Everyone having a fabulous holiday weekend so far? I hope so. I am. We kicked off the festivities withNicholas, who graciously invited us to his place for Thanksgiving dinner. Six kids and the best stuffing I’ve ever had in my life. No disrespect to my mom (who is awesome), but this was amazing stuffing. And there was tons of it. 15 of us or something and collectively we didn’t even make a dent in this ginormous dish of stuffing. I forgot to take some home, however. This is probably for the best.

My last post on the Amazon Kindle sparked some fun conversation over on my LJ. I’ve calmed down. Not sure what I was thinking, talking about carrying books around like they’re badges of honor. I will admit the appeal and practicality of Kindling in airports, for example. Dan makes an excellent point. And of course Leland had to needle me with the squillion dollar question: “What if it gets kids to read more?” You got me there, chief.

So I amend my crankypants stance. But I will never “curl up” with a Kindle. I may perhaps read a Kindle on a crowded bus or on an airplane. I will never “curl up” in an airport. I’m still cranky. And confidential to Amazon: pay the damn bloggers for the content they provide (and you CHARGE FOR) on your damn device.

There is no excuse for that shit. None. End of.

I had a horrific thought, and it was this: there’s going to come a day when kids aren’t taught how to write by hand. Like, penmanship. Because “they won’t need it any more.” Think it’ll never happen? Yeah, that’s what they said about electronic paper.

We were at the launch party for Dan’s book last week and I got no less than five — five! — comments on this pair of fingerless mitts I wore. Nice, but they’re sloppy as sloppy (the mitts, not the comments), so I’m taking a break from the Christmas knitting (have I mentioned I’ve been Christmas knitting since September? go, me) to make a leaner, meaner pair. They’re lean and mean and purple, but jury’s still out on whether or not I should have went with the mohair-infused Lamb’s Pride Worsted. Mohair all over the place.

I also made another beret. What is up with the berets? I’ve made something like 7 berets. I don’t even wear berets. It’s official: they make me look ridiculous. And yet, I keep making them. The synapses in my head, I’m tellin’ ya.

Last knitting thing: I’m keeping my discretionary income on a tight leash these days, but once I got a gander at the just-released Anticraft book, I could NOT put it back on the shelf. It totally blew the hinges off my expectations. I love their site (though, with all respect, I find the voice of cynicism a little loud and overbearing at times), so I knew it was going to be great. But I want to make just about everything in here, including… the embossing project. Embossing. Are we kidding? And yet there I was, going through the instructions for logistical clues.

Wow, this post is getting long.

We were going to go see Beowulf but got sucked into movies here instead. Never read it? Midori’s got great crib notes over at Endicott.

Like Gwenda, I’ll take the fingers-in-my-ears road when it comes to this Kindle business. But before I do, here are my personal contributions to the righteous indignation; I mean, sound arguments on behalf of paper:

1. I’ve spent the past dozen years of my freakin’ life and thousands of my freakin’ dollars building and maintaining my personal library. From the days of sneaking around with the flashlight and Madeleine after lights out, I knew I had to have books near me at all times. I have built back muscles thanks to hauling three books in my bag because I couldn’t bear to choose which one was coming with me for the 15 free minutes of reading I expected to get on a given day. Not electronic books — earthbound-bookly-spirits books. This wicked hot guy seduced me once with the idea of “Court Street 3000″: a domestic utopia located on Court Street in Brooklyn festooned with the 3000+ books our collected and conjoined libraries would comprise. (Holy alliteration, Batman!)

Yes, I know nobody’s forcing me to give up my books. But dang, does just the thought — the mere thought! — that this electronic doodad is somehow preferable in ANY universe to someone somewhere just gets my knickers in a wad. Ghah!!

My love of books-as-objects, paper, ink, wood, wool, cotton, snow, leaves, animals, trees, water and the world we live in is very deep and visceral, you understand. It’s not a fetish. Visceral. Hence this weirdly emotive response I’m having here.

