What’s your fetish?

Fetish, n. Something irrationally reverenced
Not all fetishes are sexual, Daniel Dalton writes at BuzzFeed. Sometimes you just really love something inanimate, intangible, or non-human…
LogophileDaniel Dalton / BuzzFeed / Via unsplash.com
Oh, I suffer from SO MANY of these…
But this next is NOT one of them!
StegophileDaniel Dalton / BuzzFeed / Via unsplash.com
See all the others HERE
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Graffiti Artists make over a school
This is amazing, a project that fires the imagination of the kid in the prison-like white-walled school and transforms those bare walls into something that takes FLIGHT.
And I have no words to express my gratitude to the people involved. Every one of those kids will be the richer for this experience, even though a staggering percentage of them (from the statistics quoted in the video) are “below the poverty line”. Sometimes life is NOT just about bread alone. It’s about dreams, too.
At Huffington Post, Eleanor Goldberg reports on a low-income school that shares a zip code with an Art Basel mecca, but was neglected for years. When 73 graffiti artists found out about it, they decided to give its 30-foot white walls an unbelievable makeover.Painting schoolSee the video HERE
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15 obsolete words we should still be using
crapulousCrapulous = overindulging (Photo: Everett Collection/Shutterstock)
Some words fall into disuse, Laura Moss writes at Mother Nature Network, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. Words like
“Apricity: noun. The warmth of the sun in winter”; “Callipygian: adjective. Having shapely buttocks”; “Cockalorum: noun. A boastful person…”
And “Slugabed: noun. Lazy person who stays in bed long after the usual time for rising”, a word my ludicrously early-rising husband sometimes calls me.
See all the words HERE
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The Glass Ceiling: The Invisible Authors
Glass-CeilingAs a former professor of English literature,” Anthony Servante writes, “I can tell you the history of female authors who used male pseudonyms (but) …Why are women still using pseudonyms today, 150 years after Emily and Charlotte Brontë began the practice?”
Billie Sue Mosiman’s essay, Literature’s Glass Ceiling, accommodates Servante’s article, along with two female authors who use male pseudonyms to answer some questions about their practice of hiding their gender in the hopes of selling more books.
Read the article HERE
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Feminist writers are so besieged by online abuse that some have begun to retire
FeministsWashington Post illustration)
Writing in The Washington Post, Michelle Goldberg looks at the harassment women writers face online.
Jessica Valenti is one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation. As a columnist for the Guardian, her face regularly appears on the site’s front page…And she tells me that, because of the nonstop harassment that feminist writers face online, if she could start over, she might prefer to be completely anonymous.
“I don’t know that I would do it under my real name,” she says she tells young women who are interested in writing about feminism. It’s “not just the physical safety concerns but the emotional ramifications” of constant, round-the-clock abuse.
Read the article HERE
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THIS ‘n THAT
Amish snowbirdLeaving buggies behind, Amish snowbirds flock to Florida for winter
Relaxed town of Pinecraft in Sarasota suburbs hosts thousands from up North seeking sun, sand and more modern ambiance
Read the story HERE
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Jeff Wysaski has been adding some new sections to his local bookstore
Shirtless
See the rest HERE  
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The Woman Who Feels Everything
“Amanda” physically feels everything experienced by those she around her. If you eat in front of Amanda, she feels food being shoved in her mouth. When you stub your toe, she feels the same stabbing pain. This phenomenon is a type of cross-wiring in the brain.
More about this extraordinary condition HERE
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Quote of the Day
Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” ~ Rita Mae Brown
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Alma Alexander      My books      Email me
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