“Pickles Pig,” a silly book for kids. What a sweet story. Or not. Poor Pickles Pig doesn’t want to be sold by the farmer and get turned into crisp-fry bacon. He learns that he must be sold because it’s the only way the farmer can justify his expenditures on the pig’s food, like the horse…
Author: Leeann Hunter
Dumpster Divers; or, Freegans
This summer I will teach Lars Eighner’s personal essay “On Dumpster Diving.” Eighner, homeless during three years with his dog Lizbeth, recounts his personal experiences and strategies for scavenging a living from the discarded food, clothes, and household items of local residents. This essay, which turned into the longer memoir Travels with Lizbeth, surprises us…
Cartoon Doll Emporium
According to this New York Times article, social interactive web sites ala MySpace are cropping up that are targeted at young girls with their simple communication tools. More specifically, most have in common the real-life obsession girls have with “dress-up.” Sites like Cartoon Doll Emporium feature a selection of dolls kids can personalize. “Belle of…
Virtual Living, Redux
As I was taking a walk around the block in (what has been for days) the smoky and stifling air of North Central Florida, I realized two important things about my previous post. (1) In my catalogue of “vital stats” one might wish to know about another person passing in the streets, I thought only…
Virtual Living
I previously wrote on the idea of my life as a character, i.e. what if I had an author hovering above me, narrating my every thought, sensation, memory, or basically any quality not visibly or audibly expressed. I think of the novel as a technology for reconfiguring the presentation of the individual, and as such,…
I need c-o-f-f-e-e
I am completely “awed” by this video song performed in mummenschanz style: The Coffee Song with Mr. Sketch-it The Coffee Song was written by Ralph Covert, former indie bandmember of Bad Examples, and now children’s musician. He wrote and performed the song on the spot after he arrived at a musical event with a cup…