Oh yeah, and I married that guy.

2. Do you ever… fondle books while you read? Like, jiggle the paper as you’re about to turn the page, bend back the spine a little but not too much, or crinkle the Brodart on your library book (or husband’s favorite Richard Burton biography) while you’re deep in ponder?

Well, I sure as hell do.

“Disappear in your hands,” my Aunt Alice.

3. Yes, EVDO is cool. And I’m all for instant gratification. I mean, it’s no accident that I live in New York. And I’ve done my one-day-shipping and same-day-delivery-in-Manhattan and running around the city because the latest McCaig / Vess / Cho / Jean / Pope / insert-obscure-occultist-here Book We Must Have Right Now is in or whatever.

But.

My attention span is not yet so short nor is my inner 3-year-old so in control that I must have the ability to manifest what I want in my hands this very instant. This could easily morph into a huge conversation about the fragmented hoo-ha of our digital age, but I won’t go there.

Sometimes it’s good to have to work a little. That’s all I’m sayin’.

4. And I know we’re at #4, but here’s my #1 reason why I could never use Kindle for any reason other than mere curiosity, and for any length of time longer than about 5 minutes: no ability to underline passages or make notes or yes, even talk to myself in the margins with my highlighting tool of choice, a hot pink Gelly Roll. Jeff Bezos and friends will never, ever make that happen.

Waid and I barely argued (you know, couple-style bickering) when we were together. Like, ever. The only conversation I can think of where I even got close to getting really upset was this one time when we were talking about electronic paper. He’s going, “Hate to break it to you, dude, but it’s coming” and I’m going “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

He wasn’t being mean. I just get really visceral about my books.

Sorry to be such a crankypants about this, everybody. I’m done.

The Weekly World News is shutting down?

I, like some staffers, suspect a cover-up.

Edited to add: I’d better get Ed Anger’s book while it’s still available for .02.

[wistful sigh]

Some amazing soul has made the PagePacker, a little application that lets you take DIY Planner’s Hipster PDA templates and arrange them on an 8×11.5 piece of paper, a la PocketMod or, of course, my one shot tutorial. This produces a handy little portable and disposable 8-page planner.

However, it only works on OS 10.4. I’m not allowed to complain about this, as the amazing soul mentioned in paragraph 1 is a well-known Mac programmer.

Goshdarnit, why can’t Apple make their shit affordable?

Reinhard Zierke took his Brit folk music stuff down. AIGH!

Dude… you’re killin’ me over here…

Seriously, that’s a huge loss to folk nerds like me. His site had everything. Everything. Wanna know why you can find everything on the Internet? Because of guys like Reinhard. Don’t go tellin’ me that I could do a better one. He has a bigger record collection.

I should probably be more sympathetic. I’m a sympathetic sort. But it makes me grumpy, Reinhard — don’t take it personally. It’s because it was that good, OK?

It was that good, and now it’s gone.

Bah.

Apparently, AOL will now provide you with your own 2gigs of storage:

AIM Mail

And now, a public message to America Online:

Guys, guys, guys…

Believe me, nobody is more “You can do it! You can do it! You can, you can!” than yours truly, here. But there’s this little phrase called “picking your battles” — maybe you’ve heard of it?

You’re about as subtle as a dumptruck; we all know what you’re doing. It’s not all about space, for crying out loud. It’s about threaded conversations. It’s about searchable mail. It’s about spam protection that doesn’t suck. It’s about an interface that doesn’t look like it was conceived by a kid in kindergarten. It’s about labels instead of folders. It’s about dozens and dozens of features that I don’t even know about. Oh, and by the way? They keep upping their space quotas, bit by bit. They’ll always beat you on that score.

