In 2007, I contributed a number of articles (on roller derby, Little Lulu, She Ra: Princess of Power, and Carrie) to Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia. Just a few weeks ago, the companion to that volume, Boy Culture: An Encyclopedia was finally released, featuring articles from me on action figures, Hot Wheels, G.I. Joe, and skateboarding.
Encyclopedias, under the watchful eyes of Bubo the Bluetooth Owl
Anyhow, I just got my copies of Boy Culture and I think it looks pretty fun all cozied up to its predecessor. These are ambitious reference volumes, really targeted to academic and public libraries. I’m pretty glad to have been involved with the project, and to continue to contribute to the dialogue about youth culture.
I also want to give a big high-five to Ehrenspace, who wrote a large bulk of the music section for Boy Culture. (Seriously… he covers The Clash, The Cure, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Nirvana, REM, Rush, The Who, and the history of reggae. That’s my fella!)
I’ve been away from the blog a lot lately. May was a tornado of client work that ended in a four-day, post-holiday week frenzy. My wrists were tired, my brain was tired, and I was tired. I feel so lucky that words are a large part of how I make my living. I like to use them in service. But sometimes I feel like I run out of them. So it was a big relief to board an overnight bus to Montreal last week, and take a week off to recharge.
There’s very little I look forward to more than the long days of summer. I might be phototropic. The spring days are starting to warm up and stretch out, I have my first sunburn of the year, and I am jealous of E’s folding bike.
And it’s busy! I’m juggling web projects for clients, a big NEH grant, several resume and career clients, and taking a class. And there two articles badly in need of work and a few editors that I’m hoping are busy doing other things.
And there is news! I’m proud to be a part of Sharp Skirts, a new network for women entrepreneurs. I’m thrilled to help women build and sustain more successful and agile businesses – and to have the opportunity to learn from other amazing women.
I’m grateful for abundant work, and the chance to build and grow and help, and the sunshine. So I just wanted to share that, and give you a poem, too.
Jet
by Tony Hoagland
Sometimes I wish I were still out
on the back porch, drinking jet fuel
with the boys, getting louder and louder
as the empty cans drop out of our paws
like booster rockets falling back to Earth
and we soar up into the summer stars.
Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead,
bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish
and old space suits with skeletons inside.
On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness,
and it is good, a way of letting life
out of the box, uncapping the bottle
to let the effervescence gush
through the narrow, usually constricted neck.
And now the crickets plug in their appliances
in unison, and then the fireflies flash
dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation
for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex
someone is telling in the dark, though
no one really hears. We gaze into the night
as if remembering the bright unbroken planet
we once came from,
to which we will never
be permitted to return.
We are amazed how hurt we are.
We would give anything for what we have.
Jet
by Tony Hoagland
Sometimes I wish I were still out
on the back porch, drinking jet fuel
with the boys, getting louder and louder
as the empty cans drop out of our paws
like booster rockets falling back to Earth
and we soar up into the summer stars.
Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead,
bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish
and old space suits with skeletons inside.
On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness,
and it is good, a way of letting life
out of the box, uncapping the bottle
to let the effervescence gush
through the narrow, usually constricted neck.
And now the crickets plug in their appliances
in unison, and then the fireflies flash
dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation
for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex
someone is telling in the dark, though
no one really hears. We gaze into the night
as if remembering the bright unbroken planet
we once came from,
to which we will never
be permitted to return.
We are amazed how hurt we are.
We would give anything for what we have.
All of us at At Length are really proud of the fact that we’ve been online for a year now, and we’re having a celebration in Manhattan this weekend to mark the occasion…
Jonathan Farmer founded At Length in 2003 as a quarterly print publication featuring poetry and prose, and re-launched it in 2009 as an online-only, print-friendly venue with added music, photography, and art. At Length is about long creative work, which is an ambitious enterprise in an online space that privileges short content. But I don’t wring my hands about the state of our collective attention span, which everyone keeps telling me is getting shorter and shorter. I’m just glad to contribute to adding more long and meaningful work to the digital space, and cultivating the readership for it.
In honor of the occasion, I invite you, friends of tammytoes, to read or download one of our pieces, and spend a long time reading it. Enjoy and share! (And if you’re in NYC, come to the party!)
I volunteer each week with a group of teens who will be entering college this fall. As part of helping them get ready to make the transition beyond high school, I recently conducted a workshop for them about online privacy and responsible social networking. Almost none of them had ever reviewed their Facebook privacy settings, and many had no idea they even needed to worry about them. They assumed what they were posting was fairly private, and they were shocked to find out that most of their information online is public by default.
This is just one of the many reasons I’m excited about Choose Privacy Week, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) to help people understand why and how they should take charge of their digital destinies. Privacy is an important and complex issue, and I admire that the ALA is trying to open up more dialogue about the way that private companies and the government alike are using digital information.
Here’s the Choose Privacy Week video, featuring authors Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow (hooray!):
