Happy Holidays... all of them

Blogger Lit or Meet the Urbloggers

What Bloggers Owe Montaigne

November 12, 2010 | by Sarah Bakewell

The weekend newspapers are full of them. Our computer screens are full of them. They go by different names—columns, opinion pieces, diaries, blogs—but personal essays are alive and well in the twenty-first century. They flourish just as they did in James Thurber’s and E. B. White’s twentieth-century New York, or in the nineteenth-century London of William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. There seems no end to the appeal of the essayist’s basic idea: that you can write spontaneously and ramblingly about yourself and your interests, and that the world will love you for it.

No end—but there was a beginning. The essay tradition blossomed in English-speaking countries only after being invented by a sixteenth-century Frenchman, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. His contemporary, the English writer Francis Bacon, also used the title Essays, but his were well-organized intellectual inquiries. While Bacon was assembling his thoughts neatly, the self-avowedly lazy nobleman and winegrower Montaigne was letting his run riot on the other side of the Channel. In his Essais (“Attempts”), published in 1580 and later expanded into larger editions, he wrote as if he were chatting to his readers: just two friends, whiling away an afternoon in conversation.

via theparisreview.org

Without hesitation or combing through the classics (maybe later), I nominate Montaigne, essays published in 1580, as likeliest candidate for 'first among urbloggers.' Montaigne's invention, the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, is the made-for-blogging genre, just as aphorisms are for tweeting.

Fast forwarding to the Enlightenment, salons and London Coffee House culture, writers there would have taken to blogging like second nature and put us all to shame.

Posted via email from Meanderings

Local Writers: an invitation to collaborate

Yet another project for local writers, Tim Burton's Cadvre Exquis, reposted from Mashable ~ Tim Burton tells crowd-sourced tale via Twitter. 

So what is a cadavre equis? Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident , believed to unveil the working of the unconscious mind, was a collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) based on an old parlor game. Each player would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

How apropos for Twitter! Write it in 140 characters, minus #BurtonStory hashtag, tweet to pass it on.  A tidy transposition of Lautréamont's classic verbal collage to a cyber collective level

Ever had the burning desire to collaborate with Tim Burton? Well, now you can, as the director/producer/artist/writer has taken to Twitter to create a crowd-sourced tale to promote an upcoming museum showing of his work.

The Twitter project is titled "Tim Burton's Cadavre Exquis," which translates to "exquisite corpse." An exquisite corpse is a game adored by the Surrealists in which a group of people add phrases to a slip of paper in turn to create story. Images can also be used to create eclectic beasts.

That's pretty much how Burton's Twitter experiment functions. Burton has started off the game with a sentence detailing the adventures of "Stainboy," and is asking people contribute a line to the story with the hashtag "#BurtonStory." The best tweets of the day are chosen to continue the story, which will run from today until December 6.

This experiment is meant to coincide with an exhibit of Burton's work that will be opening in Toronto on November 26 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. The exhibit previously opened in New York City at MoMA, where it drew the third-highest attendance of any exhibition in the museum's history.

Extolling the Benefits of Local Holiday Shopping

Photo: Wellington

Mountainair may not be the South Carolina of the story below but does share similar needs and concerns. The basic equations and elements are the same: jobs, gross revenue tax maintain public services and facilities, dollars back into the community. If anything, "shop local" is even more crucial here ~ but also more problematic.

We have heard time and time again about the importance of shopping locally but with theholiday season just around the corner it becomes more important than ever. But dollar for dollar what does choosing a local retailer mean for your community? When push comes to shove, it's a lot more than wasting fossil fuels on goods flown in. Local shopping puts dollars into your community and keeps the stores that make your community unique in business.

This year my Columbia, S.C. community is making a big push toward shopping locally this holiday season. And in a town where each week I watch a local store go bankrupt due to a difficult economy and huge retail competition, this is a long time coming.

According to an article in The State,

BuySC.org, a website from the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce, lets consumers search for local retailers by county or category. Listings for businesses are free but can be upgraded for a fee.

