Round Up

Archives Next has announced the 2009 Best Archives of the Web Awards. I love the whimsical Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century site.

Every year the Library of Congress and the Center for the Book holds a Letter from Literature contest. The contest is open to students in grades 4th through 12th. To enter the contest each contestant must write a letter to an author, living or dead, explaining how that author's work has influenced the contestant's life. Here is a list of the 2009 winners. Read some of these heartfelt letters. You will laugh and you will cry, and you will be utterly charmed by these letters. Here is a list of the state winners.

Turn your fridge into a food diary.

I really like the items at NOUN, especially these barkcloth wristlets. Love, love barkcloth. I also like the statue of St. Theresa. I have had a long fascination with the saints and especially these chalkware statues. My favorite is still the Infant of Prague though.

The Thousand Watch Project is a statement about the death of the pocket watch and wrist watch because of the advent of cell phones and other technology. They are trying to collect a thousand watches and the watch images are on the online gallery. The site also tells you how you can contribute your own watch.

The Most Expensive Journal has just that-the most expensive items in various categories.

I am trying to find someone to teach me how to punch needle. It's a form of embroidery(?), something like rug hooking-I think. That's how I found out that the Embroiderer's Guild of America has a blog. I haven't found anyone yet, so I may have to teach myself. Generally, I can teach myself how to do things, but with something like this, I tend to need someone to show me how to do it and then I can take it from there.

Pickup and Go! is a newsletter written by an American of African descent couple about America's great outdoors in general, and specifically about America's national parks. I found out about the newsletter in some freebie that I picked up at Whole Foods. One of the things the article indicated was that this couple started this newsletter because they are avid backpackers and campers and they saw that they seldom saw minorities when they were traveling and enjoying the great outdoors. They started organizing trips with inner-city youth and showing the beauty and affordability of our glorious national parks.

My parents took my brother and I on many vacations. Now that I think about it, for people of modest means, they did a miraculous job of exposing us to as much as they possibly could. One thing we always commented on was how when we were traveling we never saw many other Americans of African descent (black folks like us). Part of the problem then, as now, is plain economics. Unfortunately minorites are still not making the salaries that whites are. Remember they have to hire us, but they don't have to promote us. Promotions are how you get ahead, how you save, and how you plan for a retirement. I could go on and on about this, especially since I am living this, but really, check out the newsletter. Sorry for the digression.

The Architect of the Capitol is responsible to the U.S. Congress for the maintenance, development and preservation of the United States Capitol complex. The current Acting Architect of the Capitol is Stephen Ayers.

WOW!!! Look at all of the blogs and podcasts. that Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has.

Top 11 live webcams according to the ever wonderful Mental Floss magazine.

As I have indicated before I have very eclectic tastes, and no more so than in musics. My friends use to think I was off my gourd with some of the music I enjoy, but hey, I like what I like. When I was on the treadmill at the gym the other day they played one of my favorites, La Grange by ZZ Top. I will leave you with that and the hopes for a good week and a very nice Memorial Day weekend.




"Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom. "-Marcus Garvey