Second Chance for Great Blog Posts

Recently, I announced a new feature here -- a regular post highlighting other bloggers' posts that were either overlooked (didn't get the hits the blogger expected) or a piece of writing that one wanted to bring to the attention of new readers. To do this, I asked readers to recommend posts from their blogs. The only rule is that it be submitted by the blogger, and that it have been posted previously on his or her own blog. There are no restrictions regarding content, subject matter, length, or when first posted. I will do this monthly, with deadline for submission by Saturday night of the first weekend of the month. That is, the first Saturday of the month that isn't the 1st day of the month. Trivia fact of the day: This is called Lasagna Weekend in my household. Sit down with the comfort food of your choice, a cup of tea, or some warm cocoa and enjoy reading the following links: three excellent and very different posts from three interesting bloggers. Not only should you read each of these posts, but you also should consider making each of these blogs frequent stops on your travels around the blogosphere.


Charlotte of Charlotte's Web submitted her post from February, 2007, titled In Which I Gate-Crash History. Charlotte writes movingly of the first day of Parliament of the new South African government. In submitting this post, Charlotte commented: The reason I like it is the comparison between the formal, disinterested prince and the warm, informal South African style. Also, the vision of me in purple suit and gold brogues running around Cape Town like some sweaty underperforming superhero. How can you pass up clicking on a link like that?

Smithereens writes about how some books, while difficult to read, are well worth the trouble, in the post Jaan Kross, Treading Air. Smithereens commented: I feel kind of sorry for the Estonian book I reviewed this week. I know Estonia is a small country most people can't locate on a map, and Estonian books are not the thing you're most likely to find at your local mega-bookstore, but I thought the book was well worth reading...

Dorothy of the blog Of Books and Bicycles write about her first experiences reading the novel Don Quixote and how books that may have been written after Cervantes wrote his masterpiece have influenced her reading of the work. Dorothy writes: I'm fond of this post because it expresses my love of books that talk about books, something that Don Quixote does so very well. Reading and Writing in Don Quixote can be found here.

Submissions for next month's featured posts should be sent to the email address on the sidebar no later than January 5th.

What's your best blog post?

Do you have a favorite blog post you'd like highlighted, maybe one that you'd like others to read or re-read? Just a quick reminder that I'll be posting links to some great blog posts this weekend (see details here). If you'd like to be included, please send me an email by Saturday. I've extended my deadline by a day. I'll post on Sunday evening.

Your post can be funny or serious, long or short, a review of a book or movie, or just a slice of life story. I don't have a timeframe requirement for when you published the post, just that it be something posted on your blog in the past, recent or otherwise.

Please send to an cam jong AT yahoo DOT com.

I already have a couple great posts to feature. Can't wait to read what else you send me!

Wednesday: Words and Winter

I read recently that the collective noun for Ravens was an unkindness of ravens. "Before or after Hitchcock made that movie?", I thought.

This led me to a search engine to confirm. While I can't find a definitive origin (I'm sure it's out there, but I didn't look extensively), I did find that there are numerous collective nouns for birds.

How about a murder of crows? Or a siege of bitterns? Others include:

-a wake of buzzards
-a cast of falcons
-a confusion of guinea fowl
-a kettle of hawks (Dinner, anyone?)
-a parliament of owls
-a congress of eagles
-an exultation of skylarks

I thought a A Unkindness of Ravens, A Murder of Crows might make a good title for a mystery. I don't read mysteries, but I wasn't surprised when I queried Amazon that I found results. Ruth Rendell wrote a book called An Unkindness of Ravens; Cuba Gooding starred in a movie in 2000 called A Murder of Crows. More on collective nouns for birds can be found here.

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Winter is still a few weeks away, but we had our first snowfall overnight. I love the first snow of the year: new, fresh, bright, the whiteness of it all. I like celebrating the cycles of the seasons and snow, rather than ice or cold, is the sign of winter to me. I like to be reminded of it, but I would be happy if winter only lasted a few days and then we could get on with it. Snow that melts after a few hours is the best kind. Today's was like that, at least on the roadways. I had to grab my camera to capture the snow before it melted away:

The thick wet snow coating the limbs of the trees:






The last few green leaves on the undergrowth, struggling against the elements:




Chimneys seem purposeful. I like the monochromaticism of this picture, all whites and grey. A plume of smoke would have been perfect!




The abandoned, seasonal bench on the front porch, where it isn't too welcoming at this time of year:




The beauty of a single leaf upon the new snow:

Early Reviews

LibraryThing (What? You don't know about LT? Go here!) has an Early Reviewer program where LT members can opt into a lottery for ARC's. I just received an email indicating that I snagged another one: The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block. It's a debut novel and it sounds interesting from the description of it on the LT web page:

..."[t]hree narratives intertwine to create a story that is by turns funny, smart, introspective, and revelatory....Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers a dazzling illumination of the hard-learned truth that only through the loss of what we consider precious can we understand the value of what remains.

I'm looking forward to this and hope I get my copy before my next business trip. An interesting novel is always good to take on a long plane ride, especially in winter when delays are possible.

I'm struck by this in the author's bio on the publisher's (Random House) web page: ...was born in 1982. I expect that he is an awesome writer if he has a first novel published at age 25. I won't hold it against him that I have shoes older than that. A bit humbling, actually, considering that it sometimes takes me an hour or more to write a simple blog post, and the various short stories & other writing ideas I have seem to develop at a glacial speed. To be clear: that's the speed glaciers have moved over the past centuries, not the speed that global climate change is causing them to melt.

