Friendly Bloggers

Wow—when it rains it does indeed pour, as I discovered this morning when looking at Cheryl Cato’s excellent Lizzy Frizzfrock blog & seeing I was among those she selected for the Friendly Blogger Award. Thank you, Cheryl, that’s a very nice award to receive.

So I’m back at the old drawing board for Friendly Bloggers to pass this on to, & there are a passel of likely choices. The few times I’ve had this happy dilemma, I’ve tried to come up with some sort of clear framework for choosing. So I decided first that I wouldn’t pass it on to anyone to whom I’d already passed some other award (tho all of them would be eminently qualified), & of course I wouldn’t duplicate any of Cheryl’s choices. I also decided not to pass it on to any of the blogs I follow that have very large readerships, tho I'm happy to say that Robert Frost's Banjo has received huge amounts of friendliness & kindness from people like Willow of Life at Willow Manor & Reya Mellicker at The Gold Puppy, whose blogs I enjoy tremendously & whose support here means a lot to me. I decided to pass the award on to the following:

Dominic Rivron: It appears that Dominic Rivron & I have some noteworthy things in common: we both write poetry & we both play & teach guitar; it seems Dominic even has a bit of interest in the uke based on discussions we’ve had in comments. It just happens that we live several thousand miles apart, with the Atlantic Ocean & much of North America intervening. In other words, before the blogging era, we wouldn’t have run across each other. Dominic’s self-titled blog is a compendium of observations about life & music teaching, journals on various hiking trips he takes up some fairly rugged looking mountains, & poetry, the latter being first-rate. Dominic is also a very thoughtful & insightful commentor here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.

Flapperdoodle: Blogger/Artist Kate Gabrielle seems to be a bit of a phenomenon. Her other blog, the very excellent Silents & Talkies has gained a very large readership in the course of just a few months. Silents & Talkies focuses on Kate’s love of classic cinema, complete with some excellent portraits she’s done of film stars ranging from Clara Bow to Audrey Hepburn & from Charlie Chaplin to Robert Mitchum (in fact, I’m the proud owner of one of her Clara Bow prints & one of her Chaplin prints, both currently being framed); Flapperdoodle is a recent side project of hers (& one that I expect will also garner a wide readership); it features her drawings of four flapper characters, Eloise, Ramona, Emma & Clarissa involved in any number of single frame adventures. In addition to being a gifted artist, Kate is a most welcoming & upbeat presence in the blogosphere. If you haven’t checked out her blogs, you really should do so.

JenX67: This is a blogger I respect a lot. It’s interesting, because I think in many ways Jen & I view the world in quite different terms; Jen is a devout Christian & I’m not much of a devout anything. On the other hand, I admire her compassionate outlook on some of the “hot button” issues that typically might separate individuals with different philosophical/cosmological frames of reference. She is very accepting of varying viewpoints on her blog, which tackles issue from religion in America to generation X related news (I’m a “tail end of the baby boom” fellow—with gen x sympathies & a number of gen x friends), to parenting, to her love for Oklahoma City & the state of Oklahoma overall. In addition to being a clear & thoughtful writer, Jen is also a gifted photographer & her photos of a decidedly urban Oklahoma City are always a delight. On top of that, I’d second my remarks about Dominic Rivron when talking about Jen’s generous participation in Robert Frost’s Banjo. This is a blog that will reward repeated visits.

(Totalfeckingeejit) The People’s Lost Republic of EEjit: Another friend from “across the pond” as the saying goes, tho in this case a resident of my ancestral home, the Republic of Ireland. Totalfeckingeejit, or TFE as I refer to him to cut down on typos, runs a rather hilarious ship with rampant observations about the state of publishing & the state of poetry & fiction, not to mention forays into his own very engaging creative works. TFE interacts a lot & in a very good humored way with his commentors, & he’s also a supportive commentor on a number of other blogs, including this one. This is a very enjoyable blog with all sorts of little features having to do with chicken & beer & chips.

ßench: Here’s another blog, like Dominic Rivron’s, from the UK. You never know quite what to expect from Tony’s ßench; it’s an often rollicking take on various music shows, some pub crawling, & a truly unique take on the popular Theme Thursday; Tony had a particularly entertaining go at the recent Egg theme. The photos there are always top-notch, & the writing will definitely keep you moving along at a goodly pace. He also posted one of the more amazing stories I’ve encountered in blogland, having to do with a white balloon. It’s best to get the story from the source, so check it out here & here. To top it off, Tony is always an upbeat commentor here, & terrifically supportive.

No “rules” attached—pass it along if you like! & thanks ever so much Cheryl (AKA Lizzy)!