching me how to post pictures from the not-so-hot camera on my cell phone. To be just, she has agreed to help me; I keep forgetting to follow through on it. I'll see if I can get dog pics and knitting pics on here, too, and a few Bollywood movie reviews.

I'll leave you with this; if you're thinking of seeing Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag ("Ram Gopal Varma" is the director and producer and "Ki" is a possessive, so Aag is the title of the actual movie, as well as a pretty good onomatopoetic review)
, I have a few ideas here for more entertaining and fruitful pursuits:
  • use a spork to cover a clay canary with Cheez Whiz, paying careful attention to creating realistic feathers,
  • write an epic poem describing why the movie is not pride-inducing enough to justify including one's name as part of the movie's title (I mean, it's not William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, fershitssake),
  • use the same gifted cast and bearable, if uninspired plotline, and write a movie worth actually watching, AND/OR
  • knit a movie-screen-sized warning (extra points for knitting the lettering in reverse stockinette and in larger needles so the writing appears to be backlit) about the horrid waste of talent and time that audience members are about to undertake.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ha! I found your new blog. I knew its name, though, so it wasn't too hard. Can't wait to read more. Also, I'll dig out the old digital camera, so you can post pictures that aren't taken by a cell phone camera. (= Have a good day!