Random thoughts on a (snowy) Monday Morning...

In the Earbuds: "The Statue Got Me High" by They Might Be Giants
In the Mug: Organic Ethiopian Harrar (Valhalla again... they'll get that website back up eventually; they're currently moving to new digs) A light city, almost cinnamon roast with a rich aroma so thick you can almost cup it. A finish like a yong red wine.

It is 9 March, 2009 and the novel formerly known as Ex Libris is as polished as it's going to get. Time to send it out once more to find new in the inboxes of agents and editors. Sigh... it's the writer's equivalent of an "empty-nest". Time to make a new ki... um... novel. Or get another cat. (Hi mom!)

Fan Wikis I really need to give a shout out to fans with free time. Above I linked to They Might Be Giants' fan wiki (Appropriately called "This Might Be A Wiki". These decentralized fan-cyclopedias are all over the internet. Take a gander at the West Wing, Star Wars, Heroes and Harry Potter wikis. All of them containing content created, edited and maintained on a volunteer basis. In the context of our allegedly waning culture, Yeats is often trotted out re: "Things fall apart: the center cannot hold." It's amazing and more than a little amusing to see the alleged "Sub" cultures shedding their subcatagories and creating new poles to prop up that mythical center. Among the minutia and cataloging of details the world without couldn't care less about, these people are unifying and interacting on the cultural nexes that created these shared experiences. For every tidbit of rabid fandom there is an ongoing discussion of the shared experience itself. A shared understanding that There Is Meaning Here. Or maybe wikis are just the new water coolers.

Ben Franklin's little joke... An hour is child's play! Spring forward and lose two weeks' sleep! Daylight savings time is a topic I come back to at least twice a year. I hate it. With a passion. Apparently, it's probably not even as good for the planet/energy consumption as some of its proponents want you to think. We wake up an hour early once a year and an hour late once a year and (at my latitude) drive to and from work in the dark because someone keeps messing with the clock. I'm more than half convinced that Ben Franklin is watching us from wherever he ended up and saying "Geez, guys I was just kidding. Sheesh!" Once upon a time, DST had the sole salutary aspect that it coincided with the Vernal Equinox. My lost hour of sleep marked the first day of spring. I almost felt virtuous for the hour I had to take in a mug. Thanks to Bush's ill-advised tinkering with the calendar, it's still two weeks until the equinox. And Mother Nature doesn't like getting up early any more than I do. 

There's two inches of snow out there and more falling. Mom wants to go back to bed for two more weeks. So do I. But I have pages to write...

Have a good week everyone.