And shopping at smaller retailers benefits your community more than you may know. When you spend $100 at a local store, $45 of those dollars stay in your community but when you spend $100 at a multinational store only $13 of those dollars stay in your economy. And what's more, if you want local choice, you have to support these stores or they won't last. While up front your costs may be a bit more, supporting your local economy means more jobs, more choice, and the opportunity to support the ideals that you find important with your dollars.

Parnick Jennings, co-founder of the Bartow Business Connection, detailed the sobering facts of local patronage.

If we don't [shop locally], come the first of the year some of our friends are not going to be in business -- I fear that. Last year, there were several that because they did not generate enough business during the holidays, which is the major time they make their money, they won't be here.

via treehugger.com

 

Posted via email from Mountainair NM

What Can You Do in Twenty-Five Words?

Now that Mountainair and environs has a growing writers group, The Manzano Mountain Scribes (meeting 10am today at Alpine Alley), I may eventually have to decide where to blog them: Poets and Writers Picnic or Mountainair Arts. Until then I am cross-posting to both blogs and upping writing related posts on Arts (as in Arts and Letters). Before there was a plog, poetry and writing related posts were regular features on Mountainair Arts. Decamping 100% to plog may not have been such a good idea and misleading to boot, implying a dearth of local interest in matters lettered.

---

What Can You Do in Twenty-Five Words? via 3quarksdaily by Abbas Raza on 11/7/10

Ian Crouch in The New Yorker:

A hinting story, Swartwood explains, should do in twenty-five words what it could do in twenty-five hundred, that is, it "should be complete by standing by itself as its own little world." And, like all good fiction, it should tell a story while gesturing toward all the unknowable spaces outside the text.

The book is divided into three sections: "life & death," "love & hate," and "this & that." Several stories too fully embrace the gimmick, becoming tiny O. Henry tales complete with tidy setups and kickers. Something about the space constraints make the stories go for too much, rejecting intimacy for some trumped up idea of scale. The best, however, share an off-beat and generally macabre sensibility. Here are two good examples:

"Blind Date," by Max Barry.

She walks in and heads turn. I'm stunned. This is my setup? She looks sixteen. Course, it's hard to tell, through the scope.

"Houston, We Have a Problem," by J. Matthew Zoss.

I'm sorry, but there's not enough air in here for everyone. I'll tell them you were a hero.

Violence is a lingering theme, often conveyed with a power that lasts long after the short time it takes to read these tales. Take "Cull," By L. R. Bonehill, a compressed post-apocalyptic snapshot:

There had been rumors from the North for months. None of us believed it, until one night we started to kill our children too.

More here.

Local Writers: Manzano Mountain Scribes

Local interest in writing is on a roll these days. Not only is November NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but the recently writing group recently formed by local writers Ben Steinlage and Dixie Boyle is taking shape ~ name, regular meeting schedule, program, plans to expand online ~ and growing. The Manzano Mountain Scribes hold their second official meeting 10 am this morning at Alpine Alley ~ third counting the initial October 12 meeting to organize. Dixie Boyle will talk on "Starting the Writing Process" and give out writing exercises to help writers get started writing.

Dixie Boyle, Joan Page, Judy Biggars, Karen Staats, Ben Steinlage, Sandi Steinlage (Temporary Secretary) attended the November 9th meeting at Ancient Cities. Writer-members Judy Biggars, Joan Page, Karen Staats and Ben Steinlage introduced themselves, briefly describing their writing interests and current projects. The group decided on a name, “The Manzano Mountain Scribes.” Ben Steinlage gave a short lecture on how to write a story (get the ideas down on paper, worry about editing later) and a writing exercise.

Ben will send members copies of the Read “Write” Adult Literacy writing contest poster. Karen brought up and talked about Stream of Unconsciousness Writing. The group agreed email minutes and exercises to non attending members and anyone interested in group.

Karen Staats will do a presentation for December 14th meeting.

