John and Yoko writing letters, a photo by Linda McCartney (via Meet Me at Mikes).  The light in this photo is just lovely, like a summer morning (or, what a summer morning looks like in DC).

(My) Jon writing letters in a cafe in East Berlin.  I took this photo back in 2007 when we were [...]

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The writing gets 3 stars, the illustrations 5.  I figure splitting the difference is fair.
I picked up Charles Bowden’s “Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez” after hearing him on a recent episode of On the Media.  This is *not* a book about Juarez or drug cartels. This is a long meditation on [...]

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“The Color of Jazz” in Mike Bitzenhofer’s Flickr stream.
Licensed via the Creative Commons.
Like a Girl Saying Yes
Sebastian Matthews
‘like a girl saying yes’
is the way Condon
put it
hearing Bix’s coronet
for the first time
a mellow tone
lofted gently from the bell
of the horn
like a girl saying yes
or as Louis said
followed (no doubt)
by his cackle laugh
“I’m tellin’ you
those pretty notes
went [...]

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Thanks to Flickr user Tara  Bethune-Leamen who found this incredible magazine cover from 1923.  Oh my heavens do I like it.  A bit of internet sleuthing suggests that Success magazine is, in fact, still in print.  There have been several magazines that share the title Success but it looks like the one that is still [...]

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Frank, enveloped in his work,
nevertheless failed to receive his supervisor’s stamp of approval.
– My winning caption in the
British Postal Museum and Archive’s Twitter contest.
I don’t care what The New York Times says, puns are funny.  There are 3 in this one wee little sentence.  My family puns a lot, it’s our favorite form of family [...]

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The folks behind “Meet Me at Mikes,” a craft blog based in Australia, are hosting an interactive window project.  They’re asking for crafty bits and vintage items in an envelope.  At the end of the project, one lucky person will win ALL the stuff that they received in envelopes from all over the world!  Also, [...]

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Remember that present from a week or so back?  Well, I’ve reason to believe it’s reached it’s intended owner and I can now show you the monogram I put together for Sarah– the lovely lady behind Bury Me With My Needles.

I’m back on the monogram thing again– I kept it super simple.  These flat cards [...]

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In Harvest
by Sophie Jewett
Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;
I linger, for the hay is sweet,
New-cut and curing in the sun.
Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,
Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent
When, yesterday, the west wind went
A-rioting through grass and grain.
To-day no least breath stirs the plain;
Only the hot air, quivering, yields
Illusive motion to the fields
Where [...]

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Since last week I posted about the oil spill, something outside the usual scope of this blog, I thought “why not keep the trend going?”  I hope you’ll all take a few minutes to read about the UN Foundation’s GirlUp! campaign.  A few summers ago I (like everyone else in the US) read Three Cups [...]

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Image via TreeHugger

Behold, The Bobble.  It is a water bottle with a built in filter that you can fill over and over again from the tap.  Genius.  Right?  Maybe.  I mean, the US has some of the cleanest drinking water around.  Plus, you’ve still got this filter to deal with.  Of course, in DC the [...]

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