let's talk about | Pinterest Manners

Are you guys on Pinterest? I've been resisting for a while now. I told myself after I signed up for Twitter - and then finally figured out what everyone was using the #-key all the time (#whathappenedtothespacebar?) - that I wouldn't sign up for another social website. Nope, not me. I'll just stay in the stone age. If I get lonely I'll reactivate my AOL instant messenger account.

But, social-media is a bit of a slippery slope and here I am! All signed up for Pinterest.

I'm a bit bewildered about the common courtesies. So, in effort not to step on any toes, I asked both a style blogger and a photographer to share their thoughts on Pinterest Manners.

"I just use Pinterest as a personal inspiration board to save things that I can draw inspiration from. I forget that other people can see my boards, as I look at it as something I just use for myself. It's different than a blog. I'm never going to do anything with the image that I pin, I just look through them to inspire my own work.

No two people are going to see the same pin exactly alike I assume, but I get so excited that I feel like I don't have time to slow down and comment when I repin anything. I repin anything and everything that I see that I like."

Cassy Berry, photographer

"I always link back to the original sources when I'm pinning my own pins straight from the internet, but I'm actually really bad about going back and sourcing everything when I'm pinning other people's pins.

I tried to do it for awhile, but it was so incredibly time consuming that I gave up. Sourcing everything kind of killed Pinterest for me, because the point is to be able to quickly save inspiration.   I always pin things directly. It helps to go to the direct source when pinning something. (for example: If I see someone pinned art from Nan Lawson on their blog, I'll click on the link to Nan Lawson and then pin the image directly from the artist.  That makes it a lot easier.)"

Lauren, stylist and blogger

 I think the luxury of carefree inspiration collection, that Cassy and Lauren mentioned, is because of Pinterest's design. One of the biggest advantages of Pinterest is that the images maintains a link to the original web address it was uploaded from (whether or not that was the original source is an infinite regress problem). That is new for a photo-resourcing website.

It's predecessors, like We Heart It provide no connection to the image's creator. Even Tumblr has an endless string of links to secondary sources, who recently recycled the image. It is so easy for the image's creator to get lost - and when that happens, a large part of the artistic value is also lost. So much more can be learned from a picture when it has context, and can be understood with in a body of work.

I'm interested to see how Pinterest evolves, and I hope it continues to pave the way for more carefree, and reliable, inspiration collecting.
 

Have you joined Pinterest? Do you have any tips, Ms. Manners?

[ (1 and 2) on film with my pentaxk1000, shooting for a project Cassy and I are working on about Portland People in Love.]

On Living Simply

"To me, the idea of 'living simply' means deconstructing and embracing the richness of everyday activities. Everything becomes an 'event' because everything is unique and has never happened before. Valuing these moments in your day without judgement translates into your relationships in a way that you can just simply love someone for their uniqueness and contribution to the moment. "

Casey M. on the post True Words found on N. Mississippi and Failing.
yes. I think so. exactly.

Free from the Internal Critic

I wanted to share this message from my friend Fernanda with anyone reading this who is chasing their dreams

Committing to your writing will "free you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation." Committing to your writing is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

Isn't that wonderful? You can replace the word "writing" with anything you want to do. Just make yourself a promise to do it.

Home is Wherever I'm With You (II)

My favorite part of the Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros song Home {which I wrote about below} is when they sing: Nothing new is sweeter than with you!

I had taken that to mean: Doing fun new things is the most fun when we do them together!

But, when my friend Cassy commented on another post I did on this song, she said that this was her favorite part of the song too because ...

"I think, too many times, people get so caught up in the dizzying beginnings of a romance that they take for granted the stage that brings a quiet love that settles into your heart and creates a sort of peace."

I just loved that! She took it to mean : The rush of butterflies and excitement in a new relationship isn't better than the kind of real love I have with you!

Isn't it funny the way the same part of the same song can mean totally different things to two people? It's wonderful how personal music becomes just for that reason.

Argentina: Lost (& Found) in Translation

this comment, on a post I wrote about foreign language, is pure poetry 

"eventually you make a home in it--the silences where you try and understand each other start to feel like sharing secrets. Je promis."

Caitie Mace at Light on the Subject {who I happen to know in real life, mostly through a shared copy of Vonnegut's Breakfast at Champions}.