Of Retired Bookmobiles and Editor's Picks

My Smile Politely column is up: Farewell, Sweet Bookmobile, where I give some love to both bookmobiles and librarians. But not in a wierd way.

Also, I'm continuing to post columns over at Open Salon, and they (the columns) are doing quite well. 5 of 11 have been editors' picks, which makes me feel good. Until my inner Groucho Marks kicks in, and I start to quesiton how exclusive that club really is, since they keep picking my stuff.

To continue the self-indulgence for a bit, what I find interesting about the Open Salon picks are which ones are chosen, since it bears no relation to which one's I like the most. Some that I spent a lot of time on and think are above average (Middle School Girl Syndrome, Prophets vs. Kings) are not chosen, and some others that I threw together (Bookmobile, Oscar wrap-up, Super Bowl commercials) do get picked. You never know what's going to connect and what isn't.

It must be that topical pieces have a better chance, since Salon is pretty newsy, and they look for things to tie in with headlines. For instance, they tied the bookmobile article to the bad economy. Alternatively, there's been nothing in the news lately about middle school girls. In fact, there is a constancy to middle school girls, who always have behaved and always will behave like middle school girls.

I'm sure my friend Bob would explain the editor's picks as being the most leftist, pinko, commie articles, but only two of the five would reasonably fit that category. It's possible that they simply have a random number generator that picks 5 of every 11 articles to highlight.

It doesn't much matter though. Whether it's a real editor or a robot program, it always gives me a special warm glow to have someone put a little gold star next to something I wrote.

Enough self-indulgence. Next week, look for even more complaints about middle school girls, and hopefully something that can start a huge flame war in the comments section.