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I have longtime family friends who live in Ashfield a town in central-west Massachusetts and that is about half the size of the town that I live in. Their library, the Belding Library, is celebrating its centennial with events all summer long and they invited me to talk about the future and .. where it is?

William Gibson’s notable phrase that I repeat often is “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed” which I’ve taken as reflective of the digital divide issues generally. I have neighbors struggling with dial-up. Singapore has 100MB broadband available for $39/month. These differences matter but and wind up, over very short time periods, enhancing divides that may have started out smaller. And for technology’s end users, sometimes it can be confusing why this isn’t all better or easier by now since in many other cases we really are living in the future that we had envisioned when we were younger. So I talked a bit about that, and why we’re not there yet, and ways to make technology attractive to people so that they can possibly dip their toes into a fun project before they get stuck being forced to use it for an unfun project like taxes or health care or filing for unemployment.

You can read my notes and slides here and you might also enjoy this story of how the Belding Library (somewhat controversially) financed their library addition in part by the discovery and sale of an original Emancipation Proclamation copy that they found in their basement.

Last weekend some of the Blue Rose Girls and our friend Alissa visited Anna in her beautiful quiet cozy country cottage. As usual, conversation was the main activity -- Tilda and Juniper (Alissa's daughter) stayed close to us, eagerly joining in with smiles and babble. Neither can talk yet, but they seemed to enjoy being part of the group.

We talked about our writing (so inspiring! and so tempting to just stay in front of the fire doing that the whole time) but one afternoon we did manage to leave the house to attend the Ashfield Fall Festival, where local children make, set up, and run the games. When we arrived, Alissa's boys had already won a small bag of marbles doing things like climbing rope ladders and ringing the bell at the top. They and the other children did this with just as much excitement as the children Grace described grabbing for the brass ring at the Tuileries in Paris or the ones I described dancing at the ceilidh in the Hebrides.

The one that seemed to delight them the most was the corn bath -- tubs filled with raw corn kernels. They rolled and dug and played and only got out when the person running it said -- several times "Come on, guys, time to go -- we have to clean up." Maybe the real proof of how much fun they had was that they helped her do it.



Since I got back I have been comparing this country pretty unfavorably to Scotland (though in fairness to me, at these kinds of festivals where I live, people mostly just buy things, eat, and sit listening to loud music). So it was really great to be reminded that there are communities right here in this country where people take just as active a part in their own amusement --and with just as much enthusiasm and energy. Maybe there are more of these kinds of communities here, and children are taking more delight in simple pleasures, than the media would have us think.

After all, as Grace pointed out, big companies aren't making money with things like corn baths -- maybe THAT'S why we don't see them in the media. But that's no reason not to put them in our books, even if some people do find such things old-fashioned. For others (maybe more than we, and some publishers, realize?), it's reality....and as much fun to read about, too:maybe more fun to read about than, say, Angry Birds. It depends how it's done, of course, like everything else in writing!

Again romina y trying to catch the running rabbit... Read the rest of this post

This is a sketch i am working on right now, hoping to do more of these saints theme...

this past weekend i spend it on not doing nothing just kicking around the house painting and drawing. It was fun and very relaxing and here are part of the results. Best, Choper Nawers.

Here is another sketch i have just finish...and thanks for all your comments, it is good to be back on track on SFG!... Read the rest of this post

Una sirena en busca de un abrazo...así le puse a este boceto, que pronto espero pasarselos a vectores y ya con texturas.

Les deseo a todos buen inicio de semana...

A mermaid seeking for a hug... this is how i call this sketch piece. Hope to do it on vectors and put some textures on it.

I wish you all a good start this week.

Another free sketch piece. A sketch for Marie from Malaysia. done on A4 paper 180gsm radiobond paper using derwent sketching pencil sacan at 200dpi. For those who interested to have one..please visit my blog: myfreesketch.
:) - have a nice day!