Cake or Death?

"She knows that loneliness can kill people — in different ways can actually make you die...."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:48:54 -0500

“She knows that loneliness can kill people — in different ways can actually make you die. Olive’s private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as “big bursts” and “little bursts.” Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee’s, let’s say, or the waitress at Dunkin’ Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”

- From “Olive Kitteridge,” by Elizabeth Strout

"What is it? What is it, really? No substance. Nothing! It does nothing for me. A marshmallow does..."

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:32:00 -0500

“What is it? What is it, really? No substance. Nothing! It does nothing for me. A marshmallow does nothing for me! It tastes like… clouds. It tastes like nothing, like a cloud outside the airplane. I hate marshmallows.”

- -HW, Abby’s boyfriend

HW has my favorite food issues on the planet. I listened to him rant once about how croutons ruin everything they touch because their crumbs “trickle” into a salad, and it was one of my favorite 20-minute periods ever. I have food issues, but HW has FOOD ISSUES.

Abby is reading Julia Child, sitting backwards on the couch, wearing a soft plaid shirt and letting...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:59:53 -0500

Abby is reading Julia Child, sitting backwards on the couch, wearing a soft plaid shirt and letting her hair dry.

Myke is looking at his phone, feet up on the stool, filling up on water. His cereal bowl is in the sink.

I am alternately watching Tumblr and watching them. These are my peoples.

Mobile app would diagnose disease by hearing you cough

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:33:44 -0500

Mobile app would diagnose disease by hearing you cough

Autistic artist finds inspiration in New York skyline Stephen...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:33:00 -0500

Autistic artist finds inspiration in New York skyline

Stephen Wiltshire took a 20-minute helicopter ride over Manhattan. Then he sketched the entire skyline from memory, and every building was correct and drawn to scale.

Amazing.

You know you're a wine-drinker when ...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:36:11 -0500

… you find yourself refilling your beer cup a shocking amount, at two house parties two days in a row, only to realize you’ve been filling the Solo cup less than halfway, to where the wine level should reach.

"Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it."

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:03:40 -0500

“Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.”

- Joseph Conrad

Rosie the Riveter and Karl Lagerfeld, together forever.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:32:34 -0400

Rosie the Riveter and Karl Lagerfeld, together forever.

"Having a hidden cricket is like having Meg White drumming in your wall except that she’s Keith..."

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:25:42 -0400

“Having a hidden cricket is like having Meg White drumming in your wall except that she’s Keith Moon and Meg White is drunk and Keith Moon isn’t in the least.”

- From “The Insurrection,” fiction in Esquire

I just visited my old blog on the Wayback Machine and felt a burst of nostalgia. That quickly turned...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:22:58 -0400

I just visited my old blog on the Wayback Machine and felt a burst of nostalgia. That quickly turned into melancholy. I often think I quit blogging too soon, especially considering what I’ve seen it do for many of the writers in my old blog-friends circle. I quit because too many real-life people were reading, but that really just boils down to a crisis of self-confidence. Why did I care who read it? Couldn’t I just own what I did? Apparently not.

But I was also struck by how creative that Wayback image seemed, in stark comparison to the creative output I’m generating these days (i.e., nil). It was creative for me, at least. Pithy little posts, some longer, more thoughtful posts, lots of links, lots of comments — blogging was good for me.

I remember also now more vividly that time in my life. And I’m struck by how much happier I was. How can I get back to that? I had a brief burst of happiness yesterday. I’d like more of those, and for them to be more consistent, to the point where they string together and last for most of the time. I’m working on it.

loveallthis: Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:37:09 -0400

loveallthis:

Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles classic, ‘Hey Jude.’

Na, indeed.

COMBO: a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (via...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:28:15 -0400

COMBO: a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (via Vimeo)

Really incredible.

20x200: think-make-think

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:22:04 -0400

20x200: think-make-think

theshalom: Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever National...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:56:09 -0400

theshalom:

Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever

National Geographic sent Nichols to spend an entire year in California’s redwood forest. His mission was to capture the majesty of some of the tallest trees on Earth, some of which date back before Christ. And if you’ve ever photographed in a forest, you’ll understand the challenge this presented. There’s no capturing the awe one feels before these monoliths that measure, in some cases, upward of 300 feet.

In a recent lecture at National Geographic in Washington, D.C., Nichols described his frustrations. Eventually, though, he devised a way to do redwoods justice. It involved three cameras, a team of scientists, a robotic dolly, a gyroscope, an 83-photo composite and a lot of patience.

(via: NPR — Click through for more pictures/story/video)

This is ridiculously cool; watch the video.

