Project Sunshine Visit

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Earlier this month I was privileged to visit Cohen's Children's Medical Center on Long Island with Project Sunshine. 

Schwartz & Wade at Random House very generously donated the books so that we could give each child their own copy. (Thank you!)

The day started at Penn Station for me with a pigeon pooping on my head. So of course it was quite fitting that I should begin the reading with a manners book (the pigeon clearly had never read of it).

This is little 5 year-old Tayema and we are reading  HOW TO GET MARRIED BY ME THE BRIDE and BEING A PIG IS NICE. The hospital IT people also filmed the reading for their close circuit TV thing where children from their various beds could join in--probably about 50 of them--and it will also be put on their TV loop.

Oh dear. Poor children. All I can say is I'm glad I don't have to watch myself on endless loop--no doubt you are too. (It's not just me on the loop mercifully. They have other authors and entertainers on there too.) 

But seriously what a wonderful charity. 

Project Sunshine is a nonprofit organization that provides free educational, recreational, and social programs to children and families living with medical challenges. You can volunteer here and/or give here.

 

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terrifying macy's day balloons of Thanksgiving Past

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thanksgiving used to be terrifying... 

via Paste
via Design Related Blog

 

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something to be thankful for ...

how to edit a magazine...

from The Atlantic's Twelve timeless rules for making a good publication... (in honor of their 153rd birthday) With technology, web, media revolutions all around us, some things don't change...

3. Don't over-edit.You will often estrange an author by too elaborate revision, and furthermore, take away from the magazine the variety of style that keeps it fresh

7. A sound editor never has a three-months' full supply in his cupboard. When you over-buy, you narrow your future choice...

11. Humor is precious and correspondingly hard to find. Most humor that reaches us is merely jocularity, and it is well to be jocular only when really funny.

Love number 3 (and if you are fortunate you have brilliant editors you trust who edit within an inch of the manuscript's life and make you look great as a result)

And number 7: true of writing... if you hoard your best material to use another time rather than at once, in this book, the one you're writing now, you end up with less. If you spend everything, use it all up, mysteriously the pantry fills up again...

Number 11: I think I like but it's giving me a little bit of a math headache because on the other hand I kind of don't know what it means

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Random Act of Culture in Macy's

The day before halloween, mingling in plain clothes amongst the crowds in Macy's, more than 650 singers from the Opera Company of Philadelphia burst into song... 

can you watch this without your spirit soaring?

makes you want to shout, Hallelujah!

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David Suchet narrates latest JSB vid: The Sun Stops Shining

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latest extinct thing... deep thinking sacred space down time

How do we slow down and get uninterrupted deep thinking space back?

The Sabbath Manifesto suggest 10 principles to slowing down lives.

Number one? (Of course) Avoid technology.

And their most brilliant idea of all? For our cell phones to have sleeping bags. 

Although, I rarely use mine. It's always asleep. I forget to wake it up. So mine doesn't need a sleeping bag it needs a cup of coffee. (Well, it's over 10 years old and so it needs a lot more than just coffee...) 

To my surprise, I've avoided the iPhone--only because it's so beautiful. (So beautiful that I'd always be on it and missing things out there, etc.) So I keep my old phone that doesn't tempt me. (The draw back: no one can reach me and yesterday I almost missed a fabulous brunch with friends because of it... so any day now I may find myself with an iPhone. But if I do, I promise I'm getting a sleeping bag with it.)

Anyway, maybe on your Christmas list--a sleeping bag for your phone?

And then here's this great article too:

Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the internet, people, and other forms of distraction. Our cars now have mobile phone integration and a thousand satellite radio stations. When walking from one place to another, we have our devices streaming data from dozens of sources. Even at our bedside, we now have our iPads with heaps of digital apps and the world's information at our fingertips.

more here

The Benefits of Tea

William Gladstone (former PM of Great Britain, 3 times between 1868 and 1894) said: 

'If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited it will calm you.' 

 

He had no comment on coffee.

 

Isn't it time to put the kettle on?

 

(This picture of course is not Gladstone but someone else who is far too perky for his own good)

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