Old is New Again

Styles come and go...and come and go again.  The same thing happens with music from time to time.  Back in the 1970s, there was a revival in 1950s music and rockabilly, popularized by TV shows like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, movies like Grease, and groups like Sha Na Na and the Stray Cats.

Disco music exploded in the late 1970s with the hugely popular Saturday Night Fever movie and album.  We tore up those lighted dance floors with copycat moves while trying to avoid hitting our heads on low-hanging disco balls.

I was really into disco when it happened.  Loved it.  LOVED it.  Forget Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Tom Petty (all newly popular then), I wanted to hear Chic and Sister Sledge and Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" album and dance like nobody's watching (though they most certainly were).  Even rock groups like The Rolling Stones did songs with disco beats, like "Miss You," and Led Zeppelin's "Trampled Under Foot," though die-hard fans would probably argue it wasn't intended that way.  We danced to them on the same lighted dance floor, is all I'm sayin'.

Then the tide turned—oh, did it turn—and disco crashed and came to (literally) a smashing end, and a New Wave came along.  I was all over that one too.  Let's Go!

So why the trip down memory lane?  Well, we were driving back from vacation last week and a new song came on the adult alternative station we usually listen to, and it sounded like...disco.

"Is disco coming back?" we both mused simultaneously out loud.

I certainly don't have my finger on the pulse of popular music anymore, so it's possible I missed the memo.  So I bopped along to the radio song and when I got home I checked it out on YouTube.  As you do.

Well, no wonder it sounded so familiar.  The bassist on Daft Punk's 2013 song "Get Lucky" is none other than Nile Rodgers of 1970s Chic fame, and many other collaborations.



But the best thing was finding this video where someone had synced the new song to old footage from Soul Train from back in the day.  I takes me back to Saturdays in the 1970s when we would watch American Bandstand and ST while either trying to avoid or actually doing our assigned housework chores.  The fashions are a blast from the past and the dance moves down the line are a total riot!

And then I saw this by Bruno Mars.  Check out the dance moves at 2:13.  And leopard print and red look fabulous together, don't they?



Yep.  Call it what you want, it's baaaack!

Things, Continued

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with an opinion as to the background in the previous post.  I went with D and have it appliqued on now.

It feels like it needs something else, but I can't put my finger on what.  I'll let it sit for a while to chill.  Maybe an idea will percolate.

I also liked C, the pool-like aqua background, but Norm was not a big fan.  Something else I hadn't initially considered was that it will hang on a sage green wall, so the color clash may have been a bit much with the aqua.

* * * * *

Picking up on our trip to the recreated Ojibwe village at Waswagoning, which we toured while on vacation last week.

I immediately thought of a quilt block when I saw this colorful shield at the entrance.  There was another one over the main building/gift shop in a different style, but I forgot to get a picture of that one or ask the story behind them.

Our tour guide called in a young man whose job was to demonstrate Native American fire starting using a traditional method.  He used a bow around which a pointed dowel or drill-like piece of wood is wrapped in a cord.  He held a stone in his left hand at the top of the drill and moved the bow back and forth with his right.  The reciprocating motion by drawing the bow back and forth causes friction and ultimately hot embers on the lower end of the drill, which then ignite the tinder around and beneath it.  

Traditional tinder was frayed cedar, but they have since switched to using jute (from the local hardware store), both for demonstrations and also in the fire-starting kits they sell.

In the time it took me to formulate that explanation and peck it out on the keyboard, this guy could have started three fires.  He was a pro!

The Ojibwe of Lac du Flambeau traditionally spearfished by torchlight from canoes.  Ojibwe spearfishing continues to the present day and has been the subject of controversy over treaty rights.

Ojibwe fishing spear

Lac du Flambeau translates to "Lake of the Torches" (also the name of the casino on the rez).

Here is a traditional type birch bark canoe.

I really enjoyed seeing the workmanship of the canoe.  Our tour guide told us what Native people used to sew with as lashing—pine roots!  You know, those things you trip over when you walk in the woods.  Apparently, they made good, strong "thread" for heavy-duty jobs of this sort.

