Two bloggers I read have new books out. Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi has published a 24-page chapbook of her chaplain poems, chaplainbook, under the new Laupe House imprint. And Fred First of Fragments from Floyd has published Slow Road Home: A Blue Ridge Book of Days with his Goose Creek Press imprint. Congratulations to both authors! I take inspiration not only from their well-crafted words, but also from their example. Self-published, cooperatively published and print-on-demand books seem like a natural extension of the blogging ethos.
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Speaking of natural extensions, I’ve just adapted Smorgasblog to fit my sidebar – scroll down past the Archives. The sidebar template had no problem with the HTML; it was a simple copy-and-paste job, sparing me the trouble of actually learning the language the blog template is written in (PHP), at least for now.
Links added since my last Smorgasblog update include: Numenius of Feathers of Hope on Vandana Shiva; Dick Jones on friendships between bloggers; Rachel Barenblatt on coming to terms with Jewish concepts of “purity” and “impurity”; Jarrett Walker on Jane Jacobs; a Nigerian commenter at the cassandra pages on Wole Soyinka; Patry Francis on equanimity; and Rexroth’s Daughter on being crabby. Check it out!
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When I first started blogging, I found all the bloglists to be an amazing resource, a network of potential new friends. Comments too. And these kind of notices about the achievements by these friends. Now you have extended this connection even farther with Smorgasblog. Blogging at its best – it still blows me away!
Yes, I’m continually surprised by what I can encounter on the Internet. Sometimes it’s old friends suddenly putting on a month-long display of virtuosity; other times, it’s someone I’ve just discovered and can’t believe I’ve never clicked on before. I’m probably not as adventuresome in my online reading as many people, but that’s precisely because I like to try and keep up with the blogs I’m reading now rather than continuing to cast about for new ones. But it’s good to do both, if one can. One reason I started Smorgasblog was to make my online reading more focused – now it’s like a treasure hunt!
Thank you for the kind words! I don’t know Fred’s work, but look forward to learning about it.
I’m expecting my copy of Fred’s book in today’s mail. I’m eager to dig into it, and I hope to make a post or two about it on my humble blog eventually as well.
Rachel – my pleasure.
pablo – Welcome! If you do review Fred’s book, please let me know.