Monthly Archives: February 2008

Happy Leap Day

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frog jump1

frog jump1, originally uploaded by itslikethis999.

In the official Blog365 guidelines — the "rules" for the challenge of blogging every day in 2008 — we are not supposed to blog today. This is a leap year, and this 366th day is a day of rest.

We’re also not supposed to blog about not blogging.

Obviously I’ve chosen to disregard this rule. I have been enjoying writing something every day, even if it’s short on length and depth. So: My apologies to the Blog365 members. I mean no harm or offense. It’s just that I like to write.

Let me use this post to follow up on issues raised in other posts this month:

I am no longer quite so concerned about Punxatawney Phil retaining his lead in accuracy of Spring/Winter forecasts. I would much prefer for this winter to end right now. Two more weeks of this will not do.

How am I doing with my plan to exercise 40 minutes a day for 40 days? Terribly. I think I’ve managed about 3 days of exercise all month. I’ve come to terms with this.

Cathy Day’s reading from her book "Comeback Season was rescheduled due to snow. She’ll be reading on Friday, March 21 at 7pm instead. Even if Punxy Phil was right about the winter weather, we should be clear of the white stuff by then.

Today, I placed a special order for creme de violette with the PLCB. I don’t know when the stuff will arrive, but I’ll post about the whole process then. I’m so looking forward to having a new cocktail too!

My niece continues to be adorable, and my photo of her and me wearing bowls on our heads continues to be highly ranked in Google when you search for pretty hats (at least for now). I gave a short talk about search-engine-friendly blogging at Refresh Pittsburgh, and I’ll be posting my presentation and some follow up thoughts soon. Sorry for the wait.

Planning for PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 is moving along. Our next meeting will be March 26 at the Creative Treehouse, at 7PM. (Note the later time.)

So far, three people have sent me letters for my handwritten letter project, and one person filled in the form for me to write to her first. It is delightful to receive a piece of mail that is not a catalog, a flyer, or a bill! I’ve written to two of my new penpals, and I owe the other two still. (I’m very sorry for the wait.) And, one of the lovely people whom I replied to has written back to me — a true penpal! This is very fun.

Quite a few people have shown themselves to be excellent six-word memoirists.

The cold or flu or whatever that I caught this week continues to linger. Last night was terrible, with my temperature climbing to 101, but I think I might be doing a bit better today. In any case, I’m soothing my brain with repeated viewings of "Pride and Prejudice," fast-forwarding past the Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennett bits to watch the scenes between Elizabeth and Darcy. You might think this would grow old quickly; ordinarily I would expect this to grow old quickly too, but it’s an indicator of the state of my health that it has not. It is, in fact, perfect.

A side effect of watching this much Jane Austen: My sentence structure and word choice are becoming increasingly florid. Or maybe that’s just my fevered brain at work.

And with that, I must go. A fresh cup of hot tea and Mr. Darcy await.

In six words

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under waterline

under waterline, originally uploaded by Marcus Vegas.

A friend sent around an email:

There is a new book out called 6 Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Some samples are:

Steve Colbert – Well, I thought it was funny.

Elizabeth Gilbert – Me see world! Me write stories!

A.J. Jacobs – Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again.

And the very strange Amy Sedaris – Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched.

I wonder what each of ours would be.

The book is actually titled Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Amazon has a little video with additional examples of six-word memoirs — entertaining.

My first response was that I don’t feel ready to write a memoir yet — so much in process, so much to do, and so little overall clarity to what I’ve done before. So I wrote this memoir:

Not finished. Please wait. Thank you.

Then again, that makes it seem like I’m in stasis when instead I feel like I’m in constant motion. More to the point, I am constantly moving from one thing to the next. So I came up with this:

Ooh, interesting! I’ll try that too.

I’m sticking with that one. (For now….)

What’s your six-word memoir?

I got chills; they’re multiplying

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Jedi

Jedi, originally uploaded by PhillipWest.

Monday night I started to feel a little ill: chills, tiredness, headache. Tuesday I was focused on making it to and through meetings and a presentation at Refresh Pittsburgh, all of which were quite engaging and interesting.

But by Tuesday evening I could tell that all was not well — or more specifically, that I was not well. Despite all the colds and flu viruses and other forms of illness circulating, I’d survived most of the winter largely unscathed. But this could not last.

I’m not too bad off. Vehement coughing, lung congestion, off-and-on headaches, off-and-on fever. Now a little head congestion has kicked in too, to spice things up. Could be worse. In any case, I’m playing it safe, resting a lot and drinking echinecea tea and watching television.

