Today’s Google doodle animation in honor of Maurice Sendak is very fun! If the animation doesn’t move for you, try Google Chrome or Firefox. For more information, visit Slate.
Archive for the ‘Smile a While’ Category
Google animates Sendak
Monday, June 10th, 2013‘Something … waiting to be discovered’
Thursday, May 30th, 2013
“To enter Olivia’s home was to experience a quirky smorgasbord for the eyes. In every corner, on every shelf, and behind every door, something offbeat was waiting to be discovered. A person could spend days wandering through the rooms and still not see everything.”
– from “Looking for Me” by Beth Hoffman
Baby knows best
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
How cute is this? A baby practices CPR on a dummy. (Click on photo.)
Hidden rooms
Monday, May 6th, 2013
From Gizmodo: Did you know there are hidden rooms at the offices of Google?
Happy Easter!
Friday, March 29th, 2013
Happy Easter — Read a book!
Happy Spring, Day 1!
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
Happy first day of spring!
Being dead doesn’t keep them off Twitter
Monday, March 18th, 2013
From HuffPo: Dead authors still active on social media
Wrath Grapes?
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013From Book Riot: If Strunk and White (Elements of Style) titled some famous novels
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
Here’s some pretty wallpaper for your computer.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
‘Go be it.’
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
On her Facebook page, Dani Smith wrote an inspirational message:
Decide what to be and go be it.
My reply:
OK. Here’s the thing. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be about 74 different things, and that was OK with everybody. But when I said I wanted to be a writer, the adults were all over me: “Oh, you can’t do that.” “Nobody’s really a writer.” “Writers don’t make any money.” “Girls aren’t writers. Girls are mommies.” “What do you know that you could possibly write about?” “Oh, honey, Marilyn’s good enough to be a writer, but I don’t know about you.” “A writer? What do you want to do that for? No, you should be a teacher.” I didn’t want to be a teacher. Damn adults. But being a writer, like being an actor, is one of the only jobs where you can pretend to be the person who does the 74 different things. You can jump out of planes without jumping out of planes. You can navigate the Seven Seas without getting wet. And you can get revenge on the adults.
MORE: Dani very nicely provided the link to the clever video of the Avett Brothers’ song, “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise.” Thanks, Dani!
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
Here’s to a great new year of reading!
Oops!
Wednesday, December 26th, 2012From Poynter: The Best and Worst Media Corrections of 2012
And from The Atlantic: The Best (Worst?) Typos, Mistakes and Correrctions (sic) of 2012
And while we’re at it, from Poynter: Some Mistakes Are a Matter of Life and Death
Merry Christmas
Tuesday, December 25th, 2012
Merry Christmas!
Don’t spike the egg nog!
Monday, December 24th, 2012
Be on the lookout for a jolly man who likes cookies and hot chocolate. But if you leave him some egg nog, don’t spike it — he has a long night ahead of him.
Mayans: ‘World ends today’
Friday, December 21st, 2012
Snow joke
Friday, December 21st, 2012
Don’t worry: I know it only just started snowing,
but we may get a white Christmas after all!
Season’s Greetings
Thursday, December 20th, 2012
Season’s Greetings.
(Click on picture for an animated greeting.)
World’s wackiest job listing?
Monday, December 17th, 2012From the Los Angeles Times, via Publishers Weekly:
The Dalkey Archive Press posted an ad in its employment section. Here are the basic qualifications:
“The Press is looking for promising candidates with an appropriate background who: have already demonstrated a strong interest in literary publishing; are very well read in literature in general and Dalkey Archive books in particular; are highly motivated and ambitious; are determined to have a career in publishing and will sacrifice to make that career happen; are willing to start off at a low-level salary and work their way upwards; possess multi-dimensional skills that will be applied to work at the Press; look forward to undergoing a rigorous and challenging probationary period either as an intern or employee; want to work at Dalkey Archive Press doing whatever is required of them to make the Press succeed; do not have any other commitments (personal or professional) that will interfere with their work at the Press (family obligations, writing, involvement with other organizations, degrees to be finished, holidays to be taken, weddings to attend in Rio, etc.); know how to act and behave in a professional office environment with high standards of performance; and who have a commitment to excellence that can be demonstrated on a day-to-day basis. DO NOT APPLY IF ALL OF THE ABOVE DOES NOT DESCRIBE YOU.”
But wait — there’s more! Click through.
Merry Christmas message
Friday, December 14th, 2012
Click on the photo for a video Christmas message.
Christmas at my house
Thursday, December 13th, 2012Well, I finally got the tree up.
It was a lot of trouble, but I think it’s worth it.
Don’t you just love the smell of pine?
Merry (Mary) Christmas
Happy bluebirds
Wednesday, December 12th, 2012
This is here just because I love bluebirds. Happy December!
Weird Christmas
Friday, December 7th, 2012
From Publishers Weekly: 15 weird Christmas books
‘Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer.’
Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
From Publishers Weekly: The 13 worst reviews of classic books
140-character fiction
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012From The Guardian: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character fiction (for Twitter)
Sample, from James Meek:
He said he was leaving her. “But I love you,” she said. “I know,” he said. “Thanks. It’s what gave me the strength to love somebody else.”
Five rules
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012From a recent e-mail:
Five Rules to Remember in Life
1. Forgive your enemy but remember the bastard’s name.
2. Money can’t buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.
3. Help someone when they are in trouble and they will remember you when they’re in trouble again.
4. Many people are alive today only because it’s illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problems. But then again, neither does milk.
These should assist you with most daily decision choices.
Time for a smile: Trash or treasure
Friday, September 28th, 2012
.
A collector of rare books ran into an acquaintance who told him he had just thrown away an old Bible that he had found in a dusty old box. He happened to mention that Guten-somebody-or-other had printed it.
“Not Gutenberg?” gasped the collector.
“Yes, that was it!”
“You idiot! You’ve thrown away one of the first books ever printed. A copy recently sold at auction for half a million dollars!”
“Oh, I don’t think this book would have been worth anything close to that much,” replied the man. “It was scribbled all over in the margins by some guy named Martin Luther.”
Snow White
Monday, September 17th, 2012
From The Guardian: Quiz — How well do you know Snow White?
The wandering womb? Hysterical females?
Friday, August 24th, 2012
From Lynn Parramore at Alternet: Seven of the Craziest Myths About Female Biology of All Time (This is a MUST READ for women — and so funny, too!)
Bulwer-Lytton strikes again
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012
Here are the winners of the 2012 Bulwer-Lytton Contest for best (worst) opening line. (Click for complete entries.)
… by its cover
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012
From Babble.com: What happens when a six-year-old judges a book by its cover?