A Little Link Love from Claire & Sarah

Dear Readers,

Today we bring you some of our favorite new web occupations & destinations.

On this day off from Brain-ing Sarah will attend to her new producing duties (details below) and wonder why I think I deserve a medal every time I tag a Facebook post. I will take the day to attend a webinar in remedial social networking and think about What it All Means (for those of you who’ve taken Sam Christensen’s classes it may come as no surprise that I possess the Myth of Concern…).

If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and join the Facebook Group of Minerva contributor and casting director extraordinaire Risa Bramon Garcia. She regularly posts essays and thoughts of unusual candor and depth in the Group’s discussion forum.  And if that doesn’t compel you, the fact that she recently solicited reels from Group members just might…

Another great cd and Minerva friend, Marci Liroff, turned us on to Willie Garson’s (of Sex in the City fame) new site Smart Not Cheap, which is “dedicated to saving money, developing wealth, and living less wastefully…while wanting for nothing.”  He posts daily (funny & smart) entries about financial topics especially pertinent to the LA actor –  interest rates to valet parking and everything in between.  Another web-fix I’ve become quietly addicted to is my daily email from Daily Worth – “a community of women who talk about money…we deliver practical tips, empowering ideas, and the occasional kick in the pants…” The site delivers these ideas and tips in 5 categories: budgeting, earning, saving, spending & investing. Right now they’ve also assigned several readers to various financial coaches/experts and are blogging about their progress.  The daily emails rack up tons of insightful comments from this community of women (and many men), and  I often learn just as much in the comments as in the posts themselves.

I recently moved, which means…shelter blogs! I especially enjoy Rebecca Orlov’s loving. living.small, “dedicated to spaces 1000 square feet and under.” Rebecca has also contributed to Apartment Therapy, the pioneer of the genre. Its house tours – featuring readers’ projects in several cities – will inspire you to improve your place no matter your budget or style…The move also means I no longer have cable, which I thought would mean I’d be watching tv on the web, but, surprisingly, that hasn’t happened! What has happened is I’m reading more – yes – books! Two of my recent favorites are Mary Karr’s Lit and Sean Wilsey’s Oh, the Glory of It All.

When I’m not reading and writing at home I’ve been reading and writing in a great class at wordspace, an Atwater Village writing studio that hosts tons of  workshops, readings and open mics…which reminds me, Sarah, that Jonathan Franzen said (Sarah & I went to see the author speak at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles) he was able to write his new opus Freedom & be crowned the “author of the generation” by Time Magazine because he doesn’t use Twitter. Ok, he didn’t really say that. He kind of said it, and I know he meant it. Of course, I found out about the Jonathan Franzen talk via an email from Goldstar, so what’re you gonna do…

Ah, Internet – The conflicts! The progress! The distraction! Our friend Allen Mezquida’s alter-ego Smigly says it all:

And now an update from Sarah, who has actually found a way to pay herself, make inspiring new friends, and learn new skills on the web:

For the past month I’ve been web producing the webseries/experiment ControlTV.com. If it sounds familiar, you may have caught Seth Green talking about it as he is one of the Executive Producers of the project. I’ll have much more to say about this experience, I’m sure, but for now I wanted to pass along the blogs of some of the super-cool people who’ve made appearances on the show. Taryn Southern showed up under the auspices of being a “Hamster Whisperer,” but on top of her hamster skills, she is an actor/producer/”webutante” and happens to have a great blog. There was a heated debate about the value of relationships built on Twitter and those made IRL, an acronym that I was unaware of but which apparently means “in real life,” between our subject, Tristan, and Jen Friel, the creator of the blog which wins the Best Name Ever award, Talk Nerdy to Me Lover. Tristan had to make a 1minute horror film, and he got the kind of guidance many a film-maker would kill for from director Darren Bousman. You can find his thoughts on all things horror here. And on that note, hope you had a Happy Halloween!

So if you want to catch me or Sarah IRL, you’ll find her hunkering down in her ControlTv bunker in the Valley and at Wells Fargo cashing her checks, you’ll find me in writing class reading from my loose leaf notebooks, teaching kids by first confiscating their cell phones, and combing the aisles of Out of Closet looking for great used hardcover books …Of course, I may also be the person bumping into you a The Grove while I check my email or the brunch companion who interrupts the conversation because it’s the perfect moment to look up where Meg Whitman’s husband went to medical school. You see, I just got a Droid X. It’s really cool.