River of Play

The Boomtown Cloud

Graphic overview of your book's obsessions? Sure, with Wordle!

I'll try to get a larger image up after a bit. Or you can go over to Wordle and search for Boomtown.

And Now, a Different Flock

A flock of words, that is. For the next, oh, ten days or so Oxford University Press is continuing its celebration of adding back issues of the journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE), the publication of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE, of which I am a member, though in an effort to conserve paper, we don't carry cards). Not only has Oxford UP taken over the distribution of ISLE, they've digitized the backlist, and the entire thing is available for download--for FREE. The journal publishes academic bits, yes, but also literary nonfiction and poetry. Well worth clicking through. I will admit to shamelessly downloading many, many articles. 

So go. I'll be here. Maybe we'll have a brief chat about the quiverfull movement when you get back. 

Online Community

As I get sucked further and further into the vortex called "Facebook," I wonder about the nature of online communities. It's a large topic, sure, but I'm a bit fascinated by the difference between a site based on interests--like Ravelry or BoardGameGeek--and one that pretty much has no excuse for being except that a lot of people showed up there. And one very curious aspect of the Fb experience for me is the list of past friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who have shown up as my circle of friendings expands. That is, I've made some friends on the Geek, or through the Geek, but that list is small. I recognize some personalities, but I go there for information. At Fb, I don't explore very much, but I recognize pretty much everyone in my little circle. I find out more about what they've done since I last saw them, and I've corresponded with some. But I find more--and more interesting--discussions taking place on other sites. Not really much to say, but some open-ended chewing over the difference between the experiences and wondering if either one qualifies as a community, the difference between seeing someone and seeing their avatar.  

The Strangest Places

If you want to hear about how some folk respond to my strange obsession with board games, head over to the Pulp Gamer Podcast Suite, but you really only want to listen to one episode. And toward the end of that. Are board games art? No, I will say, but they are damned interesting.

And I have a piece in the most widely distributed publication in which I am likely to appear: Bookmarks. Sadly, it's a kind of sneaky way to get in. An ad. But it's on the letters to the editor page! Bottom right corner! And it starts:

Vacuuming.
We, too, dislike it.

Look for it on newsstands near you.

Linkety Split

Watch out, y'all, I've gone INTERNATIONAL. And with a hat.

through the fog

I'm still sorting things out. Mostly, I'm reading Paul Kameen's Writing/Teaching. The first half is going swimmingly. Strong on narrative, short of gnomic Theory passages. Since he's a comp/rhet guy, I'm hoping that the second half--while more theoretically driven--will remain readable.

Speaking if readable, I'm also trying to think of categories down the left side there. Friends' blogs. Fun sites. Is it ok to have short blogroll? Not to have poets? Not to have greens? I'm still developing--as a human and so on--but especially as a technofolk. Whatever that might mean.