"The internet is the world and the world is messy and I don’t want anyone – not the government, not a..."

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:25:04 -0400

“The internet is the world and the world is messy and I don’t want anyone – not the government, not a newspaper editor – to clean it up for me, for I fear what will go out in the garbage: namely, my rights.”

- FTC regulates our speech « BuzzMachine

I have an irrational fear that the soap I put in the laundry really just runs down the chute and...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:22:18 -0400

I have an irrational fear that the soap I put in the laundry really just runs down the chute and I’ve been washing my clothes only in water all these years. The horror!

Also. Since my Twitter account is sort of for work stuff now, or, at the least, work people are reading it, I think I’ll use Tumblr again to share inane thoughts, such as the one above. You lucky dogs, you.

What's Happening To Women's Happiness?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:12:39 -0400

What's Happening To Women's Happiness?:

“Over the last 40 years or so, life is not trending toward more fulfillment for women; life is, in most ways we can measure, becoming more draining instead. To use Thomas Jefferson’s words, though women now have the liberty to choose whichever life they’d like, many are struggling in their pursuit of a happy life.”

I just got back from the farmers’ market, this time with plenty of cash and no groceries in my...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:22:00 -0400

I just got back from the farmers’ market, this time with plenty of cash and no groceries in my house, so I had given myself permission to run a little wild. I was there by myself and wasn’t hungry and didn’t need coffee, so I wandered as much as I needed to. I beat the crowds, and I got:

Kale, for making kale chips
Fresh black beans (not dried! not canned!)
2 pints of raspberries
Seedless red grapes
4 apples, Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp
A wedge of blue cheese
A pint of pickles, bread and butter and Carolina lime chips
A pint of pitted kalamata and green olives
Tastes of butternut squash ravioli, bison burger with tomato chutney, and broccoli soup, thanks to this
A free sage plant, due to my participation in above tasting event
Peacock feathers
Boston lettuce

I want to add a bullet point for “hope,” but even I am not that cheesy. (I’m close, though. I really considered it.) Still, the market really rejuvenated me this morning, after a terrible, busy, anxious week. Plus, all of that was only $45.

I keep thinking about the beautiful sheepskins, wool blankets, homemade benches and all of the produce I didn’t have room for: squash, corn, carrots, sprouts, purple cauliflower, eggplant, marinated mushrooms. Next week!

I have a logo! Thanks, Myke!

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:36:07 -0400

I have a logo! Thanks, Myke!

My rights versus yours

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:38:00 -0400

I’ve been thinking about copyright a lot lately. Philosophically, I believe copyright laws aren’t updated for what happens online; think about the Tumblr “reblog” button, for instance. It’s so easy to repost something, easy enough that it tricks you into thinking you have the rights to that content. (And maybe we should.) We’re constantly sharing music, photos, graphics, articles. I try to think about the content creator — would he or she want this being shared? — but I don’t and can’t always. Often, the need and desire to share or express something, using someone else’s work, outweighs those concerns. We’re collaborating, building community, connecting, and that’s a good thing.

I fully believe that once you put something out there, some piece of original content, you relinquish control. The only way to keep your work completely intact is to never share it, which completely refutes the purpose of creative work. You want to inspire, disgust, humor, confuse people with art — cause some emotion, any emotion — and sharing it is the only way to do that. Commentary and discussion become part of the package, making content even more valuable and interactive and dynamic.

But I can’t bring myself to give a Creative Commons license to my photography. I think what CC does is very interesting, and I see it as a possible solution to a lot of the legal action being taken in the name of copyright. I just can’t bear to think of my photos — one of the only purely creative things I do in my life — showing up on someone else’s blog, illustrating their words. I can’t imagine (and don’t expect) that person to understand what I saw and how I felt when I took a photo. But I know what’s behind the work: my life. And I’m kind of — how should I say this? — proprietary about that. I remember how a photo became an expression of love, the thrill of processing black and whites in the darkroom, the loneliness of walking around Baltimore with a camera on winter mornings.

Yet here my photos are, on Tumblr, on Flickr, and I love comments and favorites and likes and reblogs — who doesn’t? I’ve put them out there, and I know I can’t control what happens to them. I am sure they’ve been stolen, and I make no effort to track that down. (Or perhaps they haven’t been, and I’ve inflated my view of my work. This is very possible.) Frankly, it bothers me that I don’t practice what I preach. (Or don’t practice it when it comes to my own work, but practice it readily with other people’s.) But every time I try to change my copyright settings, I lift my finger off the mouse and browse on. I guess what I’m saying is: I’m only halfway there.