But first,

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Use it well and live consciously.

Now, here’s something for the paper-lovers among us, I mean blank paper, not just words on them. Journals, diaries, notebooks, lists (also called Liszts).

From the online Thesaurus:

notebook: noun, notepad, exercise book, register, logbook, log, diary, daybook, journal, commonplace book, memorandum book, record book, personal organizer; Brit. jotter, pocketbook; N. Amer. scratch pad; French cahier; informal memo pad; trademark Filofax.

Sound familiar? Some of those must either clutter or clarify your life, and more recently-

The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future

by Ryder Carroll | Oct 23 2018

This “invention”, duplicated in paperback, gold & marble covers, , dot-to-dot, with or without a stencil (?) book mark, has spawned at least a dozen copycats, right down to one titled “Shit to Do”, and of course it has overflowed into computer programs with fancy pages and spreads with inspirational quotes, doodles, recipes, number of steps per day and so on. But all it is, basically, is a to-do list, for every conceivable thing to do or keep track of. I love lists and I love to feel organized, but this tracker/journal/whatever is too much and far too dangerous and beguiling. One risks paying more attention to the lists and layouts than to the content and directives. I still love paper. I’ll settle for the paper scraps I harvest from the written, obsolete sides of a typewritten page, thus using the other side and sparing the planet (trees) for a few seconds longer.

I plan to empty (almost?) several folders of blog thoughts, but I have to sleep some more first. It’s 15 to 4 in the morning my time. The coming switch to Daylight Saving won’t mean a thing to me. I’m not being Saved.

Anon, anon.

So—three books I have neither money nor time to read but that sound very interesting: The Book of Jezebel; An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things, ed. Anna Homes, written by Kate Harding and Amanda Hess. Apoarently it is a combination of fact and opinion about a disparate bunch of women, both real and imaginary, described (or dismissed) with some zinger one-liners, kind of snarky. It’s a browsing book, according to the reviewer (Mignon Fogarty), while the next one is “hard to put down”.

The Horologicon, A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language, by Mark Forsyth, is for word-lovers and etymoloigsts alike as well as curious historians. A few examples of words that are hung on a day’s activities will probably make you want to own the book: “ale-passion” describes a hangover; “considering glass” is a mirror; ”chorking” is what walking in wet shoes sounds like and “elf-locks” are messy morning hair. I guess I’ll succumb sooner or later, and buy the book.

Wordbirds, An Irreverent Lexicon for the 21st Century, by Liesel Schillinger, Illustrated by Eiizibeth Zechel, is more than birds, according to Fogarty, the reviewer. It seems the author is a word-watcher, not merely a bird-watcher. Again a few examples are offered to whet the appetite. We welcome “brightbite” for someone who has overdone the bleach on the teeth and “earduds” for those who tune out with earbuds. I may not have acquired the books but the review was worth saving.

The next two clippings require a whole blog each, or even an editorial essay, one on climate change or the effect on it of personal tourist travel; the other on “literary blogs”—litblogs—and the effect on the virtual literary community. This latter result is the subject of a book, The Digital Critic: Literary Culture Online, ed .Housaman Barekat, Robert Barry and David Winters and it brings bad news and good news. As the genre proliferates, the writing skills employed in this way (like mine) are devaluated and make it harder to make a living—not even a tip.. Yet unpaid labour keeps so much afloat that would otherwise sink and disappear.

It’s not audience I lack, it’s money.

That’s more than a blog’s worth of discussion, but I’m going to bed. I’ll never start a revolution. Not at my age.

More (free) litblogs tomorrow.