Pine roots - used for sewing

The torch is made of birch bark and pitch.

It was interesting to learn how canoes were stored during the winter.  The tour leader asked if we had any guesses.  I guessed in the trees - wrong answer.  They were pulled out to the middle of the lake, loaded with stones, and sunk!  There they would remain, safe from being stolen and preserved below the ice in the depths of the frigid waters for months on end.

Fish trap

We heard about wild rice harvesting by the Ojibwe, and how young children were recruited to "dance" on the grains to break down the outer husks.  This was done inside a special pit while the elders told stories (because after about an hour, kids being kids, it wasn't so much fun anymore).  Then the rice was tossed in the air over a blanket or large piece of leather to separate the chaff.

The tour guide shared a wild rice recipe "so easy you don't even have to write it down."  Maybe not, but I heard someone repeating it into their smartphone behind me.  I am making a version of it in the oven as I type this post and I can smell it cooking.  I'll give you the details later, if it turns out (just checked it and it's got a ways to go).

These war clubs look like they could do some damage, if necessary.  

There were feathers on the end of one of the clubs (cut off in my pic).  The guide told us how they would sneak into the camp of another tribe at night, brush the feathers across the cheek of a sleeping person, and take something belonging to them.  If no one woke to the feather's touch, and on discovering the next day that something had been stolen, the tribe would lose face.  Apparently, gaining it back meant doing the same to the first tribe.  Ah, the games people play.

Spears on side of wigwam

We heard about wigwam building and saw various summer and winter camp re-creations.  Can you imagine cooking in a winter kitchen like this?

Winter cooking area

Did you know the toboggan was the traditional form of transport for northern Native people?  Same thing with the snowshoe, invented by North American indigenous people.

Underground cache for food storage

Here's your below-frost-level refrigerator, called a winter cache.

These winter wigwams could be heated with a small fire to a toasty 68-70 degrees.  I didn't ask whether the bear skin was used for decoration or insulation.  Maybe both.

In the spring, maple sap was boiled down into lumps of maple sugar and these were saved for the next winter.  When stored food was scarce or hunting was poor, it was often this supply of maple sugar that got the tribe through the end of a tough winter.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup, so you can imagine that's a whole lot of maple trees to be tapped to make maple sugar.

If you ever get to northern Wisconsin, I highly recommend a visit to Waswagoning.  It was a fascinating glimpse into traditional Ojibwe culture.

So that's a little taste of the tour.  How about the wild rice dish?  

It's later now and I've eaten it for supper and it was very good.  It took quite a while for the rice to get tender in the oven, so if I make it again, I will probably cook it on top of the stove and add cooked chicken toward the end of the process.  

Here's what I did.

Ingredients:
1 cup wild rice
2 cups chicken broth + 1 cup water (total 3 cups liquid), heated to boiling
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or you could use 1 cup of fresh cranberries)
2 boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 ribs of celery, chopped
1/2 sweet pepper, chopped
chopped fresh chives
1-2 Tablespoons butter (or butter substitute)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Layer everything in a large casserole dish and pour the hot chicken broth/water over the top.  Cover and bake until rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.  This took 1-1/2 hours for me.  Check it after about an hour and give it a stir.  If the rice isn't fully cooked yet, return it to the oven for a half hour or so.

(Write a long blog post, edit photos, talk on the phone...)

Then enjoy!

Call for Backup

I held auditions for the background of the tumbling blocks piece today in my living room.  This is going to be a wall hanging, something that will go on the wall behind my computer monitor that I'll stare at now and then (as one does).  Right now I have the string Dresden wall hanging in that spot, having reacquired it from my sister who had temporary custody for most of the past year.  She moved and I got it back. 

I'm curious as to which of these backgrounds you like best.  I could not make up my mind, so I took photos and then looked at them some more on the computer. That helped.

First, I was leaning toward combining four of the batiks, not necessarily in this configuration, but possibly string-pieced somehow, maybe even curved strings.  Once I saw the photo, though, I became lukewarm on that idea.

