link briefs

I don't really know if anyone ever takes the time to check them out, but sometimes I'm tempted to write a brief explanation of my link choices. I update them from time to time; the goal is to change them every Monday, but I'm always fashionably late. This time, I've decided to give-in to that write-up urge.

The "look" link steers you to a commercial that sort of choked me up the first time I saw it. First, it features a song called "Half Acre" by Hem (which you should download), but it doesn't use the song in the lazy "let's just put a good song on our commercial" way, like so many other advertisements do. The tune fits in its own odd way, and the commerical tells a feel-good story. Granted, it's an ad for an insurance company, but I dare say that it left me uplifted. Cheezy, but true: The friendly little commercial made me want to be a better sister, friend, coworker, stranger, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, niece, etc.

The "listen" link takes you to a Terry Gross interview with a favorite writer, Joan Didion. As Lane told me a couple years back, "If you like Susan Orlean, you'll love Joan Didion." She tackles the act of writing itself as subject matter, which can be complicated enough, but rather than be esoteric and leave the reader discouraged, alientated and/or confused, I usually put down a Didion essay and think to myself, "Why, yes, that's why I write, too." I first heard this interview last fall in Bountiful as I drove through a McDonalds drive-in. I distinctly remember having to wipe away a couple tears so the cashier wouldn't see. (I promise I don't cry that easily. Actually, come to think of it, both "Gray's" and "OC" jerked a few out of me this evening. That's what happens when I have to watch TV by myself. And I think I just admitted to enjoying the occasional Happy Meal.)

The third link, "read," hooks you up with a vignette from "Time Out: New York" that I thought was fun--and yes, I do realize that it isn't posted in the "fun" link. It's not that fun. I had just gotten home from the new USU library when I read it, and after contemplating how much I like books, this article brought a smile (finally!) to my face, though I don't want to end up like this woman. Please, friends, don't let me. I myself collected pencils as a kid. I still have a shoe box full of them, my favorite is topped with a cuckoo clock out of which a bird actually flies. Just kidding. But it does have a cuckoo clock complete with a door and dials.

"Fun" leads you to an online shop that I've never bought anything from, but constantly look at. It makes me want to go to the DI. I think I get that urge far more than a normal person should, or should admit. The DI does have some good, cheap, hardcover books, though, including Reader's Digest compilations which get my vote for the cutest inside covers. If scrapbook paper-designers were smart, they'd just copy those old patterns.