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Friday is for Feeds

Patrick — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:01:13 +0000

I’m not sure why but I’m a little bit down on the typical static blog at the moment (And, no, the irony of writing that on just such a blog isn’t lost on me). Every morning I open my Google Reader and see upwards of 500 unread posts, and I die a little bit. It’s a numeric representation of all the great stuff that’s out there on the net, just waiting to be discovered. It’s also indicative of all the not-so-great stuff out there, the stuff I’ll have to wade through to find the nuggets (For some reason, I feel the need to read the not-so-good stuff, too). And even if I somehow got through all those unread posts — a feat that most days feels as difficult as plowing a cornfield with a fork — I’d have done so by having spent hours on a single plain white website. This is, I’ve decided, incredibly boring. So this really isn’t about the blogs, per se, but rather my extreme dissatisfaction with the way their content is delivered to me. In short, I hate my RSS reader. More to the point, I hate RSS readers.

What has felt a little more fun, a little more happening, are feeds. I’m talking about Twitter and Tumblr, mainly, though Facebook, at its best, gives me what I’m talking about. I’ve been putting a bit of thought into why this kind of web interaction feels more compelling to me, and what I’ve come up with is curation. When I look at Google Reader, it’s essentially a bunch of sites that I found. While they’ve tried to build in a social aspect to the reader, I haven’t been able to make it work for me.

But a feed — like my tumblr feed or my twitter stream — that’s content curated by other people. Sure I decided who to follow, but the links, the posts, and the tweets that those feeds bring to me (this is key–they come to me!) are selected by other people. I find that this leads me further off into the web, and facilitates discovery and serendipity much better than the static blog set up.

As such, I thought I’d use this Friday afternoon post to point you to a few great sites that came to me through my feed. It’s kind of like my own Follow Friday.

I’ve blogged before about You Might Find Yourself, but I will link to it here again and recommend it to anyone interested in fashion and photography, especially men’s fashion. YMFY consistently posts the most gorgeous clothing presented in the most pleasing way. Through in the occasional shot of a beautiful model or a thoughtful article, and it’s pretty much the perfect Tumblr blog.
Also on the fashion blog front is Put This On, another Tumblr blog that offers great fashion content for men. More of a guide than YMFY, PTO offers shopping and style tips, and recently featured a video about denim shot partially in Pasadena. (A word to the wise, though: Don’t start following this blog if you don’t want to buy some clothes. It’s simply too painful.)
LOLerature is exactly what it sounds like: LOLCats for book lovers. The tagline for the blog is “I CAN HAZ CANON?”
If you enjoy laughing, you must follow some of the funny Twitterers out there, including Twitter superstar Just_Alison. Not only is she very funny, but she’s a fan of Vroman’s.

Enjoy your weekends everyone.

May is Short Story Month

Patrick — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:59:39 +0000

I’ve been celebrating Short Story Month (or as regular people call it, May) over at the Vroman’s Tumblr blog. Since I know y’all don’t check in there very often, I thought I’d mention it here, too. I’ve got a few tidbits lined up for the coming weeks, including a list of my favorite story collections. Feel free to, you know, reblog.

More Great Stuff from the Internet

Patrick — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:41:32 +0000

Here’s what I’m interested on the Internet today. Everything else is boring:

Listen to this interview with Carol Grossmeyer, formerly of Harry W. Schwartz Books, and Lanora Hurley, who is opening Next Chapter Bookshop. It’s an engaging interview, equal parts entertaining and, I think, inspiring. Check out the Next Chapter website, too. (You may remember my post about the closing of the Schwartz stores.)

Attention Kindle owners: Your books belong to Amazon, not you. In the comments to that post, Ank sums it up quite nicely: “You do not own your Kindle books, neither do have any automatic right to access them. Imagine Amazon in the future charging for use of its network. It’ll happen, you can be sure. So, Imagine this, there’s a beautiful library full of great books and writings, well-kept and nicely indexed, tailored just for you. Only it’s not yours. You have to pay someone at the door to enter the reading room, and the books are brought to you but you cannot take them away with you. They are not your property and you cannot pass them on to your children. Is this the answer to digital reading?”

Oprah is going to start tweeting tomorrow. Hey, Oprah, follow me (@vromans)! I have a few things I’d like to talk with you about.

I don’t know who this girl is (Is she famous?) or who took this photograph, but I’m loving this whole look. Trench coat? Glasses? Yes and yes. (Via You Might Find Yourself, one of the best Tumblr blogs I follow. Lots of people are talking about how Tumblr is about to take off. Have you tried it yet? I like to mess around on there from time to time, but I haven’t quite found the secret to it. What do people think?)