(A)

I hadn't seriously considered the darker blue background, but Norm kind of liked it.

(B)

The lady at the quilt store picked out this batik right off the bat.  Kind of looks like the piece is floating in a pool, which is an interesting effect.

(C)

Then we have this one.  The quilt shop lady pulled this bolt off the shelf and then went, "Eh, I don't know, it's kind of wild," and started to put it back, but I stopped her and said, "I like it; wild is good.  Whether I use it for this project or another, I'm going to get some of that."

(D)

And then we have a more olive green/blue piece.

(E)

And finally, a muted rusty-olive one.

(F)

Which, if any, appeals most to you?  I will tell you that I have made a choice and have the piece pinned in place on it.  Now I'm second-guessing myself a wee bit, though not enough to unpin it—yet.

Happy 4th!

We are back from our getaway "up north," and had a great time in the Wisconsin north woods.  The weather was absolutely perfect!

We enjoyed being right on the lake, although we didn't boat or fish.  It was wonderful to hear the loons in the early morning and the water lapping the shore, spot eagles, and watch playful chipmunks and squirrels.  I loved sitting on the deck in the afternoon or evening and working on English paper piecing.
 

The place we were staying had a "quiet time" policy after 10:00 p.m., so when the people below us started cutting loose and belting out "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," we only had to bide our time before knowing they would have to move the party to one of the bars downtown.

We did some trail walking every day, and shopping and sightseeing.  And eating, of course.  One favorite restaurant had great food and offered gluten-free toast instead of buns for their burgers and sandwiches.  Such a simple thing, but that and a very friendly waitress who was happy to check ingredients on other menu items, made all the difference in the world to me.

Things I could not resist:

Thrift shopping, stores that have the word "Antique" in them...

Pretty pottery, whether vintage, like this one...

Or new and locally made, like these.

I was very happy to sew on my hand-piecing project.  It was so relaxing and fun to see it take shape once I started whip-stitching the pieces together.  I ran short by four pieces, but I finished those last night when we got home.

I will probably be appliqueing this onto a background to make a wall hanging. On the drive home yesterday, we stopped at a quilt shop along the way and I bought some batiks.  One or all (!) of these may become the background for the hand-pieced tumbling blocks.

The staff at Antoinette's was very helpful and friendly.  I would have been content to wander the store on my own, but a staff member offered assistance within a minute or two, and as it turned out, I was happy she did.  She pulled some things I might not have considered.

I had also found another nice shop where we vacationed and picked up a few stash builder type things.

Check out the cute valance of strips on the shop window.  What a great idea.

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting a recreated Ojibwe Indian village and hearing about Native culture.  

Entrance to Waswagoning.

 

It was fascinating.  More on that in another post.

You'd be smiling, too, if you just made fire by rubbing sticks together.  This guy did it in about a minute!

Rhombille

I somehow landed on a Wikipedia page after looking for tumbling blocks quilt images and read about rhombille tiling for the first time.  Whuh?

You know, if Miss Watson had taught 9th grade geometry with quilt blocks, it might have been a little more interesting back in the day.  Well, to me, anyway.  Miss Watson herself was interesting in a quirky way.  She claimed her pale blue eyes were more light sensitive than most, so she had to wear sunglasses when using the overhead projector (talk about old school, are those even used anymore?).  I kind of felt bad for Miss Watson, in her polyester double knit shift dresses, for all the snickering that went on behind her back.  To me, there seemed a curious naivete about her, a shy girlishness only just beneath her delicate fifty-something features and wispy, mousey-brown hair.

Anyway, I have my hand piecing project ready.  You can expect a full report, particularly if it goes badly.  It ought to be interesting.

This recipe for brownies (discovered via Pinterest, where else) did not go badly.  If you're used to Betty Crocker mixes, this won't be the same, but for gluten-free, dairy-free, quasi-paleo eaters like me, it was awesome! I had to get the finished brownies into the freezer quickly (hence no pictures), before they all ended up "in ma belly."

I stumbled upon this video tonight on YouTube and was blown away.  Maybe mesmerized is a better word.  Wow.  Just, wow.