Monday Tally is a weekly link round-up of some of my favorite posts discovered over the week. If you have suggestions for Monday Tally, please e-mail sophisticated [dot] dorkiness [at] gmail [dot] com. Enjoy!
Photo of the Week
Because I’m a sucker, here’s a picture of my adorable kitten, Hannah, lounging over the weekend.
Narrative Journalism, For the Win
I love when journalist try experiments when telling narrative stories. “A Facebook story: A mother’s joy and a family’s sorrow” from the Washington Post is a story told almost entirely using Facebook status updates. It’s just amazing. I also enjoyed reading an interview with the editor of the story from Nieman Storyboard. He explained the idea this way:
It was a way to get people talking about how people are portraying their lives on Facebook. The story in and of itself has a power, and there’s almost a voyeuristic appeal to it. But I think what makes it worthwhile beyond that is the questions it raises about just how much we’re living on Facebook and whether and to what extent that displaces human contact.
Longform.org, one of my favorite websites for collecting long-form journalism, put together a great list of their best of 2010.
In slightly related social media news, the Wall Street Journal has a story about how Jane Austen is reemerging in the digital world.
Heard of LAPTOPISM? The New York Times looks at the social norms and expectations of the coffee shop laptop scene.
Good for Giggles
Grammar jokes! What punctuation mark has made the biggest comeback? Think Twitter, people.
We use TED Talks at work all the time, so this comic from the Joy of Tech – If TED Talks ran out of smart people – gave me a giggle or two.
If you get the part of this description of the Green Hornet that made me laugh, then we can be best friends forever.
Name: Green Hornet, aka Britt Reid
Schtick: Newspaper publisher by day, two-fisted masked crimebuster by night. You know, like Katherine Graham.
My Writing on the Interwebs
I am starting a freelance assignment with a local newspaper to do a monthly books column. My first one was posted last week, and covers end of the year lists, #FridayReads, e-readers, and local Christmas storytimes.
While I was unplugged I made a trip to Las Vegas to go to a conference for work. I wrote a couple of pieces after that — one about the conference as a whole, and one about getting to see some of the new TRON: Legacy movie.
Books for My TBR
- Let the Swords Encircle Me by Scott Peterson because I’m interested in Iran and it made the Christian Science Monitor list of best nonfiction of 2010.
- Country Driving by Peter Hessler because it sounds like an intriguing look at changes in China, and because it was on the same best nonfiction of 2010 list.
- Bring on the Books: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture by Jim Collins, but I can’t remember where I heard of this one.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Hannah looks like she’s posing for you!
bermudaonion: Yes, she does – she’s a little diva sometimes 🙂
I read A Facebook Story this weekend and cried like a baby! I think the reporter is very right about the need to think about Facebook and human contact. Are we really connecting and if so, how is social media affecting the way we look at human connection?
Vasilly: I teared up too – it’s so easy to read a story in status updates and forget, for a minute, that it’s a real person. And then you get to the end of that story and then it just sort of smacks you in the face. It’s really curious way of looking at a story.
Hannah, it just gorgeous-I love her little nose and booties.
Esme: I do too! They make her look just so adorable.
I had to click through to tell you that Country Driving is excellent! Have you read Hessler’s other books on China? I’m off to check out the CSM list. 🙂
Eva: I haven’t read any of his other books, but this one caught my eye. I’ve been interested in China lately, since the topic of Chinese manufacturing and whatnot comes up at work all the time. I’m glad to hear that it’s good!
I’m always up for kitteh pics! The # piece was hilar!
Lenore: I should post more kitten pictures – I love looking at yours! And that one did make me laugh; punctuation is always funny for nerds like me 🙂
Love Hannah! I had a tuxedo kitty named Gypsy, but we had to give her to a friend because my son was so allergic 🙁 She looks just like Hannah.
The Facebook Story sounds interesting. And it made someone cry? Now I really have to read it…
Lynne: Aww, that’s too bad. I think tuxedo cats are just so cute. And yes, the Facebook story is sort of heartbreaking, unexpectedly.
Great list of links – I’m glad to see your kitty included this week 🙂
Amy: I got some cute pictures of her over the weekend – the light in the apartment was really good. This was one of my favorites.
You should definitely post more kitten pictures. The older Hannah gets, the more she looks like my cat Chester. I will have to post a picture of him one day; you’ll be amazed.
In fact, I found one and have posted it at the top of my blog today!
Jeanne: Wow, I just went to the picture of Chester and they do look alike! He has more white on his face than Hannah does, but it’s in exactly the same place. So cute!
So many good links here! I’ve thought a lot about how people portray their lives through Facebook statuses. Sometimes I look at Facebook and it seems like some people post the same thing for every status and it often reflects very poorly on them. What annoys me even more is the poor grammar people use on Facebook– it drives me crazy.
Ash: I think the Facebook story, and the idea of the way we portray our digital selves, is fascinating. I’ve tried to keep myself off Facebook because of it, but it’s hard to do that.
I had all of these intelligent things to say, and then I cam across the word Vegas and a bunch of flashing lights and that ever-present jingling noise filled my head and I was done for. I will spend the rest of the day in a missing-Vegas haze. 🙂
Trisha: Ha ha 🙂 I had a fun time in Vegas, but didn’t get to do much cool stuff because of work. Maybe another trip.
Your cat looks so distinguished, especially the way his whiskers radiate around her face.
Christy: Distinguished, or like a little princess. She does have very white and very long whiskers and eyebrows (I think?), which give give her a distinctive look, too.