Who’s in charge around here?
I’m a former daily newspaper journalist who worked in the Pacific Northwest and New England. Now a book reviewer, writer, editor, iMac user. I founded Rich Litho Media, which provides writing/editing and publishing services for authors and small businesses.
Read more in the About section.
Email me at kimberly@typelikethewind.com
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Author Archives: Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
All the news that fits. And solves.
I’ve only read some of the stories and ads in three sections in Sunday’s New York Times (Book Review, Business and Week in Review) and here’s what I’ve already learned: Most new fiction is deeply flawed. A five-line letter from Ronald Reagan to his old actress friend Kitty Carlisle Hart is worth $6,100. Whales and [...]
Posted in Advertising, Animals, Authors, Business, Economy, Ethics, Gender Mysteries, Government, Health, Human nature, Politics, Publishing, Research, Science, The Press Leave a comment
When the roll is called up yonder: il b thr
Posted in Faith, Real People, Writing & Words Leave a comment
Death on our own terms: Don’t be squeamish, read this.
This is the best-written newspaper or magazine piece I’ve read in a very long time. The headline is “What Broke My Father’s Heart,” and writer Katy Butler rewinds her family story to describe what happens when technology–in this case a pacemaker–keeps someone alive beyond the capacity of the mind (and parts of the body) to [...]
Posted in Ethics, Health Leave a comment
Our bodies, our worse-off selves.
I have occasion to regularly visit a wonderful vintage jewelry/resale clothing business in town. The owners defy small-business odds: thriving as a family-owned venture, they’re now serving the second- and third-generations of regulars. Most of the customers are women, and they feel so at home that personal conversation flows easily. There’s a bit of that [...]
Posted in Gender Mysteries 2 Comments
True.
How BP would handle a coffee spill.
Posted in Business, Ethics, Government, Health, Science Leave a comment
77 Words: “The Love Letter” by Cathleen Schine and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” by Stieg Larsson
“The Love Letter” by Cathleen Schine (Penguin; Signet 1995) – Before I get Schine’s latest rave-receiving novel, I figured I’d try this older work. Verdict: Excellent and smart summer escapism. A middle-aged bookseller has an affair with a much-younger man, motivated by a mysterious love letter… oh, yeah, and lust too. Schine nimbly chronicles the [...]
Posted in 77 Words, Authors, Books Leave a comment
A comforting nugget of wisdom.
From the New York Times obit for Chris Haney, co-creator of Trivial Pursuit: “Mr. Haney fought and won a 13-year legal battle against a man who said he had given him the idea for Trivial Pursuit when Mr. Haney picked him up hitchhiking. He won another suit against an author who claimed that Mr. Haney [...]
Posted in Death, Ruminations Leave a comment
Task-based wages…or how I’m learning to value myself.
Used to be that an independent contractor set rates by one or two measures: What will the market bear? What is my time worth? That first yardstick has pretty much disintegrated. Anyone who knows what the market will bear should not be wasting her time reading this blog. Get out and make money, genius. So, [...]
Posted in Economy Leave a comment
Big Pharma: Dare to dream.
Enough already with the anxiety abating, hormone-replacing, artery-cleaning, pain-killing, erection-creating drugs. What the big pharmaceutical companies need to make and sell is an inhaler that can instantly wipe out a bad dream that lingers. (Just the dream, mind you. Not deleting the to-do list or the multiplication tables.) A starter dose would deal with basic [...]
Posted in Health Leave a comment
The award no restaurant wants: Xtreme Eating
If you were at Woodstock (or could have been if your parents weren’t such Fascists), you’re old enough to remember when high school yearbooks used to routinely award the “Most Likely to Succeed” title to the biggest pothead in the senior class. Wink wink. The Xtreme Eating Awards of 2010 are sort of like that. [...]
Posted in Food, Health Leave a comment
77 Words: “Lean on Pete” by Willy Vlautin
Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin (Harper, 2010) – At first this writing is simple, straightforward, plain. But soon 15-year-old Charley’s voice has so fully filled the reader’s head that she sees her world as he would. And long after the book’s done, an image or word will bring it back. Author Willy Vlautin, it [...]
Posted in 77 Words, Authors, Books Leave a comment
Delta’s new Visa card sure makes me want to fly their airline. You?
Obviously Delta Airlines honchos read my blog and are ready for the sort of bold changes I endorse. I saw a commercial this morning pushing their new Visa card that carries a terrific premium….one whole piece of luggage travels for free if you use the card to book a flight! (I know what you’re thinking, [...]
Posted in Business, Economy, Shopping & Necessities Leave a comment
LoveGivesMeHope and FmyLife….the soap operas of our time.
LoveGivesMeHope…..the name of this blog would normally make me gag…but once I started looking through it, I admit it, I got sorta hooked. It came about because its creators were burned out on a blog that was just the opposite–Fmylife–all about life’s downers. Sadly, I probably prefer the latter. More comic material. It doesn’t register [...]
Posted in Art, Authors Leave a comment
Cyclist doping as workout.
Reading about doping by elite cyclists is almost as much of a workout as riding one of their damn bikes. There’s always a new round of accusations to get one’s heart rate jacked up: “EPO!” “Testosterone!” “Human growth hormone!” “We all do it!” The latest aerobicism comes courtesy of US rider Floyd Landis. (See the [...]
Posted in Alcohol & Drugs, Sports Leave a comment
June: When fruit and vegetables rule. (Just ask Patty James.)
I’m in a panic here. It’s almost June. You know, National Fruit and Vegetable Month. That’s right, the month-long holiday is looming and I’m in danger of being caught with a fridge full of diet soda and a fruit bowl full of car keys and old rubber bands. Fortunately, wiser (and healthier) heads can prevail. [...]
Posted in Food, Health Leave a comment
A century of high kicks.
The last of the Ziegfeld Girls has passed away, and the world is a lesser place. According to The New York Times, Doris Eaton Travis died at age 106, the last of the famed and comely (36-26-38) performers hired in the early 1900s for the famous Broadway troupe. She was part of a famous stage [...]
Posted in Art, Death Leave a comment
77 Words: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (Crown, 2010) - Cells from Henrietta Lacks, a cancer patient in the 1950s, started something that seems more magical than scientific. Johns Hopkins doctors who took the cells from Lacks, a poor African American farmer, never imagined creating HeLa – the “immortal” cells grown in culture [...]
IKEA washcloths have little loops so you can hang them up. Brilliant.
I’ve written about the IKEA experience before, but I continue to be amazed at the scale and cheerfulness of the place. It is still like crossing a big country covered in forests of brightly colored plastic storage bins and coffee tables made of blond wood. Every item sold in the place has a name, presumably [...]
Posted in Business, Shopping & Necessities Leave a comment
West Virginia down to two friends.