The last couple years have presented significant developments in the way we interact with other human beings. The World Wide Web has entered its second major phase, with terms like synergy, syndication, and Web 2.0 being used to describe the “for the people, by the people” nature of online content. The static sites of the late 20th century have gone the way of AtHome, the SyQuest drive, and the Stegosaurus, being replaced with personal blogs and social network utilities like Facebook, Twitter, and most recently, a Web writer’s wet dream, SMITH Magazine.

This all applies to writers in a profound way, with technology churning out brand new writing utensils that we’ve never seen before. Craftspeople of the written word now have the means to shake off their itch from anywhere, anytime, with their work being seen by countless eyes. Our stream of consciousness is facilitated. And with the community aspect of the Web, we now find ourselves connected with like-minded lovers of language and story. Refreshing proof that we’re not alone in our insanity.

The core of me is so grateful to have been born when I was, putting me in a position to participate in this significant time in the history of writing. As was the case with alphabet systems, the advent of pen and ink, and the typewriter, our world is changing forever. And we’re the first ones through the door.

Jason from The Publishing Spot has a few words to say about this 21st Century Writing Community, including a video he shot at the recent SMITH Magazine party in New York. Have a gander. You may see somebody you know at about 2:26.

My Auntie Harriet died on Kauai last night. She was 92.

My paternal grandfather, Grampa Cecil, had four brothers. The youngest, Uncle Joe, died in childhood after being run over by a truck. The remaining four, Uncle Willie, Uncle Henry, Grampa, and Uncle Eddie, played lots of ball, married, and sprung ’em off in the forties and fifties.

Uncle Henry died in his early thirties of an ulcer. The other three boys have all since been forced to throw in the towel, each leaving widows. Auntie Harriet, Gramma, and Auntie Mary. I love ’em all.

Auntie Harriet was married to Uncle Willie.

One of the things I’ll always remember about Auntie Harriet was trivial in nature. It goes something like this: apparently her father was a very old man when she was born. Waaay up there. And like a trooper off the old block, she’d been holding her own there for quite a while too. So putting the two lifespans together and doing a little math, we realized that we were hanging out with an auntie whose DAD WAS ALIVE AT THE SAME TIME AS ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

That one never really sunk in. Now, it does.

But I think the two things I’ll remember most about Auntie Harriet was about all I could ever ask for in a grandauntie: she loved to play cards, and she had an awesome smile.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain artists once we grow up.” — Pablo Picasso

Six words: the party has begun.

Just back to L.A. from our book launch party in New York. Lots of laughs, lots of stories, lots of faces, lots of new friends. I’ve got a camera full of pics that I’ll be pulling down shortly; other people will be doing the same. Until that batch, here’s a last-minute quickie from this morning just before I left. In the park at about 76th, taking a page from my old friend Alice. I’ll let you figure that one out.

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New York, New York. Let’s party.

REMINDER: Larry and Rachel, the editors of our book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous and Obscure, will be live on NPR’s TALK OF THE NATION today, February 7th, at 3:30PM EST. Send us lucky vibes, call in, or just listen to see if you know one of the people they shout out!

LAists in particular can catch it on the airwaves from Pasadena tonight on KPCC 89.3FM from 8-10PM. To catch it live today at 12:30PM PST, I found a stream in Cape Code. With an Internet connection, fire up iTunes, and jack yourself into Radio -> Public -> WCAI/WNAN.

In Other Words
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

The Sun sticks His nose up from the Southeast as expected, exhaling His Dawn rays over the inland Mountains, across a coastal suburban sprawl of flat orange, into the piercing Pacific spray. His solar nasal drip skates across the salted cobalt moodiness to collide with the rebuttal of February’s raw gusts in holy matrimony, the cerulean Sky as Their witness. An oxygen-expelling Wombed Fish revels in a mind-clearing swim while a stereotypically early Fowl of the Sea soars in formation with Her colleagues, temporarily deviating from the committee to plunge beneath the choppy aquamarine surface and exploit an opportunity seen only by Her. A curious creature, homo sapiens clothed in its synthetic ensemble, bides its time atop its seven-foot altar of buoyancy, rubbing elbows with the pulsing froth of the Deep, promiscuously ambushing its next twelve second stand. The Ocean orders Her lathery troops to charge a club of sleeping shoreline Rocks in a relentless blitz of vanity. In the kind of stubborn wisdom that transcends age, these Gentlemen of Stone remain unaffected, at peace in Their permanent slumber. I consume this masterpiece from my point of no return, from our vertical meeting place, our Bluff with no lies. I tip my grail, my temporary vault of brewed inspiration, to finish what I started. In a sort of figurative parallelism, the Canines do the same.

In other words, it’s just another beautiful morning at home.

The Los Angeles Times had a write-up on our book yesterday.

More reviews being logged at the Press Center.

With the great Morrie Louden in October of 2007 at what looks to be the first of many intimate jazz hangs in down here in San Pedro, California. It’s always a pleasure to hear Morrie play, along with the select cats he happens to have along with him for the gig. They’re, um, how do we say it? Oh yeah: KINDA BAD-ASS.