Thanks for being my friend along my Avon path. You can find me - and my stories - at La Pajaro ! Did you arrive late for the party? Wonder what Birdie's up to these days? Check out my latest stories: 36 Days Past Solstice A Grumpy Pregnant Woman Meets Kilgore Trout A Mom Called erectile dysfunction aids aladin All We Want Best Friends Birdie's Avon Adventures Blood Money Descansos Extrasolar Hijack the Media On Poetry Personal Stories Run, Frankie, Run!! Star Trek Stories Tappin' to the Oldies The Stroke of My Boy's Midnight Year of Yes An Avon Lady Says GOODBYE, AVON! See you at La Pajaro !

If you're feeling fed-up from a rough week at work and are looking to let off some steam, you might want to visit Friction.tv , a new video sharing site out of the UK that is positioned as a forum for topical debates. Ostensibly "an online platform for user generated news and opinion," it actually amounts to a platform for people with extreme points of view on a given check emails opic can egg each other on. Opinionated citizens spark a new debate by posting a video op-ed piece and site visitors join in the debate by posting video responses or text comments. Check out this gem in which a British radio personality argues in favor of global warming (possibly/probably with tongue-in-cheek, but still) -- this video has prompted 70+ responses (mostly anonymous, interestingly enough, and some quite serious.) [ Feed and email readers click through to watch - all others, if you don't see the video controls, click on the still to activate them .] I'm all for conversation and love the idea of a platform that spurs genuine consumer-to-consumer debate, but I wonder if a site that seemingly caters to the crazies (or nutters, as they say in the UK) does more to hurt the mainstream perception of consumer generated media than to help it. What do you think? I'd especially love to hear from my British readers. Or if you're feeling particularly ornery, feel free to start a debate at Friction.tv and post the link in the comments here. :-) [via PSFK and Urban Junkies ]

Thanks for being my friend along my Avon path. You can find me - and my stories - at La Pajaro ! Did you arrive late for the party? Wonder what Birdie's up to these days? Check out my latest stories: mortgage lead lists 6 Days Past Solstice A Grumpy Pregnant Woman Meets Kilgore Trout A Mom Called Paladin All We Want Best Friends Birdie's Avon Adventures Blood Money Descansos Extrasolar Hijack the Media On Poetry Personal Stories Run, Frankie, Run!! Star Trek Stories Tappin' to the Oldies The Stroke of My Boy's Midnight Year of Yes An Avon Lady Says GOODBYE, AVON! See you at La Pajaro !

Click Here

Geranium Pepper by Fresh, like the flower that gives it a big blowsy kick of nothing special, is sunny, cute, dumb. Like a Golden Retriever, it really, really wants to be your friend, whether you're a writer not interested enough to go on about the neither here nor there of it, or a poet who exactly nails how the flower (and this scent) are good for nothing other than being better than nothing. The Geranium When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She cosmetic surgery direct mail ooked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine-- Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she'd lived So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer, Her shriveled petals falling On the faded carpet, the stale Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves. (Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.) The things she endured!-- The dumb dames shrieking half the night Or the two of us, alone, both seedy, Me breathing booze at her, She leaning out of her pot toward the window. Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-- And that was scary-- So when that snuffling cretin of a maid Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can, I said nothing. But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week, I was that lonely. --Theodore Roethke

Barry here again. Today's subject is titles. The most important quality of a title is resonance: that is, "the ability to evoke or suggest images, register name emories, and emotions." Resonance matters because resonance makes things stick. Without it, a title produces no emotion -- it stands for nothing and is instantly (and rightly) forgotten. The resonant title, by contrast, beckons you, it insidiously hooks you, it provides the first step in a seduction that culminates in the pleasure of the book itself. There are two kinds of resonance: automatic, and acquired. They're not mutually exclusive. Let's examine both. Automatic resonance exists in a title that moves you before you've read, or even heard anything about, the book. The title taps into something that already exists in your mind: an experience, an archetype, a memory, a famous phrase or line of poetry. The title stirs that preexisting thing to life, and in doing so makes you feel you know something important and appealing about the underlying work. One way of checking whether a title has automatic resonance is to ask someone who has never heard of the book, "What do you think it's about?" If the person has a sense, a feeling, if the person can grasp the broad emotional contours of the story, the title has resonance. If you get a giant "huh?" in response, something is wrong. (If the title tells too much, you have a different problem -- more on which below.) Recently I heard of a book called "Cemetery of the Nameless.