As you’ve probably noticed, Crucial Minutiae has been silent for the last month. While all of us enjoyed writing together in this space for almost three years, this site has officially closed up shop.
But we’re not going away! Six of are currently incubating a Crucial Minutiae spin-off, and we will launch this new site sometime in March. We’ll announce the new blog here, then after a few weeks, this site will automatically redirect to that new space.
We’re already blogging in that space to kick things off — by the time we launch, you’ll have 100 new things to read, so keep us on your RSS feed until then!
Special thanks to Ethan Todras-Whitehill, the mastermind behind Crucial Minutiae, who suggested that our writers’ group try blogging three years ago. Our initial goal of Crucial Minutiae was for the blog to find its own tone and audience, and through its 1,000+ posts, it’s done exactly that.
And thank you to all of our readers since 2007 — we hope you’ll check out our new blog next month and bring the same insightful comments and discussion that you brought to Crucial Minutiae!
About a year and a half ago, my old iBook died, and I wrote this post about what I learned from that experience: namely, your computer will die someday, and you probably won’t be able to back it up right before it does.
Since then, I’ve found myself returning to that post time and again, for reference about how to best back up my computer’s data. It’s strange yet satisfying to have written a post that becomes a reference page for yourself.
When my PowerBook stopped accepting a battery charge a few weeks ago, I didn’t have to panic. I had just backed up a few days before, so all I had to do was close the computer, write down the few places I needed to grab files I’d edited since then, and then hurry and grab that info before the battery ran out its final charge. A few weeks and paychecks later, I’m back up and running on my new computer, for which I’m very grateful.
I did find a few things I’d forgotten to mention explicitly (and forgot to do) last time:
backup my Mail settings, passwords, rules, signatures, and ALL of the mailboxes (including my Sent folder).
Chat transcripts. Most people probably don’t care about these, but I have some great conversations with friends and work colleagues that I want to save. I use Adium on a Mac, so the path to find your chat program settings and transcripts is Users > Library > Application Support > Adium 2.0. Backup that folder, and once you’re on your new computer, you can put it in the same location for a seamless transition.
I also totally failed to copy my Stickies, so I might have to perform emergency surgery on the laptop again to retrieve those. Honestly, it was kind of fun to disassemble the laptop last time… Edited to Add: Here’s how to back-up stickies!
Now go back up your data!!
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
(But not at the same time; that could be dangerous.) Today, I highlight two very cool creative fathers – one whose writing I’ve read gratefully for seven years, and a friend of his who’s taking his son on the adventure of his young life.
My friend Michael is a brilliant writer and father of two almost unnaturally gorgeous little girls, one of whom is currently being potty-trained. The Poop Monologues is a running list of things his two-year-old says while pooping, or while trying to. My favorites are “My drink. MILK ON IT,” “My school, my lunch, my turn around, my sleep, my poop. Itsy bitsy SPIDER,” and “My got bunga bunga chair. MY MOVE IT.” And this is just the beginning… Follow his tweets for small doses of surreal hilarity.
A few years down the parenting line, his friend, Matt, has an eleven-year-old son whose passion for skateboarding has led his family on an unusual educational path: 50 Skate Kid Learns the U.S..
Our very own Courtney Martin is up for Next Great American Pundit at the Washington Post, and she would love your vote before tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 9) at 3pm EST!
Courtney’s blurb about her latest entry in the contest:
I found myself online late last night, later than I wanted to be. I try not to be on the computer after 10 p.m. anyway, but it happens. When it does, I don’t like closing the internet browser on a work-related screen or on something disturbing or sad. Instead, I find something good, true, or inspiring before I shut down and go to bed.
Last night, having already browsed my favorite sites of beauty and community, I typed “something beautiful” into Google and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky.” And Google took me straight to the blog titled “Something Beautiful,” subtitled, “When everything seems to be going wrong, something beautiful can really help.” The blogger says, on the About Me page, “When in need of an antidote to negativity, I often turn to beautiful things on the Web. I know when I have found something beautiful because I can feel my inner chemistry change almost the moment it appears on the screen.”
I didn’t even click on any of the links, nor did I plumb the 5 year archive (the site began in October 2004). I felt better, lighter, just knowing that someone else is out there seeking, and finding, the Beautiful.
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
I am naturally organized. It’s one of my superpowers.
As a toddler, my parents once found me methodically pulling clean diapers out of their box, lining them up along the wall in the hallway, and then placing all of my stuffed animals in a diaper, one by one. As a pre-teen, I would empty my big container of collected pennies and line them up on the carpet in order of their year. Now, I take great satisfaction in a well-constructed Excel spreadsheet, and even my writing talismans on my desk-side table sit in a specific arrangement. I moderate Crucial Minutiae’s comments without second thought, and took deep satisfaction from re-organizing the weekly columns.
When I started meeting professional writers in my early 20s, I noticed that many of them, especially the most commercially successful ones, were naturally disorganized. They are brilliant writers and thinkers who, when they go deep into the writing process, seem to lose all sense of their physical world.
My cohort at Emotion Technology (and husband) Christopher Gandin Le is live blogging for the CDC at the National Environmental Public Health Conference: Healthy People in a Healthy Environment.
Majora Carter, a genius and one of my favorite speakers on this subject, is speaking at this conference along with many other great minds. You can enjoy the highlights of a conference on a vital topic from the comfort of your own computer!
Jennifer’s short film “Small Changes” won the Grand Jury Prize in the Intelligent Use of Water Competition, and was screened at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Her win was written up in the Austin Chronicle.
