Today I am taking a writing day, as a way to help my writing soul and displace me from the omnipresent Now. I have too many writing tasks to work on in the next fourteen hours, and that’s a wonderful problem to contemplate!
But I had this link roundup written, so here you go. As more of us are on Facebook sharing links left and right, the link roundup feels a little less necessary, but there are times when I want to share links people have sent me that are more fun in the aggregate.
Bits n Pieces
I like the voice in this inaugural post on this blog from New York Public Library. Nice job, folks (except for your craptacular URLs — just “fixed” the link so it would point to all the wobbly stuff on the end — craptacular stuff gone, thanks NYPL!).
My writing friend Thomas Peele (we were at USF together) is one of the investigative journalists who seriously rocked an unsolved Bay Area murder. I wonder if he and his peers are reinventing journalism?
A friend forwarded this Yahoo article mocking a Virginia resident’s “stimulus” suggestion to invest in local craft brewing. Let’s see: local labor, local products, American grains and transportation — what’s not to like?
(Did you know homebrewing was still illegal in six states?)
True confession: until I went to Code4Lib, I thought Rhode Island was actually an island (which in my head explained why it was so small). I don’t have a link for that. Just wanted to share.
Tallahassee Sundries
Do you tweet in Tallahassee? Add the #tallahassee hashtag to relevant tweets.
The Big Read is coming to Tallahassee! It’s Fahrenheit 451, and it coincides with the TWA conference (discussed below). Yay for Leon County Library, Tallahassee Community College, and everyone else involved! I’m going to buy a used copy of Fahrenheit 451 so I can write in it. (I had a copy… in fact, I may still have it. Hmm, no, on closer inspection, that’s Frankenstein.)
Whoa! Tallahassee Writer’s Association just had a major website makeover! Haven’t hit all the links yet, but it’s at least surface-pretty. The old website made my eyes bleed. Oh hey — blush — my Pushcart nomination even gets a mention.
Speaking of which, the upcoming TWA conference, April 3-5, will be awesome. Robert Olen Butler, Philip Gerard, many other good folks, plus a book fair that Sunday (come by and buy my books — I’ll sign them!). Zowie! I am genuinely enthusiastic (and I’m doing a small session Sunday morning on creative nonfiction). Hope to see some of you there!
Finally, are there any local homebrewers interested in participating in The Big Brew on Saturday, May 2? I did a half-batch of Saison du Mont this weekend (extract version — all ingredients are at Homebrew Den) to see if I like it and to tinker with my technique. (Our house is now perfumed with sweet and bitter orange, slow-cooked grain, and warmed honey. I won’t know for a month or more if it tastes good, but anything the color of a bull’s-eye caramel that smells that yummy is almost worth making anyway.)
Why Homebrew?
I have realized that homebrewing takes the place of rose-gardening, which I can’t do here in Tallahassee — our house is all shade, and it’s too hot/humid anyway. It’s all the same skills and predelictions: very specific domain knowledge, lots of planning and strategizing, many subspecializations, many enjoyable hours whiled away thinking “what next,” gradual, iterative skill acquisition, interesting gadgets and equipment that can be acquired one little bit at a time — and you can spend as little or as much on it as you want and your pocketbook allows.
Plus, I consider roses and beer very practical outcomes (though I never had to exercise extra hard to work off the roses).
Regarding purchases, I do practice restraint, though it pained me not to walk out of the store this Saturday the proud owner of the Funnel of my Dreams or a gleaming stainless steel digital scale… but oh, someday when my ship comes in: between specialty baking pans, siphons of every size and shape, and a suite of funnels so large they could drain Wakulla Springs, I’ll need a second kitchen!
Posted on this day, other years:
- Election Day for MPOW - 2006
- The Book Project FAQ - 2005
The next little bit of brewing gear I’ve been thinking about is a Erlenmeyer flask (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlenmeyer_flask) for making yeast starters. The fact it can help make me relive my childhood dreams of growing up to be a mad scientist is also a plus.
(I also really need to get some gear to help control temperature during the brewing process, but that’s a little more of an investiment.)
Well, Rhode Island *is* an island too– it’s the big island in the southeast portion of the state which includes Newport and a few other towns. It’s also known as Aquidneck Island, but the island is what’s referred to in the state’s full name, “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”.
It’s not exactly a link (as per your post), but it’s free to librarians everywhere. Our local library asked me to put together a New Moon party for the upcoming release of the New Moon movie (Twilight series by Stepehenie Meyer) in November 2009, and I posted my party planner on my website at http://passinglovenotes.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/were-having-a-new-moon-party-how-should-we-celebrate-new-moons-arrival-in-theaters/
You’re welcome to mention this in one of your posts. I’d like to share my New Moon party planner with librarians all over the worldwide web.