A Sad Literary Trifecta

As I emerged from my week o' congestion and fever, I learned that we lost three major literary talents.

Admittedly, I had not read a lot of Studs Terkel. In school it was far safer to stick with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet than it was to deal with 20th century fiction. His work was about regular people too (often Shakespeare is lauded for creating realistic and enduring portraits of both 'high and low born' in his work), only we saw their blemishes as well as their beauty. They were people we knew and even talked about more than the important and the powerful. Scrappy and knowledgeable, this renaissance man was not just and author, but a radio host, a star of his own tv show and an activist. I knew more about Studs Terkel as a colorful figure that did interviews on shows like '60 Minutes' and talked about the nebulous old days. Perhaps when I am not reading about the latest upgrade of Adobe's Creative Suite, I'll pick up one of his books and read it and enjoy.


Michael Crichton's death was a surprise to me and apparently everyone who was not close to him. Much like a character on a show called 'ER,' he waged a private war with cancer that he unfortunately lost. He wrote books that were interesting to say the least and that showed a certain range. I must admit that I was not as big of a fan of the Jurassic Park books, not because they were not good, but because I believe that there is a gene on the Y chromosome that makes a person love all things 'dinosaur'. As a female, I don't get a Y chromosome and therefore am unable to appreciate dinosaur things on that level. I learned about 6 years into its run that Michael Crichton was the creator of and the executive producer of the long running medical drama 'ER.' It took a bit to reconcile that the guy who was responsible for 'Jurassic Park,' was also the guy responsible for a show where viewers tuned in to see if Dr. Doug Ross and Nurse Carol Hathaway were finally going to get married. I remember being told that 'ER' was based on Crichton's years as an intern and a resident. The earlier episodes do feel like a window upon those worlds, with its outlining of process amid the MTV-esque jump cuts as the unfortunate citizens of Chicago wheel in and out of the ER. I noted with a grim irony that it was fitting that this was the last season of 'ER' since its creator has now passed on.

John Leonard's passing was both unexpected and the one that I felt the most, in so far as one could feel about someone who was not family. I knew of him primarily through CBS's 'Sunday Morning,' a news magazine that profiles topics at a slower pace for those who have the time for more than the highlights. Leonard's reviews of books, tv shows and movies were knowledgeable and acerbic. The fact that my mother enjoyed him definitely had high stock value with me since media critics were not people she paid attention to. Since I had been busy of late, I had not missed Leonard's reviews as much as I might have, but I remembered thinking at times that something was missing from the show and I could not put a finger on it. I learned today that John Leonard left the show to also do battle with cancer-in his case lung cancer. While I enjoy the observations of Nancy Giles and David Edelstein, I will deeply miss the witty skewering and the alliterative praises of one John Leonard.

Three men gone. Two who would have liked more time and one who was ready to go. All who when their time came could look back and say that they did all right.

Crazy Writing festival called November

So it's November 1st and time for me to participate in both the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I am more than prepared to participate. I was please in terms of NaNoWriMo last year, because I hit 36,000 words out of 50, 000. I do want to come out this year with a manuascript to submit this year. I am going to write on the other aforementioned projects (the Angry Gondals, Gollumdas Monogatari, et. al), but my focus will be the reloaded Blanche and Rose.So it will be interesting to see me write and them post about writing daily.

NaNoWriMo:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

NaBloPoMo:
http://nablopomo.ning.com/


My Blogs:
http://moreexplore.blogspot.com/
http://ladydayelle.livejournal.com/
http://nablopomo.ning.com/profile/KITLAT

Blogs I follow

A blog that I have followed for a long time is 'How I am Becoming an Astronaut.' It is the blog of Damaris Sarria's work at NASA and her preparation to meet her ultimate goal of being an astronaut. The juxtaposition of both storylines are interesting. Damaris is an engaging writer, who supplements this with cool photos of rockets and shuttles.

Her blog is important to be sure because the reality is that we don't hear often enough about women engineers who blog even though they are out there.

Her latest post documents her attendace at the NASA 50th Anniversary celebration where she gets a photo with the always awesome Gene Cernan, last man to walk on the moon.

Bare-Tweetin'

Almost a week since I've been introduced to the virtues of Twitter and I am addicted. I am 'tweeting' and well, reading and 'tweeting.'

