Accommodatingly

No, we have not taken a sudden dislike to blogging– we’re just so busy we can’t see straight. Some snips, some clips, some briefer-than-brief news:

For about a month now every object that comes into Nathan’s hands has turned into a guitar: this week he seems to have decided to play his real (toddler-sized, or ukelele-sized) guitars, and to turn other objects into drums. It gets out physical energy, but will it lead to a real drum kit, if it continues? If so, we’ll have to finish the basement by the time he hits fifth grade. He also, as always, loves dancing: watch him dancing at Uncle Jon’s wedding, and dig the nonpareil glee.

Book blogging continues to expand– partly through Jessie, and partly not, I’m discovering book blogs way faster than I can read them. Check out this Brooklyn bookstore book blog, which I encountered via Tom Rayfield, the person who is not me and yet has written a book called Parallel Play.

Also in the book-blog world, but in another corner entirely: Harvard’s Houghton Library, which collects rare books and manuscripts (they own tons and tons– Keats, Empson, Robert Lowell, Emily Dickinson, etc. etc.) has a modern acquisitions blog. Who knew?

I’m in the current London Review of Books, discussing Philip K. Dick and (less extensively, alas) James Tiptree; alas, too, non-subscribers can’t read it online. (You may just have to read the print version. Horrors!)

I’m in the current Believer praising Jenny Browne, potentially the only poet who cares more than I do (and I know that she cares more than I do) about the San Antonio Silver Stars. (In my defense, I began to write about her poetry, and had decided I liked it, before I had any idea that she cared about them.)

I’m also at Beacon Broadside today, celebrating GLBTQ poetry, and proud to be there. (There’s a poem in the new Yale Review, too, but the current t-of-c isn’t online.)

I’m told that blogging makes people feel better, but that hours staring at the Internet makes people feel worse, and that there are studies out now that prove both. I believe it.

I had nothing to do with this impromptu banner art, but having seen it, I almost wish I did.

We are going to hang out with Nathan at home for most of the summer (he’s taking a break from day care, i.e., school, and we’ve arranged our schedules so it makes sense, for these two months alone). I’m happy we’re going that route, but happy, too, that we can stop by school frequently (his school seems to want us to do so) in July and August, so that he can hang out with his friends. I had no idea that toddlers could be so extroverted– or, simply, so much fun.