Round Up

Sad week for everyone: Red Line subway accident in WDC, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and not Michael Jackson all passing.

Now for some light-hearted fare. The essential New England 100 Books. How many have you read?

Did you know that a jiffy is an actual unit of time-1/60th of a second.

How Your Hair can Save the World.

I have been a fan of Paul Hawken for years. Read his commencement address to the 2009 graduating class at the University of Portland.

The Economist magazine's style guide is worth a look-see. Especially the Americanisms section.

The fabulous Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, one of her many great books, has a blog.

Great photos from Life showing Where Obama Eats.

My new fascination: Lovespoons.

I love all of these "without borders" groups-here is a new one for me-Words Without Borders. Here is their blog.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts has a blog, and guess what? They want you to help them to name their blog.

My fascination with associations continues: The American Sleep Apnea Association.

10 of the most famous office buildings in the world. Also, 10 very cool office chairs.

Want to know what Apollo 11 left behind on the moon? The Lunar Legacy Project. I guess it's not bad enough that we pollute this world. Geez!!!!!

In 1997 Mississippi born actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the prom at Charlestown High School in his home state on one condition-the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. He made the offer again in 2008. Until then, the blacks had their own prom and the whites had their own proms even though the classrooms had been integrated for years. The documentary Prom Night in Mississippi tells what ensued.

Author and illustrator Tasha Tudor's idyllic life devolves as her family quarrels over her burial.

Love this Eileen Fisher trench. The color-raisinette.













Have a great weekend. (96 more days until October).

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time." Edith Wharton

Round Up

Love this Rockefeller fan.

Tweetlibrary-books edited to less than 140 words. Some of these are very clever.

Oh how wonderful. There is a David Macaulay exhibit at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Another cool medical museum is the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary.

Who knew? There is a Dr. Pepper museum.

I love these themed road trips.

You will be shocked and dismayed when you see how much sugar is in some of these products-Sugar Stacks.

To mark its centenary curators at the Science Museum in London have chosen 10 iconic inventions and discoveries from their collection that they feel are the most significant.

You must read Paulo Coelho's Convention of Those Wounded in Love. (plus it's just too much fun to turn the pages of a book on the Internet)

A blog about postcards.

Do you remember Robert Kennedy's funeral train?

Many agencies of the federal government are making use of Twitter. Check out GovTwit and the directory to see whose tweets you want to read.

The Library of Congress has made their picks for the 2008 National Recording Registry. There are so many of my favorites. I read A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas every Christmas. Also, great to see Mary Lou Williams, Marian Anderson, The Andrews Sisters and the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker included. And Etta James. I get so annoyed when someone else tries to sing At Last. Yes, Beyonce did a great job singing At Last at one of the Inauguration balls, but I thought it should have been Etta James singing it. You can see the entire registry here.

I have always felt that no matter how much you read you just aren't affected by books in the same way by a book as you were when you were a child. This excellent article gives some insight into this as well as some other great points about literature in general.

The Senate apologizes for slavery and Jim Crow. They can stuff it and apology not accepted.

Look at all of these wonderful uses for card catalogs.

Have a Happy Weekend.


"Novelists, opera singers, even doctors, have in common the unique and marvelous experience of entering into the very skin of another human being." Willa Cather

Round Up

Okay, okay, I know. I said that I wasn't a fan of Twitter. I already had a username and password from a project I was working on, but I never really became passionate about posting. But something has changed. I had a huge epiphany last week. I was sick most of last week, and still have this lingering asthma hack and wheeze, but basically I feel better. Can we blame my newfound love of Twitter on illness, oxygen deprivation, too much Albuterol? Who knows? I just know that I like it now. If you want to read any of my tweets (and really there is nothing too, too exciting) you can at: http://twitter.com/libby1957

The AFI Silver Docs Festival starts this week in Silver Spring, Maryland. If you are a documentary fan then you must try and see some of the many wonderful documentaries that will be shown. I got the schedule a couple of weeks ago and started putting a checkmark by the ones that I must see. I have 26 checked.

The Holocaust Museum has set up a special fund for slain officer Stephen Johns' family.

Some of my must sees: Act of God a doc about people who have been struck by lightening, The Apprentice, a doc about a boy who studies at an international school in a town near the French-Swiss border. He begins an internship on a small farm where he learns real-world experience, Our Forbidden Places is a documentary about a 2004 law established in Morocco to investigate the state-sponsored disappearance of many citizens after the country won indenpendence in 1956. It received 30, 000 applicatinos for reparation. This doc follows four families as they seek the truth about their lost relatives, The Time of Their Lives, a documentary about 3 vibrant women who live in a home for active seniors in North London and Nutkins Last Stand, a short about agressive American brown squirrels that threaten to annihilate Britain's beloved red squirrels.

350.org: International effort to find solutions to the climate crisis. This organizaton wants to raise awareness of the need to decrease carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

Moneygami

Many wonderful uses for my beloved card catalogs.

100 Great Resources for Design Inspiration

Love this stave church, but I think this is my favorite. And this has nothing to do with stave churches, but I found a story about Katherine Hepburn leaving money in her will to a tiny church in Maryland.

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government 2009 report is out.

If you are in need of some cool reading glasses check out Eyebobs.

Cool yearbook giftwrap.

Search Google and Twitter simultaneously-Twootles.

Dead URL

The fabulous TED has First Lady Michelle Obama's speech on Education to some London schoolgirls. Give it a listen, it is well worth the time.

I think most of us already know these 10 obscure Google search tips, but we may have forgotten a few.

NPR took a look back at some of the first space travelers-monkeys.

The Uniform Project-1 Dress, 365 days.

Most frequently looked up words on New York Times.com.

The Anne Frank Museum will display her actual diaries.

That's all. Have a great week.

"Next time your mad, try dancing out your anger."-Sweetpea Tyler

Round Up

The 5th Anniversary Duke Ellington Jazz Festival takes place from June 5-June 15, 2009. Lots of great venues, lots of great musicians.

Came across a note I made to myself about The Badminton Library. When I wrote this note-I have no idea, why-no idea, but it's interesting.

R.I.P Marilyn French

Marilynne Robinson won the prestigious Orange Prize for her novel Home.

Slate has a food issue.

What do designer Louis Vuitton and astronaut Buzz Aldrin have in common? A new ad campaign that's what.

I was taught not to use the serial comma, but I love that it is a bone of contention for folks. Here's what Grammar Girl has to say about it.

Science fiction-I have been known to watch some science fiction, but read the genre-absolutely not. However, I love the Art of Penguin Science Fiction site. In fact, I just love Penguin.

The United States government has a YouTube channel. Links to many government organizations.

Was the Star Spangled Banner a drinking song? Good Grief-it's hard enough to sing sober.

If you like moose, (how can you not?) visit Mooseworld.

The British Library is mapping sounds. The Archival Sound Recording site has a very cool feature. The sounds are mapped on Google maps and the viewer can click on a section of the map and here sounds-human accents and sounds from nature that are found in that area. I was going to say they are indigenous to that area, but they might not be, or are they? Okay, I'm thinking about this too much. Here is the Accents and Dialects map.

If you have a camera and some type of bench why not join the Flickr pool-Bench Monday.

Character Constructions has some wonderful, unusual stamps.

100 Awesome Blogs by some of the world's smartest people.

Museopen is a community-driven, online repository of classical music.

Science author Hannah Holmes has a wonderful blog entry on mockingbirds.

10 Jobs You Didn't Hear About on Career Day

Have a great weekend.

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office." Robert Frost