I am now playing with Twitter Search and hashtags (#):
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23ftt

More from the BlogHer Reach Out Tour

Well I am in Breakout Session #2, which has to deal with Social Media and Business. Currently we are going through panel introductions. Focus is currently on using Twitter, which admittedly I have not really used a whole lot.
Now we have moved to marketing and blogging, which again has come up as a topic. I am not terribly surprised, but can't help but be surprised to hear that mommy bloggers are growing exponentially.
As I mentioned to my blogger meetup, this isn't just a conference for women, can come too and there are some here. I have not spoken to them yet, but who knows?

BlogHer Reach Out Boston

Well, I am here in Burlington at the first BlogHer Reach Out event in Boston (really Burlington, which is its own town and not really near Boston.). I got here a little late-I have no car and had to depend on public transportation (in this case, #350 Burlington-Alewife station in Cambridge). Not bad generally, but weekend is not good. I am currently in one of the Breakout sessions concerning those who are new to blogging. I am not exactly new, but sometimes it is good to hear what advice is given to newbies, even if you know a little bit more. Things change and that is how you learn about something that you may have missed. There are many live bloggers here who are blogging for BlogHer. These posts will be found at their website. Not mine as an official one though since I had not signed up to do this time. Next time though.... Topics in this session ranged from how to get started, how do you go to the next level from personal hobby to professional posting to monetization (which seems to be the big topic). As a meetup organizer, I get lots of questions about monetization, which is a topic I am weak in admittedly. I was pleased when one of the audience members said simply that in her experience if you just want to get advertisers, "just ask." More later...

Sarah Palin, motherhood and Alaskan women

[Below is an exchange that I entered into regarding an article about Sarah Palin on Facebook.]

They Raise Children, Pray and Support Palin - NYTimes.com
Source: www.nytimes.com
Gov. Sarah Palin has a following of Alaska women as dedicated to her as others were to a very different politician, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"These are women who dip in and out of the work force, believe in prayer and spend their days trying to keep the crayon off the walls. They feel they have been looked down on by Clinton feminists and ignored by the power structure in the Republican Party. The fact that Ms. Palin has five children, including Trig, a newborn with Down syndrome, only makes her that much more part of the sisterhood.“I’m not that into politics,” said Delores Field, an Alaska Inupiat from Eagle River, near Anchorage, who does not consider herself a Democrat or a Republican.

“I’m just going to vote for Trig Van Palin’s mom.”

Add a comment1 comment


Tara at 10:11am Sep 5
"I’m not that into politics; I’m just going to vote for Trig Van Palin’s mom."Oh god. What a great reason to cast your vote...

Kitlat at 1:33pm Sep 5

It actually is a valid reason. We vote for who we think can represent and do the most for us. Some people vote for the President that you feel you can have a beer with vs. the other guy who knew the job better than anyone, but had a hard time connecting with people and inspiring them until he did a little film called "An Inconvenient Truth."

Kitlat at 1:34pm Sep 5

Some people vote for the little Midwestern haberdasher who was never rich or privileged, who had experienced more failure than success, who was left in the dark by the predecessor who overshadowed him and didn't think much of him, but who was around to cleanup the end of a long war and who believed in something as unfashionable as giving everyone a "fair deal" and having the buck stop with him-qualities that those voters felt represented their idea of what America is supposed to be. People follow, endorse and vote for people that they feel connect wth them, whether it is a connection based on being one of them, understanding their needs or because they represent an ideal they connect with.

Kitlat at 1:35pm Sep 5

Policy is important. Issues are important, but they mean little if the people that they affect feel that you will not represent their interests because you cannot connect with them, cannot understand them-again, as a certain VP learned during his campaign for president and during his subsequent campaign against global warming.

Kitlat at 1:35pm Sep 5

I respect a lot about Sarah Palin's background-I don't agree with many of her positions and many of the decisions she made on behalf of Alaska and I will not vote for the ticket in November, but I connect with many things in her experience-including mothers who dip in and out of the work force and try to keep crayons off the walls and food on the table and who find enjoyment in soaps and may occasionally play the lottery and who have to balance childcare and work-especially without the help of a partner. I also feel there is some truth to the idea that some of the women who fit the profile of a Clinton feminist do look down upon such women and belittle them and well, women's groups and other groups have paid for it at the ballot box ever since