I am a guest editor

   I spent yesterday gleefully composing this entry, happy as a pig in...well, you know what. I awoke this morning to find news had broken overnight that makes this totally insignificant. Please go visit Pamela right now, and give her your strength and support.

   And then, you know, come back here.




   I'm verklempt. Give me a minute. Talk amongst yourselves.

   I have been given the great honour of being this week's Guest Editor, and making the picks for the six journals to be featured on the main journals page for the next seven days. I'm tickled. Yes, I was verklempt. I'm over it.
   I know some of you have speculated that this is simply Journal Editor Joe's way of getting out of doing the work. I like to think that Joe is just so busy working behind the scenes on building and improving our journals community that he plain doesn't have time to read blogs on his own. During our correspondence over the past few days, he made reference to a couple of new initiatives he is working on that sound very interesting, so stay tuned to Magic Smoke for all the developments.
   A little about myself, perhaps. As a start, you could check out the 100 things about me entry, although you may leave there feeling little further ahead. I am 40. That's an average. My brain still thinks I'm twenty, but the rest of my body feels sixty. I am a married father of one, and a Canadian. Don't hold that last against me, we really are nice people. Just ask the French. My birth stone is amethyst, my astrological sign is Aquarius, and my totem animal is the sloth. Right now I am reading Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith.
   One of the things that attracts me to a journal, or blog, is the quality of the writing. I love reading the writing of someone who has a facility with the language. Sometimes a good story can be ruined bybeing poorly told. Conversely, a mundane story can be very engaging if the storyteller is talented. The six journals featured this week attracted me because their writers use language in an interesting, or engaging way.
   Before I get to the journals, let me say this, because panty knottage is not an unknown phenomenon. These picks are not numbered, and the the order in which they appear is random. I made a list of eight or ten journals/blogs. Joe and I discussed them, and these six were chosen from that list because they best fit the theme I had chosen. Their final order is simply the order Joe wrote them down in his last e-mail to me. They all equally qualify as this week's editor's pick.



   I've been hanging on to this image for months, looking for the perfect time to use it. Ladies and Gentlemen, that time is now. The man in that picture is Charles Darwin. The monkey is his grandfather. Wait. I'm sorry, that belongs in another post. This post is about a man who does not own a monkey. A man who is not a farmer. A man who is easily amused. 
   One day, Simon Fraser typed his name into a word document, and the spellcheck told him it was incorrectly spelled. It suggested Simian Farmer as the correct spelling, and history was made. Well, maybe not history, but it turned into a cool name for a blog.
   Simian Farmer is a collection of whatever the heck is flitting through Simon's head at any given moment. That can range from pictures and posts about his insufferably cute one year old, to discussions on the nature of God, to stories about scaring the snot out of his neighbours by trying to see just how high he can make the flames from his backyard bonfire really go. Funny, yes, but it is his choice of words, and how he strings them together that keeps me coming back. That, and the fact that he knows things about me that I would prefer my wife never found out.



   The next journal is a bit different in that it is not written by a single person. It is hosted by Jodi, who has several journals full of her own writing, but it features articles written by guests, who are invited to speak to a specific topic. Each topic on Point & Counterpoint is addressed by two writers, one a man, and one a woman. Reading the two viewpoints on each topic illustrates how different men and women really are, and how similar. Jodi says she has a great topic saved up for me, and she's just trying to line up the perfect person to write the counterpoint. I'm a little bit afraid.



   Dornbrau has a bit of a problem with toilet paper. It seems it keeps disappearing out of her washroom. I think it's ghosts. She has her own suspicions, and reading about her adventures tracking down the offending oompa-loompas keeps me chuckling daily. Dorn has the ability to see the humour inherent in everyone's everyday life. If you have an unbreakable addiction to quality coffee; if your housekeeping skillz aren't quite up to par; if you don't subscribe to the myth that ladies never pass gas, then the Dust Bunny Club Of North America just might be the place for you. I know it's the place for me.



