William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well and other wonderful how-to books, tells international students at Columbia University: “As you start your journey…, you may tell yourself that you’re doing ‘communications,’ or ‘new media,’ or ‘digital media’ or some other fashionable new form. But ultimately you’re in the storytelling business.”
William Zinsser, Writing English as a Second Language, The American Scholar, Winter 2010.
Singing is something that I do alone in the car with favorite CDs, preferably on a long freeway drive where no one can see or hear me. On rare occasions, I sing as part of the congregation in religious services, too many of them funerals in the last few years.
When the baritone sang a solo during a time of reflection at my father’s funeral, I remember thinking, Singing is what we do when we don’t have words for what we feel.
I joined a community chorus this month after many years away and took a chair in among the sopranos. Here’s the repertoire for the concert on Tuesday, March 16, some with video links to taped performances:
My father-in-law, retired choral director Ralph R. Prime, says this is an excellent selection, and he knows his stuff.
All we have to do now is sing it right.
Julian Smith’s Techno Jeep video is a fun way to spend or perhaps waste a couple of minutes today. Is this what people in the high-tech industry call “aligning the synergies“? Maybe so.
Need a little money to get a new project off the ground? Some people are turning to crowd-funding site Kickstarter.com for help.
“Kickstarter has hosted the pitches of more than 1,000 creative projects across the country, from that of a group of artists looking to create a roving biofuel bus/garden to that of an independent record label trying to stay afloat.”
Christine Lagorio, Kickstarter Pairs Creative Projects with Donors, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 10, 2009.
This song by Joan Armatrading has been running through my mind since yesterday: I’m Lucky. Don’t look too closely at the lyrics, but the sense of joy and contentment the song carries is mine as well.
This week, I received what lawyers call a “workforce reduction notification.” Getting downsized or RIF’d or laid off is not usually a recipe for joy, but in this case, it is giving me time to reassess my life and direction, thanks to my employer’s generosity.
I’m lucky because of many things:
This job introduced me to a number of talented people who accepted me as their peer and helped me to do some of my best work. I discovered that teamwork is more than a vague concept cooked up by industrial psychologists to get worker bees all buzzing in the same direction. At its best, it is the cohesiveness of people working toward a common goal, pushing here and giving there, until the team comes to the desired result. Even better is when the team arrives at a result that surpasses what the group expected.
My college degree and the sense of accomplishment it gave me long ago put me in the league of people who have options for their work life, who can see any exit door as an entrance to a wider world. My thanks to every California resident whose taxes paid for that higher education and to the legislators who made the Cal Grant A and the Pell Grant, and thus college, available to families like mine.
My health is good. When you’ve got your health, …
Life at home is a haven of peace and joy. OK, it’s not all hearts and flowers, but in general, there is a sense of harmony here that makes much else possible. “Marriage is a long conversation,” wrote novelist Henry James, and I still love to take part in this one.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
A recent issue of Organic Gardening says that you can visit the Pollinator Partnership to learn what plants to add to your garden (U.S. only) to attract beneficial insects and other animals for pollination.
A search by zip code for my urban Northern California garden turned up a regional guide (in PDF format) that is written for the California coastal chaparral forest and shrub province along the Southern California coast. That seems a stretch, but perhaps planting the suggested flora will help restore the chaparral forest over time. If my garden begins a shift southward, I will give up the project entirely.
Free Advice to Attract Pollinators, Organic Gardening, late summer 2009, p. 48.
Researchers at my alma mater, San Francisco State University, are looking for ordinary individuals to help in their project to count bees in cities: the Great Sunflower Project.
This project is a first step in helping to determine what effect urban bees have on pollination.
According to the Great Sunflower Project web site: “We do not know much about how healthy bee populations are maintained in an urban environment. Because natural habitats are uncommon in urban landscapes, they may not provide enough resources to support viable pollinator communities. However, if other habitats, such as urban gardens and restored areas, are sufficiently connected to natural habitat, then native populations may thrive.”
You can register with the group to receive a form on which you can collect data about local bees. If you live in the United States or Canada, you can also get free Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds to plant in your garden to attract bees.
Learn more about the Great Sunflower Project.
If you’re wondering why we should care about bees, you may not have heard about what’s being called colony collapse disorder, a recent dying off of bees that are used in U.S. agricultural production.
Three students at the University of California, Berkeley, created internshipIN.com in fall 2008 to help college students find valuable internships in the United States.
Students Arielle Patrice Scott, Jessica Mah, and Andy Su built the site to help startup companies connect with a pool of talented students who are looking for opportunities to take their classroom learning to the workplace.
Log in to build a student profile or to recruit student interns.
University of California, Berkeley, Promise of Berkeley, Winter 2009 issue, p. 11.
This video of people dancing and just being happy always makes me smile. Videomaker Matt Harding used to work on creating video games.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently published the quiz “Where Do You Fit?”: “Do you cringe when your cell phone rings? Do you suffer from withdrawal when you can’t check your Blackberry?” Try it out.
