Category: general

For those who are familiar with my work, is there a poem I wrote that you would like me to read at Friday’s poetry reading at Malaprop’s? Email me at coffeehousejunkie@gmail.com to make a request and I’ll dedicate the poem(s) to you during the reading: http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=433391

putting together my reading set list for Friday’s reading: http://ping.fm/BXSD4

nikography:

so, i work at a company that makes videos. that means lots of props. since it’s much easier to just make something like a giant fake ticket with custom text than edit/composite it in later, there’s lots of fun stuff to be made.

in the world of digital art/graphic-making, this is totally dying. why make something to photograph when you can just composite the image from assets on the screen?

because it never. looks. as. good. (seriously!)

examples that will always fail: why hand draw type when you can just pick a handwriting font? why write on a box when i can just draw on the box with my tablet? why take a certain photograph when i can just digitally change his/her hair color and possibly move that arm over somewhere else…

answers: because the handwritten effect is lost when every duplicate letter looks exactly the same. because it will always look like you just drew on a box with your tablet and skewed it (and no layer blending property can achieve the correct texture). because the photo will always be just slightly off.

so, if you want to make some text out of yarn or whatever. don’t go looking for a photoshop brush, just friggin’ do it. on your desk, on a big white piece of paper. your results will thank you.

somethingchanged:

Cool

• Taking party photos and printing them for your friends instead of blogging them.
• Reading cookbooks like novels and not necessarily cooking the recipes.
• Introducing two real life friends you know will love each other.
• If you see a solo tourist trying to take their own photo in front of a landmark, stopping and taking it for them.

Fool

• Flashmobs put on by commercial enterprises or organisations.
• Stories about Twitter in newspapers.
• People who say “I’m sorry I haven’t posted on Twitter/my blog for so long I’ve been soooo busy.”
• Marketing and online strategy blogs that are completely removed from the real people who make up the internet.

This episode features an essay titled “The Hunger.” Listen to episode 14 here: http://ping.fm/GnC9W

join me on Jan. 22, Fri., 7pm, i’ll read new & selected poems: http://ping.fm/YQ1GD

five or so years ago i would post something on my blog almost every day. now i type 400 or so words almost every day & then delete them…

just returned from a very production meeting @starbucks & now processing notes gtd style

should not start my morning by reading articles about online marketing & social media stats. coffee & pancakes first. priorities, man…

i really need to quit tumblr… this is becoming a highly addictive behavior….

beattitude:  i currently have 44 books checked out and 20 on hold. guilt, check. anticipation, check. time to read these books? um. theconceptlibrarian: magicmolly:

Engaging with the New York Public Library taps into all sorts of unexpected economic anxieties and pleasures.

Ordering books online to be delivered to your local branch brings a feeling of great wealth. For example, figuring out how to nab brand-new books with minimal wait time is akin to having an endless credit line at Barnes & Noble, while picking up a stack of freshly-delivered oversized art books and rare scholarship is like winning access to an antiquarian’s private collection.

The feeling warps when you go home and log into your NYPL account to tally up the damage. This is when you see that you have 13 books checked out, and several are due within the week, and two of these cannot be renewed because someone else has ordered them. With this discovery comes a troubling sense of indebtedness.

There are two ways to respond: ignore the debt (while fighting back a tide of guilt) or quickly pile up all half-read or non-essential books and run back to the library to return them. Dumping an armload of books lightens the psychic load and provides a measure of relief when you check your account to see that this time you owe only 9 books, and these all have a solid two weeks before they begin to accrue fines.

Oddly enough, the logical extension of this method (returning all of your books at once and immediately) does not bring about feelings of relief, but rather feelings of poverty. With no books checked out, it becomes clear that you have nothing to lose but also nothing to gain.

A good balance is to have six books out and at least twelve books on hold, so that a sense of satiety (the six books) is matched with a sense of anticipation (the twelve books on hold) which combines to overshadow the lingering sense of debt embodied in your six homebound library books.

Q.E.D., I think.

fluffynotes: Hot tip: The “acquisitions editor” whose name you found in Writer’s Market doesn’t exist. She ain’t real. Think you’re coming off professional by addressing your submission to the proper editor—the editor you’ve never corresponded with, spoken to, or even found mention of on google? Put down your crack pipe: there’s no such donkey as “Ethel Largetits, Acquisitions Editor” (or “Barry Bigschlong” or “Annette Sexton”). Publishers frequently make up a fake “acquisitions editor” so they can tell which submissions are solicited or come from informed sources and which are coming from people who’ve found them in Writer’s Market. When a manuscript comes in addressed to Ms. Largetits, it’s an instant tip-off that whoever sent it is not in the know. Bing! Into the slush pile, where your intrepid unpaid intern (aka “Ethel Largetits”) will skim it, send you a signed rejection letter (“sincerely, Ethel Largetits”), and forget you exist. http://internspills.blogspot.com/2009/04/attention-would-be-authors-this-is.html