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The golden age of the coffeehouse workday
Telecommuting via laptop and wireless Internet is a relatively new phenomenon. There is, however, a long history of people – especially writers – working from a favorite coffee shop or cafe rather than an office. Today we tend to associate the phenomenon with the Paris of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, or the coffeehouses of Vienna at the turn of the 20th Century. The poet Peter Altenberg was even known to have mail delivered to his favorite hangout.In many ways, however, the golden age of the coffeehouse workday is now, as any barista can attest.
(via utnereader)1 (via The Atlantic)2
NOTES:
1) Utne Reader, accessed May 16, 2011, https://utnereader.tumblr.com/post/4781366430 (page no longer available, Tumblr account deactivated)
2) Conor Friedersdorf, “Working Best at Coffee Shops,” April 15, 2011, The Atlantic, accessed May 16, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/working-best-at-coffee-shops/237372/
The anatomy of a 500-word blog post
- Compelling Title.
- Lead Paragraph.
- Relevant Image.
- Personal Experience.
- Main Body.
- Discussion Question.
(via Michael Hyatt)1
NOTES:
1) Michael Hyatt, “Anatomy of an Effective Blog Post,” January 31, 2011, Full Focus, accessed May 12, 2011, https://fullfocus.co/anatomy-of-an-effective-blog-post/
‘5 Quick Songwriting Tips’
I was asked recently to write ‘5 Quick Songwriting Tips’ for an American Airlines promotion that is using my music. The tips didn’t end up getting used, but I had fun writing them, so I thought I’d post (a slightly extended version of) them here! I hope you enjoy. 1. Immerse yourself in the…
Be authentic
Take note on these lessons from Wieden+Kennedy’s Executive Creative Director, John C Jay:
via SwissMiss
Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.
Work harder than anyone else and…
Photojojo!: 10 Lessons for Young Designers (and Photographers!)
#tea
In Those Days, Randall Jarrell
In those days—they were long ago—
The snow was cold, the night was black.
I licked from my cracked lips
A snowflake, as I looked back
Through branches, the last uneasy snow.
Your shadow, there in the light, was still.
In a little the light went out.
I went on, stumbling—till at last the hill
Hid the house. And, yawning,
In bed in my room, alone,
I would look out: over the quilted
Rooftops, the clear stars shone.
How poor and miserable we were,
How seldom together!
And yet after so long one thinks:
In those days everything was better.
View of Asheville from the Roof Garden
The sun is setting. The full moon is rising. The room is set up for tonight’s poetry reading and jazz show. The dark mocha stout cupcakes with…
“A bookstore’s experiment with microdistribution”
The “Recommended” section at the Boulder Book Store, an independent bookseller in Colorado, features a mix of titles and genres. And also: a mix of distribution models. Among the traditionally published works on display stand a smattering of print-on-demand titles — many of them being sold on consignment by authors from the Boulder area.
Quote: “Astonishment is the root of philosophy.”
~ Paul Tillich, The Writer’s Almanac
“Good ideas rarely come in bunches”
Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.
Writers mistakes
To ruminate, or to tweet, that is the question
“For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection,” said… author Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.
(via Tweet this: Rapid-fire media may confuse your moral compass) (hat tip: monkeytypist and azspot)
This seems to contradict the premise of the best-selling book, Blink. The article continues:
The study raises questions about the emotional cost… of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds or social networks such as Twitter.
My take away: maybe it is best to marinate and ruminate than to tweet.
10 Ways to Save Money
10. Get better at re-using your stuff
9. Cut your food costs
8. Dress and look sharp with less cash
7. Start working for yourself (crazy as it sounds)
6. Cut the cable and get your TV free
5. Trim your cell phone costs
4. Invest in your career
3. Trick yourself into spending less, saving more
2. Get serious about Craigslist
1. Reduce your bills by simply asking
from lifehacker:
Top 10 Ways to Save Money in a Recession
(via wyliefisher)
A lot of good links, but it might cause you to use your old bean to read and digest the discussion.
Good grief! If newspapers stop printing, what will I use to wrap all the Christmas gifts?
Is the “broken windows theory” of social behavior correct?
Jason Kottke, “Does the broken windows theory hold online?” Dec 1, 2008, kottke.org, accessed Apr 29, 2026, https://kottke.org/08/12/does-the-broken-windows-theory-hold-online
“The average church in America has less than a 15% retention rate of first-time visitors. If I owned a pizza parlor and more than 85% of the people who ate there once decided to never come back, I would think a mailer might just kill the business.”
You’re kidding, right? Magazine ad sales increase?
Ad pages in the monthly magazines’ January through September issues had fallen 7.4% from 2007, according to Media Industry Newsletter. The first nine months of 2007, by comparison, slipped only 1% from 2006. Before that, we’d seen a few years of gains.
Okay, so maybe it is not all bad.
The Economist… presented a crisp example of excellence in editorial, ad sales, circulation and marketing. Women’s Health continued its ascent…. Every Day With Rachael Ray even reversed the newsstand decline of first-half 2007.
Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?
A transatlantic debate is currently raging about whether a decade of staring at computer screens, sending emails and text messages, and having our research needs serviced instantly by Google and Wikipedia, has taken a terrible toll on our attention, until our brains have been reconfigurated and can no longer adjust the tempo of our mental word-processing to let us read a book all the way through.
NOTES:
1) Andrew Cowan, “Books special: Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?,” The Independent, accessed September 18, 2008, https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/features/books-special-can-intelligent-literature-survive-in-the-digital-age-926545.html
Of course, if you’re reading this on tumblr, you are probably already perverting the language.
“Blogs shouldn’t be work”
As newspapers, including mine, have begun to take a nosedive, the powers that be have decided that blogs must pay. The numbers (hits) are watched incessantly, and increasing them has become the criterion for survival, not just of the blog itself, but of the writer behind it. In a real sense, the blog has become an albatross, or a target painted on my chest. If I didn’t have one, no one would be looking at those blog numbers – they’d be looking at other numbers, true, but there’d be no pressure on the blog. There’s the rub: a blog with pressure becomes work, and blogs shouldn’t be work.
—Timothy Mangan1
NOTES:
1) Richard Chang, Paul Hodgins and Timothy Mangan, “To Blog or Not to Blog,” May 25, 2008, ARTSJOURNAL weblog, accessed June 5, 2008, https://www.artsjournal.com/npac/2008/05/to-blog-or-not-to-blog.html
Coffeehouse Junkie 