LenEdgerly.com

Steve Garfield is my favorite videoblogger, and I've just spent some time on his site, learning about a room at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society that is set up to broadcast video seminars on the internet.

I then watched Steve helping his lovable Mom open things. The latter bit is a tribute to Steve's quirky, deeply original and human approach to video on the internet.

He's also got me lusting for my next techno buy, because his videos are taken on a tiny Nokia N93 cellphone and the images are gorgeous. Which is ridiculous, because I haven't even finished reading the manual on the Sanyo Xacti HD1A I bought two weeks ago. The problem is that it's huge compared with the N93, and my strategy for videoblogging is always to have my camera with me in my shoulder bag, because you never know when there's going to be a great chance to film something.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Late-afternoon light on the Longfellow House, Brattle Street, Cambridge, on a walk yesterday with Darlene and Claire back from the Charles River to my parents' home.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Al Franken spoke at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver earlier this year, as part of his book tour for The Truth (with Jokes). I came across a recording of the talk on the excellent podcast Authors on Tour. With MP3 Trimmer, a great little Mac program for editing MP3 files, I extracted the part of the podcast in which Franken reads a chapter from the book, about his father's passing. It's a touching tribute, and it includes an inspiring vision of how much a grandfather can mean in the life of a boy.

Except for one swipe at his nemesis Rush Limbaugh at the beginning, this excerpt is pretty much safe content for committed conservatives who would normally not be caught dead listening to the likes of Franken.

Click here to listen.

Friday, November 24, 2006

My friend Paul from Kennebunk, Maine, e-mailed me a terrific excerpt from The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. It included this pearl:

Rabbi Zusya said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses? They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?"

Indeed.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

My favorite YouTuber is going strong, and his latest video is a total charmer. I won't give the fun away but do suggest you fast forward about a third of the way in, or until you see a guest join Peter, who's even more delightful when he's laughing.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Southwind seems like a distant memory as we jump into Denver days. Darlene has been working on a new quilt with a friend of hers who flew in from Las Vegas. I've been posting new episodes to the Audio Pod Chronicles, my new audio podcast hosted at Libsyn.com . I'm also pleased to see that the article I wrote titled "Podcasting for Writers" is now live at Denver's online literary journal, Wazee. With all the activity, I was grateful to spend most of yesterday doing zazen at the Zen Center of Denver, a zazenkai which reminded me how much my knees protest during long periods of meditation. But also, the sweet slowing down of the mind in which life seems just right in every detail.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Uncle Joe's Diner showed up on Mona the Map Girl's GPS suggestions for supper, and the choice was confirmed by the guy at the front desk at the Red Roof Inn. And folks, it was delicious. I had a grilled chicken with mashed potato and vegies, and Darlene had a healthy salad with walnuts and cranberries. Homemade cherry pie for desert. Uncle Joe was not in evidence, or else he would have been invited to star in a videoblog. The emporium was founded in 1973, so Joe is probably not active, but someone's big spirit animates the diner, which was bustling with locals.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

With the Southwind safely back with its owner in Westbrook, Maine, Darlene and Claire and I have begun our drive back to Denver, much closer to the ground, in the Volvo. Today's first leg, from Cambridge to Hamburg, New York, outside Buffalo, was uneventful except for snow flurries during the last hour.

Darlene drove the whole 450 miles, since I was an unreliable driver after flying to Denver and back in the past two days on JetBlue's red eyes. I knew I was impaired when I went into a restroom off I-90 and wondered how come there weren't any urinals. Right....it was the women's, and I escaped without provoking an incident. So I rode in the passenger seat, dozed, checked e-mail and took this oddly satisfying photo with my Motorola Q phone just outside Buffalo.