Since I’m on an indefinite blogging hiatus, I wanted to tell you about my new website. It’s at ArtCantHurtYou.com, and it’s awesome. It was designed for me by Sumy Designs, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Please check it out! If you know if anybody looking for any type of writing, editing, or social media work, I’d be enormously grateful if you passed along my contact info.
Posted 11 September 2010
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Postcrossing postcard received 08 April 2010.
About two months ago, I signed up for something called Postcrossing. The premise is simple: send postcards, get postcards. Who doesn’t want to get postcards in their mailbox every week? When you first sign up, you can request up to five addresses, which are picked from hundreds of thousands of Postcrossing users across the world, and away you go.
Postcrossing gives you a unique ID to write on each postcard. When the postcard is received, the recipient logs on to Postcrossing.com and registers the postcard. That moves your address to the top of the list, and the next person who requests an address will get yours. Each time one of your postcards is received, you can request another address. Pretty cool, huh?
The site has so far worked seamlessly, and I’ve sent and received nearly equal numbers of postcards. The Finnish, oddly enough, have the largest number of postcrossers, and so I’ve gotten four from their fair country (which has some of the best postage stamps ever). I’ve sent postcards to Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, China, and Taiwan, and received them from India, Hong Kong, and even Louisiana (you can opt out of sending and receiving postcards from within your own country if you wish).
I was a bit nervous about the cost when I first signed up. Postcrossing.com itself is completely free, but of course international postage is $0.98 a pop, which can add up pretty quickly. But because you can only have five cards traveling at a time, it’s nicely paced out, and I generally don’t send more than one or two cards a week. (I’m also using it as an excuse to use up my old $0.37 and $0.39 stamps, of which there are many). And you don’t have to have five cards traveling at once, though I dare you not to get addicted.
So, what are you waiting for? Go get yourself some awesome mail.
If you’re interested, you can view my profile and my postcards.
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current socks: black with light purple and blue argyle
current music: Longpigs, The Sun is Often Out
current Netflix: Coraline and the seventh season of Monk
Posted 10 April 2010
1 Comment »My friend Scott had the idea to ask the community at Making Light about the book I’ve been seeking. Thirteen minutes later… he had the answer.
Singularity by William Sleator. Anybody remember reading it?
Posted 30 March 2010
No Comments »This has been bugging me for years, and if anybody can help me, it’s you.
I’m trying to remember a young adult book. I probably read it sometime between third and fifth grades, and it probably falls into the 8 – 12 year old category. I have no idea if it was new at the time, but I likely read it around 1987 or so. The basic plot, as I remember it:
Twin A and Twin B, both boys, are perhaps around 12 or 13 years old, or perhaps 16 or 17. I think they were getting ready to start either high school or college. Twin A is the more athletic one, and Twin B is always a little envious of his brother.
They either discover or build some sort of shack in their backyard that, when inside, time moves more quickly. I believe they figured out precisely how much more quickly, and make certain pacts with each other so that they don’t screw up their lives by spending too much time inside.
But then Twin B’s envy gets the better of him, and he spends an entire year in the shack—a year that passes in real time as a single night. He spends his time reading, doing situps, working out, trying to catch up to Twin A.
The book fell broadly into the category of sci-fi/fantasty, but definitely had broader appeal; I remember really enjoying it (and it’s stuck with me for the last twenty years). I don’t think it was a trendy book at the time (a la Twilight). And, of course, I could be misremembering the details I’ve outlined above.
I really want to read this book again and have never been able to pin it down. Do you remember reading this? Do you remember the title or author? Anything?
Posted 29 March 2010
1 Comment »As of a couple weeks ago, I am now covering arts and museums for Chicagoist.com, a blog about Chicago. If you point your browser to chicagoist.com/profile/laurambrowning, there’s an RSS feed at the bottom to help you stay on top of what I’m writing. Expect news about art exhibits and other worthy museum events as well as some in-depth looks at art around Chicago. And poke around the rest of the site, too!
Cross-posted at artcanthurtyou.com.
Posted 4 February 2010
1 Comment »In today’s adventures in letter-writing, I bring you two more pieces of magazine-enveloped mail:
Sorry for the terrible lighting. One of these days I’ll start using my proper camera for these snapshots. The second piece of mail, to my running buddy Leslee, contains the best-worst postcard in all of London. Behold!
Do you want something fun in your mailbox? Of course you do. Sign up here and help me use the powers of the postal service for good.
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current book: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
current Netflix: Peep Show, an outrageously funny British comedy. Watch it.
current music: A free CD I got at Kieran Hebdan’s December gig at Plastic People. Pretty sure it’s a DJ set from another of his gigs; the front of this CD just says “Four Tet – Much love to the Plastic People – DJ mix – December 2009.”
Posted 2 February 2010
3 Comments »By far the most popular post on this blog is one I wrote last year about winter running gear. Problem is, a lot of the links had broken. I just went through and fixed all the links, so you can now get a visual of all the running gear I recommend.
Take a look! Winter Running Gear (or, how to overcome even the nastiest winters).
Posted 29 January 2010
No Comments »As anybody who’s ever gotten mail from me knows, I love to send fun mail. What I lack in artistic talent, I make up for in stickers and colored markers and fun stamps.
Recently inspired by some activity on Twitter (blatantly stolen from the brilliant @leahjones, let’s be honest) as well as some newly discovered blogs devoted to mail art, I’m stepping it up. (See especially Time After Tea and Stationery Addicted for inspiration). I am going to try to send one letter a week, and you, my readership of ten, are the lucky recipients. I’ll post pictures here of the mail a week after I send it, so as not to spoil the mailbox surprise for anybody.
If you want in on the action, please add your name and address to this form. I will do my very best to include strangers and international recipients. I promise neither the profound nor magnificent, but I will try to brighten your day with something addressed just to you.
To kick things off, I’m posting pictures of a little note I wrote to a friend who I’m pretty sure doesn’t check this blog regularly. I made the envelope from an ad in a magazine, which I folded using Angry Chicken’s guidance. That’s a Peanuts Valentine’s sticker on the back.
UPDATE: Yes, even if I know you personally and you are positive I have your address, please still use the form. It’ll help me keep track of everything.
Posted 27 January 2010
6 Comments »Quick site maintenance note:
I read a lot of stuff online, probably more than I should. Google Reader has a nifty function where I can share Web pages with anybody who follows me, and I often share links via Twitter and/or Facebook. Starting today, you can now see my shared Google Reader pages in the right sidebar under the heading “what i’m reading online.” These are likely to run the gamut from LOLcats to lefty politics to just about anything. You can find the full feed here.
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current book: Ender’s Game, which I’ve never read and need to finish for my YA book club this Wednesday evening.
current music: Loads of BBC Radio 4. Tim got me hooked.
current socks: Boring Thorlo running socks, as I just got back from a 40 minute run in some seriously miserable weather.
Posted 25 January 2010
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