Saturday, April 14, 2007

Thinking Blogger Awards

Over at The Thinking Blog (home page here), ilker yoldas started a new blog meme called 5 Blogs That Make Me Think. I've been tagged twice, to my knowledge, by InlandEmpireGirl at Gathering Around the Table and by Katrina at Notes on a Napkin. By clicking on the names of their blogs, you can see who else they nominated. Click on their names, and start reading two of my very favorite blogs, for their beauty of thought and their aesthetic beauty.

Of special note to me is InlandEmpireGirl's nomination of our sister, Silver Valley Girl and her blog Silver Valley Stories, a sharp looking blog full of family stories, history of the Silver Valley, and other observations. Each day she takes a picture of the same tree in her backyard. It's fascinating.

My five nominees, in no particular order, are:

In Search of Walden by Student of Life. Back in October, I was playing around with the "Next Blog" feature of blogger, and up popped this blog. I was hooked. Student of Life is a former television news producer who now stays at home raising her son "Little Sunshine". Student of Life is a seeker. She's a direct, vibrant, intelligent story teller. She works vigorously and often humorously to sort out what life means spiritually, socially, and intellectually. I go to her blog every day and she never fails to stimulate my imagination and thought and often gives me a really good laugh.

2Blowhards " In which a group of graying eternal amateurs discuss their passions, interests and obsessions, among them: movies, art, politics, evolutionary biology, taxes, writing, computers, these kids these days, and lousy educations." This 2blowhards self-description underplays these men's variety of subject matter on this blog. They are articulate, very thoughtful, and free-wheeling. A smart bunch of commenters post savvy responses and the site is a gold mine for other superb blogs. Michael Blowhard, in particular, is sort of obsesssed with immigration and loves pop stuff: thrillers, B-movies, YouTube, jazz, older pop music, and pictures NSFW. He's my favorite non-elitist bon vivant.

Dubya's Personal Blog I wish I had a dollar for every time these ingenious nuggets of satire made my sides hurt from laughing out loud. Poor old Dubya: he's a stand up guy who never quite gets it right and is genuinely perplexed to find himself commander-in-chief and leader of the free world.

Red Shoe Ramblings: 365 Days of Art "
No talk, just photos of my Daily Art Thangs" Deb Richardson takes a new photograph every day. I love her work. She posts a wide variety of photographic art, all of it immediately accessible, much of it rural, and charged with imagination, beauty, and soul.

Three Beautiful Things
"Every day I want to record three things that have given me pleasure. This 3BT site is the original Three Beautiful Things." Claire started it. I was inspired by her. She's a beautiful writer with a keen sense of observation and a deep love of life. 3BT has become a habit for quite a few bloggers who must, like me, find it fun to spread around some enjoyment and pleasure from each day.

I should add here that I daily read Huckleberries Online and am stimulated by more posters from that bunch than I could nominate within the five nominee limit. I decided to make my nominees "non-HBOers", but one day I'll write a post that brings them all to light. Maybe I'll just decide to do a second or a third "Thinking Bloggers" post!

Lastly, here's a request from The Thinking Blog:

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).



2 comments:

Christy Woolum said...

Thanks for continuing the Thinker Blog. It is amazing how blogs work. One of my nominees was also nominated by two others. I was also going to do Huckleberries, so was glad to see Katrina do it and you make a note about it. I am anxious (oops... eager) to check out your five.

Student of Life said...

Your description of my blog brought tears to my eyes. Most of the time, I feel like I'm spewing excrement into my computer, so it really feels good to read compliments from a person whose writing you greatly admire. Thank you for making my day.