(no subject)

[camwyn]

Okay, so.

I temporarily forgot what I was going to say here... Oh, right. Sorry. First off: HI WORLD. AM AWAKE. AM UPRIGHT. AM DOING JOB. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? ... DON'T ANSWER THAT UNTIL I'VE FINISHED MY COFFEE.

Second off: I think I need to learn to knit argyle. I found an argyle pattern that substituted little skulls and crossbones for the narrow lines of the design. When I mentioned this to my knitting group, daniidebrabant started laughing and pointed out that I seemed to be doing a lot of knitting weird little things into my work. I suppose this is as close as I get to being a Subversive Artist, or something. The Green Lantern sweater (which I still have to finish), the Elder Sign fingerless gloves, the mittens I'm planning that'll have the Elder Sign on the palms for that 'hi, I grabbed the headpiece of the Staff of Ra' look, the fact that the squiggly partial helix symbol from Heroes is so painfully easy to chart out as a pattern...

I like the idea that most people will just look at my knitting and go 'ooh, pretty' or even 'ooh, nice technique', but some tiny group of people might just possibly look closely and go 'bzuh?'. It's an in-joke for the sake of seeing who gets the joke, like the artist who surrounded the cover of a Llewellyn (I think) book on runes with runes that spelled out 'THESE RUNES LOOK IMPRESSIVE BUT DON'T REALLY SAY ANYTHING'. I like to think of it as a sort of time-delayed geekdom bomb, waiting for somebody somewhere down the line to suddenly realize what they're seeing and say "... wait. D'oh."

Of course, I also like the pure geekdom factor, since all of my minor elements snuck in thus far have been heavily geek-related. I used to get jokes about pregnancy when I knit at the Red Cross, and it ignited a burning desire in me to knit something that I could just hold up for examination to silence these people. And by 'something' I mean 'a pattern involving Gojira cutting loose on Tokyo, or possibly a skull and crossbones motif'. If I ever learn to knit intarsia, it will probably wind up resulting in at least one item with the Flash's symbol on it; it's a simple, bold graphic with multiple colours that doesn't really lend itself to Fair Isle techniques, and it doesn't look like anything that would ordinarily get knitted- but it would work. Which is all that I ask, really.

Methinks that while I plan on putting the Elder Sign (branch and star versions alike) into the hat I'm doing soon, I may do a simple headband/earwarmer and graph the Heroes squiggle into it. Just because I can.

Comments

[the_croupier]

"The Green Lantern sweater (which I still have to finish), the Elder Sign fingerless gloves, the mittens I'm planning that'll have the Elder Sign on the palms..."

Pardon, while I squee.

*squees*

[camwyn]

It's almost a pity that our favourite Nonexistent Organization doesn't actually have a logo. Because it would be great to do a scarf with the logo in it.

The scarf would be all in black, of course. No colour work. Just textural rendition- purl stitches in the middle of knits, say.

[the_croupier]

*squees more*

Sad but true. Although 'MiB' was on the business card K handed to J. Not really a proper logo, but it has some style about it.

[camwyn]

Yeah, I know, I'd been considering that. We'll see what I can work up after I get the other stuff done.

Remind me to get some custom fabric labels done up (they're pretty cheap if you order them fifty or a hundred at a time) reading 'Hero of Canton Designs'.

[batyatoon]

It's like the Siegling's shopping bag Allyssa carries around with the button on it that says "My mother went to Vorbarr Sultana and all I got was this lousy shopping bag."

'Cause there's three levels of response: the failure to recognize the reference at all, the recognizing the reference, and the recognizing the reference and pointing out that it's flawed. (Because the shopping bag in question wasn't from Siegling's, it was from a shoe shop, Siegling's sells weapons.)

[camwyn]

*snerk* Yeah, exactly. Of course, even at the best of times one cannot always count on people to 'get' the reference; for instance, at one point when I was working on the GL sweater's sleeve I brought it with me into a shop to work on while I waited on line. The guy behind the counter, who I know, made a comment about it being nice work when I showed him the part around the wrist with all the logos on it. It was not until five minutes later that he realized- after I pointed it out to him- that it was the Green Lantern symbol, at which point he smacked himself and started muttering self-recriminations.

The shop in question was Dewey's Comic City.

Nuclear Submarine, one of the candidates for my totem spirit, teaches us to run silent and run deep- I had not known just how far such camouflage might well extend!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

As someone who has carried around that bag--and a one-word different button ("bloody" shopping bag) proudly affixed thereupon, I, too, had that Issue.

Then, from the practicality standpoint, I figured Pegasus Publishing may well have known better (they have a lot of pithy Vorkosigan gear), but the shoe shop was never named--and Siegling's was. So they went with name recognition.

-- Lorrie

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

One of my youthful adventures in Successful High Geek was to arrive early to my APEnglish class one day and cover all the chalkboards in Viking runes. IIRC, I chose Jabberwocky for my text. It was all I could do to keep a straight face when the teacher came in, scanned them, did a doubletake, pointed and said, "These are legit!"

In retrospect, the school was small enough that I think he sussed out it was me pretty quick, as probably did everyone. Chances are I was covered in chalkdust, being that kind of geek as well.

[camwyn]

The closest I came to that was when my senior year Theology teacher (all-girls Catholic high school) announced that she'd be checking our notebooks periodically to make sure we were taking notes. I'd taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet as part of ... well, it would take too long to explain, but it had nothing to do with actually learning Russian, but for a few weeks I took my notes in Cyrillic.

She collected the notebooks eventually. We got them back a few days later.

I had no clue Sister Margaret knew the Cyrillic alphabet, but after making a few comments in the margins she never collected my notebook again.

I also once hacked our freshling computer students' startup disks so that the DOS prompt read "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!", but that primarily gets points because I did so without being aware they had just that week covered 1984 in class, rather than for being especially obscure or geeky.

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

Sweeet.

[camwyn]

I was in the senior lounge at the time the freshlings discovered the hack. The senior lounge was next door to the computer classroom.

They actually shrieked. It was great.

[batyatoon]

*grins* I've told you about the time I set all the screensavers in the Barnard computer lab to read "Case, this is Wintermute. We have to talk," haven't I?

[camwyn]

Yeah, you did. It was lovely.

[genarti]

*cackles*

Very nice. On both counts.

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

You're my hero.

[akawil]

Not directly related to your post other than it being you and general geekiness, but you probably ought to see today's xkcd.

[camwyn]

It's on my friendslist as an RSS feed. I saw.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

It's an in-joke for the sake of seeing who gets the joke, like the artist who surrounded the cover of a Llewellyn (I think) book on runes with runes that spelled out 'THESE RUNES LOOK IMPRESSIVE BUT DON'T REALLY SAY ANYTHING'. I like to think of it as a sort of time-delayed geekdom bomb, waiting for somebody somewhere down the line to suddenly realize what they're seeing and say "... wait. D'oh."

*cough* Actually, as is the case with much cover art, it was done wholly unknown to the author, who didn't see the cover until it hit the stands.

The author has a long-standing reputation for having a certain amount of Pole Up His Arse, so I hear the explosion was a Wonder to Behold--assuming the observer was without the blast radius. ;)

-- Lorrie (rune geek, yo)

[curiousqity.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm Qity, formerly/sometimes known as goldennotblonde. I have to go make dinner now, but I read Hellblazer: Hogwarts just now all in one sitting. Love, love, love, much love. Be back later to read journal. *loves shamelessly*

Oh yeah, I commented on this one because I wish I knew what "bzuh" meant, but I don't, so I'm sad. Does working fair isle give you a headache too?