Virtually, Spain

Left in Europe

From Geocurrents, a special series on the nation, nationalities, and autonomous regions in Spain, including the nation/nationality of Catalonia, the contested regionalism in Andalusia, Leon, and Asturias, the paradoxes of Basque politics, the parallel paths of the Basque County and Scotland, the Basques of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and a look at Spain and the fallacy of the nation-state.

Posted via email from Meanderings

TONIGHT: NM Future of the Internet Townhall

Internet access matters to all of us in Mountainair.  My thanks to Hakim Bellamy for sharing this. Short notice to be sure but please try to attend the town hall meeting. read Commissioner Copps' Op-Ed in Monday's Albuquerque Journal and more information about tonight's townhall ~ Tuesday beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Albuquerque Journal Theater in the National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th Street SW. 

---

Open Internet Needed for All, Monday, November 15, 2010, Op-Ed

Michael J. Copps, Federal Communications Commissioner writes:

          The Internet was born on openness, has flourished on openness and depends on openness to realize its full potential. And its potential is so great. This incredible technology intersects with just about every great challenge confronting our nation — whether it's jobs, education, energy, climate change and the environment, news, international competitiveness, health care or equal opportunity. 
        

There's no solution for any of these challenges that does not have a broadband component to it. We now have a technology with near limitless potential and are just beginning to truly harness its full ability. 

        But online freedom of Americans is at risk. 

Unlikely to go anywhere

11:00AM

Nov 16 2010

Wolfgang Nedobity (Vienna): Casanova and the Italian Taste. The world is lousy with aspiring novelists who will probably never be published; Alix Christie offers insight into what keeps them working. From The Chronicle, apes and monkeys, dogs and cats are being unnecessarily confined, vivisected, and killed while animal advocates are ignored as a lunatic fringe; the cruelty of much animal experimentation cannot be justified on scientific grounds, because it has proved largely unproductive; and letter-writing campaigns may ease consciences, but they won't cure diseases. David Weigel on Pete Peterson's unserious campaign to get America to think seriously about the national debt. Annie Lowrey on why the deficit commission's proposal is unlikely to go anywhere. Moral judgments in social dilemmas: How bad is free riding? Die, Phone Book, Die: After a decade of obsolescence, the local phone directory is finally getting the chop as states wise up to reality. Hope, change, reality: Attorney General Eric Holder entered the Justice Department on a mission to reinvent it — unfortunately, Washington doesn't like an idealist. Year-end best-of lists can make for predictable reading — does anyone not know that Jonathan Franzen wrote the big novel of 2010? Instead, Bookforum asked the authors of our favorites to tell us what they liked reading this year. In the grip of the new monopolists: Do away with Google, break up Facebook? We can't imagine life without them — and that's the problem. Fool's Gold: Why the idea of a gold standard is best relegated to the dustbin of history (and more). Are we hardwired to love taxes? Jonah Lehrer on feeling rich, poor or overtaxed. Why conspiracy theorists think The Simpsons may have predicted 9/11. Police State 2010: A series on American MP's in Kandahar. Bringing the coffin industry back from the dead: How barcodes and touch screens are resuscitating a casket factory.

via bookforum.com

another interesting, semi-themed collection of annotated links from Omnivore, the Book Forum blog, xblogged to flâneuse, arts and places ("nowhere" is a place, isn't it? An "unplace" at the very least.

Posted via email from Meanderings

TODAY: Christmas Art/Crafts Fair

... right here in Mountainair of course, this Saturday, November 13th, at the Dr Saul Community Center. More about it, as promised, albeit later than intended. At least I can use this picture from last year and still be accurate, even timely...

