Durham is growing its own crop of local businesses — not just local artists and boutique eateries, but also a love of handmade crafts and the pleasure of both making and admiring objects that, as William Morris might say, are both useful and beautiful. The Horse & Buggy Press, a local letterpress, has some wonderful …
Category Archives: Oddments
Remembering Harvey Pekar on his birthday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tlPt0y2WaLk#! Hat tip to Southern Folklife Collection’s Facebook feed
Panhandlers
On my old blog, I devoted a long post to thinking about moral and ethical responses to panhandling. One economist suggested only giving money to those who are not asking for money; a playwright suggests giving when you feel charitable and holding back when you don’t. I was reminded of that old post by this Yahoo …
Having fun with Wikipedia
Wikipedia has become such a daily part of my online life (like email — remember life before email? Anyone?), that it’s both startling and a little thrilling to find outré articles or even stray sentences and paragraphs that make me do a double-take and read them again to make sure I read them right. There’s something …
How I rate songs in iTunes
I never fiddled with iTunes before I bought my iPod 5G in 2010 as my birthday present to myself. I found — and still find — iTunes to be both useful and maddening. Kirk McElhearn’s Take Control of iTunes ebook is a great resource for the music fan who just wants to get things done …
“Asylum of the Daleks”
Oh dear, my carefully crafted image as a man of the book and too clever by half will now fall to the ground when I talk about “Doctor Who” fanboyishness. Ah well — let the egg roll, as they say. I don’t ride motorcycles or jump out of airplanes, I just document my little life …
Moffat, Davies, and the New Who
Ross Ruediger had a rather sour take on season 6 of Doctor Who. He had problems with Matt Smith‘s puppydog energy and showrunner Steven Moffat‘s “celebration of the clever” in dialogue and plotting the season-long story arc, which culminated in the solution to the mysteries of how the Doctor “died” and his connection to River Song. …
The Old Adventures of Superman
Apart from Stevereads and the Ihnatko Alamanac have to say on the matter, I have paid no attention to the DC Comics reboot of its entire line of superhero comics. So when I see references to it in the mainstream press, I pay a little more attention. The latest news is that Superman and Wonder Woman are …
Pop Songs are Sad Songs
Science proves that pop songs have indeed become more sad and more emotionally ambiguous.
Kindle Touch screensavers
The Kindle Touch (non-ad supported) comes with 20 attractive gray-scale screensaver/wallpaper images. They’re fine, but after a while, I wanted to see some different images. One of the reasons I got the ad-free Touch was so that I wouldn’t be assaulted with an ad every time I picked up my Kindle to read something. I returned …
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