Huff Post and Random Posts

My book and I got some airtime on Huffington Post this week. The story behind the piece is that during the TOC conference (see above post), I had wandered off to a quiet spot to retrieve a phone message. Then Arianna Huffington, who had just delivered her keynote, tapped me on the shoulder and asked how to use the elevator. (The elevator system at the Marriott-Marquis Times Square is a bit odd and futuristic.) Taken aback, I thanked her for her talk, handed her a copy of my book, and told her that I was giving a presentation on my Espresso Book Machine experiment. She then asked me to do a blogpost on it. My pals at Freelance Success (FLX) call this a prime example of a successful “elevator pitch”.

This late-winter season (aka mud season or sugaring time) has been exquisite here. With our long winters it’s easy to get impatient as we hit February and March, but two friends of mine, the incredible Southern Vermont-based artists Tom and Elizabeth Torak (do check out their work!), once told me that they regard this as the best time for painting because of the quality of the light. Since then I’ve focused more on the light and notice that February/March light does have a broad, clean, almost new aspect to it that yields a special kind of beauty.

While my son was at his guitar lesson, I wandered over to Battenkill Books, which has just moved to a larger spot on Main Street in Cambridge, NY--a town I recommend visiting if you like art, antiques, theater, and Victorian architecture (and, of course, books). One more store that will carry the book. I then sold a copy to the guitar teacher, the extraordinary Barry Hyman, who in addition to being a pedal steel maestro, has a literary pedigree himself (have to visit his site to learn why.)That’s Brendan bounding around the stage as his band performs Phish’s “Chalkdust Torture” at the high school Pops Concert. If this were audio you’d be hearing teenage girls screaming in the background. It's getting more interesting all the time...