Tuesday, February 27

Napkin fiction

Esquire magazine "put 250 napkins in the mail to writers from all over the country--some with a half dozen books to their name, others just finishing their first." In return, they got nearly a hundred stories.

Monday, February 26

Happy Monday, happy everyday

Songwriter Wayne Coyne says "I believe we have the power to create our own happiness. I believe the real magic in the world is done by humans. I believe normal life is extraordinary."

What a great philosophy. Not sure I could top it, so go read his whole essay and, well, choose to be happy.

Tuesday, February 20

Read any good ads lately?

I guess the only surprising thing is it took this long: Searching for a Subtler Sell, Marketers Commission Novels, Embed Products.

Wednesday, February 14

That's so cop show

The musicology guys over at Dial M for Musicology -- OK, one guy in particular Phil Ford (an assistant prof at the University of Texas) -- are trying to create a new slang word for awesome: cop show.

"I've been worried about 'awesome,'" he writes. "It's getting clapped out, and I don't want to be the last guy to use an outmoded piece of slang, like some loser wearing a leisure suit in 1982 and saying 'groovy.'" He admits it's not easy to start "a plausible bit of new slang." Go read his multi-posts to understand why he's making the effort.

So, I know my legions of seven or eight loyal and eclectic edge of nowhere word freaks will, if nothing else, try cop show out for a few weeks. Let's help the music theorists out with this lark: spread cop show, particularly with your teen-agers and school-age kids.

Saturday, February 10

Floating eagles

One of the nice things about living on the edge of nowhere is the occassional brush with wildness. Running from home with Westley this morning, down the hill on the bike path along Sheep Creek about two miles from home, we saw a genuine American bald eagle floating on its wings, headed right for us, not 30 feet above the ground. We stopped in our tracks amid the snowy field, and watched that eagle coast right over our heads. We pivoted and watched it flick its wings a few times and float further west. Sweet.

Thursday, February 8

Street art

Mark Jenkins: Street installations via Phil at the Dial M for Musicology blog.

Wednesday, February 7

RPM

This is the challenge: record an album in 28 days, just because you can. That's 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. As Jeff says, it's the songwriters' answer to NaNoWriMo. (I asked Jeff if he was doing it and his perfect answer was no, because he's half-way through his next ablum. Cool!)

Tuesday, February 6

Photos of poems

Photos of poems from cities around the world. Like this one in San Francisco. Or Dublin. See what they have at CityPoem. And while we're talking poetry, check out Poems For All -- micro books of poetry.

AP stops reading

The AP ends book reviews.

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