while walking this morning in the foggy dew… i wonder if norway has mornings like this?
Category: general
While searching for a place to print a family photo album I came across a couple photo book companies. I’ve used both Blurb and Shutterfly and am not particularly fond of either of their… read more »
Publishers typically sign on new projects, do some big-picture editing, then pass the project to the editor, who does the more painstaking work of carrying the project from its detailed editing and design stages to production. The life of an editor and publisher involves more reading than you can fit into a day at the office. We have to keep up with the publishing world, know what people want to buy, work closely and diplomatically with authors, and lug around heavy satchels of manuscripts. People often liken editors and publishers to midwives. The industry is dominated by women who aren’t paid all that well, but who are working in this helping, nurturing role, counselling authors and helping bring their “baby” into the world.
How do you like that emotionally rich, evocative headline? Copyblogger offers 12 other emotive headlines with emotional benefits explained after each headline. The emotional benefit to the above… read more »
I could swim in these lines from “Inland” by Chase Twichell for days:
Above the blond prairies, the sky is all color and water.
It’s as if the poet read the pages of my mind and wrote a poem… read more »
A couple years ago I stumbled upon this graphic on my Tumblr dashboard. Recently, I contacted the designer behind the art and… read more »
Recently, I heard, or read, someone responding to the question of which is more important: growth or innovation. The person responded innovation, because innovation feeds growth and not the other… read more »
Ray Gonzalez’s prose poem “Beginning with Two Lines from Rexroth” begins with the opening line:
I see the unwritten books, the unrecorded experiments, the unpainted pictures, the interrupted…
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Never read one of his novels… but I hear he’s a pretty good novelist.
Mechanical, thoughtless and unengaged: a Facebook story
A writer laments that he has a huge Facebook following, but it doesn’t convert to readers of his book. From AdPulp:
Gregory Levey, communications professor and author of Shut Up, I’m Talking, says, “if my online fans can’t even grasp that the fan page they’ve joined is for a book, I’m not particularly optimistic that they’ll read the book in question – or any books at all, for that matter.”
Ad Age’s Simon Dumenco opines: “Facebook has become such a burden and a time-suck that they’re only able to devote a fraction of their shattered attention spans to it. They’re reacting to friends’ updates and clicking ‘like’ buttons and joining fan pages like Pavlov’s dogs — it’s becoming mechanical, thoughtless. The opposite of ‘engaged.'”
(Link: Yet Another Facebook Story: A Mile Wide But An Inch Deep)
After reading this I may just pull the plug on my Facebook account (though I know, like the Hotel California, Facebook doesn’t really let you leave).
evangelion
noun • 1) a reward for good news. 2) good news. 3) gospel.
From Greek, εὐάγγελος (bringing good news) from εὖ (good) + ἄγγελος (messenger).
If my voice is not reaching you add to it the echo— echo of ancient epics Afzal Ahmed Syed‘s poem “If My Voice Is Not Reaching You” offers such a great opening stanza. A poet can go almost… read more »
The title says it all: Kindle and iPad Books Take Longer to Read than Print:
…reading speeds declined by 6.2% on the iPad and 10.7% on the Kindle compared to print.
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In our obscure life, for instance, how easy it is to turn from the masters falling into the sea. No doubt they were amazing— the whiteness of their legs in the green water!— but it is not an important failure. The living eat a cold peach delicious from the refrigerator or cleanse the…
Brewing a cup of coffee with an infuser A few months ago I began brewing my coffee through a tea infuser. The glass decanter for a coffee press I used had shattered and I was awaiting… read more »
The ritualistic ceremony of brewing coffee is not about speed
A few months ago I began brewing my coffee through a tea infuser. The glass decanter for a coffee press I used had shattered and I was awaiting shipment of a stainless steel coffee press. So I brewed a cup of coffee with an infuser and was amazed by an excellent cup of my favorite bean beverage.
The stainless steel coffee press arrived and I began using it daily. It took me awhile to get used to the taste (coffee tastes slightly different in a steel press). The convenience of putting the coffee grounds in the press, adding hot water, pressing, and (more often than I’d like to admit) hauling the press to the office.
Then a programmable coffee maker arrived and I was giddy at that thought of waking up each morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. After a few days of that I decided to revert back to the slow process of a single cup of infused coffee. The coffee maker added a plastic oily taste that I really didn’t enjoy. The steel coffee press had a slight metallic taste that reminded me of drinking coffee from an enamel metal camp cup (which wasn’t bad, just different). The glass coffee press had the best flavor. But there’s something about the slow, ritualistic ceremony of pouring hot water onto the infuser and watching a light layer of foam appear on the grounds that is very appealing to me.
When I read the following story in the Mountain Xpress, I found a local establishment that caters to me coffee snob tastes. Here’s five comments made in the article:
- Espresso beans are like bananas.
- Coffee shouldn’t be about speed.
- It’s espresso, not EXpresso, people.
- Dark roast does not have more caffeine than lighter roasts.
- “Fair Trade” doesn’t really mean much of anything.
It is not so much that I miss you, Dorothea Grossman
It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.
5 Blogging Tips
Here’s a five step approach to successful blogging list I discovered.
- Decide WHAT the Post Should DO for You
- How Can I Be Helpful?
- The Actual Writing
- Review The Last Few Weeks’ Posts
- Repeat
Here’s a five step approach to successful blogging list I discovered.
Decide WHAT the Post Should DO for You
How Can I Be Helpful?
The Actual Writing
Review The Last Few Weeks’ Posts
Repeat
read more »
In one corner Billy Collins. In the other corner CA Conrad for a dispute over Emily Dickinson’s sexual preference. This should be a great fisticuff battle… except it’s taking place in the… read more »
A good book is like a good conversation with a good friend.
Coffeehouse Junkie 
