Shakespeare monkeys hit all my geek buttons

Shakespeare, programming, data analysis, and MONKEYS.

Yes, monkeys can type all of Shakespeare's works.  But, as Jesse Anderson says, in what order?

http://www.jesse-anderson.com/2011/09/a-few-million-monkeys-randomly-recreate-shakespeare/

Boston Authors' Club

Look at the Web sites of all the great people who belong.  And they made The Other Side of Dark a Julia Ward Howe Prize finalist!  Ceremony this afternoon at the Boston Public Library.  I'm going to be a complete fangirl.

http://www.bostonauthorsclub.org/programs.html

Your favorite online collaboration site?

At my company, Pearson, we have a social media collaboration site, and someone recently asked what our favorite online collaboration sites are.  I liked my answer enough to post it here.  What are yours?

I'm liking Global Voices.  To quote from their site, they are  "a community of more than 300 bloggers and translators around the world who work together to bring you reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media.....Our international team of volunteer authors and part-time editors are active participants in the blogospheres they write about on Global Voices.....

Global Voices is translated into more than 30 languages by volunteer translators, who have formed the Lingua
 project. ...We also have an outreach project called Rising Voices to help marginalized communities use citizen media to be heard, with an emphasis on the developing world."

http://www.globalvoices.org

And, on a lighter note, the Harry Potter Alliance, working online to turn the energy of Harry Potter fans into fundraising for a multitude of good causes.

"Just as Dumbledore’s Army wakes the world up to Voldemort’s return, works for equal rights of house elves and werewolves, and empowers its members, we:Work with partner NGOs in alerting the world to the dangers of global warming, poverty, and genocide. Work with our partners for equal rights regardless of race, gender, and sexuality. Encourage our members to hone the magic of their creativity in endeavoring to make the world a better place. Join our army to make the world a safer, more magical place, and let your voice be heard!"  They're currently raising money and getting books donated for, among other causes, building a library in Brooklyn.

http://thehpalliance.org/

A BUTTERFLY IN FLAME by Nicholas Kilmer

Fred Taylor is a glorified gopher working for a secretive art collector, and where there are people willing to spend serious money for art, there's serious murder for Fred to solve.  This time Fred is working semi-undercover for Stillton Academy, a quiet little art college in a too-quiet little North Shore town, trying to investigate the disappearance of a teacher and student.  I thought I knew what Kilmer was doing on page 5--and then he turned it inside out, and inside out again, and then into origami, and...  The plot is unbreakable, and Stillton Academy is peopled with a grand variety of eccentrics, from Fred's downstairs neighbor the sculptor to the famous alumnus and the egotistic and talentless emeritus professor.  (The scene with the real estate agent made me laugh out loud--in the subway.)  A delight to read, with a perfectly right surprise ending and, as usual, a coup for Clay's collection.

Kilmer is a coup all in himself.  He works the semi-cozy field--amateur detective, art background--but he writes like the cynical love child of Dashiell Hammett and Edgar Box.  Annie Dillard says that if you're going to be a writer you have to love sentences.  Nicholas Kilmer loves sentences.  His are utterly distinctive: laconic hardboiled style and whiplash dialogue.  If you're a writer or aspiring writer, you want to read this man for his style alone.

And, my, doesn't he know art.  He's also a painter, a teacher, an art dealer; reading a Fred Taylor novel teaches you about art as reading a Lovejoy novel teaches you about antiques.  There are seven Fred Taylor novels so far, and the best news is that the eighth, A PARADISE FOR FOOLS, comes out in September 2011.

Voices 3: RIP Peter Gomes

For forty years, Peter Gomes was the pastor of Memorial Church at Harvard, and one of its leading African-American voices. He was a man unto himself: a conservative wearer of good suits and bow ties, a New Englander through and through, the son of a cranberry-bog worker two generations removed from slavery, a Harvard professor, a Republican (until he broke party to vote for Deval Patrick), a gay man, and a deeply believing member of the Christian community. "I am not a minority of any sort. I am a son of God." For forty years that lovely, rounded bass voice tucked it gently to the Harvard community and the wider world.

I loved not only the man, but that particular voice. Everyone else did too, and I thought Law and his father would.  I used Peter Gomes's verbal rhythms and his distinctive accent while I was thinking of what their voices would sound like.

Read Candace Chellew-Hodge's appreciation of him, then listen to a sermon by the man himself at the bottom of the page. It's a good long sermon. As he said, quoting from William Sloane Coffin, "Sermonettes make Christianettes."

http://tinyurl.com/49uvlf6

THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK has been nominated for an Agatha!

The Agathas, the "people's choice" awards, in mystery fiction, named after Agatha Christie, recognize the best traditional mysteries published in the last year--and, gosh, The Other Side of Dark has been nominated!

Thanks to all the members of Malice Domestic who nominated The Other Side of Dark!

It's a wonderful list of nominees and I'm looking forward to meeting them all at Malice this year.  See you there!

Congratulations to all the nominees!
http://www.malicedomestic.org/agathaawards.html

Hunting for information for the Titanic book, I've just discovered the wonderful blog Harlem + Bespoke, a historical/cultural blog for Harlem and the Morningside Heights area.  Good stuff!
http://harlembespoke.blogspot.com/