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This article about blogging quotes a few bloggers from the Berkshires, where beautiful (and better-than-Harvard) Williams College sits. It features Toph Cyll, who was a terrific colleague in Williams Students Online as well as a good friend.

"I'm fascinated by digital community," said Cyll. "I think that's sort of the heart of the phenomenon, it lets everyone mix and match. It's so organic that it's really redefining the ways we interact on the Internet."

I must confess I am immensely proud of what Toph and all of us in WSO have accomplished. It was a great privilege to work with that group— honest, important, fun, and rewarding hard work.

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I guess I'm on a Dave Pollard kick.

• I started with his list of the top 10 most important ideas in blogs for 2003.
• He brings up some good points about Purple Cows in Knowledge Management.
• What's a Purple Cow, you ask?
• And, well, can they revive KM?

As some readers will know, the purple cow has special meaning to me as the mascot of my alma mater, Williams College. Maybe it's a sign.

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The Philadelphia Print Shop offers this neato old print (found via Google images). One thing I like about it is that 3 of the dorms where I lived are visible.

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News from The Williams Blog and Yale Daily News that Louise Gluck, US Poet Laureate and 20 year faculty member at Williams, will be moving to Yale. In fall 2002, I had the privilege of taking an introductory poetry workshop with Louise, and I'm sorry to see her go. I'm not sorry so much because Williams is losing a luminary, but rather because she was truly an excellent and rare kind of teacher.

In many ways Louise is an iconoclast. In fact, she is perhaps the most serious person I have ever met; she has refreshingly little tolerance for bullshit. She seems to accept a rather broad definition of bullshit, ranging from the common tendency of novice poets to value prolonging conceptions of their own talent—dispelled very effectively and to their great benefit in her intro workshop—to computers. The registrar's department is probably happy to see her go, as she was one of only two Williams profs who would only turn in grades on paper.

But all is not lost for young poets at Williams. I was also lucky to take a tutorial with Lawrence Raab, who, though more normal than Louise, is at least as good a teacher (and whose poetry I have always preferred). Unfortunately, as a thesis-writing computer nerd, I could not be more than a dilettante at poetry. Both Gluck and Raab helped me to learn about writing and poetry, and their workshops taught me how to learn from and not be silenced by my fears. And were great fun.

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Anecdotal, insightful, hare-brained, wacky, provocative, a bit too long but I like Evan and he's smart.

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Good article about autism and asperger's syndrome. Mentions Williamstown resident Jessy Park, an interesting person and amazing artist who I met several times in college, and who resides in a wonderful house next to the science center.

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The best student group ever.