G.A.B.B.

And so am I for that matter. After a bit of travel-inspired non-GABBing, I'm back into this.

Meanwhile, ABJ theatre critic Kerry Clawson's blog has been silent for a long time. Like no posts in May long. She's back with a long post that includes a rundown of the tech rehearsal of Unbeatable, a play about breast cancer. Also, she gives news about a A Narrow Bridge, a play in the works by a Cleveland-based playwrite.

Labels: Akron Blogs, Arts

I've added some folks to the blogroll. I still run across Akron from time to time and for the most part they go up automatically. Some have been up for a while, one I just found. So here's the rundown.

Am Fem is the domain of Angela, young woman with some apparent web design chops who runs a mostly personal blog. It's compelling, especially as she has some pretty trying life circumstances.

Angela set up a blog for her fiance Chris called Crovin. He seems not to have the fire in the belly -- he hasn't posted since April 29. We'll keep an eye on that one.

Derek offers A Subset of Derek. As he puts it, "An incomplete account of my life, thoughts and feelings."

Andrew Shears runs the boards at Radio Free Ohio. He's a Ph.D. student in Geography at the U.

Check them out and enjoy.

Labels: Akron Blogs

Chris Brown of Branding & Marketing attended SOBCon, the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference. From her writeups, the conference aimed at business-oriented bloggers. One speaker apparently advised against bloggers calling themselves "bloggers:"

Lots of times blog posts are all about me, me, me me. What my cat had for lunch, all the boring, self-centric stuff. She wants to make one thing clear: When I tell people I have 160 articles of leadership on the web they get very impressed. When i tell people I’m a blogger they think I’m weird”

About which I will simply say it's different for bloggers on different topics. Writing about politics and policy and calling it a blog has never been a problem for me.

Back to Chris's conference experience, her posts are all worth reading, here, here and here.

Labels: Akron Blogs, The Wider World

My envy of Marcia at Pink Shoe deepens with her review of The Hold Steady show in Cleveland. Hold Steady is my favorite band working today. Though it sounds like I damn them with faint praise, in fact I like them a lot. Throw Bruce Springsteen, hip-hop phrasing, crunching guitars, beat poetry readings and Larry Clark's Kids into a mixer and the resultant concoction is The Hold Steady.

Life circumstances aren't letting me get anywhere near a rock show these days. If you are as domesticated as I am, check out this video of "Chillout Tent" made as an entry for the band's video contest.


It's the best I've seen of the sumissions, though the embedded Quicktime player keeps crashing so I haven't seen many.

Labels: Akron Blogs

Marcia at The Pink Shoes posted one of the more incredible pictures I've seen on a blog. She and her husband were hiking in the MetroParks and ran across a snake eating a toad. You have to click through to see this. Marcia was freaked out, but the science geek in me is terribly envious.

UPDATE: Redhorse was the first to notice that I had embedded the wrong link. It's fixed now.

Labels: Akron Blogs, Akron Institutions

When the blog of United Way of Summit County popped up in my Technorati watchlist last week, I was skeptical it would go anywhere. So far, they've done a good job. The blog includes posts about UWSC events, needs in the community, services offered by UW agencies and of course, things readers can do to help the organization.

Two recent posts of note include one spotlighting the UW's involvement in an early childhood education advocacy project called BornLearning and another promoting a cause-linked online shopping site called Giveline.com.

As of yet, there is little indication that anyone else is reading -- hey, it's kind of like GABB! But of course there must be content before there will be readers.

Labels: Akron Blogs, Akron Institutions

Writer and blogger Paula Neal Mooney took a cue from Parade Magazine's annual "What People Earn" feature and compiled a list of blogger earnings. Paula reports that the post has grown legs, and indeed pulls up a number on hits on Google blogsearch and Technorati.

And me?

$0. Thanks for asking.

Labels: Akron Blogs, Blogging in General

Alphabetically:

Dane Bramage (note that I disagree with his figures.)

Pho's

Psychobilly, with takes on other local issues thrown in.

Village Green who explains why she's an angry voter.

Labels: Akron Blogs, Akron Politics

Delilah Miller has a unique perspective on the Amish enclaves in our area:

I have mentioned many times before that Jake's father grew up Amish. He left the Amish when he was 16. He had not yet joined the Church so he was not excommunicated and still gets to spend time with some of his family that is still Amish. Linda was never Amish but her parents were. So...when you think about it, Jake is a pure bread Amish by blood. Like many people, I am so fascinated by the Amish and their way of life. Jake is soooo over it.

Her post runs through five "myths" about the Amish, with her close-but-still-outside point of view.

The one caveat I would off in all this is that several different sects of Amish live in the area, each with different beliefs. The accuracy of Delilah's mythbusting may vary depending on which sect is under discussion.

Labels: Akron Blogs

A couple of Akron area bloggers with specialized interests have been tagged by memes floarting around in their communities. The blogosphere is made up of many interlocking, overlapping communities. One advantage of looking at a geographical slice of blogs is we see a small cross-section of some communities we might not otherwise run across much less visit with any frequency. The memes going around give a special opportunity to learn more about these other blogworlds.

Poetry Recommendations at The Word Cage.

Local poet Penultimatina got tagged with a meme asking what living poets she would recommend to those of less poetic bent. She names 13.
Branding and Marketing on Why She's Obsessed.

Chris Brown's responds to a meme asking for five reasons why she blogs about marketing. By the way, any blog about branding should have a cool logo and Chris now has one:

Labels: Akron Blogs

If the Akron area blogosphere is a very extended family, it just got a little bigger. Congrats to Marcia at The Pink Shoe who just became an aunt for the first time as her sister (who blogs from another city) just had her first child.

Labels: Akron Blogs

Mia at Gucci Buddist posted yesterday that, "This blog will no longer be updated..."

She's been going through some difficult times, but this came as a surprise. A distressing surprise. I hope when things look up for her she reconsiders. For now I'm leaving her on the roll.

Labels: Akron Blogs

The Chief Source, one of the oldest blogs in town (and run by a team whose bloggers are among the youngest) hosted its 400,000th visit this week. I was #400,145, if anyone's counting. Psychobilly alerted us to the milestone as it approached. Congrats to the Team Chief Source.

Labels: Akron Blogs

Just found this on a Technorati search. So far they have one post -- standard recitation of the organization's mission. No indication what they aim to do with the blog.

Time will tell, but blogging as part of an organization's overall communications strategy is more difficult than it looks. Anyone who has tried it will affirm that the care and feeding of a blog is a significant investment in time. Yesterday Village Green yesterday discussed running across the Akron Public Schools blog. Mostly APS used the Blogger platform as a turnkey community bulletin board, which is a clever use of a freely available tool. Even so, they haven't posted a new open thread since the beginning of March. And if you aim at posting content and moderating comments, look out.

So, time will tell. But UW is an important element in the civic life of the city, so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

Labels: Akron Blogs

Sergeant White is coming home. It is a happy day for White, his friends and family, and those of us who have been following his service.

Here's hoping he will continue to blog. His is a formidable voice.

Labels: Akron Blogs, The Wider World

Chris Brown at Branding and Marketing got tagged for a meme asking what she is passionate and obsessive about. Well, duh:

I'd have to say marketing. (What a cop-out, you're whispering to yourself!) But no, really. I love marketing. It's like a giant puzzle to me, trying to figure out the niche/positioning. It's like trying to see what is missing, what isn't there.

Check it out.

Labels: Akron Blogs