* Question for the knitters -- who is a knitting personality that you'd like to know more about? I'm working on putting together my dream list of interviews for the book and could use more input. No request is too silly. Except for Elizabeth Zimmerman. I'd love to talk with her, too, but being dead has its disadvantages.

* Radiolab's Pop Music installment. If you listen to nothing else, listen to the segment on Schoolhouse Rock.

* Mentally ill people might be more creative. So there, all you psychiatrically standard people.

* At the next neighborhood BBQ, I'm going to have to make a batch of Palomas. The last summery drink was citrus spritzers from Everyday Food (which I can't find a recipe for online) that were dangerous and delicious.
 

* These books are gorgeous. Horrifically fragile -- but gorgeous.

* Anyone local want to split an order of canvas grocery sacks with me?

* Clay Shirkey on "Gin, Television and Social Surplus." There's also a video linked at Making Light but I couldn't get it to play in some kind of fashion that didn't make we want to smash my computer. You might have better luck. Regardless, this is the money quote for me:

"The way you explore complex ecosystems is you just try lots and lots and lots of things, and you hope that everybody who fails fails informatively so that you can at least find a skull on a pikestaff near where you're going. That's the phase we're in now."

In short, yes, a lot of what is going on online right now is going to fail. That's not the point. Eventually, we will fail better. Then a little better. Then a little better. It's not about not failing. It's a good rule for lots of facts of life, especially when you are working without a map.