For reasons that still elude me, I have managed to parlay the word "penis" into a rather pleasant sideline as a hand-knit designer and writer. Here’s the Saga of the .sig:
Margaret Radcliffe, a friend from
alt.arts.ballet, and avid knitter and designer, had been after to me to join the Knit List, which is an e-mail list of about 1600 readers in August of 1996 and more than 2000 at the time of this writing. I had finished my 1996 concert and was itching to take up needles again, as I had put them down in the crush of work necessary to make the dance concert. I resumed knitting again with exuberance, and joined the list and promptly began to blather on at length about my projects.I forgot who my audience was, though, and also forgot that my post contained a .sig file which was, at that time "Louis, why is it, every time I mention you in a thread, I end up naked in Leigh’s office with my penis in my hand? NEVER AGAIN!" Please don’t ask me to explain it, it’s a long story. Ask
Jaffo or Louis. OK, so I forgot that my post also said, "All faggots in the know are wearing raglan sleeves."Alt.arts.ballet was used to my sophomoric side. My .sig once was "Where scholarship and obscenity go hand in hand." But these poor knitters got this on my second post. And I curled more than a few hairs, I guess. I did apologize. Really. Oddly enough, I got exactly two flames. I also got four polite reminders, and more than twenty vociferous welcomes, most of which said in some form, "I really don't care at all but those other listers can be so stodgy!"
Well,
Miss Lily had gotten wind somehow that I was on the Knit List and recommended to Alexis Xenakis that I host the Men Who Knit forum on kniTalk at Knitters Online, and it’s all been downhill from there.Here are some of my posts to the Knit List. I’ve deleted the shopping lists and the project queues, and tried to only present either the funny or thoughtful ones of general, rather than specific interest. Because the Knit List is a mailing list, rather than the open forum of USENET, and the subject matter is more personal and less abstract (much to the dismay of the list administrator sometimes), the writing has a more immediate and personal tone than my dance work, which I frankly think is of higher quality.
©1998 Leigh Witchel. All rights reserved.
These pages last updated November 16, 1998