5 items

April 7th, 2010

1.

I just emailed my colleague James Sturm to congratulate him on his new book, Market Day. I got an automatic response that read, “I will be off-line from March 19 through June 18. Any e-mail sent during this time will not be read. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

I get auto-responses all the time from people who are on vacation or something. But I’d never seen one that said YOUR EMAIL WILL NOT BE READ. What a thought! Don’t you DIE if you don’t read your email?

Apparently James is quitting the internet for four months, and documenting his experience at Slate.com. (And no, the irony of blogging about being online does not escape him.)

2.

A kind reader, Antje from Berlin, sent in this photo collage she took in a shop on a German island in the Baltic Sea. She calls it “Mo’s Paradise.”

3.

3. When I was in Chicago in February, I did an interview with a smart young woman from a blog called “Gender Across Borders.” See how hard I’m trying to look smart too?

4. You’ve probably all seen this by now, but Martina has breast cancer. Prognosis excellent. But she went four years without a mammogram! Don’t any of you be so lax, okay?

5.

Carey Maloney of the New York Public Library’s LGBT Committee just sent me this photo from the newly renovated St. Agnes branch of the NYPL, with Fun Home on display at the checkout desk with Catcher in the Rye.