Still careening through homework, but the fire got turned up when I found myself attending the Connecticut Trendspotting forum this Friday to talk about open source. Gotta be done 2NITE! Or 2morrow, at the butt-crack o’ dawn! Hence a lunchtime link-love post…
(Why can’t we give St. Patrick’s a makeover and turn it into “Talk Like a Leprechaun Day”? “Fer sure, me lad, I’ll be having a bit o’ that Candle Salad…”)
Reporters Without Borders has a global anti-censorship demonstration happening — a great project, and an amazing design. Found on Facebook through Rebecca MacKinnon’s page.
MPOW has just released its Facebook app. Very handy, very nice!
I may or may not go into this in more depth, but I gave up on my halfhearted efforts to improve the Wikipedia page about creative nonfiction. (Actually, some of my edits were very full-hearted.) I skimmed the page yesterday, planning to share it with someone, only to discover major chunks had been rewritten in a convoluted, unsprightly academic patois filled with phrases such as “constitutive characteristics” and references to “texts” (um, you do “texts” on cellphones, dude; for creative nonfiction, please use subgenre terms such as essay, portrait, memoir, or travel narrative, etc.). Ick!
Slate has produced this handy guide to writing fake memoirs. I’ll put that on the syllabus of my fake-lit class!
Scrolling LED name badge. Come on, you know you want one!
Slate’s discussion of Amazon’s top reviewers. Klausner reviews 45 books a week? O.k., that’s not credible.
If you didn’t catch Mark Bittman’s article, “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler,” it’s not only a good summary of current food politics, but it’s becoming part of my own philosophy — not quickly and not perfectly, but still, a personal trend. I’ll write more about this when I summarize how I approached Lent this year. It’s what I’m writing about a lot, too.
If you’re trying to find local/sustainable/seasonal food, Michael Pollan has this nice linkset.
Posted on this day, other years:
- The Cassoulet Saved Their Marriage... The Melting Pot Helped Ours - 2013
- FRL's Endorsements--Let the ALA Elections Begin! - 2006
- Icarus: A Great Model for Library Blogs - 2005
That’s a damned shame about the wikipedia site — did you see the link on the NY Times papercuts blog to nicholson baker’s piece about wikipedia? http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131
(I hope I don’t get drummed out of libraryworld for mentioning nicholson baker). Thanks for all the great links, too. I’m exhausted just reading about your many activities! And I like the facebook app, too — I saw someone objected on a CCLA listserv and considered coming to its defense but I’m still new (and uncredentialed) enough that I didn’t feel up to starting a thing on a listserv …
Yeah, those lists, eh? We’re seeing usage of the tool–if nothing else, sheesh, it keeps me logged in and how cool is that!
I’m ashamed to say this, but I laughed out loud in an airport bar while reading Baker’s essay. Very good.
Thanks for the meatless link. If you need help going meatless, you know who to ask for advice. A 16 year vegetarian and 1 year vegan, I can haz a knowlejez!
What I want to do is become a responsible omnivore… and take the CAFOs out of my life!
If memory serves, Harriet Klausner has been an “avid” reader since the dawn of time. I believe that is her full-time occupation, and passes for her life, as well. That she reviews 45 books a week for Amazon is credible. The value of the reviews? Negligible, in my opinion.
Six and a half books a day sounds like a lot, even when it’s your life and you’re a speed-reader. I looked at the articles about her, and I’m not convinced. But in any event, whether it’s six a day or six a year, I agree, the reviews are flimsy.