Monday, February 2, 2009

Superior Scribblers Unite!

As mentioned yesterday, Sylvia From Over The Hill recently named me as a Superior Scribbler. Superior Scribbledom comes with rules, and here they are:
  1. Name five other Superior Scribblers to receive this award.
  2. Link to the author and name of the blog that gave you the award.
  3. Display the award on your blog with this LINK which explains the award.
  4. Click on the award at the bottom of the link and add your name to the bottom of the list.
  5. Post the rules.
When you read about the "blogosphere," it's generally in the context of its political impact and the resentment of the MSM that bloggers have greater influence than they do. What you rarely hear about is the blogosphere's effectiveness as a social network. Facebook is easy: By posting a picture and a brief profile, you're inundated almost immediately by past friends and acquaintances. Blogging is different: You command an audience by virtue of what you write about and how well you write. Blogging affords the power of  staying current with old friends and making new ones. 

Since nothing in the rules says I can't do otherwise lest the sun burn out, I'm  naming five people who write about their everyday lives in such a way that they have either deepened our long-time friendship or helped build a new one. In no particular order:
  • Cafe Nita Lou writes especially well about the challenges that come when your child goes away to school and a new life. But she also keeps her perspective and examines the world around her -- starting with her household with a laudable (and humorous) self-deprecation.
  • The Lakewood Daily Snap has become one of my favorite blogs. Often, it's as a simple as a picture (of the sort that isy worth a minimum of a thousand words) with a caption; as the photos and captions accrue, you find yourself a fellow neighbor in this Cleveland suburb.
  • Owing to a mutual appreciation of the film Holiday Inn, Scrumpy's Baker was my first blog connection and I believe that I left the first comment ever on her blog. A fine writer with a pointed wit, she pulls you in to the quotidian dilemmas of career, marriage, relatives, and staying fit in such a way that anyone can identify with her and cheer her on.
  • Over at Robert Frost's Banjo, Robert Hayes writes eclectically about music, cookng, and poetry. He's a Superior Scribbler because of his Thoreauvian accounts of life in rural Idaho after years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Like Blake, he sees the world in a grain of sand.
  • The demise of a local chain store inspired Red Apple Elegy, which has become a sort of layman's guide to urban design as seen through the malls, parking lots, and produce stands of the Newport Hills area of the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Entries like this prove her point that "if you find something ugly you're just not looking closely enough..."

To keep track of conservative-in-moderate's clothing Dave Reichert, put the Reichert Report on your blog roll. Reichert is apparently so embarrassed by his vote against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that it gets no mention on his official web site...

The United Countries of Baseball (click to enlarge):


4804 Dauphine Street, Holy Cross neighborhood, New Orleans...

Carnival parades, Slidell style!...

Bruce Springsteen kicked ass and took names during yesterday's halftime show at the Super Bowl, but it's getting harder and harder to find a good word about his new album. Don;t count the Boss out, though: The one other time he made an artistic misstep (the simultaneous release of Human Touch and Lucky Town), he followed up with one of his best: The masterful Ghost of Tom Joad. For anyone who missed it or wants to see it again, here's the halftime show:



Part 2:

11 comments:

Sylvia K said...

Oh, yes, The Boss was hot yesterday! Wow! I haven't heard his new album, but what I've heard about it hasn't been impressive, but like you said, he's likely to come back with another "kick ass" one. Like what you had to say about blogging, too. My name is in Facebook, more by happenstance than anything else, but I never go there anyway. Hope you're feeling better, you sound better!

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot, K-- I do appreciate it. Thoreau-like...hmmm, have to mull that over. But have appreciated your great support of RFBanjo from day one.

I'm with you 100% on Lakewood Daily Snap-- look forward to checking out your other 3 hoices.

& love the united countries of baseball, even if I'm stuck in the unincorporated territores (while being a long-suffering Giants fan).

Thanks so much.
JH

Scrumpy said...

K - You definitely deserve this award; for somehow your words have made it sound as if I am an actual writer.

Thanks!

RobinB said...

Thanks so much K, for giving a new kid a chance...and congratulations on your award, so richly deserved. Thanks again!

RobinB said...

Also--thanks for letting me see Bruce do the hula with his guitar. I've never seen that move before! What a delight, even tho I missed part 1. Thanks!

K. said...

The hula was a new one on me, too, and I've been going to Bruce Springsteen concerts for nearly 34 years. I've never seen him do the Pete Townshend windmills, either.

K. said...

SB, you're an excellent writer. Premium T. and I have both remarked on that a number of times. Your entry about your father is still one of the best blog entries I've yet read.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

congratulations on the award you are indeed a SUPERIOR SCRIBBLER!!

I never fail to learn something when I come over to citizen k

I guess I only dreamed that I came over here to thank you for bestowing the award on the snap!! sorry for being lax...what can I say. yikes.

thank you very much - it is an honor to be in such esteemed company now the task to pass it on.....

Anonymous said...

Grazie, K! I am truly honored. Sorry it's taken me so long to get over here to acknowledge this accolade. I've been in a flurry of activity at Cafe Nita Lou getting ready for some exciting events happening in the next week.

With sincere gratitude,

NLB

Kathy said...

Congrats on the award. You definitely deserve it.

Re Bruce, maybe karma has something to do with his lousy album - that and the fact that he allowed WalMart to have the exclusive rights to sell it. He's since apologized for that bonehead move.

K. said...

It feels as if I've gotten to know all of you. This blogging thing is pretty cool.