I read Joseph Boyden’s latest book, The Orenda, the same week that it finally became available in the U.S. But I haven’t written about it until now, because I didn’t know what to say. It was a hard book to read, and even harder to process. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: The Orenda
ByGD
About Time for Victoria, B.C.
After 20 years of living in the Pacific Northwest and saying, “One of these days, I should…” I finally did. I took the clipper to Victoria. We planned a trip the travel industry likes to call a “City Break” – just a couple of days to explore a single city, usually on the weekend, although we went midweek. It was also a bit of a “Girls’ Getaway.” The girls were my mom and my two daughters instead of a bunch of girlfriends; instead of hitting malls and spas we aimed for gardens and afternoon tea. But even though my travel plans never seem to conform to industry standards, Victoria managed to exceed expectations. Read More
ByGD
Happy Pongal
Before there were blogs, I spent a quarter studying sustainable development in southern India. I maintained an email distribution list of friends who wanted updates on my travels. Many nights involved entertainments of the herbal or alcoholic kind; there were roof-top full-moon parties and midnight swims in the ocean (the garbage floating there was harder to see in the moonlight); some evenings were spent on planting plans and composting toilet design. But occasionally, I sat down at a computer and wrote about my adventures. This is one of those stories. Read More
ByGD
The Bookslut Gets Surreal
I really do want to offer you dear readers reblogs that are simple, but I must share the posts that I find most interesting. Once again, I want to share with you something the Bookslut had to say. I wanted to share this untitled post because it includes one of Remedios Varo’s pictures, and she is one of my favorite surrealists. The Bookslut also talks about how the women in the surrealist movement are overlooked, which I never knew because Varo was my entry point for the movement.
Another reason I wanted to share this post is that I wrote about the VIDA count this year, and about how it inspired me consider my own reading habits. But I didn’t do anything as systematic and intelligent as the Bookslut, and I think more of us should try her rational approach to creating equity in our own education.
I hope that you will click this link to the Bookslut blog to read this post {2018 update: while its still up; the website is inactive and you never know when it might disappear} and maybe even come back here and share your thoughts.
ByGD
June by the Numbers
photo by gratisography.com
I have heard about website ranking before, but never paid much attention. This month I stumbled across an article discussing how your Alexa Rank could affect your odds of scoring a press pass, and thought I would check it out. As in golf, the lower your Alexa Rank, the better. Anything under 100,000 is considered good. After googling “how to find the alexa rank of your blog” I discovered that this website is ranked 17,182,514. Whatever. I’ve never even heard of Alexa before anyway. Read More