Fractal Patterns

A few days ago I posted about patterns and mentioned the designs at Alhambra among others. The next day my spouse told me about a video he watched at the TED site. This is cool. Video is about 15 minutes. Professor Ron Eglash, discussing fractals in African village design:



I am fascinated by this idea of mathematical patterns having a spiritual aspect. Wish I understood more about it.

From the Amazon web site:

Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, practical craft, quantitative technologies, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. His book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and computer simulations.

African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Designs, Ron Eglash, Rutgers Univ Press, 1999.

This book is now on my wishlist.

If you aren't familiar with TED, go here. Pretty amazing stuff! This is one of those sites I can't click to at work. Not that it isn't safe; it isn't conducive to getting the stuff done I need to do. I could spend hours listening to these lectures. And they add more all the time. I'll never catch up!


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My 3 beautiful things today:

Mathematics

Finding my forgotten Wine Notebook which reminded me I've bought some pretty great vino in the past. Fermented grapes are a wonderful thing.

Spending the afternoon "watching" football with husband. Translation: he watched; I napped. A wonderful lazy afternoon.

2 New Things and 3 Beautiful Things (or maybe that's 3 new things....)

Thing One:

One of the things I noticed about NaBloPoMo (yes, I'm still dissecting the experience, but stick with me here for a moment...) is that, while my overall blog traffic was increased for the month, on a daily basis, the number of repeat visitors was down. One reason for this may be that those who were doing NaBloPoMo (or the truly dedicated & hardy writers doing NaNoWriMo) were busy posting, and may not have been reading as many blogs as normal. I had less time to read since I was trying to post everyday. Was that your experience too?

During this time, I did the Blogging Roundtable (which was a great experience for me because 4 interesting bloggers participated). One of the items mentioned was a schedule for reading blogs some days and writing on others. Another point discussed was how one's best writing sometimes doesn't get the number of hits one would expect. Sometimes you can't predict when readers will land on your site; sometimes it isn't because of the writing. So, here is a new thing I would like to do on this blog:

I want to periodically feature posts that the blogger considers a great post. This isn't my evaluation that a post is great -- it is your evaluation that a particular post is great. I'll post a brief descriptive summary of the post & a link to your blog. This is like a blogging carnival, except there is not a common subject to the posts. The only qualification is that it be a post that you'd like to be highlighted for others to read, something that you consider worthy of a wee bit more attention than it may have received already.

Here is what you need to do to be included: Send an email to the address on the sidebar (Please don't leave a link in the comments to this post). Any emails sent before midnight (EST) 12/7 will be included in my post on 12/10. If you want to include a brief sentence or two about why you think this is a great piece, please include that in your email. There are no other rules -- your post can be funny or serious, long or short, a review of a book or movie, or just a slice of life story. I don't have a timeframe requirement for when you published the post, just that it be something posted on your blog in the past, recent or otherwise. If there is enough interest, I will do this on a periodic basis (maybe monthly).

Item the next:

I had a lot of fun with the Blogging Round Table Discussion that I did with Imani, Litlove, Smithereens, and Emily. When I came up with the idea, I hadn't thought through how it might work, how long it should be (I asked too many questions!), the logistics of sending comments amongst the participants. Overall, it was a great experience, and I would like to do it again (sometime after the first of the year). But, before I move forward with another one, I'd like feedback from you about what you'd like to see -- should the format be different? was it too long? did posting it over 3 days make it easier to read? Any topics you'd like to recommend for another one?


Third Item:

I love blog serendipity -- that experience of clicking on a link, which leads to clicking through to another site, which leads to an oh my gosh! this is awesome find. New to me -- but obviously not new as I found many sites doing this -- is this site I found yesterday: Three Beautiful Things. I find this fascinating, and so simple -- list three things that you consider beautiful, things that, as the site explains, "...amaze and delight".

Looking for things of beauty isn't always easy, especially when you have experienced a rotten day. But, recognizing the small things that we take for granted is surely an exercise that overtime could change your perspective on things. Isn't it better than bitching all the time about what is wrong? I know I do that far too often. So, here are 3 beautiful things I noticed today:

Removing the leaves from my koi pond was actually relaxing, despite the cold and blowing winds. The leaves drift slowly through the water as I move the net to capture them. The fish, at first startled by the disturbance of the leaf-blanket covering the pond, are curious for a few minutes, then continue on their graceful laps around the pond, swimming down towards the bottom, weaving in and out between the plants. I think I have a glimmer of understanding of zen gardens.

Occasionally long rambling phone calls with relatives who live across the country can be fun, even if you have to discuss unpleasant family things. Being able to chat, understanding each other enough to know when to make a wry joke, share a bit of black humor, is comforting and eases the distress of the things that aren't so much fun.

Apples on the verge of becoming mushy make great applesauce. I discovered today how easy it is to make: cut up some apples, add a little sugar, juice a lemon, sprinkle in ground cloves, and heat over medium flame for about 20 minutes until they liquefy. Stir about every 5 minutes so that you don't have a mess to scrap off the bottom of the pan. Hot applesauce = great comfort food on a blustery winter afternoon.