Hail to the sock

You all know that I am a very big fan of the humble hand knit sock. Very big fan. Everybody needs a fan club and dudes, I am there for the sock. I write often (and, er…at some length) about the meaning I find in socks, and how significant I think it is to knit something intended to be walked on, and eventually walked right through. Socks are not like sweaters or hats or mittens. Properly used, socks get used up. They are, like so many wonderful things and people… here for a good time, not a long time…and it’s our duty to get our footwear out and show it a good time. Considering that the sock will ultimately sacrifice itself for the comfort of someone I know, I figure that anything I can do to make it’s time on the needles remarkable is simply prepayment. Anything destined to go as many footsteps as socks has got to love travel and new people, right? Hence the travelling socks.

Sockgetsaroun718

This pair were born at the same time as the third book, and I’ve had them with me since then. I do a few rows every time I take their picture…and by the end of the tour I’ll have a pair. (A really cool pair. Remember all the stuff the first pair did?) This sock has done some really great things, but yesterday? Yesterday was a very good sock day.

Cool sock event the first.

Do you guys remember our buddy Tim?

Mastertim

Tim bailed on a successful but soul sucking LA Rock Star gig last year when he realized that not all nice boys from Clinton, Ontario are cut out for the rough stuff. After years of a lifestyle that was doing nothing to make him a happy guy, our boy Tim there caught a plane back home, found his family and his friends and shook that last little bit of Rock Star off him when he became a Harbour Captain here in Toronto. I’m proud of him, it takes a lot of nerve to be who you really are, especially in the face of all the hope and promises that LA throws at a guy with a record deal. This week, Tim’s proving that if you hang tough, it will all work out, since who you’re looking at there is not just our friend Tim. It’s a guy who’s putting everything he owns into a U-Haul tomorrow and making for Halifax, where starts a new job as, (I swear this is not only his proper title, but what Halifax Traffic calls him when he’s at work)

Master and Commander of The Tall Ship Silva.



That’s right, it’s the sea for Tim, and a brave step east, sailing a 1939 schooner. Good luck buddy. Long may yer big Jib draw.

(PS. That Master and Commander thing? That’s hot. Totally.)

Cool sock thing the second?

Joe’s been busy at the Studio this summer, and yesterday I screwed up my courage and went up there to try and charm the current clients into holding a sock. There’s a certain…well, knack to convincing people to hold the sock. Firstly, you have to embrace the Dorkiness of it. There’s no denying that what’s about to happen is profoundly odd, and trying to make it cooler than what it is gets you nowhere. If you’re going to con another person into having their picture taken with a humble Canadian half-sock, you just have to be honest, be true to yourself, and then you have to accept that you are about to meet someone really, really cool…and you’re going to ask them to do something really, really stupid. (Depending on how cool the other person is, this can feel risky.) I chanced it.

Peterelkas

Meet Peter Elkas.

Petersteam

Meet Peter’s team. There’s The Doug Head, Gavin, Jeff, Peter, Kyle, Charlie Sexton, and Stephen, Joe’s Wonderboy Friday.

Peter Elkas and Charlie Sexton held my sock. I’m probably going to have to avoid both of them for the rest of my life, and there’s no way to know how many cool parties I’m not on the guest list for anymore…what with being such an odd little dork, but I don’t care. The sock now has one degree of separation with Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bob Dylan. The sock has known greatness.