Okay, so it would be kind of cool to unsend an email. But the laws of TCP/IP (the collective voice of reason AND Internet traffic) make that impossible by design. And that’s OK, because TCP/IP protocols are smart, by and large. The rules of the Internet apply to you, which means that, as you very well know, the only email that you can take back are those sent on your own system (read: to other AOL users). And most of them have left you for the enemy by now. Whoops.

Put your heads together and come up with something else. Go for it! I want to be wowed! Sure, I’m a hardcore computer nerd (the Linux boxes sign my paycheck), which means that I’m supposed to hate you on principle, but really, I don’t. In fact, I was an AOL user for years. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I cancelled because your service was awful. Give me a reason to come back, and I just might.

Go find another great idea, AOL. This one’s taken.

hugs and snuggles,
Elizabeth

Oh, and if anyone needs a Gmail invite, I’ve got fifty (and so does every other Gmail user). Drop me a note and I’ll hook you up.

Washington Square Park, Haven for Eccentricity, Is Set to Fall Into Line (registration required — I suggest BugMeNot.com)

Washington Square Park, the scruffy spot with an anything-goes tradition, is about to get a perimeter fence and a lock, courtesy of a Parks Department makeover.

“They’re sanitizing the park, taking away a lot of its charm and freedom,” said Carol Massa, president of the MacDougal Block North Association. “It’s overkill.”

Midori found the coolest thing in the New York Times the other day:

HELIGAN is the Rip van Winkle of gardens. Nurtured by successive generations of the Tremayne family for four centuries, it fell into disarray after almost all the workers who maintained it marched off to war in France in 1914. By the end of the 20th century, a jungle of ivy, bramble and laurel had engulfed flower beds and shrubs.

Three years later, a chance meeting led to his excited discovery and exploration, sometimes on hands and knees, of the overgrown acres. He and a group of enthusiastic associates subsequently leased the property and launched a crusade to save what they christened, with an unerring instinct for public relations, “The Lost Gardens of Heligan.”

Gorgeous weekend in New York City this weekend, absolutely delightful. Perfect for walking in Central Park and taking reference photos for certain artists, both of which I did. Unfortunately, the Treo camera wasn’t in top form, else I’d share some of the photos with you. Nonetheless, wow. It’s no Maine wildwoods of my youth, Acadia National Park or Pacific Northwestern forest, but that Central Park has a few things going for it. Lilac, for one. Which brings me to a message for all flower-selling bodega owners of my fair city: quit it with the charging me eight fricking dollars for a sprig of lilac, you cheapass bastards. I know that you’re just trying to make a living and everything, but you’re just alienating your clientele, at least those of us who grew up up north and know what nature shouldn’t cost. Or something.

Anyway.

Don’t mind me; I just remember what those lilac bushes in the back of my house, back in the day, and I get a little worked up.

The next go-round of my bi-weekly column, THE CRAFT, is up over at Scryptic Studios. This one’s on narrative clarity, one of my favorite topics. Brace yourself for a little crabbiness:

So there you are, settling into your comfy chair after an exhilarating trip to the comics shop. Your sizable stack of booty and a frosty beverage are close at hand. You put your feet up, grab the first book off the stack, and start reading.

You furiously flip back through the pages, trying to figure out exactly what you missed. You re-read some crucial parts. You make some educated guesses, but you’re really not sure. Meanwhile, you are now completely aware that the wayward spring in your decades-old chair is poking your butt.

Check it out. And if you like it, please spread the word.

I’d not ordinarily clip entire bits from PW’s daily email missive in here, but those LEFT BEHIND books set my teeth on edge and my knickers in a serious wad, so, yeah:

Soft Skull Not Going with Left Behind

At BEA, Soft Skull will hand out at a postcard that asks booksellers to move the books to the back of the stores; in his convention pitch, Nash will compare the books to some startling examples. “I want to persuade booksellers, at least in conversation, these books have more in common with The Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf than they do with The Purpose Driven Life and Tom Clancy,” he says. A spokesperson for LaHaye says that because the author was not familiar with the details of the book he was declining comment.