This turns out to be a nice thing, this sitting and resting and not thinking too hard.

I just finished watching "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (not bad, very dated, kind of OK for a slow night if you don’t hate musicals). Now I am embarking on the first of three parts of that BBC version "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth and … well, I don’t know or care who else, they’re a bunch of other people who do a nice job being around Colin Firth. (Oh yeah, that girl who played Sapphie on "Absolutely Fabulous" is the wayward sister.) I’ve seen this production before — more than once — so there are no surprises, only the perfect re-enactment of a drama that ends happily.

I’m sure more than a night or two of downtime wouldn’t work for me. (Amusing turn of phrase, that, isn’t it?) But the occasional cold serves as a reminder that there’s more to life than accomplishing lots of stuff. And, uncomfortable though a cold always is, a nice reminder it can be.

(About the picture: I searched Flickr for a photo of tissues to help depict my current state, and this Jedi popped up. He doesn’t particularly apply to my post, but I thought he was cool.)

Invisible Children Benefit

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I posted some time back about the Invisible Children Tour coming to Pittsburgh in March. Here are details on a benefit event as part of that tour:

Local Organizations, Restaurants, Bands and Artists Team Up for Benefit

On Sunday, March 9, Creative TreeHouse will be hosting an art and music event to benefit Invisible Children, a San Diego-based non-profit organization working in Uganda to encourage the peace process and to educate and rehabilitate former child soldiers.

Doors will open at 6pm for art, food and live music from DJ OCTEEL. Talks by the Invisible Children Roadies and a screening of their Sunday documentary will begin at 7pm. To end the evening, local Pittsburgh musicians The Jim Dandies, Kellee Maize, and Lohio will perform. The cover charge is $10 and for a suggested $10 minimum donation attendees can purchase artwork, prints, or handmade goods from local artists and Invisible Children collaborators.

The evening will also include informational displays from the Univ. of Pitt branch of the Student Global AIDS Project and other local humanity groups. This event is sponsored by Creative TreeHouse, Your Mom’s Indie Department Store, the ONE Campaign, Giant Eagle, Flavorville Cafe, Nakturnal and more to come.

For more information about this event, a full list of artist participating, and other Invisible Children events in Pittsburgh, please go to www.creativetreehousepgh.com/IC or contact Jesse Hambley at info@CreativeTreeHousePgh.com. To learn more about Invisible Children, please visit www.invisiblechildren.com.

Creative TreeHouse is located on the second floor of 517 Lincoln Ave, Bellevue PA 15202. Creative TreeHouse LLC was founded by Jesse Hambley, and operated by a group of volunteers including Jason & Val Head, Mick Rose, Bill Dunlop, Josh & Rachel Sager, Jason Mosley, John Bodnar, and many more.

Contact: Jesse Hambley
Creative TreeHouse
517 Lincoln Ave., 2nd floor
Bellevue, PA 15202
724-910-9947
info@CreativeTreeHousePgh.com
http://www.myspace.com/CreativeTreeHouse
www.CreativeTreeHousePgh.com

Snow? What snow? Pittsburgh BlogFest 13 wrap-up

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Pittsburgh BlogFest 13 sign-in sheet

Pittsburgh BlogFest 13 sign-in sheet, originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey.

It was the luckiest 13 I’ve ever seen.

Last Friday’s Pittsburgh BlogFest was perhaps the best one we’ve had yet. Despite the snow and slippy conditions, lots and lots of fabulous, fascinating people showed up. The sign-in sheet, which you see above, gives you a sense of it, but I can think of at least a dozen others who didn’t sign in.

The point is that there were bunches of us, and we mingled and talked and laughed and were completely amazing. I think the last of us left around 11:30, and I for one would have been happy to hang around longer.

Ordinarily I make an image map of the sign-in sheet with links to everyone’s sites. This time I’m trying something new: I posted the sheet to Flickr, added notes for the signatures, and put the list of links there. Click the photo to see this wonder of technology in action, and to add your own notes and comments. If you missed signing in at the event, please add a comment to the Flickr photo or to this post, with a link and a promise to be more attentive next time.

Oh! And if you took photos or shot video, or if you wrote a wrap-up post, tag it with "pghbloggers" so we can find it.

Thanks to everyone who showed up! I’m already looking forward to our next BlogFest; it will probably be in May, that merry merry month.

All must have prizes

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The curtain over the screen at the Cooledge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

Last year, 2007, was a great year for film. I believed that all year, and I looked forward to a bunch of opening weekends. There’s something fun about seeing a movie in a theater, on a big screen, among a crowd of people who also are absorbed in the story and the vision. 