In May, I posted a video of The Beckoning of Lovely project, headed by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She recently posted a new video with an update, a year after the original experiment. It’s short, but worth watching for its breath of fresh air.
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
“Small Changes” by Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le!!
Tonight was the Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition Screening and Awards ceremony, held at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It was thrilling to see our work on a big screen and to hear the audience’s reaction. And it was even more thrilling to receive the Jury Prize, complete with big check and all!
Talk about 180 degrees from my enraged post on Sunday! These tiny items are more adorable than beautiful, but the human imagination involved in making them is very much so. They’re Tiny Knitted Things, designed and made by Anna Hrachovec, a knitter who lives in New York.
My favorites are the bats; since moving to Austin, I’ve become quite fond of stuffed toy bats.
Ahhh! Kawaii!!!
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
I’m watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s 2008 documentary “The Garden,” a film about urban farmers in South Central Los Angeles and their fight against developers.
And I’m nearly speechless.
For 14 years, 350 familes grew their own food on this 14 acres, once scorched by riots and pain. It was the largest community garden in the U.S.
In 2006, the garden was bulldozed – all 150 plant species – and plans are underway to build a Forever 21 warehouse and distribution center on this land. This, even though the farmers had raised the money to buy the property from the developer. He’s on record as saying, his words smacking of self-righteous privilege, “Even if they raised $100 million, this group could not buy this property… It’s not about money. It’s about I don’t like their cause and I don’t like their conduct. So there’s no price I would sell it to them for.”
A flood of words get jammed in my fingers when I try to express how I feel about this. Did I mention that most of these farmers are Latinos and Latinas from the community? Are you surprised?
What I can manage to stammer is that this is the mark of everything wrong about the United States, about our dominator society. This is a prime example of what will destroy our national soul.
In the movie, there is footage of heavily armed police officers storming through tall rows of vegetables. If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.
The footage of carefully tended, productive, green vegetables, fruits, herbs, being torn up to put in concrete buildings just wrecks me. I feel that loss viscerally, and it makes me hungry for the social upending that will bring in a nurturing, partnership society. Right NOW.
9/9/09, huh? It’s an exciting day! It marks the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we’ll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), and the Remastered Beatles catalog, Beatles Rock Band, and the new Apple iPod are all being released today.
But my favorite celebration today is my third wedding anniversary with the extraordinary Christopher Gandin Le. Suicide prevention expert, exquisite photographer (still and motion pictures), beloved friend, and the best damn husband and partner I could ever desire.
For our anniversary, he gave me the gift of music from one of my favorite artists: Erin McKeown. Since I first heard Distillation 9 years ago, I have loved this woman’s music, and have had a total crush on her as well. She’s excruciatingly talented across a wide variety of instruments and musical styles, her lyrics are poetic, her style is fantastic (check those Fluevogs!), and her live show is always fabulous. Oh, and she’s only 31; she’s been making great music since she was in college.
Her newest album, Hundreds of Lions, comes out this October on Righteous Babe records, and to raise funds for this self-financed album, she launched a very cool endeavor this summer.
I’ve never seen anyone tell a story in this medium. I am so impressed by human ingenuity. Watching this skillful artist is worth 8 minutes of your life.
edited to change “the Ukraine” to the correct “Ukraine.” Thank you, reader Anne!
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
This week, I’m sharing my own work, because I’m so dang proud of it. Chris & I, along with our incredibly talented Austin-area friends, created this 2 minute water conservation PSA in response to RainBird’s “Intelligent Use of Water” film contest. Austin is in the middle of the worst drought in 50 years, and last week, officials announced even tighter water restrictions, so this awareness-raising contest comes at a crucial time.
We had a great time making this film, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy!
In the midst of such fertile (ha ha) conversation on Crucial Minutiae about babies, books, and the environment, I offer something slightly different.
What’s the deal with the trees? you might think. The deal is that it is overcast, currently 80 degrees outside, in Austin, at 7:30pm, and it might even rain. For the last, oh, two months, the daily high temperature has been over 100 degrees, and we are in the worst drought in 50 years.
I do not complain about the summer heat in Texas very much. I acknowledge that it was fully my choice to move here, and I do hate to expose myself to scorn or chastising from friends more northernly-inclined.
All I will say is that a “cool front” in the middle of August is incredibly welcome. Now please excuse me, I have some sitting outside to do.
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Natalie Goldberg’s most recent book, Old Friend from Far Away, came out in 2007, but I didn’t discover it until earlier this year, when I had the privilege of hearing her at an Austin synagogue. This book is focused on the practice of writing memoir, and is as rich as all of her other books on writing.
One chapter is titled “Practice Notebook.” In it, she suggests keeping a small separate notebook where you write a brief note about your practice every single day. You write down the date, whether or not you practiced, and any other short notes about the day’s practice. The idea is to be aware of your writing practice, rather than feel ashamed or derailed by the days that you don’t write. It’s all part of the practice. She says, “This act of noting makes your writing–or not writing–conscious. It plants a seed; you stay connected.”
I’m now keeping a practice notebook for my writing, and, indeed, I feel the ways that this kind observing of myself has started to transform the evil, self-judgmental voices in my head that crop up when I skip a day.
This style of radical self-acceptance and awareness is useful beyond writing practice, too. I’m using it to observe myself around other habits that I’d like to change, and it’s such a relief to see the habits clearly written on the page, rather than seeping like mist through the dangerous regions of my mind.
What places in your life could use this kind of loving, non-judgmental attention?
—– Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
9/9/09, huh? It’s an exciting day! It marks the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we’ll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), and the Remastered Beatles catalog, Beatles Rock Band, and the new Apple iPod are all being released today.