Oh Commonsers,

My poor head aches, my shoulders are red with fury and my feet are exhausted – but what a day for a parade eh?   Hunter and Baruch were out this year.  I was hoping CUNY would have a float but it didn’t happen so I’ll make you a deal, right here on Footenotes; If we can talk CUNY into putting a float in the parade next year I’ll liveblog on top of the thing.  Nothing sexier than a shirtless blogger.

I can’t remember if I saw these last year or not but it looks like the storied rainbow flag has some regional competition:

Personally, I like ’em.  I was going to post photos of the Hunter and Baruch groups and these new flags that were everywhere, but my camera didn’t make it back home with me.  Ah well – I hope it met another nice camera of the same gender and had a good time.

Alright alright, you get it, enough about my weekend.

The Blogs!

Thing were busy this week, I love it. We started off with a post from Michael Smith @msmith at It Cannot Be Trivial about his works on cross aesthetics.  As I’ve mentioned before, the back-story on a work of art is often of  more interest to me than the work itself.  I think part of that comes from the fact that art is so often a subjective experience and yet it can create this plutocracy of ‘taste’ that may or may not just be a reflection of gallery reps and auction house interests.  To hear the story of how a certain piece came to exist can really open up a work and give the viewer a place in it that was somehow closed before.

After I reread that little paragraph it started to look like I was saying I didn’t like this week’s display.  To the contrary Ive been crazy about crosses regardless of their religious dimension since I was little.  I was a spooky kid.

Speaking of crosses and spooky stuff, Michael Oman-Reagan had two posts out this week.  The first was an early bird reminder about the AAR’s meeting in Atlanta this year.  I know we have a couple of religion groups and programs here on the Commons so take note.  The second was about Congress getting all nosy and bothering Steve Jobs.  Turns out the gummerment is concerned about whether Apple might be overstepping it bounds with its Location Services features.  Honestly I didn’t even know that was a feature and after hearing about it I still don’t know how threatened I supposed to feel.  I mean if Jack Bauer can just triangulate a cell-phone call to find anyone on Earth then I’m doomed as it is.

Next up in my queue of blogs to cover…oh…uh…so about what I said up there about print being dead…sometimes I just run my mouth without thinking.  Apparently we’re all missing Book Expo America.  Librarianship in Lower Manhattan blogged about this weird book-lover  Xanadu with free booze and librarian worship.   Awesome.  Also – who knew that Kathleen Collins @kcollins ,  one of our own, had a book signing there?  You have to blog about this kind of thing so we can show up!

Turf Wars @Akendall checked in and gave us an update on the Icelandic excavations.  Turns out there are sheep and clay pipes buried in the earth.  I’m excited to the see the video out of there and whatever else they managed to pull out of the ground.  I’m a dork about that kind of thing.  I do think we ought to start a pool here on what he’s going to find.  My money’s on a sword.   I don’t know why, it’s just a feeling.  Come on folks, step right up and place your bets.

Maura Smale @msmale was up in Connecticut giving a presentation on a game she created called Quality Counts.  Please don’t turn you game loose on Footenotes.  We’re like dinner theater here: bad dinner, bad theater.  That being said, she titled the post ‘Still in the Game’ and something struck me as familiar.  Did you really reference late Steve Winwood?

Linda Wadas @lindawadas from over at ‘For the benefit of all sentient beings’ pointed out a couple of kinds of vetch that popped up in her yard.  You can’t eat ’em but they look pretty.

And finally this week we’ve got a couple of new things from the Community Team.

Scott Voth @scottvoth – resident Wiki overlord – made a great post about integrating wikis into your blogs.  This is a great resource if you’re using your blog for classroom work or online courses.  I haven’t had a chance to play around with it, but I’m off to do that after we wrap up here.  You can always message Scott with wiki questions, he’s here to help!

Sarah Morgano is bringing a new feature to the Commons that I’m really excited about: 5 Questions With… This week she talked to Adam Wandt @awandt about the Commons, blogs, and Twitter.  Got something to say – go find her!  Otherwise she’s coming to you…

and between Apple Location Services and her all around Jack Bauer-ness you can’t hide.

See you next week!