Happy Sunday to you and welcome to the new and tricked out Five Cool Things newsletter. First up in this week’s issue: A very nicely done online journal, Oh Life. Next, the Paris Review has a John Waters interview in which we learn about tree forts, his reading list and his archaic writing process. Christoph Niemann has a very funny series of drawings about air travel at a NY Times blog, we tip our cap to a great Alice Waters cookbook and we wrap up with a file sharing service, drop.io. Anton Chekhov writes, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
Dear Diary | Oh, Life Online Journal
I’m surprised by how cool this application is. Oh Life is a private online journal with a simple and handsome interface. Once you register, (free and easy) each night at 8pm you get an email that prompts you to write an entry. Just hit reply and write whatever strikes your fancy. Your words automatically land in your Oh Life online journal. It’s that easy. I registered and was quite taken with the simplicity and attractivenss of it all. So I think I now have a diary. A nice touch: the folks at San Francisco based Oh Life are very responsive to inquiries and suggestions. An even nicer touch: they subscribe to Five Cool Things. Have a look >>
John Waters | The Paris Review
The legendary Paris Review was founded in 1953 by Peter Mathiessen, George Plimpton and Harold L. Humes. It may be that you haven’t perused the Paris Review lately, but you should because it is simply amazing – just have a look at the Paris Review blog, for instance. There’s more of course, such as an interview with Mr. John Waters. Who knew that John Waters writes in longhand on a legal pad and cuts and pastes with scissors and scotch tape? And why am I not surprised by this? The John Waters Paris Review interview is here>>
Delete Neighbor | Abstract City Blog
Goofy airline hijinks are all the rage these days so this is timed quite nicely. Christoph Niemann is an illustrator with a long list of impressive credits: New Yorker covers, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Wired, etc. In a recent blog entry at the Times, our man pens an annotated cartoon of his flight from New York to Berlin with a layover in London. Hilarious. Check it out here>>
Alice Waters certainly needs no introduction from me. Known throughout the land as the heart, soul and chef of
Chez Panisse in Berkeley, she is a shape shifter in our attitudes to food. I thought I would share her cookbook – The Art of Simple Food – with you. It’s been a rock solid ally in our home kitchen for several years running. It will make you a better home cook and you’ll impress your friends even more than you do now. Her Salsa Verde sauce is perfect for summer. Here’s a link to The Art of Simple Food at Amazon>>
Drop.io is a file sharing service. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how useful such a service is. I’m talking to you, SJ. You never have to use You Send It again. You don’t have to mail files to your client. You create a folder that you and your client “share”. Incredibly easy. In a previous issue, I talked about Dropbox, another file sharing service doing much the same thing. Both of these are great applications and well worth the modest cost.