I saw very few of the films I’d looked forward to. Of the movies nominated for Academy Awards this year, I saw only four in a theater: The Bourne Ultimatum, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Ratatouille.

Two of these movies were sequels to films I’d really loved, and the other two were made by filmmakers I deeply admire (Tim Burton and Brad Bird/Pixar). And two of them starred Johnny Depp. So it was effectively impossible for me to miss seeing those — it was like the films themselves dragged me to my seat.

Here’s the list of movies I’d looked forward to seeing but missed: No Country for Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, The Golden Compass, Michael Clayton, The Kite Runner, La Vie en Rose, The Assassination of Jesse James, and I’m Not There. And now that they’re out and I’ve read reviews, there are several more I wish I’d seen too. 

I don’t have a lot of respect for the Academy Awards, or any awards program. All of us know there are behind-the scenes forces that determine who wins what each year. And some years the available films are significant, so that it’s a shame to choose one over another. But I acknowledge that I’m swayed when I see that such-and-such film or performance won an Oscar or was nominated to win.

But one of the very good things about the Academy Awards is that movies that are nominated and movies that win get a second life in the theaters. So now there’s another chance for me (and for you) to see at least a few of these films on a big, big screen.

(Photo comes from the website of the Cooledge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA.)

The barman sketch

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I’ve been a longtime fan of Hugh Laurie. He’s such a wonderfully charming fool in Jeeves and Wooster, and he’s brilliantly nasty in House.

This weekend I’ve been watching episodes of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, a sketch comedy show he and Stephen Fry did on the BBC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It follows a bit in the footsteps of Monty Python but adds several twists, including musical numbers (mostly by Laurie).

The clip above highlights Fry and Laurie’s impeccable timing.

Pittsburgh BlogFest 13 tonight!

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IMGP1168

IMGP1168, originally uploaded by ToriaURU.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays Pittsburgh Bloggers from their joyful gathering on this appointed eve.

BlogFest 13 starts tonight at 5:30 and continues until 9:30 or so. We’ll be at Finnegan’s Wake (near PNC Park, 20 General Robinson St., North Shore, 412-325-2601, map link here), in the Pub Room — that’s the glassed-off room next to the main bar. More details can be found in my earlier post.

Yeah, we know there are forecasts of wintry mix through today. We say that all this moisture coming up out of the Gulf will push off to the east and hit Altoona.

See you there!

Small triumphs

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Night Snow

Night Snow, originally uploaded by Eamon33.

Tonight: I successfully rallied from a tapped-out, low-pulse afternoon (after an intense, thought-packed morning), and found the energy to babysit an almost-two-year-old for the evening, keeping her entertained but gradually transitioning her to sleep mode — and changing her poopy diaper. Then I worked on an important, overdue proposal, sat to chat with my sister and catch up on weeks of activity. Next I hopped in my car and successfully navigated it, sled-like in snow though it is, across icy roads through the wintery night to my home, in time to post this tiny slice of life before midnight.

Life is grand.

Get your kicks

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Teepee motel on Route 66

Teepee motel on Route 66, originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey.

Back in 1999, when I’d just left my job in Virginia and had moved back to Pennsylvania, I took a vacation in the desert. My brother and I flew into New Mexico and rented a car, then drove around staying at campgrounds and motels, taking in the big sky and crazy terrain.

We drove on interstates for much of the trip, so I could get to California in time for a conference — the ostensible rationale for the trip. But we did hop off at a few points to get our kicks on Route 66, that unique American experience.

We came across this teepee motel in Arizona. Each of the teepees holds a single room. You can see in the windows; the insides look very 1950s, and they reminded me of the interior of a motor home. To the left of this shot is the main building of the motel, which is just a standard roadside motel and has a couple of extra rooms.

No one was staying in the teepees as far as we could tell. The finned cars outside seemed to be there for atmosphere.

If you’re a fan of Route 66 and the history of the American highway, the Silver Eye Center for Photography on Pittsburgh’s South Side is holding an event tomorrow (Thursday, 2/21) that you should know about:

Your Pix from Route 66
Thursday, February 21, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Admission is free.

Join us to share and discuss your photographs. Bring pictures of Route 66, the Lincoln Highway or other projects you’re working on right now. Prints or images on CD are welcome. Free admission. Reservations recommended. For reservations call Sylvia Ehler at 412-431-1810, ext. 11.

This is part of the Sliver Eye’s "In Search Of America" series. Visit the Silver Eye website for more information.