Perennial Fair organizer Joan Page wrote a few days back 

At this point I have over 25 vendors.  I have a few repeats from last year but not as many as hoped for. Many are jewelers, with styles ranging from handmade to Indian silver jewelry with stones.  There is one photographer.  Celeste Simon is bring her clayworks.  JoAnn Dale will be there too, probably with items from her gift shop. She always has quite a variety: pottery, fiber art, dreamcatchers, etc. The Cowbelles will be selling their cutlery.  I'm bringing gift items from Out of Tyme Shoppe, the chocolate fountain and other chocolates.  Rebecca Lueras and a friend are making handmade Christmas ornaments.  Kathleen Clute emailed for a spot, probably music CDs. Christie Riley is selling her clothing line, bling bling jewelry, embellished wallets and other items. She was there last year too in the front. No doubt some vendors will be doubling up. A few others have called or emailed.

Yesterday I saw a flyer advertising the Purse (or maybe Handbag) Sisters and wondered if that  was Christie Riley or someone else. No Dennis and Kristi for the first time in years. Schedule conflict. iCreate will have a table, just guessing that it will be mostly information and a sign up sheet for music sponsorships. Joan Embree did send a nice write up on offerings from the Mountainair Community Garden, sister organization sharing vendor space:

We'll be at the Fair Saturday, trying to raise money for next year's seeds and water by selling products made from this year's green tomato bounty: green tomato jam, green tomato and apple mincemeat (meatless), green tomato pickles, and green tomato chutney. All or some of this might come in handy for holiday recipes and events. The gardeners made the jam and the mincemeat.  Our "friends-of-the-garden" Jan Eshleman and Cindy Hollenberg offered to help us out by turning some of the produce into chutney and pickles

 

We will also have some spice-cake cupcakes made -- along the carrot cake model -- with (what else?) green tomatoes.  We've tried this recipe and it's pretty good.  (We've tried all the recipes and they're all tasty, or we wouldn't have gone to the trouble.)

I'll be there this year, so there might even be a follow-up. 

Free Concert, Mountainair, Friday, Nov 12

... (updating) by the Andé Marimba Band: inspired by traditional mbira music of Zimbabwe, featuring both traditional and contemporary music, African and Western sounds. Mountainair Elementary School gym, 7 pm. 

This excellent (IMNSHO) and link packed post is being republished just to correct the concert date in the subject line. Republishing means that instead of just correcting, I correct the post, save it as draft and publish anew. So, however you get your notices, Facebook, Twitter, rss feed, email notice, social bookmark feed, carrier pigeon... you'll get this one twice, mayhaps thrice as it also bears on community e-networking/communication issues long on my mind. 

 click image to view poster full size

Manzano Mountain Arts Council concerts are made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts.


Andé Marimba video playlist

---

1. ANDE Marimba June 13, 2009 6 min - Jun 18, 2009 - Uploaded by misguided87505 The ANDE Marimba band Performs at the Ewers Residence 6/13/2009 for a summer party in Santa Fe.

   ►

2. Ande Marimba - African Wedding Song Jun 5, 2010 Really cool marimba band at the Santa Fe Farmer's Market on June 5, 2010.

3. The Ande Marimba Band - Nyamaropa Yepasi 6 min - Jan 5, 2010 - Uploaded by AndeMarimba The Andé Marimba Band plays Nyamaropa Yepasi, a song from their 'Fear Not' album.

4. Ande Marimba 3 min - Jul 13, 2010 Original music, David Vigil (Morningstar), artist / musician of Santa Fe, New Mexico

5. Ande Marimba #2 4 min - Jul 13, 2010 Original music, David Vigil (Morningstar), artist / musician of Santa Fe, New Mexico

6. Ande Marimba Band at Santa Fe Farmer's ... 2 min - Jul 23, 2008 - Uploaded by hymiehymie Ande Marimba Band plays near Santa Fe Farmers Market ( New Mexico ) July 19, 2008. Great band!

7. Ande Marimba #3 4 min - Jul 9, 2010 Original music on marimba playing by Ande Marimbain front of studio of David Vigil (Morningstar)

8. Ande Marimba 4 min - Jul 14, 2010 Ande Marimba,Original music by Marimba band in front of Studio of David Vigil (Morningstar), artist / musician

9. Ande Marimba #1 3 min - Jul 9, 2010 Original music of Ande Marimba playing in front of studio of David Vigil (Morningstar)