February 2011 Archives

Simple living, voluntary simplicity, or whatever else you call it — I'm looking for others who are deep into it.

Here's one blog, Frugal & Simple Living with an occasional video podcast available via iTunes or on the blog at these two links.

The videos are all preceded by ads for Chevrolets. I hope they're making a few bucks from it.

Here's a good blog that Rachel of Frugal & Simple Living links out to: Becoming Minimalist. From a purely technical standpoint, it's a WordPress blog with a look that's not terribly blog-like — in a good way. After the first entry, subsequent entries arrive not in a single column but in two columns. It looks great.

But what do they say? I'll have to get back to you on that. Gotta read first.

Do you have any favorite simple-living/voluntary simplicity blogs, sites or podcasts? If so, let me know either in the comments or by e-mail: steven (at) stevenrosenberg (dot) org.

Poppy got a furry pink pig for her 5th birthday (and yes, we know her birthdate; that info came along with her from the East Valley Animal Shelter).

L.A. Observed today remembers Ritchie Valens, who perished in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper on this day in 1959 (as chronicled in "American Pie," the overplayed Don McLean song, not the terrible movies that took its name).

In the L.A. Observed post, Kevin Roderick includes a YouTube video with an audio snippet of "Ritchie Valens In Concert at Pacoima Jr. High":

It strikes me how original Ritchie Valens' music was at the time - how he wasn't in any way hiding his Chicano heritagebut was simultaneously letting people know where he came from as well as fusing the emerging sound of rock and roll with more traditional and generally unheard (at that time) musical elements.

If you haven't done so already, go back to the L.A. Observed entry for an excerpt on Valens from Kevin's still-excellent San Fernando Valley book.

Note: I picked the above photo because it shows Ritchie Valens playing a sweet Gibson guitar. You really can't tell from here, but I think it's a thinline and not a full-sized ES-175 type of guitar. You can tell both by the placement of the neck pickup as well as the overly long tailpiece. I'm pretty sure it's a dual-pickup ES-225td.