   Our next selection, at first glance, might not fit into my definition above, as I've never seen him use words. Yes, that sentence was intentionally misleading. The truth is, I've never seen him use the word: word. He spells it werd. Weird, eh? Slack Back Mack--the log contains the views, and the muse, of one Slac, a self described natural filosofer, writer, and artist. Slac's use of the language, which is his own personal brand of English, is unique and creative, and I find it intriguing and beguiling. There, is that enough adjectives?




   The challenge of making a mundane existence interesting to readers is multiplied when thatexistence consists of deciding whether to play euchre or bingo on a Thurday evening, and discovering that eight hours of sleep is more than enough for three nights. Chuck Ferris is almost eighty, but his mind is as quick and as sharp as a man of seventy-eight. He is a World War II veteran, and a retired school teacher, and as alive, and vital as anyone I have ever come across. His journal, Dribble, is filled with wisdom and life experience, as well as daily slice of life stories served up with mischievious humour, and wry self deprecation. When he starts talking about which are the prettiest cars in the parking lot, just smile, and nod politely until he, you know, comes back.



   Rebecca and I have been arguing for months about the nature of poetry, and whether or not what she writes is it. Being the pedant that I am, I broke out the dictionary definition of poem:

A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.

I don't know if I won or not, but she stopped arguing. Thankfully, she didn't stop writing. In The Shadow Of The Iris could be just another journal by a single mother of two teenage girls trying to make her way in an inhospitable world. It is the writing that elevates this one well above the madding crowd. Although she writes it as prose, she can't hold back the poetry leaking out of her soul, and Shadow Of The Iris is filled with emotive, picturesque language. Take, for example, this line from a recent entry:

Now, I'm pretty certain my butt does a bit more wiggle than that, but it's close enough, or until I find a better one, or get so dizzy I pass out!

Um, maybe that wasn't such a good example, after all. Tell youwhat, just go there and poke around a bit. I guarantee you'll want to stay.



   There you have it, the six Editor's Picks for this week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Before I go, I would like to mention a few other interesting journals and blogs that I read regularly, but didn't quite fit in with the theme I had chosen.

The adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century. In the About This Blog section, Mr. Joey DeVilla writes: Back in high school, after reading Space-Time and Beyond for the umpteenth time and drinking one too many zombies with my friend Henry Dziarmaga, we came up with the theory that in the infinite set of universes -- the multiverse -- there was one particular universe in what happened to us right here was being watched as a TV show over there. We then made a solemn vow to live in such a way that we kept our ratings up. To this end, Mr. DeVilla, a Torontonian, decided that henceforth his trusty accordion would always accompany him in public. Yes, you read that right. For the last ten plus years, Joey DeVilla has never gone out in public without his Accordion. Apparently, it works better than that guy with the name tag.
   Now Joey's getting married. Nobody knows if Accordion Guy will survive.

Pharyngula. PZ Myers is a professor at a Minnesota university, an evolutionary biologist, and an outspoken blogger. He is a champion of common sense and critical thinking, and an example of what scientists should be: outgoing, gregarious, and determined to demystify science to the general public. One of his most recent posts begins, "We need to appreciate beer more." How can you not like the guy?

Bad Astronomy Blog. On the same topic, Phil Plait is an astronomer, a skeptic, and a writer, who got so annoyed with hearing people saying silly things about space that he started his own web page, Bad Astronomy, to debunk such outrageous claims as the moon landings were faked, and the solar system was going to be torn apart by a mysterious Planet X. I don't know if he has weighed in with his opinions on beer.

   And last, but not least, I would like to welcome those of you who may have made their way here via this week's posting of The Skeptic's Circle at Anne's Anti-Quackery And Science Blog. If you are a bit put out at not being able to comment without signing up for a free AOL Instant Messenger account, I apologise. I honestly have no control over it. Check out the comments and contact info link in the left sidebar for more on that. And to you AOLers who may be unfamiliar with the concept of a blog carnival, click through to Anne's and see what it's all about.

   Come to think of it, this post is almost a blog carnival in itself. That's it, the AOL journals weekly Editor's Pick carnival. Sounds more fun that way. I know I've had fun, and I hope all of you have. Thanks a bunch to our Journals Editor, Joe, for letting me run with the ball this week.