What kind of art project can I do with cement board?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 8:38 AM on August 13, 2008 (5 comments)

What is a good, cheap coffee-maker for someone who will only make coffee a few times a year?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 1:42 PM on June 24, 2008 (49 comments)

MotherTalk Book Club and Salon MotherTalk, a place where readers and writers connect through blog tours and more, has just launched a book club. MotherTalk blog tours have been going strong for a little over a year, with anywhere from 10 to 100 bloggers reviewing and discussing new books, and now the newly launched book club offers a wider opportunity to join in the discussion. (Anyone can participate, whether or not you're a blogger -- and even the authors themselves weigh in and respond to reader comments and questions.) Up this month: Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin, and The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan; and coming in February: The Reincarnationist, by M.J. Rose and Matrimony, by Josh Henkin.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 1:24 PM on January 14, 2008

Working at my laptop makes me dizzy. But I have a deadline and my work must be done on my laptop. Help??
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 10:31 AM on January 9, 2008 (18 comments)

Big, sloppy thank-you to MetaFilter!
posted to MetaTalk by mothershock at 2:28 PM on October 29, 2007 (40 comments)

MeFi Women: I am working on a book for girls that will feature a chapter on books that every girl should read -- books that changed your life, so to speak, and that you'd want your daughter to read before she's grown up. My list so far is inside. What would you add to it? (or boot from it?)
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 1:04 PM on June 20, 2007 (140 comments)

Quark tips for high-school newspaper crash course in layout, design, and editing?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 2:47 PM on October 18, 2006 (12 comments)

It's a Girl! My latest book, It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters (companion book to last November's It's a Boy) is now in print. The book has a lovely endorsement from "Motherless Daughters" author Hope Edelman and features essays by writers including Amy Bloom, Joyce Maynard, Jacqueline Mitchard, Katharine Weber, and many more. (You can read the introduction [pdf] here.) All of the writers reflect on the idiosyncratic relationship of mothers and daughters, and the ways in which our preconceived notions of girlness and gender affect how we mother our girls. You can find more information about the book here, including info about upcoming events such as my appearances this weekend in NYC. One of the more exciting things about this project is its online component: in addition to the usual readings and other events (the book was on the Today Show today and will be in USA Today tomorrow), the book is the subject of a 60-blog Blog Book Tour. Each weekday during the month of May, two or three bloggers will be writing about the book -- either running interviews, posting reviews, or generally sharing their thoughts -- and each day I'll also be writing on my own blog about each of the essays and writers in the book, in the order they appear in the book -- sharing excerpts from the essays and telling a bit of the "behind the music" stories about how these pieces came to be.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 12:03 PM on May 9, 2006

Kaavya Viswanathan is a 19-year-old Harvard student whose first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, just cracked the New York Times bestseller list. The problem? The Harvard Crimson and SF Gate assert that the author plagiarized much of it from two books by Megan McCafferty. Of course, it's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before with young writers.
posted to MetaFilter by mothershock at 6:59 AM on April 24, 2006 (222 comments)

Blobbiemorph
posted to MetaFilter by mothershock at 5:07 AM on April 17, 2006 (14 comments)

Kindertotenlieder. In 1833-34, Frederich Rückert wrote 425 poems after two of his children died within 16 days of each other; seven decades later, Mahler set five of them to music. Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, has been recorded by both male and female singers, in both orchestral and piano-vocal arrangements. The song cycle is a powerful meditation on grief and loss, which is somewhat surprising since we think of the 18th, 19th, and even early 20th centuries as being a time when people -- especially young children -- lived closer to death and had a different relationship with grief than we do today. Mahler, who was one of 14 children, eight of whom died in infancy and one of whom died at 12, had much personal experience to bring to the Kindertotenlieder; indeed, just three years after the song cycle's completion, his own daughter died of scarlet fever. But some musicians dismiss the idea that the music is premonitory, or indicative of Mahler's personal tragedy, and posit instead that Mahler's intent was not to showcase his own grief but capture the intensity of Rückert's first-person text. Modern works on the topic of Kindertoten range from mixed media and text to dance to film, and even to modern stage works. And there is, of course, music -- the most famous contemporary work in this tradition might just be the Grammy-award winning song inspired by real-life tragedy, Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven.
posted to MetaFilter by mothershock at 10:49 AM on April 3, 2006 (23 comments)

When I Was Twelve What happens to girls in that pivotal year between girlhood and adolescence? Is being 12 a different experience today than it was 50 years ago? What exactly is so significant about the 12-year-old experience for girls and women? I'm working on research for a book called "When I Was Twelve" that's going to be a nonfiction look into the pivotal year in American girlhood. I'm hoping to interview hundreds of women of all different ages, geographical locations, economic backgrounds, and occupations, and have them tell me their stories. These stories don't have to be long, or even well-written -- they could be a few hundred words, or free-association; about a specific event or an overall summary of that year -- they just have to be real stories, from American women over the age of 13, and they all have to start with the phrase, "When I was twelve, . . ." Read other people's stories here or share your own.
posted to Projects by mothershock at 9:27 PM on March 6, 2006

A friend is hosting an event at her house tomorrow night, a kind of "salon" evening featuring a few authors, wine, and conversation. I'd like to get her some kind of hostess gift, but not the usual bottle of wine, since we'll have wine galore, and not the Bath & Body Works gift bag, since she's not that kind of gal. Any ideas?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 4:17 PM on February 16, 2005 (21 comments)

I have a laptop I love; however, the letters on the keyboard are wearing off. It's not a huge problem for me right now, but whenever anyone else uses it (my spouse, my daughter), it's really frustrating for them to figure out where those missing letters are -- and I could see that down the road it could be a pain for me as well. Is there a safe way I could, say, paint the letters back on? Do I have to buy a new keyboard? Individual letter keys?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mothershock at 5:17 PM on January 16, 2005 (13 comments)